Political discourse: basic functions. Political discourse as a subject of political philology political discourse article

Currently, linguistic interests are noted to the problems of discourse of active social groups, and above all politicians. Political discourse is a phenomenon that has a frequency manifestation and special social importance in society. At the same time, the phenomenon of political discourse is not amenable to unambiguous definition.

Political discourse is a complex object of research, since it lies at the intersection of various disciplines - political science, social psychology, linguistics and is associated with the analysis of the form, tasks and discourse content used in certain ("political" situations.

In linguistic literature, political discourse is represented as a multidimensional and multifaceted phenomenon. In relation to this term, two main interpretations of its content have been formed.

A narrower understanding suggests that the criterion for the inclusion of some text in the field of "political discourse" should be the identity of the intentional nature of this text with the purpose of discourse, that is, the conquest, preservation and implementation of political power and which is limited to the sphere of politics. A narrow definition of political discourse adheres to the Dutch linguist T. van Duck. He believes that political discourse is a class of genres, limited by the social sphere, namely politician. Government discussions, parliamentary debates, party programs, politicians' speeches are those genres that belong to the policy of politics. Political discourse is a policy discourse. Limiting the political discourse by professional frameworks, politicians, the scientist notes that the political discourse is at the same time a form of institutional discourse. This means that the discourses of politicians are those discourses that are manufactured in such an institutional environment, as a government meeting, the session of the Parliament Congress the political party statement should be pronounced by speaking in his professional role policies in the institutional environment. Thus, the discourse is political when it accompanies the political act in the political situation. In this case, only institutional forms of communication will be attributed to the political discourse, mainly in the form of voice genres of public policy.

In a broad sense, it includes such forms of communication in which the policy of policies include at least one of the components: a subject, addressee or the content of the message. We give the statements of scientists who adhere to a wide definition of political discourse and understand it as: "Any speech entities, a subject, addressee or content of which relates to the field of policies"; "The amount of speech works in a certain paralyingvistic context - the context of political activities, political views and beliefs, including negative manifestations (evasion of political activities, lack of political beliefs)"; "A combination of discursive practices that identify participants in political discourse as such or forming a specific policy of political communication."

In our opinion, it is necessary to adhere to the definition of a political discourse presented in the monograph E.I. Sheal: "Semiotics of political discourse", which in a broad sense under this term understands any speech formation, subject, addressee, the content of which relates to the field of policies. It should also be noted that the content of political discourse should take into account all components present in the consciousness consciousness that can affect the efficiency and perception of speech. These are the previous texts, the content of which is taken into account by the author and the addressee of this text, taking into account the target plants, political views, the intentions and personal qualities of the author, the specifics of the perception of this text with various people, an existing political background, and a specific political situation in which the text is created. It also takes into account the role that this text can play in the system of political texts and - wider - in political life countries.

The purpose of political discourse is the seizure, holding or redistribution of power. For this type of communication, a high degree of manipulation is characteristic; The language in the political discourse is primarily an impact tool (belief and control). E.I. Sheal comes to the conclusion that the political discourse found "primacy of values \u200b\u200bon facts, the predominance of impact and assessment of informing, emotional over rational". The key concept is "power", and the expressed values \u200b\u200bdepend on the dominant ideology, bringing, on the one hand, to the disclosure of the main concepts of this type of discourse, including the concept of power, and on the other hand - expressing moral values Societies in general. The institutional characteristics of political discourse include its functions. The main functions of the political discourse R. Vodak refers: 1) persuasive (belief); 2) informative; 3) argumentative; 4) persisive-functional (creating a convincing picture of the best device of the world); 5) delimitative (difference from other); 6) Group-winning (meaningful and linguistic support for identity).

In the works of other foreign linguists dedicated to the policy language, along with an information function also a controlling function (manipulation of consciousness and mobilization to action), an interpretation function (creating a "language reality" of the policy field), the function of social identification (differentiation and integration of group agents of politics) and an atomal function.

Political discourse, along with religious and advertising, is included in the discourses group for which the leading function is regulatory. Based on the target orientation, the main function of political discourse can be considered to use as a tool of political power (struggle for power, mastering power, its preservation, implementation, stabilization or redistribution). However, according to E.I. Sheal, this feature is as global as the communicative function of the all-around in relation to the language. In this regard, it is proposed to differentiate policy language functions as a aspect manifestation of its instrumental function by analogy with the fact that all language basic functions are considered as aspects of the manifestation of its communicative function.

