Лингвопрагматические аспекты современного газетного политического дискурса (на материале русского языка)

Abstract

Political communication is a subject of permanent interest on the part of linguists, which transformed in the 1920s-50s into an independent research area (political linguistics). Initially researchers concentrated on the observation of the totalitarian discourse (the problem of shaping the public opinion and mechanisms of manipulation, efficiency of political agitation and military propaganda, relations between the semantics of lexical units and political processes, etc.). From the 1960s and 70s onwards the researchers focused on the analysis of political communication in western democratic countries. During the cold war they were especially attracted by militaristic discourse. At that time the researchers usually dealt with the issues of the analysis of political lexis, theory and practice of political argumentation, political communication in a diachronic perspective, the use of political symbols and metaphors, functioning of the political language in the circumstances of election campaign, as well as presidential and parliamentary debates, party discourse etc. The current stage of the development of studies on political communication (the late 20th c. and the early 21st c.) is connected with the emergence of new threads (discourse of terrorism, discourse of “the new world order”, political correctness, social tolerance, social communication in the traditional society, fundamentalist discourse, etc.). The objective of this paper is to analyze lexical units with an emotive component used in press texts of the contemporary Russian political discourse, as well as to assess its influence on readers. The studies were conducted on the basis of information-publicist texts (2000 texts) on political and social issues, published in 4 newspapers (electronic versions of the newspapers: “Аргументы и факты”, “Известия”, “Комсомольская правда”, “Московский комсомолец”) in the period 2000-15, as well as on the basis of lexicographic publications. The monograph consists of an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion and bibliography. The introduction includes the justification of the selection of the subject and its topicality, presents a short outline of the research on political communication and discourse, as well as determines the research aims. Chapter one, “Political linguistics: the conceptual apparatus and terminology” is a description of the concepts referring to the terms “discourse” and “political discourse”, fundamental for this work, as well as the characteristics of political discourse. Even though the analysis of discourse has been the subject of interest of researchers for quite a long time, the term “discourse”, as one of the more complicated ones, evades attempts at creating a clear definition. The reason for the lack of one binding interpretation is probably the interdisciplinary nature of the term. The term is applicable in the conceptual apparatus of various fields of science and is used in relation to various communication spheres; therefore it is analyzed from different perspectives. The ambiguity of the definition results in “discourse” being described in comparison with other phenomena, such as “text” and “speech”. Although certain authors use these terms as completely interchangeable, as synonyms, there are also attempts to distinguish them (on the basis of various criteria: oral and written form, abstract and concrete nature, opposites “process/result”, the sphere of functioning, etc.). Similarly ambiguous and difficult to interpret is the concept of “political discourse”. Therefore, researchers have not developed yet one binding approach to either the problem of the definition of this phenomenon (at its narrow interpretation it is discourse of politicians, at the broad definition the language of public sphere, thus its authors are the representatives of power, politicians, various social forces, mass media, representatives of a particular people), or one methodological approach, or a classification of genres belonging thereto. Discussions are also triggered by its functions (at the variety of classifications it is possible to assume that the fundamental function of political discourse is the instrumental function: power struggle, and all the others are aspects of its implementation). Political discourse is characterized by several particular qualities (e.g. institutionality, ideology, phantom, theatricalness, etc.); however, these features are not characteristic exclusively of this type of discourse. Concrete qualities of political discourse are also implemented to a different degree depending on the particular genre. Chapter two “Discursive practices of mass media” is devoted to the presentation of connections of political discourse and medial discourse. This chapter also describes the qualities of the press language and characterizes the press political text. In the case of political discourse a result of the lack of strictly determined semantic borders is its crossing with many other types of discourse (legal discourse, academic discourse, educational discourse, advertising discourse, etc.), but from the point of view of these studies the most important part is played by the connection of political discourse with mass media discourse, among which press traditionally occupies a particular place. Printed media are not only a source of information but also means of regulation, management and manipulation of political and social life of the country. Manipulating the public opinion in mass media may manifest itself in transferring information which is untrue or insufficient. However, one of the most important ways of influencing the addressee is, direct or indirect, expression of assessment. The evaluation element of the author’s expression in press political texts is always