Identifying and interpreting euphemisms and dysphemisms in RFL classes (the case of political discourse)

Abstract

This article is devoted to the issue of the need to include in the course of Russian as a foreign language the work on the analysis of Russian-speaking political discourse, the issues of identifying and interpreting euphemisms and dysphemisms in the political discourse, in particular. Euphemisms and dysphemisms are widely used by Russian speakers in a variety of communication situations and speech genres, including political discourse, which makes the research devoted to the systematic description of their functioning in modern Russian-language communication and their place in the Russian language picture of the world urgent. The relevance of the present study is due to the need to integrate the results of cognitive and pragmatic research into the purposeful activities of the teacher of Russian as a foreign language to form the linguistic personality of a foreign student, capable of educational and professional activities in the conditions of multicultural dialogue. The paper deals with the formation of foreign students’ skills and abilities of discursive analysis of the Russian text, identification and interpretation of speech tactics and strategies, the strategy of dominance and resistance, implemented in speech through the use of euphemisms and dysphemisms, in particular. At high levels of proficiency in Russian as a foreign language B2-C1 these skills are a necessary element of the professional competence of humanities professionals. The choice of political texts as the material for the analysis is connected with the fact that for professionals in the humanities, in the field of international relations, in particular, political discourse is a significant sphere of official communication and professional interaction. The aim of the present study is to analyze the theoretical foundations for describing euphemisms and dysphemisms for linguistic and pedagogical purposes, and to develop an approach to creating learning materials aimed at building the skills and abilities of foreign students to recognize hidden meanings and tools of indirect communication in Russian political discourse. The use of the proposed approach helps to develop in foreign students the ability to analyze political discourse and to identify the author’s key and secondary intentions, as well as to improve the skill of operating political terminology and the selection of lexical and verbal means in accordance with the communicative situation and the communicative goals and intentions pursued. The authors relied on the works of domestic and foreign linguists and methodologists in their research. The sociocultural, competence and systemic approaches were used in the research, and the method of complex text analysis and descriptive method were applied.