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Семантика необратимости в медиадискурсе ФРГ: эсхатологические коды и реакция аудитории в условиях кризиса
Abstract. This article explores the semantic and cognitive mechanisms governing the functioning of the lexeme “irreversibility” (Unumkehrbarkeit) within contemporary German media discourse covering the crisis in German-Russian relations. The study tests the hypothesis that the use of irreversibility semantics in the mass media serves as a rhetorical strategy intended to reinforce the perception of ongoing changes as definitive. However, as the analysis demonstrates, this strategy conflicts with the deep-seated structures of the German linguistic worldview, generating cognitive dissonance in the audience. The research material comprises texts from leading German media outlets (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Tagesschau, Süddeutsche Zeitung) as well as data from relevant sociological surveys. Linguistic and conceptual analysis reveals that narratives of a “definitive rupture” are perceived negatively because, within the German mentality, eschatological codes are traditionally associated not with a linear apocalypse, but with a cyclical model of “ending – beginning” and the idea of renewal. Consequently, in times of crisis, an archaic, non-linear model of time perception is activated, rendering the linear rhetoric of “irreversibility” communicatively ineffective