Systemic Functional Political Discourse Analysis

The present chapter proposes to build bridges between political discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. We intend to bring to light methodological benefits arising from the synergy of (political) discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, pointing to fruitful contribution from French text statistics. Taking the discourses of Nicolas Sarkozy as an example, we show how political discourse analysis can benefit from a reflection on corpora (their constitution, their role in the research process); on linguistic analysis and processing methods (particularly the computer-assisted methods of text statistics); and finally on the interpretative paths at a time of establishment of a numerical hermeneutics.

Isabela and Norman Fairclough have written a very important book whose full significance is perhaps in danger of being missed if we view it simply, in their own self-depiction, as a text for advanced students. Indeed, in what follows I want to argue that their book is much better seen as the occasion for a debate that we desperately need to be having about how to conduct political discourse analysis rather than as the elucidation of an agreed, almost official, methodology for the conduct of such a form of discourse analysis. At times their book reads like the definitive statement of the only credible approach to the analysis of political discourse as both political and as discourse, derived logically and forensically from a consideration of the specificity of the political itself. While I have considerable sympathy for the attempt to reflect and preserve the specificity of the political in an avowedly political discourse analysis, I have rather more problem, as will become clear in what follows, in the methodological absolutism that leads the Faircloughs to present their approach as, in effect, the only way to do political discourse analysis properly. At this stage in its development political discourse analysis needs a proliferation, not a narrowing, of methods and acknowledgement that there is more than one way to analyse political discourse politically. I will argue for a certain methodological pluralism in political discourse analysis, pointing to problems both with the approach to political discourse analysis that the Faircloughs espouse and with their attempt to foreground such an approach in an essentially Aristotelian account of the specificity of the political.

The war unleashed by Russia in 2022 is widely presented in online versions of English-language newspapers; Ukraine is constantly in the epicentre of the world news. This study highlights political and ideological contexts of the war in Ukraine, the sociopolitical and cognitive aspects of news according to an interdisciplinary approach considering the language as a social practice. The article highlights the polarization in the presentation of the events and the main actors entitled in the discursive strategies, representing the dichotomy In- versus Out-group. The study is aimed at the investigation of the ideological structures and their manifesting linguistic devices in political discourse based on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of discursive strategies for constructing the images of Ukraine and Russia in the British and American press. The integrated Critical Discourse Analysis was applied to the research of the news to study the media discourse and the language, where CDA focuses on social practice, social power and ideology. Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) is used to research the ideology of war images presented in the language of news reports. The relevance of this study determined by the aim is to show the main discursive strategies of polaeization in political media discourse. The research methods of the article combine three vectors of the analysis by Fairclough with explanatory tools (by van Dijk), and the elements of stylistic analysis and Critical Metaphor Analysis. The illustrative material was collected by information search and continuous sample from the open access newspapers and magazines issued in the US and Great Britain (The Daily Mail, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and others). Conclusion. This research argues that polarisation is being demonstrated in the media discourse on the war in Ukraine in 2022. The taxonomy of the identified discursive strategies of polarization deployed in the media political discourse includes labelling, evidentiality, number game, hyperbolism, victimization, personalization and analogy, that can either be used singly or intervened. The discursive strategy of evidentiality is applied to authorities, officials, witnesses that are accepted as trustworthy sources of data; the number game strategy combined with victimization are verbalized by metaphoric simile, metonymy, enumerating and magnifying the numbers with the modifying adverbs; the strategy of hyperbole conveys the positive impression of the in-group and negative acts magnification of the out-group verbalized by metaphor, metonymy, metaphtonymy; the personalization strategy is deployed with the purpose of foregrounding the positive actions of the in-group that implies negative out-group actions; the strategy of analogy is applied in the comparison of the war in Ukraine and the struggle of the Ukrainians for their independence with other historical events. Linguistic means used to realize the discursive strategies of polarization include the conceptual metaphor, metonymy, simile, idioms, metaphtonymy, intertextual allusion and personification.

