The frame "tolerance" in Russian and German migration media discourse: frame and discourse analysis

This research is based on the methodological and theoretical tenets of both frame and discourse semantics. The aim is to reveal and to analyze the frame elements of the frame "tolerance" in Russian and German migration media discourse. The analysis of the frame standard values provides an access to the main discourse strategies of the discourses under study. Moreover, the combination of frame and discourse analysis allows revealing the aspects of the frame meaning and their connotation that can bring fruitful results for further research. The material used in this research consists of the so-called "virtual open text corpus". It includes 65 articles from the Russian newspapers (Argumenty i Fakty, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta) and 75 articles from the German newspapers (die tageszeitung and Die Suddeutsche Zeitung) of the 10 months of 2016. The frame "tolerance" is presented in this study as the structure of the frame elements constructed in media discourse. The frame elements are divided into three groups: slots, concrete fillers and standard values. For the purposes of this research, a matrix frame structure consisting of 14 slots is used. Through the analysis of explicit and implicit predications, concrete fillers are revealed. The quantitative analysis of the latter gives access to the frame standard values and, therefore, to the discourse strategies. The main results of the research concern the aspects of the frame meaning, their connotations and the discourse strategies. The study has proved that the aspects of the frame meaning ("allowance", "acceptance", "respect", "acceptance (of the other) as a value") depend on several factors, such as the style of a media text, other frame elements (concrete fillers or standard values), or particular discourse strategies. It has come out that the latter are different in Russian and in German media discourses. The main discourse strategy in the Russian discourse can be explicit as "the wrong tolerance tactic of the Europeans and the right tactic of Russia". That is why two subframes in the Russian discourse - "Russian tolerance" and "European tolerance" - are distinguished. Whereas the main discourse strategy of German media discourse concerns their own tolerance tactic: "our (previous or traditional) tolerance tactic is wrong, that is why we need a new one". The ways of working out such a new tactic differ from one newspaper to another. Analyzing the research results, the author claims that no frame element can appear without the framework of a particular discourse strategy, whereas the latter can belong either to both media discourse and some overlying discourse or only to a specific part of discourse that has been under the study.

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