GENESIS OF THE CONCEPT OF “PUBLIC DIPLOMACY” IN ENGLISH DISCOURSE

Abstract

Introduction. To promote national interests and form a positive image of the state, most countries use public diplomacy, which covers state image creation, national brand formation, as well as public relations. The priority of public diplomacy research in Ukraine is recognized at the government level. But the analysis of scientific works showed that the issues of public diplomacy are studied mainly in the fields of foreign policy and international public relations, while the study of the linguistic aspects of public diplomacy are underdeveloped. Purpose of the article is to study the genesis of the concept of “public diplomacy” in the English-language discourse of media and diplomacy in the second half of the 19th century. – the first half of the 20th century. Methods. The research methodology includes the application of analysis and synthesis to formulate the genesis of the concept of “public diplomacy”; contextual analysis to select the illustrative material in archival copies of American newspapers; methods of translation analysis to determine the connotations of the concept of “public diplomacy” in the discourse of the media and diplomatic discourse. Results. Most scholars agree that the term “public diplomacy” was first used in 1965 at the opening of the Edward R. Murrow Centre for Public Diplomacy by Edmund Gullion (USA). But the study of archival copies of newspapers New York Times, Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor has shown that Gullion was not the first to use the term “public diplomacy” and therefore it is not his author’s neologism. The article analyses the connotations of the concept of “public diplomacy” in the discourse of media and diplomacy within the period from 1856 (first use in the London Times) to the 1960s (a separate concept) and determined that in the beginning only positive connotations prevailed, namely “openness” and “new diplomatic practice”, and only in the 1950s did a purely negative connotation “propaganda, psychological warfare” appear, after which public diplomacy began to be considered as a separate concept that needed definition and careful study. Conclusion. Within the period 1856–1950s the area of using concept “public diplomacy” changed critically from a single use for criticizing or characterizing definite persons to massive use for defining international policy of many countries.