»Kad kokoš pomisli da je labud«: gradba diskursa putem dihotomizacije
“When a chicken thinks she’s a swan”: discourse construal through dichotomization

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a social network discourse analysis example that uses pairs of lexemes that carry opposite meanings only in that particular discourse. The analyzed example appeared as a form of negative public opinion of Croatia’s former President, Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, after she climbed on stage after a ballet performance at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, taking a bow with the ensemble. This led to the use of new contextually conditioned pairs of lexemes with opposite meanings. The lexemes kokoš and labud (ENG chicken and swan), are used in this discourse as the basis of further communication among its participants. This discourse is characterized by the dichotomization of conceptual knowledge as the mirror image of the context of situation, as well as the context of culture (Žic Fuchs 1991) which spawned the discourse itself. By understanding antonymy in the widest sense (Jones et al. 2012) as a semantic relation that arises from the juxtaposition of concepts with respect to their real or perceived characteristics, we can explain how and why the lexemes kokoš and labud, along with other lexemes used as antonyms in this discourse, were construed as antonyms even though they are not conventionally seen as such (Jeffries 2010, Jones 2002, Murphy 2003). Through these kinds of pairs of lexemes, discourse participants are able to communicate powerful social messages. Since the discourse in question is highly culturally specific, it is analyzed according to its comprising conceptual domains that represent the background knowledge of its participants (Sharifian 2011), or its macro–context (Van Dijk 2009). This macro–context then enables the construal of a micro–context (Van Dijk 2009) through the dichotomization of concepts, and the juxtaposition of lexemes that do not usually represent semantic opposition (Jones et al. 2012). An example such as this can show us the value of semantic opposition in everyday discourse structuring, but also its relevance for the construal of our conceptual system. The notion that even unconventionalized pairs of lexemes can be construed as semantically opposite if the discourse allows it corroborates the claim that antonymy in the widest sense is a flexible and creative meaning relation that could unveil some of the bounds between language and the mind.

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