PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS AND REACTIONS TO THEM IN A POLITICAL INTERVIEW

Abstract

Provocative questions are one of the most effective techniques in a political interview. The article considers the communication strategies and tactics of politicians as a reaction to provocative questions, as well as the means of creating a provocation by journalists. The purpose of the study is to analyze provocative questions and responding replica of politicians. The article is a contribution to the study of political interviews as a special genre of political discourse, as well as to the development of a methodology for analyzing communication strategies and tactics. The main methods were the method of contextual analysis and pragmalinguistic analysis in combination with the method of component analysis. The analysis found that the journalist has a limited set of ways to construct provocations in questions of a political interview, in contrast to a set of strategies in the answers of politicians. The provocation of journalists was created with the help of such lexical and syntactic means as metaphors, irony, repetition, parallel constructions. To increase emotional pressure, enumerations with negatively colored pragmes, semantic markers of confidence were used. Politicians' responses included selfdefense, counter-attack, and avoidance strategies. The choice of a strategy and the way of its implementation is the reflection of such factor as the image of the politician. The value of the study and its practical significance lies in the use of its main results for research in the field of political communication, as well as in the practice of disciplines related to political linguistics.