The characteristic signs of political discourse are the meaningful uncertainty (policies often avoid expressing their opinions as a generalized form), Phantomity (many political signs do not have real denotat), phidiscatism (irrationality, support for subconscious), esotericity (the true meaning of many political statements is clear only Selected), distance and theatricality (the need for politicians to "work in the public", attracting it with its image).

Political discourse is a type of institutional discourse, a specialized variety of communication due to social features Partners and regulated both in content and form. The relevance of this issue, interest in the theory and practice of political communication, as well as the insufficient development of this problem determines the need for further research in this direction.

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Political discourse strategies

Since psychological strategy, the strategy is defined as a way of organizing speech behavior according to the plan, the intentions of Communication, an understanding of the situation as a whole, determining the development of development and organization of action, the detailed subjective installation for communication in time. In a broad sense, the communicative strategy is an ultra-conceit speech, dictated by the practical goal of the speaking.

A. K. Mikhalskaya, Forming its own definition of a communicative strategy on the concept of choice, separates two global communicative trends: to individuality and to rapprochement. Preference (election) of one of all sorts of trends and the reflection of this preference in speech communication is called the communicative strategy.

When determining the strategy, as noted, such characteristics are taken to account as the dependence of the election of the strategy from communicative intentions and the goal, as well as the availability of a dependence on the situation.

Taking into account all the above, when using the terminology "Strategy", it is understood as a certain focus of speech behavior in such a situation in the interests of achieving the goal of communication.

Researchers celebrate different types Communicative strategies in various discourses, including political:

Stylistic;
Discursive;
Pragmatic;
Semantic;
Dialogue;
Rhetorical, etc.

E.I. Sheygal allocated the following varieties of strategies in political discourse:

the strategy of vewlings, it shams unwanted information, that is, it makes it possible to muffle, make a less obvious unpleasant fact;
the strategy of mystification, expressed in the concealment of truth, consciously misleading;
anonymity or depersonalization strategy in the form of admission to liability.

There are several more varieties of strategies regarding political discourse: a reification strategy, expressed in the design of an enemy image; Delegitimization strategy, expressed in the destruction of the opponent's image; The amalgaming strategy, that is, "we" -discurs.

Yu. M. Ivanova, studying the US political discourse, allocated an additive, varying and introductive strategy. O. V. Gaikova analyzed the argumentative and manipulative strategies for the US election discourse.

Note 2.

However, in the literature, there are no clear grounds for the allocation of strategy types and their relationship with tactics.

Objectives of political discourse strategies

Strategies for political discourse are defined by the goals that political communication appeals to life. Traditionally politician aims:

to vote to vote in elected events for a particular candidate, block, batch, movement, etc.;
conquer authority or strengthen your own image, "like the folk masses";
convince the addressee to give consent to the speaker, take his point of view that the government is not working efficiently, or, on the contrary, that reforms are carried out successfully;
form a specific emotional attitude, call the desired emotional state of the destination;
to give the newest knowledge to the newest knowledge, updated ideas about the subject of speech, inform the addressee on your own position on some question.

Note 3.

It is important to note that the purpose of "informing" can hardly be persecuted in the political discourse without the desire to form a negative or positive attitude towards something or to change its worldview, to influence its image of thoughts. In this regard, the function of exposure in the political discourse is always present.

From the point of view of speech impact, the strategy can be considered only by analyzing a tactic, because the strategy translated from the Greek language "Stratos" - the "army" + "Ago" - "lead" is the art of planning, which is based on the right and far-reaching forecast analyzes .

Discourse, speech, the process of language activity; A method of speaking. The many-valued term of a number of humanities, whose subject or intended to study the functioning of the language, - linguistics, literary studies, semiotics, sociology, philosophy, ethnology and anthropology.

The clear and generally accepted definition of "discourse", covering all cases of its use, does not exist, and it is possible that it was precisely the wide popularity acquired by this term over the past decades: a different understanding of various conceptual needs, modifying more traditional ideas. About speech, text, dialog, style and even language.

The discourses call the text in its formation before the imaginary gaze of the interpreter. The discourse consists of proposals or their fragments, and the discourse content often, although not always, concentrates around some "reference" concept called "Discourse Topic", or "Discourse Topic".

Interpretation of discourse

Understanding the discourse, the interpreter combines elementary propositions in general value by placing new informationcontained in the next interpretable sentence, in the framework of the intermediate, or preliminary interpretation, that is:

Sets various connections within the text

Anaphoric, semantic (type of synonymic and antonymic), referential (assignment of names and descriptions for real or mental objects) relations, functional perspective (the topic of statements and what is said about it), etc.;

- "Immerses" new information in the topic of discourse.

