Pragmatic and stylistic peculiarities of electoral discourse (based on the material of presidential TV debates)

Abstract

Recently, studies of various types of discourse have been carried out in the context of their actualization in a situation of speech interaction considering cognitive and communicative factors, therefore this work is focused on the analysis of the functional features of electoral discourse. In modern linguistic works, electoral discourse is defined as an interactive speech and mental activity, limited by the institutional framework of the political sphere and controlled by a global communicative intention – influencing voters to retain power through self-presentation and creating their own positive image, as well as discrediting the opponent’s image. Among the problems that were considered by researchers in the analysis of electoral discourse are its constitutive features, communicative orientation, issues of genre diversity, determination of communicative strategies and tactics etc. However, the problem of the pragmatic and stylistic specifics of this type of discourse has not yet received fundamental coverage in the relevant works, which justifies the urgency of the given study. The material for the analysis was 1578 contextological fragments of video recordings of the presidential election debates between D. Trump and H. Clinton and D. Trump and J. Biden. As a result of the study, it was found that speakers use various stylistic means to achieve a certain pragmatic goal – self-presentation or discrediting an opponent. Among the most common means of creating a positive self-image are positively colored vocabulary, epithets, parallel constructions and repetitions. The most frequent stylistic means of implementing the strategy of discrediting the opponent are negatively colored vocabulary, epithets, parallel constructions, repetitions and metaphors. In this regard, we can state a qualitative similarity in the means of implementing both strategies; while quantitative data allow us to assert that a greater number of stylistic means are used to discredit the opponent, which creates a special expressiveness of such speech.