socially oriented, a text in a political newspaper as an element of social and political communication is not only information but also an expression of the socio-pragmatic position of its author and publisher. Verbal signs used in political discourse are not only words and word relationships, but also texts, including press texts. In contrast to other publicist texts, political press text realizes all communicative functions (informative, appellative and expressive). To implement them, a political text should have several qualities, such as being informative, intersubjectivity, veracity, persuasiveness, effectiveness and ideologisation. The combination of these parameters in a particular political press text depends on its genre. Chapter three “Political lexis in discursive practices of Russian press” is dedicated to presenting the linguo-pragmatic potential of the vocabulary with an emotive component in contemporary political press texts. This chapter contains the analysis of lexemes which, as a result of changes in socio-political life, altered their ideological connotations, as well as the defines a potential linguistic effect of colloquial lexis and jargon expressions and borrowings from the English language. Changes on the level of the sense of an emotive component are often observed in the contemporary Russian political discourse and manifest themselves in removing ideological traces and changes in ideological connotations. The emotive component of the semantics of socio-political lexis in the times of the Soviet Union contained information about social assessment of phenomena from the point of view of the Marxist-Leninist ideology (units naming the terms hostile to this ideology were connected with a clearly negative assessment). The analysis of the lexical material collected on the basis of dictionary articles indicates that the process of removing the component of ideological valuation in the vocabulary used in political discourse in the Soviet period, in relation to the current Russian political discourse develops in three directions: in the emotive connotative component of the meanings of a particular lexical unit disappear semantic properties of negative assessment (they have been replaced with semantic properties of neutral assessment); in the emotive connotative component of the meaning of a particular lexical unit occurs a change of semantic properties of positive assessment into neutral or negative properties; in the emotive connotative component of a particular lexical units neutral semantic properties are altered into positive. This phenomenon may be observed on the basis of dictionary materials, in dictionary articles, from which disappeared indicators of the previous clear emotive assessment included in definitions and illustrative material (e.g. in bourgeois society, in exploiting society, hostile to progress, hostile to Marxism-Leninism, leading, progressive, socially useful, etc.). Chapter three also describes a potential effect of borrowings from the English language in contemporary political press texts on the addressees’ emotions. Many expressions borrowed in the past have undergone a peculiar transformation: they extended their meanings, their emotional and evaluative tone. The process is particularly visible in the borrowings which in the Soviet period referred to foreign reality only. Particular lexemes were connected with a negative connotation presenting the foreign expression as ideologically alien (their use in that period was determined by the ideological confrontation of Marxism-Leninism and other doctrines). Nowadays, they are used to denote the Russian reality, not only foreign, and simultaneously they have altered their evaluative tone (from negative into neutral). The expressive function in the political press discourse manifests itself also in the intense use of colloquial and jargon expressions, to which the subsequent part of chapter three is dedicated. This type of lexemes allow for weakening the official character of the text, give texts exceptional plasticity and imagery, due to which a journalist may express their (often negative) opinion about the world of politics. The main aim of using colloquial lexical units in political discourse is finding new means of expression, enhancing the effect of information on the recipient, and also bringing closer the world of politics and everyday life (the politician is presented as a regular human being, one of the ordinary residents of the country). In articles about politics one may also observe examples of using jargon. The expressiveness of jargon words (higher than in the case of neutral words) attracts the reader’s attention stronger, simultaneously activating the denotative evaluative meaning. Particular lexemes may evoke negative associations and make images of the similarity between political life and actions of politicians and the world of crime, show business or life of young people. It is worth noting that the reason for the presence of this group of vocabulary in the press language is also the liberalization of language norms connected with democratization of social relations (abolishing limitations in the use of the units from the uncodified part of the national language in the literary language). Chapter four “Political metaphors as a cognitive mechanism of language influence” scrutinize the functions of the lexemes of secondary metaphoric meaning in political press texts. The interest in the phenomenon of metaphor, which appeared as early as Antiquity, is also actively developing in the modern era, when emerged a great number of conceptions describing the nature, the essence and functions of the metaphor. In accordance with the traditional approach, metaphor (Greek: metaphorá – transferring, carrying over) is a stylistic figure, or a language mechanism, involving the use of an expression denoting a certain