As a result, it is eliminated (if necessary) reference ambiguity, the communicative purpose of each sentence is determined and step by step turns out the dramaturgy of the entire discourse.

Political part of discourse

Speech itself is "politically loaded," because it is a sign of solidarity with other members of society that consumes the same language. Sometimes they even say that the language - as through a link between thought and action - has always been "the most important factor for establishing political suppressions, economic and social discrimination." Political language differs from the usual in that it is:

- "Political vocabulary" of terminology, and ordinary, not purely "political" linguistic signs are not always used in the same way as in the usual language;

The specific structure of the discourse - the result is sometimes very peculiar speech techniques,

Specifically and the implementation of discourse - sound or written design.

Because the terms political and moral possess the evaluation, in a linguistic study, there are always an extlion considerations.

Totalitarian discourse

When they try to characterize the features of the "totalitarianism" discourse, ethical terms are inevitably introduced into the description, for example:

- "Oratory": dominates the declamination style of appeal,

Propaganda triumphalism,

The ideology of everything that is said, the expansion use of concepts, to the detriment of logic,

Exaggerated abstraction and scoring,

Increased criticality and "flames",

Sloganness, addiction to spells,

Agitatory Zador,

Prevailing "super-i",

Formalism of party

Claim for absolute truth.

These properties are manifolding, inherent in the political discourse and distinguishing it from other types of speech. This polemicity affects, for example, on choosing words and is the transfer of hostilities from the battlefield to theatrical frames. Such sublimation of aggressiveness is laid (according to some social psychologists) in human nature.

Public purpose of political discourse

The social purpose of political discourse is to inspire the community to visitors - the need for "politically correct" actions and / or estimates. In other words, the goal of political discourse is not to describe (that is, not reference), but to convince, awaken in the addressee of intentions, give the ground for belief and induce to action. Therefore, the effectiveness of political discourse can be determined relative to this purpose.

Speech policies (for some exceptions) operates with symbols, and its success is predetermined by how much these symbols are consonant with mass consciousness: politician should be able to affect the necessary string in this consciousness; statements policies should fit into "universe" opinions and estimates (that is, in all many internal worlds) His addressees, "consumers" of political discourse.

Not always, such a suggestion looks like an argument: trying to attract listeners to your side, do not always resort to logically connected arguments. Sometimes it is enough to simply make it clear that the position, in favor of which proponent acts, lies in the interests of the addressee.

Protecting these interests, you can still influence emotions, play on a sense of duty, on other moral installations.

An even more tricky move - when, putting forward the arguments in the presence of anyone, do not count straightly to affect whose or a consciousness, but simply reflect on loud with witnesses; Or, let's say, putting forward the arguments in favor of one or another position, they are trying - from the opposite - to convince the fact that the thesis is completely opposite to thesis, etc.

The success of suggestion depends on at least the installations in relation to proponent, to the report in speech as such and to the reference object.

Calculation of the point of view in political discourse

So, political discourse to be effective should be built in accordance with certain requirements of "hostilities". Speakers usually assume that the addressee knows what camp is, what role plays what this role is and - not least - for which position is ("affirmation") and against what position and what party or what opinion (" Negation ") ,.

Belonging to a specific batch forces the speaker:

From the very beginning to specify a specific reason for the performance, the motive "I say not because I want to talk, but because it is necessary";

Emphasize "Representativeness" of his speech, indicating, on behalf of which party, faction or grouping this opinion is expressed,

Motive "We are a lot"; Since collective action is more spectacular than a separate performance, supportive actions from like-minded people;

Avoid manifestation of personal motives and intentions, then there is a social significance and responsibility, the social gagging of the speech is the motive "I present the interests of the whole society as a whole."

As in the battlefield, the political discourse is aimed at the destruction of the "combat power" of the enemy - weapons (that is, opinions and arguments) and personnel (discredit of the personality of the opponent).

One of the means of destroying the enemy in a political debate is to rizuating the enemy. Laughter in general, according to many theorists, manifests an unconscious desire to humiliate the enemy, and thereby correct its behavior. Such an orientation was consciously exploited in political debates since the time of the Roman Empire.

This is evidenced by the accusation speech of cicero, in which even intimate characteristics of the enemy are ridiculed, generally speaking not have a direct relationship to politics. According to, the speaker "enters collusion" with a listener, seeking to exclude from the game of his political opponent as not worth any positive attention. Many instructive examples of such a way to destroy the enemy we find V. I. Lenin.

Since riding is on the verge of ethically permissible, it can be assumed that the most insulting humor is perceived by society as appropriate only at the most critical period; And in "normal" periods such a genre is hardly permissible.

