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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First Articles

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Political implicatures in Russian online media discourse

ORCiD logo with link | Technical University of Liberec
Published online: 2 June 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.25144.tym
Abstract
The study examines the role and linguistic repertoire of political implicatures in online media discourse. A case study of Kommersant’s Telegram channel, based on a one-month feed, demonstrates that contributors employ multiple linguistic means of implicature expression to balance the legal restrictions on media coverage with the publishing house’s long-standing tradition of objective reporting. The current political climate in Russia encourages the use of political implicatures, which serve not only the purposes of politeness and cooperative communication but also, and primarily, the authors’ self-protection. In addition to classical expressive means such as irony, metaphor, and euphemism, contributors make use of creative neologisms, wordplay, and ‘talking’ photographs, which function as supplementary channels of implicature transmission. Through the use of political implicatures, Kommersant’s journalists cultivate a distinctive reporting style readily recognized by their readership. The perceptual assessment of Kommersant’s political implicatures by four reader groups differing in age and experience revealed a strong agreement with the explicitated meanings.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Implicatures in political and news discourse
    • 2.2Language means of implicature expression
    • 2.3Functions of implicatures
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials
    • 3.3Procedure
  • 4.Results and analysis
    • 4.1Density of political implicatures in Kommersant’s texts
    • 4.2Qualitative analysis of implicatures
    • 4.3The validation of implicatures
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (43)
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