Figurative Representation of the Conceptual Opposition Poverty — Wealth in the Official Russian Media

The article is devoted to the study of the communicative and pragmatic function and figurative representations of the opposition “poverty — wealth” in the official Russian mass media devoted to the problems of poverty alleviation. The analysis of informational and analytical articles posted on the websites of Russian newspapers for the period from January 2020 to January 2021, in which the subject of overcoming poverty in Russia is actualized, was carried out. A total of 403 texts were selected from the following sources: Izvestia, Argumenty i Fakty, Parlamentskaya Gazeta, Kommersant, Vedomosti, RIA Novosti, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Komsomolskaya Pravda and the online edition Lenta.ru. Methodology and research methods. The methods of semantic, contextual and conceptual analysis are used to identify lexical and phraseological means of representation of the concepts “poverty” and “wealth” in the thematic discourse “on poverty reduction”; various metaphorical models and figurative expressions regularly used in media texts to describe the frame “fight against poverty” are analyzed; their communicative and pragmatic characteristics are revealed. Results. It has been established that various figurative ways of language transmission of ideas about the degree of material well-being demonstrate stable cognitive models of metaphorical signification. The use of figurative representations of the conceptual opposition “poverty — wealth” in media discourse is pragmatically colored and contributes to the emotional expressiveness of the text and the effectiveness of communication. Scientific novelty lies the fact that for the first time the thematic discourse of “poverty alleviation” in media communication is studied on the material of Russian newspapers. The practical significance is that the results of the study can be used in the study of discursive practices in media communication.