THE LEXICAL MEANS FOR THE DESCRIPTION OF THE 1999 NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA IN THE GERMAN AND SERBIAN PRESS

Abstract

This paper analyses lexical means for the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the German and Serbian press in 1999. The theoretical part describes the model of the three-dimensional meaning of Fritz Hermanns, according to which the functions of the linguistic sign can be realised on three levels: cognitive, emotional and deontic. The lexical means for the NATO bombing are first analysed in the empirical part, which were found in 68 thematically relevant articles in the Serbian weekly magazine NIN and in 39 articles in the German magazine SPIGEL during the NATO aggression on FRY from March to June 1999. The results have been also shown quantitatively. An important part of the work is the socio-political context of the selected event, which contributes to the semantic analysis of the found lexical means that have certain semantic meaning within the given discourse. As a starting point of the paper we used Humboldt's thesis, that linguistic diversity actually makes a difference in the world view, so the paper tries to answer the question of how language and selected lexicon form the opinion of an individual or a social group about an event, and how the conflict between political and military forces is presented in two different languages and so reflected in the languages further influences the speakers of these languages.