In the smallest uniform, they exclude an opponent from the game when they say not about personality (arguing blood blood pressure), but about erroneous views, "anti-academy" or insolvent.

Analysis of political discourse

Among the researchers there is no generally accepted policy definition. In linguistic literature, along with the concept of "political discourse", the definitions "Social and political speech" are used, "agitation and political speech", "language of public thought", "Political language".

In linguistic literature, there is a wide and narrow understanding of political discourse.

Narrow definition of political discourse

The narrow definition of political discourse is: political discourse is a class of genres, limited by the social sphere, namely policies. Government discussions, parliamentary debates, party programs, politicians' speeches are those genres that belong to the policy of politics.

Political discourse is a policy discourse.

"Critical linguists" argue that the understanding of social order is most fully and naturally achieved through the critical understanding of the authority of the language. In their opinion, the peculiarity of modern society is that the dominance of one social group does not occur through coercion, but through consent, through ideology, through the language. Critical linguists believe that the discourse is an integral part of social relations, for, on the one hand, it forms these relations, and on the other hand, it is formed by them. Any discourse is considered Trojko: as the use of a language as "lusion" into the public consciousness of certain ideas, as the interaction of social groups and individuals. Critics are conducting research of social interaction, paying attention to the linguistic components of this interaction. Analysis of language elements helps to identify implicitly pronounced installations in the system of social relations and show hidden effects The effects of discourse on this system. method.

This method is based on the assumption that human cognitive structures (perception, language, thinking, memory, action) are inextricably linked within the framework of one common task - an explanation of the processes of assimilation, processing and transformation of knowledge, which, accordingly, determine the essence Human mind.

Lingvogenerative analysis of political discourse is intended to find out how the structures of human knowledge about the world appear in linguistic structures; Political representations inherent in man, social group or society as a whole. The technique of cognitive analysis allows you to reconstruct a person's ideas about the external world, its sympathy / antipathy, value views, and also allows you to judge the political situation, since the internal models of the world leader turn out to be part of an objective picture of the political situation. method.

Within this method The rhetorical approach to the study of political discourse is most pronounced and fully presented, which is likely due to the main function of political text - the function of speech impact. Linguists are interested in which language funds are used by the author to impose certain political ideas. The subject of their study becomes all those linguistic agents that can be used to monitor the consciousness of the interlocutor. Obviously, the wide representation of linguistic directions of this method is explained by the diversity of language means of alternative representation of reality.

Content analysis

A special place is occupied by the content analysis of the performances of political leaders. Scientists, analyzing the speeches of Hitler, found out that the index of military propaganda, issuing aggressive aspirations, is to increase the statements about the persecution, increasing the reference to force, aggression as self-defense, while reducing the welfare of others. As a result of comparing the speeches of Kennedy and Khrushchev, the eve of the Caribbean crisis was confirmed by the "Mirror Hypothesian", according to which the perception of America and the perception of the Soviet Union was distorted by the same way.

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Watch what is "political discourse" in other dictionaries:

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discourse - discourse (discourse (eng.), Diskurs (it.), DisCourse (Fr.)) as a term comes from the Latin "Discurrere" "Discussion", "negotiations", even "passage". Attention to the term and the concept of "D." It was attracted to the historical era when ... Encyclopedia of epistemology and philosophy of science

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Discourse - (from fr. DisCours speech, reasoning) type of letter, text, statements, suggesting a direct appeal to the listener, emanating from the speaker (author of the author). The term was introduced by the Swiss linguist F. de Sosyur (1857 1913). According to Sosyur, d ... Alternative culture. Encyclopedia

Consider in more detail what functions are inherent in PD. As mentioned above, scientists exploring PD converge that its base instrumental function is the struggle for political power (R.Vodak, A.P. Chudinov, E.I. Sheigal, etc.). The remaining functions of the PD are subordinate to this main function constituting the main specificity of PD. Given that the concept of struggle involves the presence of opposing parties, supporters and opponents, friends and enemies, it is obvious that PD is built around the opposition "His own - someone else's", which can be assumed to be able to manifest itself anyway in its functions.

There are several approaches to the classification of PD functions, however, despite various names, in essence they are to one degree or another coincide or complement each other. We will consider two approaches to the functions of PD developed by A.P. Chudinov and E.I. Sheal, since, without entering into a contradiction with each other, these two systems in the aggregate reveal the most fully functionality of PD and can serve as a basis for research to "their own - someone else's".

A.P. Chudinov considers six functions of the language (communicative, meta-language, motivative, emotive, fatic and aesthetic), isolated by R. Jacobson, in relation to PD [Chudinov 2006: 81-88].

