STAGES OF THE ANALYSIS OF RELIGIOUS VOCABULARY IN THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article is devoted to a review of the methodology for analyzing the functioning of religious vocabulary in the American presidential discourse. The work defines the political discourse, distinguishes the genres of the American presidential discourse, develops an algorithm for their research, and highlights the methods of analysis. One of the types of institutional discourse is political discourse, which is a reflection of the socio-political life of the country, contains elements of its culture, as well as features of the national character, general and national-specific cultural values, and aims to gain and maintain political power. The main functions of political discourse are informative, instrumental, prognostic, normative, legitimating, persuasive and political propaganda. The genre space of the presidential discourse is determined by the general political system of the state, the historical and political traditions of the institution of the presidency, and the sociocultural conditions for the existence of political discourse. These extralinguistic factors, as well as the nature of the main intention, allow us to distinguish such genres of US presidential discourse as ritualistic, orientational, and agonal. In the linguistic literature, there is a large number of classifications of political discourse strategies. In our work, we adhere to the classification according to which the following communicative strategies are inherent in political discourse: self-presentation, discrediting, manipulation, self-defense, information-interpretive, forming the emotional mood of the addressee, argumentative strategy, agitation. Each of these strategies is represented by a number of tactics. The search for effective ways of analyzing and describing the semantics and function of religious vocabulary in the American presidential discourse determined the choice of the main approaches to the research object. The methods used in linguistic studies involve the implementation of a system of procedures for studying the object of research and verification of the obtained results. Typical guidelines of systematic philological analysis include paying attention to the semantic, substantive side of the text, represented by text categories, and to the communicative immersion of the text in discursive reproduction. For a systemic complex analysis, the work involves such methods that take into account the communicative essence of the discourse text, reflect the significance of the text in the light of its generation and interpretation.