Metaphor scholars have widely explored metaphor use in political discourse. Nevertheless, the current research does not account for the ‘gradable metaphoricity’ in political discourse analysis. This dissertation fills this gap by addressing this specific issue in two frameworks: (1) viewing political metaphor from a static and gradient perspective (Source-Target mapping; Conventional vs. Novel vs. Dead), and (2) viewing political metaphor from a gradable and dynamic perspective (a matter of salience and awareness of metaphoricity). A systematic literature review in chapter 2 points out that the static and dynamic perspectives differ significantly in underlying assumptions and organizing principles, although both are indistinctly referred to by metaphor scholars as constituting a ‘gradable’ view. The former takes metaphor as a static conceptual unit or lexical unit, but the latter tends to accord a central role of activation of metaphoricity to metaphorical expressions. To launch a theoretical advancement about the dynamic view in political discourse, chapter 3 offers a usage-based model of gradable and dynamic metaphors—the YinYang Dynamics of Metaphoricity (YYDM). In addition, this thesis investigates political metaphors from an interdisciplinary angle, incorporating theory from the field of International Relations. An empirical evaluation of political (discourse) studies in chapter 4 shows the large absence of transdisciplinary perspectives. Addressing the abovementioned gaps, this dissertation reports on two empirical analyses of trade metaphors in a big corpus that represents the official trade positions of the United States and China during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin (1993-1997) as well as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping (2017-2021). Based on a codebook of a cross-linguistic metaphor identification procedure in chapter 5, the first empirical part contributes to the static and gradient perspective and includes two corpus-based studies of metaphorical framing about trade (chapters 6-7). The diachronic and cross-linguistic use of source domains from a socio-cognitive approach in chapter 6 reveals that source domains are semantic fields that vary with trade discourse contexts (interests, power, and power relations). Chapter 7 shows that the use of trade metaphors (source domains of Conventional and Novel metaphors) to construct and legitimize political ideologies correlates with differences between political genres. The second part contributes to the gradable and dynamic view by applying the transdisciplinary model of YinYang Dynamics of Metaphoricity in chapters 8-10. In chapter 8, an evaluation of the new model in the Clinton-Jiang trade discourse shows that the dynamic cognitive process (transformation of metaphoricity) and rhetorical process (argumentation and persuasion) mutually develop with the evolution of the socio-political process (trade perspectives and trade events). Chapter 9 investigates the transformation of metaphoricity in the Trump-Xi trade discourse and finds that cognitive processes (patterns of metaphoricity activation) and affective processes (emotions or sentiments) mutually develop with the evolution of socio-political processes (trade perspectives and trade events). Based on the findings in chapters 8-9, chapter 10 further shows several phenomena in the Clinton-Jiang and Trump-Xi trade discourses: the movement of metaphors on the metaphoricity spectrum, the bodily motivation of gradable and dynamic metaphoricity, and the interconnected political discourse systems. Drawing on all the theoretical and empirical insights revealed in the dissertation, the final section of the thesis outlines a future direction, i.e., moving towards a transdisciplinary and dynamic approach to metaphor in political discourse analysis.

In recent years, the issue of reproduction has been increasingly thematized in Hungarian political discourse. This has not only occurred at the discursive level, but the government has also introduced new policies regarding reproduction and family life, thus new regulations have been introduced concerning the medical practice of IVF and other ART which have affected practices associated with infertility. The article aims to discuss the ways that policies and discourses shape the views of women struggling with infertility. The medical and political discourse seems to emphasize the responsibility of women in relation to fertility-related issues, despite the fact that the problem also affects men. Furthermore, with the increased surveillance of women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment, the importance of the latter’s self-reflexivity, discipline, and responsibility is emphasized. To discuss these issues, the article uses a multi-method approach. The primary data source is in-depth narrative interviews with IVF participants, supplemented by the analysis of political discourses about childbearing and infertility which help in the examination of how different policies and discourses shape individual experiences and desires. I argue that recent policies on IVF and related medical discourses and practices can potentially emphasize the responsibility of women. Women who cannot or do not want to reproduce may be presented as selfish or treated with pity, and these notions are intensified due to the government's explicit pronatalist agenda, which only supports those who conform to conservative heteronormative reproductive standards.

The analysis of cultural context in media texts can contribute to understanding how national images are constructed in the international media discourse. The image of a country is better understood by the audience of another country when it is introduced through familiar cultural concepts and well-known experiences so that specific, culture-bound elements of the other culture are brought closer to the target audience.The research provides linguo-cultural analysis of Russia’s portrayal in political media discourse in English-speaking countries drawing on the approach to political discourse as the process of production and interpretation of a text in meaningful political, social and cultural context.The study is aimed at exploring British and U.S.A. mass media to reveal typical features of the English-language political discourse concerning Russia and to find out how Russia’s image is constructed. In the course of the study we examined culture-bound lexicon in texts of various genres of political discourse in mass media focusing on Russia. Further, the use of Russian culture-bound items without translation in British and American mass media was analyzed, and such items were classified into categories according to their contextual functions.The results indicate that Russia is deeply integrated into the cultural context of the English-speaking audience; it can be said that Russia’s image in the Anglophone political media discourse is outlined with the aid of various cultural-bound associative, connotative and metaphorical links which are familiar for native readers and serve them as a bridge facilitating their understanding and interpretation of Russian culture.