class of objects, phenomena etc., in order to characterize or name an object belonging to another class of objects, or to name another class of objects similar to the given one in any respect. Now there is no uniform, universal typology of language metaphors. Research approaches to this issue may be reduced to two areas: semantic (metaphor as a linguistic phenomenon, the way of providing a thought with an external form and beautifying it) and cognitive (metaphor is not a linguistic phenomenon but mental, thus metaphoricalness is a peculiar way of thinking). Metaphoricalness may be recognized as one of the crucial features of the current political discourse, since the mutual communicative orientation of politicians’ expressions is undoubtedly seeking to attract attention and interest, convince the recipients of their views, which is secured by metaphors. Metaphors help political leaders transform the language image of the world in the consciousness of the addressees, introduce new categorization in the presentation of the phenomena well known to the recipients and provide them with a new emotional assessment. Lexical units of secondary metaphorical meaning used in political discourse convey strong connotations; their main task is to create a particular attitude of the addressee towards the subject of the expression through emotional and psychological influence. The problem of metaphors of the language of politics was dealt with by scholars such as: A.N. Baranov, Y.N. Karaulov, O.Zh. Grigoryeva, A.A. Kaslova, Y.B. Fyedyenyeva, A.P. Khudinov, E.I. Shejgal, N.G. Shechtman, M. Frankowska, M. Johnson, G. Lakoff, W. Lubaś, K. Ożóg, J. Smól, J. Sławek and others. It is important to underscore, however, that it is still a prospective direction of studies, because metaphorical models transform under the influence of a political, social and economic situation in the country (there may emerge new models, the frequency of those existent may change, they may also disappear). This analysis demonstrated that metaphorization is still a very productive way of expressiveness in the case of vocabulary used in the contemporary Russian political press discourse. The studies covered lexemes with the source sphere “War” and “Theater” as connected with the strongest effect on the recipients’ emotions. Concepts of the source sphere “War” often make the basis for political metaphors in order to form a structure of the conceptual area of politics, as well as for providing an emotional assessment of its elements. It is probably caused by the connection of the political discourse with the mass media discourse. Researchers dealing with this subject see the reason for the militarization of the language of politics also in the rich military experience of mankind, in the militarization of the consciousness of the Russian people, in the agonality of the subject of reflection (the essence of politics is power struggle). The analyzed lexemes present figuratively relations in the world of politics, describing political life with military terminology. Military actions are associated with cruelty, aggression, so comparing with them may evoke traumatic memories and trigger fear for the future. Hostile relations between the subjects of the political process are emphasized (the world of politics is depicted as a battlefield); in certain cases lexemes of this type may serve as a method of discrediting politicians (e.g. the enemy of Russia, the enemy of the people). Activities of politicians and political parties are not presented as social activities aiming at the enhancement of the prosperity of the citizens, but as a permanent struggle (politics as a conflict between political parties, and not cooperation). It may seem that the subjects of political processes do not set as a goal common solving problems in society with constructive methods but concentrate on destroying the opponents. Another source sphere, on the basis of which occurs metaphorization in the area under scrutiny, is the sphere “Theater”. The common use in political discourse theatrical metaphors probably results from the fact that the residents of the country often participate in political life indirectly, as observers (a kind of audience), obtaining information about it through mass media. Therefore, politicians constantly (deliberately or inadvertently) try to impress the citizens, perceiving them as a kind of viewers or audience. As the analysis demonstrated, the source sphere “Theater” is still one a very productive source spheres of emerging secondary metaphorical meanings of words functioning in political discourse. The lexemes under examination may have a great potential of effect on the reader; they carry an evaluating character and may evoke negative associations. Political life is described as actions for show, unrealistic, too emotional, calculated for effect, as light entertainment available for everybody or even as buffoonery, fooling around. Politicians are compared to actors, whose job is to incarnate into certain roles, the actions of whom do not aim at completing their public tasks, but making a positive impression on the viewers. Exceptionally negative associations may emerge at comparing political life subjects to extras, puppets or marionettes (low rank politicians do not act independently, working for the good of the citizens who elected them, but are instruments in the hands of someone more influential – authorities, leaders of political parties, etc., compared with scriptwriters, directors, conductors – blindly obeying their orders) or to clowns (actions of politicians are something funny). Politicians’ behavior can be characterized as insincere, aiming at hiding their real intentions, or as pretending. The “Conclusion” sums up the main results of the analysis and determines the prospects of further studies on the linguo-pragmatic aspects of political press discourse.