Ukrainian perspectives on the Self, the EU and Russia: an intersemiotic analysis of Ukrainian newspapers

Abstract:

This paper contributes to our understanding of EU-Ukraine relations by examining intersemiotic communication – how words and images, or verbal and photographic semiotic layers and their interaction, combine in the representation of international affairs. The analysis focuses on Ukraine’s perspectives of Self, the EU and Russia as presented in Ukrainian media discourse, namely, in leading Ukrainian social and political newspapers (January-June, 2016). The article presents the results of applying the cognitive theory of perspectives to research the intersemiotic and mental image of Self and Other in four aspects: a vantage point, direction of scanning, perspectival distance, and perspectival mode. Based on that, I explain the main strategic narrative of the Ukrainian press about the EU, how it is sustained, and how the image of the EU becomes pronounced.