A look at the creative work of Roger Waters through the lens of critical discourse analysis

The object of the study is the work of the co-founder of the Pink Floyd group, English musician Roger Waters. The subject of the study is the use of critical discourse analysis to the author's texts, as well as to the content of the performer's speeches and interviews. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the political position of the musician, his awareness of the current situation in the world, as well as such aspects of the "communicative event" as formats of interaction with the public, the use of specific words in the corpus of local meanings of the text, formal structures when working with time. Particular importance is attached to the fact that R. Waters currently turns out to be one of the few representatives of the West who expresses an alternative opinion, which is actually the opposite of the ideas of the political establishment. The musician manages not only to use events relevant at the time of the album's release in his work, but also to appeal to eternal themes affecting mythological plots.  T. van Dijk's approach was used, which provides for the consideration of discourse as a broad communicative event focusing around the theoretical triangle "discourse-cognition-society". In accordance with the algorithm proposed by T. van Dijk, the texts of R. Waters from the period 1973–2017, as well as his latest shows and interviews, were studied. It is concluded that almost all of R. Waters' work is perfectly suited to the optics of T. van Dijk's critical discourse analysis, which is primarily explained by the uncompromising position of the musician, who is completely unprepared to put up with the unfair state of affairs in modern society. The expression of an alternative opinion presented in the texts, shows, interviews of the author is heard (especially by young people) both in the West and in the countries of the "global South", which indicates the close connection between art and politics and inspires cautious optimism. The applied kind of critical discourse analysis allowed, on the one hand, to see the productivity of T. van Dijk's ideas in relation to the field of musical culture, on the other hand, to confirm that R. Waters is an author who clearly understands the current problems of the socio-political order and vividly uses creativity to broadcast and popularize his views.

critical discourse analysis, Roger Waters, Teun van Dijk, semantic macrostructures, local meanings, formal structures, context models, event models, social cognition, discourse and society