Political discourse: main trends and approaches

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Political discourse: main trends and approaches

Kornielaieva Y.V.

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor,

Odessa National Maritime University

The article presents an overview of the main trends and approaches to the study of political discourse. The combination of linguistic and ideological structural approaches to the discourse analysis of specific texts leads to an understanding of discourse as a point of intersection of language and ideology, and discursive analysis as an analysis of ideological aspects of language use and the implementation of a certain ideology in language. Institutional discourse is a discourse determined by the types of social institutions formed in a certain society, characterized by a number of linguistically relevantfeatures determined by such factors as the purpose of communication, the representative communicative function of its participants, and fixed typical circumstances of communication. One of the types of institutional discourse is political discourse, which is a reflection of the socio-political life of the country, contains elements of its culture, and also reflects the features of the national character, general and national-specific cultural values, and aims to gain and maintain political power. The main functions of political discourse are informative, instrumental, prognostic, normative, legitimating, persuasive and political propaganda. In political linguistics, genres related to the functioning of the political system are distinguished (for example, parliamentary debates, political manifestos and programs, reports of party leaders at conferences, political documents), genres related to mass media (for example, political news, political interviews, talk shows, political advertising in the press) and genres related to the public sphere (for example, meetings with citizens, political forums). Emphasizing the special role of the media in the implementation of political discourse, with the help of which it becomes addressed to a large audience, public, there is a tendency to merge the discourse of the mass media and political discourse.

Key words: political discourse, political linguistics, genres.

ПОЛІТИЧНИЙ ДИСКУРС: ОСНОВНІ НАПРЯМИ ТА ПІДХОДИ

Корнєлаєва Є.В.

кандидат філологічних наук, доцент,

Одеський національний морський університет

У статті подано огляд основних тенденцій та підходів до дослідження політичного дискурсу. Поєднання лінгвістичного та ідеологічного структурних підходів до дискурсивного аналізу конкретних текстів призводить до розуміння дискурсу як точки перетину мови та ідеології, а дискурсивного аналізу як аналізу ідеологічних аспектів використання мови та реалізації певної ідеології. в мові. Ін- ституційний дискурс зумовлений типами соціальних інститутів, сформованих у певному суспільстві, що характеризується низкою мовнорелевантних ознак, зумовлених такими факторами, як мета спілкування, репрезентативна комунікативна функція його учасників, фіксовані типові обставини спілкування. Одним із різновидів інституційного дискурсу є політичний дискурс, який є відображенням суспільно-політичного життя країни, містить елементи її культури, а також відображає риси національного характеру, загальні та національно-специфічні культурні цінності та має на меті отримати та зберегти політичну владу. Основними функціями політичного дискурсу є інформативна, інструментальна, прогностична, нормативна, легітимуюча, персуазивна та політико-пропаган- дистська. У політичній лінгвістиці виділяють жанри, пов'язані з функціонуванням політичної системи (наприклад, парламентські дебати, політичні маніфести і програми, доповіді лідерів партій на конференціях, політичні документи), жанри, пов'язані із засобами масової інформації (наприклад, політичні новини, політичні інтерв'ю, ток-шоу, політична реклама в пресі) і жанри, пов'язані з публічною сферою (наприклад, зустрічі з громадянами, політичні форуми). Підкреслюючи особливу роль ЗМІ в реалізації політичного дискурсу, за допомогою яких він стає адресованим широкій аудиторії, публіці, спостерігається тенденція до злиття дискурсу ЗМІ та політичного дискурсу.

Ключові слова: політичний дискурс, політична лінгвістика, жанри.

Introduction

Political linguistics was formed at the intersection of different areas sciences: ethnography, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, political science, linguistics and other humanities. To understand and successfully describe the mechanisms of political communication, political linguistics also involves achievements of cognitive linguistics, functional rhetoric, stylistics, sociolinguistics, linguopragmatics, text linguistics.

In recent decades, the study of the relationship between language and political behavior has drawn much attention in the linguistic ground (see e.g., Carver & Pikalo, 2008; Chilton, 2004; Fairclough, 2000; Wilson, 1990).

The aim of the given article is to highlight the main trends and approaches to the study of political discourse.

