The concept leader in business media discourse: essential semantics and functions

The article analyzes the functions of the concept leader based on contemporary Russian-language business discourse. The objectives of the study are to describe its essential semantics and to identify the place of this concept in the system of key concepts of business media discourse, as well as its main and secondary functions. Being a universal socio-political concept, which is characteristic of different types of discourse and world views and used to comprehend various spheres of social life, the concept leader is easily adapted to the needs of business media discourse. In business media discourse, the analyzed concept both serves as a tool for comprehending social reality and performs a number of additional functions, specifically, the function of providing coherence to the world view of business media discourse, reflecting a wide range of phenomena and events in economic, political, social, cultural, sporting and scientific life. The concept leader predominantly represents the subjective layer of the business world view, but in some cases it acquires objective semantics. The article pays special attention to the interaction, including the implicit one, of the concept leader with the business world view attitudes (agonality and shop solidarity) and other key concepts of business media discourse ( company, struggle, competition, business environment, etc.), which seems essential from the perspective of conceptual modelling of business media discourse and the business world view as a whole.