Resistance effect in Ukrainian president Zelenskyy’s international war discourse: cognitive-constructionist perspective

Abstract The paper explores the formation of resistance effect in Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s international war speeches, applying the idea-turned-effect procedure. It reveals how a belief, verbalized at the beginning of a text by linguistic units evoking particular cognitive structures, transforms it into an effect, i.e., an intended impact on the addressee. The suggested procedure mainly rests on the interaction of morphosyntactic constructions with image schemas, conceptual metaphor, and worldview which evoke different feelings, emotions, or basic needs. The undertaken analysis reveals that the speeches are aimed at creating four main types of resistance effect: solo, depicting Ukraine as a single fighter against the aggressor during the first days of the war; united, portraying the support of other countries throughout the initial war period; bidirectional, implying Ukraine’s resistance to two aggressive sources; global, taking the struggle over to the international level.