<i>PETER PEPPERCORN</i> AS A SOCIONIC TYPE IN THE RUSSIAN POLITICAL CULTURE OF THE 20<sup>TH</sup> CENTURY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the personal discourse of a politician from the standpoint of linguosocionics, the task of which is to identify and describe (characterize) a type via modeling speech. The main method used in this case is to observe the verbal and nonverbal behavior of a person – a political leader. Modeling is interpreted as investigation of a fragment of reality, a process and a situation of speech behavior, based on the identification and description of the essential properties of the object – personal discourse of a politician. To name the representative of the appropriate type, the study suggests a pseudonym, the name of the literary character of T. Mann's novel “Magic Mountain” – “Peter Peppercorn”. Peppercorn is so emotional and passionate that he can express his thoughts without words. In Mann's description, there is a speech and social phenomenon typical of the Russian linguoculture – the phenomenon of tongue-tied speech, which is understood as the inability to correctly build speech (both oral and written) and to speak easily and freely. The description of the socionic type is performed by means of quoting. Audio and video footages of oral speeches by Mikhail Gorbachev and V. Chernomyrdin were selected as research material. The specificity of the speech illustrations to the socionic type “Peter Peppercorn” presented is that they break the boundaries between written and oral forms of speech and are focused on reflecting the specific features of oral speech. The conclusions and prospects for further research focus on a series of questions related to the phenomenon of the altered state of mass consciousness, which throughout the twentieth century interested psychologists, sociologists, politicians and linguists.