No. 10, pp. 64–66

Received: 12.09.2026 | Published: 04.10.2026

CC BY 4.0

Abstract

Objective of the study is the study of the specificity of the media presentation of UFC fighters in Russian and English-language internet publications through the prism of three narrative communicative dyads: ‘author – reader,’ ‘athlete 1 – athlete 2,’ ‘athlete – recipient of information.’ Methods and structure of the study. A hermeneutic, contextual and critical discourse analysis of the polytextual internet narrative about mixed martial arts was conducted in order to reveal its pragmatic effect on the recipient. The method of continuous sampling was employed in the formation of the corpus of the studied empirical material, with an emphasis on the materials about two outstanding UFC fighters, Kh. Nurmagomedov and J. Gaethje. Results and conclusions. A three-dimensional model of meaning-derivation in the narrative about mixed martial arts was designed. In the ‘author – reader’ dyad, in Russian and English-language internet sources such content-conceptual dominants as the top status of Nurmagomedov in the UFC, the position of Gaethje as a worthy opponent of Nurmagomedov, and the life of both athletes after the title fight are verbalised. In the ‘athlete 1 – athlete 2’ dyad, in both languages the predominance of the motif ‘Respect for the opponent’ was revealed, both on the part of Nurmagomedov and on the part of Gaethje. In the ‘athlete – recipient of information’ dyad, a different pragmatic effect of the speech acts of the athletes was noted: Nurmagomedov addresses the fans in Russian sources with statements about the role of the sporting event in mass culture, his name becomes a precedent standard determining the worldview of the fans; in Russian and English-language sources the depiction of Khabib as a relayer of Caucasian values is also frequent; Gaethje, in materials in both languages, in individual cases addresses the fans with prospective-attractive statements, announcing the spectacularity of his future fights.

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