Results and discussion

Discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, which is at the intersection of philosophy, stylistics, semiotic direction, literary criticism, ethnography, psychology, sociology, linguistics. Integrating the research paradigms of two scientific fields -- political science and linguistics -- political linguistics is of a hybrid nature, since it arose at the crossing of linguistics and political science and is engaged in the study of political communication, consideration of the ways and means of the struggle for power in the process of communicative influence on the political consciousness of society (Стрій 2015).

Different scientific approaches to the study of the phenomenon of discourse focus on its various aspects. In pragmalinguistics, discourse is considered as the interactive activity of communication participants, establishing and maintaining contact, emotional and informational exchange, the influence of speakers on each other, the interweaving of communicative strategies that change instantly, as well as their verbal and non-verbal reflections in the practice of communication, the determination of communicative moves in the unity of their implicit and explicit content. In psycholinguistics, discourse is considered as the unfolding of the transition (switching) from the internal code to external verbalization in the process of speech generation and its interpretation, taking into account socio-psychological types of linguistic personalities, role models of instructions and prescriptions. Psycholinguists are also interested in types of speech errors and violations of communicative competence. Linguistic analysis of discourse is focused on identifying registers of communication, distinguishing between oral and written speech in its genre varieties, determining the functional parameters of communication based on its units (characteristics of functional styles).

The structural-linguistic description of the discourse offers its segmentation and is aimed at highlighting the textual features of communication, which are the content and formal coherence of the discourse, ways of changing the topic, modal limiters, large and small text blocks, discursive polyphony, i.e. communication simultaneously in several text depth levels.

The linguistic and cultural study of discourse is focused on establishing the specifics of communication within a certain ethnic group, on the formulas of etiquette and speech behavior in general, on defining the cultural dominants of the relevant community in the form of concepts as units of the mental sphere, on identifying ways of involving precedent texts of a certain linguistic culture. As a cognitive-semantic phenomenon, discourse is studied as frames, scenarios, mental schemes, cognitive types, that is, various models of representation of communication in the mind. The sociolinguis- tic study of discourse is aimed at the analysis of communication participants as representatives of a certain social group and the analysis of the circumstances of communication in a broad sense (Четайкіна, 2019).

Such multifaceted nature of the analyzed scientific direction determines the need to define its object, subject, theory, methodology, status among the number of related disciplines.

Discourse analysis is carried out from different positions, but there are basic principles of analysis. They include:

-- the text as a communicative product has several dimensions, the main of which are the interpretation and generation of the text;

-- communication includes post-communicative and pre-communica- tive stages;

-- the main role in the situation of communication belongs not to the means of communication, but to people;

-- communication is carried out in situations that must be explored in a cultural context;

-- a dynamic language model must be based on communication, that is, the joint activity of people trying to express their own feelings, exchange experiences and ideas, or influence each other;

-- the statistical language model does not correspond to the nature of the discourse and is considered too simple (Wodak, 2006).

Discourse from the standpoint of sociolinguistics is the communication of people, which is considered according to their belonging to a certain social group or in relation to a certain typical speech behavioral situation, such as political discourse.

The analysis of a political text, as well as the study of its elements, involves studying the level of influence on the political text, its perception by the addressee of various linguistic, social, cultural, economic, political, national and other factors that affect understanding of discourse.

R. Wodak claims that the complex relationship between society and discourse cannot be adequately described without a combination of sociological and linguistic approaches (Wodak 2006: 181).

It follows from the structure of political discourse that the study is connected with an analysis of the content, tasks and form of discourse that is used in certain situations and lies at the intersection of various disciplines (Bell 1995: 46). Considered a private discursive variety, political discourse as a basic concept has not received an unambiguous definition in linguistics. But it is traditionally viewed as a type of institutional discourse.

The model of institutional discourse is represented by several features. The constitutive features of institutional discourse include: material, methods, organization, conditions and participants in communication, i.e. people who are considered in their situational-communicative and status roles; texts with non-verbal inclusions; genre, style, key, mode and channel communication; division, deployment of communication, strategies, goals and motives; communicative environment and sphere of communication (Стрій, 2015).

The next group of features reflect the type of social institution, which is considered a phenomenon of culture, in its material and spiritual expression, has a blurred periphery and a rigid core.