The communicative function of PD suggests the possibility of communication with citizens and is focused on the transfer of information on the events of the political sphere. Here it is necessary to make a reservation that the transfer of information in its pure form in the political discourse is impossible, given its focus on the struggle for power. The information message is almost always carried out using such strategies as the transfer of information in an advantageous for the speaker or writing light, that is, in such a way that "their own" is positive, and "Aliens" - negatively; nomination on the forefront of the necessary information that meets the interests of the speaker; Conversely, making information that does not contribute to positive self-testing.

The meta-language function is aimed at explaining special political or economic terms and concepts to ordinary citizens. A subjective interpretation is superimposed on such an explanation, as in transmitting information, and techniques that work on an assessment of an interpreted concept and contributing to the perception needed for the author are quite often used.

Another function that is also marked by most authors as inherent in PD is motive (also known as a mobilization function or vigorous), that is, the impact on the addressee, involving it in active political activities [Glukhova 2001: 69], the ability to stimulate voters to specific actions, attract supporters. PD is designed to form in the public consciousness a certain political picture of the world, emotionally affect the population, to impose that a look at the political reality that will correspond to the picture of the world of the speaking or writing and his supporters (that is, "their" camps).

The emotive function is aimed at expressing the author's emotions and the creation of a necessary emotional background, which contributes to the conviction of the addressee and encourage it to the necessary actions.

The fatic function is designed to establish and maintain contact with the reader - in PD can be expressed in the use of the ideology that serve as a signal about the political views of the speaker or listening, as well as in the use of conversational lexemes and syntactic structures to create the effect of informal friendly communication.

Aesthetic function considered by A.P. Chudinov as another of the PD functions, is focused on the form of a message, to create an expressive political statement, which is able to make the addressee and attract more supporters at the expense of its originality and expressiveness.

In addition to six features allocated in R. Yakobson, A.P. Chudinov notes cognitive feature that is inherent in any kind of discourse, including political. The cognitive function is embodied in the use of the language for the conceptualization of the world, to create both the personal and group political picture of the world.

E.I. The followed by a group of functions (orientation, integration and attraction), which are of particular importance for PD, due to the fact that the implementation of these functions is related to the use of specific signs that make up the semiotic database of political discourse [Shaiga 2004]. These functions are closely related to the dichotomy "their own - someone else's", which is archetypical for PD. In the course of this study, it was revealed as these functions are implemented in an English-speaking PD (in the work of E.I. Shegal Analysis is mainly Russian-speaking PD).

The orientation function is used to identify policy agents, to indicate their political position, marks an object as "its" or "alien". In the English PD, this function is represented by an explicit or hidden opposition implemented, for example, through deiquity (We - THEY, OUR - THEIR, THIS - THAT) or political vocabulary (Left - Right, Liberal - Authoritarian).

The function of integration essentially coincides with the fatic function in the terminology A.P. Chudinova and is to search for and cohesive supporters, accession of the speaker / writing to the group "His". This function is carried out through the use of language funds labeled the author as "their". In the English-language PD to the language means that are used to implement the integration function include language units that have a positive value or connotation (in particular, political vocabulary with a positive evaluation sign), as well as language tools that contribute to the establishment of contact with the addressee, such as detective signs we, Our, You and I, Spoken vocabulary, various conversational syntactic structures (ellipse, question-responding unity). Stressing belonging to one with the addressee group and creating the visibility of common interests, the author thus shakes the solidarity of the reader and uses this technique for manipulative effects.

Essence the agonal function is reduced to the overthrow of the opponent and lower its political status. This feature is mainly carried out through the use of language agents with a negative evaluation. These include some detective signs (Those, That), Political labels (Totalitarian, Fascist, Racist), Negative estimated vocabulary (Stupid, Corrupt), Peyoraive spoken vocabulary (DAFT, Fat Cat, Rubbish, Talking Shop), Disthemisms, etc.

For this study, the above-mentioned functional triad (orientation functions, integration and agonality functions) is of great importance, since it is these functions that the PD are implemented through the language funds directly involved in the Representation to "their own - alien". As with which language means, these functions will be carried out in more detail in Chapter 3.

With regard to other functions of the PD given by A.P. Chudinov, communicative, motivating, emotive, meta-language, aesthetic and cognitive (except for the fatic, which is identical to the integration functions), then they characterize the entire PD, and their selection seems appropriate when considering political communication as a whole. Due to the fact that these functions do not play a classifying role for language funds involved directly in the representative of the Dichotomy "Privacy", they represent less interest for this study.