A public institution can be represented as a complex frame containing people who are engaged in relevant activities, their characteristics, structures typical of this institution, behavioral stereotypes, social rituals, my- thologemes of the given institution, and texts kept and conducted in this social formation.

The features of institutionality include the clarification of constitutive discursive signs according to the conditions and goals of communication, along the lines of the participants in communication. Institutional communication, being essentially representative, implements the goal of maintaining social institutions, ensuring stability of public structure. The conditions of institutional communication distinguish the context as actions of a ritual and symbolic nature, typical chronotopes, cliches and stereotyped genres.

Neutral signs are reflected by personality-oriented fragments of communication, building material of discourse, moments of institutional discourse, which are also inherent in other public institutions (Bell, 1995).

The most relevant approach to the analysis of the structure of political discourse is a field approach that allows to determine the scope of its contact with other varieties of non-institutional (everyday and artistic) and institutional discourse (scientific, religious, pedagogical, military, legal, sports, advertising, etc.) In essence, this is a thematic content principle, which is based on the nature of text reference. Emphasizing the special role of the media in the implementation of political discourse, with the help of which it becomes addressed to a large audience, public, scientists talk about a tendency to merge the discourse of the mass media and political discourse.

We can consider the functional features of political discourse according to two criteria, namely, from the standpoint of the system-forming intention of political discourse; from the position of performing common language functions.

The most relevant general linguistic functions of political communication include: the regulatory/incentive function, in particular, its manifestations such as prohibition and encouragement. The marked creativity of the political discourse testifies to the fact of the closure here of the referential and magical language functions.

The functional specificity of the discourse of political communication in relation to other types of discourse is presented in its main function -- application as an instrument of political power, realized in the mastery of power, the struggle for it, the preservation of power, the exercise, stabilization and redistribution of power. This provides an opportunity to highlight the key functions of the discourse of political communication, which are considered aspects of the manifestation of the analyzed function: the integration of group political agents and differentiation functions, atonality and harmonization functions, interpretation and orientation, actional and informational function, control function and motives (Fairclough, 2009).

In addition to institutionality, which was discussed above, the system-forming features of political discourse include information content, semantic uncertainty, dynamic, mass media factor, distance, authoritarianism and theatricality. All these features have a certain specificity, due to the intentional component of discourse in the field of political communication.

According to the analyzed sources, we can see that scientists distinguish the following genres of political discourse:

1) institutional political discourse, within which there is a different genre (official speeches of heads of state and its structures, parliamentary debates, pre-election campaigning, interviews of political leaders, etc.);

2) official-business genres of political discourse, within which texts are created for employees of the state apparatus;

3) mass media genres of political discourse, within which texts created by journalists are used, which are distributed through the press, Internet, radio, television;

4) institutional political discourse, within which genres and texts created by ordinary citizens (letters and appeals addressed to politicians or state institutions, letters to mass media, etc.) circulate.

5) «political detective stories», «political poetry» and genres of political memoirs;

6) genres of scientific communication that are devoted to politics

In foreign political linguistics, genres related to the functioning of the political system are distinguished (for example, parliamentary debates, political manifestos and programs, reports of party leaders at conferences, political documents), genres related to mass media (for example, political news, political interviews, talk shows, political advertising in the press) and genres related to the public sphere (for example, meetings with citizens, political forums) (Fairclough, 2009: 294).

Conclusion

political discourse trends

The combination of linguistic and ideological structural approaches to the discourse analysis of specific texts leads to an understanding of discourse as a point of intersection of language and ideology, and discursive analysis as an analysis ofideological aspects oflanguage use and the implementation of a certain ideology in language. Institutional discourse is a discourse determined by the types of social institutions formed in a certain society, characterized by a number of linguistically relevant features determined by such factors as the purpose of communication, the representative communicative function of its participants, and fixed typical circumstances of communication. One of the types of institutional discourse is political discourse, which is a reflection of the socio-political life of the country, contains elements of its culture, and also reflects the features of the national character, general and national-specific cultural values, and aims to gain and maintain political power. The main functions of political discourse are informative, instrumental, prognostic, normative, legitimating, persuasive and political propaganda.

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