The relevance of this study is conditioned by the comparison of the original texts (in Kazakh) and translated texts (in English) within the framework of the analysis of political discourse and translation analysis. The purpose of the study is to identify the features, patterns, and difficulties for translators to comprehensively assess the adequacy (quality) of the translation and recommendations for compilation to facilitate the translation process. The paper provides a comparative analysis of the modern Kazakh political discourse and its translation into English to identify the features of the translation of language tools, taking into account their pragmatic potential. The theoretical relevance and originality of this research are due to the considerably increased interest in the study of political discourse in the aspect of translation. A comparative approach in political discourse consisting of two languages can be a useful material for studying and comparing political discourse in each of the languages, as well as arouse interest in further research of translation in this language pair. The practical relevance lies in the fact that the presented results can be used in teaching courses of the following disciplines: onomastics, pragmalinguistics, terminology, political science, LSP (language for special purposes), and SPVE (special professional vocabulary of the English language). The materials of this paper can be useful in the field of international relations for international specialists, journalists, translators.

Drawing on recent Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) approaches that map text over relevant context as supported by Van Dijk (2006), in this research, it was tried to follow this research route. The main intention was to look at political discourse via the lenses of PDA to see whether ideologies and power relations of interlocutors in the target setting of this study could have possibly been aligned with linguistic elements-here rhetorical devices and to see to what extent such text-context mapping is recognized as relevant to language tools within the selected datasets. Accordingly, the researcher tried to follow a sample of political talk- live 2008 US presidential debates- among two Republic vs. Democratic campaigns. To do so, some political strategies for argumentation including Van Dijk’s model representing 'Authority', 'Topos or burden', 'Future Representations’, ‘Comparison', 'Consensus', 'Counterfactuals', 'populism’, 'generalizations', and 'number Games' were mapped over some linguistic rhetorical devices such as ‘metaphor’, ‘hyperbole’, ‘irony’, ‘euphemism’, etc. The common discoursal moves in Obama’s vs. McCain's speech statements were compared and contrasted among similar strategies to find any emergent rhetorical devices. Findings indicated that 1) the political candidates had made use of rhetorical and political moves in tandem within the same propositional units, 2) some employed discourse devices were paralleled with the majority of political strategies like repetition and metaphor, and 3) some political strategies had been used to excess like 'comparison’, 'populism' and 'future representation’ respectively.

The article is devoted to the analysis of emotional language as a key tool of political discourse that determines the nature of speech influence and the formation of public opinion. Emotional language is considered not just as an expressive means, but as an important mechanism for constructing meanings. In today's mediatized politics, emotions are becoming a powerful resource for influencing the electorate: they help politicians build trust, increase engagement, and evoke an emotional response from the audience. The research is based on the provisions of modern political linguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, which consider language as a tool of persuasion and manipulation. Using the example of Donald Trump's 2016 speech, it is shown that emotionally colored words and expressions perform the function of not only enhancing expression, but also structuring a political message, setting a framework of interpretation for listeners and forming a stable emotional image of a politician. The evaluation analysis model developed by J. Martin and P. White is used as the main method. Within the framework of this approach, all emotionally colored units of speech are identified, classified into three categories – affect (emotions), judgment (assessment of human behavior) and appreciation (assessment of phenomena and objects), and their quantitative and qualitative analysis is carried out. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time the model of evaluative analysis by J. Martin and P. White was applied to the study of emotional language in political discourse based on the material of Donald Trump's 2016 speech. This approach made it possible to identify patterns of the use of emotionally colored vocabulary and to determine its role in the formation of moral and ideological assessments. The analysis showed that emotional language performs not only an expressive, but also a strategic function – it is used to construct a political identity, mobilize support, create a positive image of a politician and discredit opponents. Special attention is paid to the category of judgment, especially its subcategory social sanction, reflecting moral judgments and social expectations. The results obtained clarify the ideas about the pragmatic potential of evaluative vocabulary and demonstrate its importance for shaping political influence in modern conditions. The findings of the study can be used in a comparative analysis of emotional language in different cultural and historical contexts.

Introduction. Political discourse analysis is a field of discourse analysis which focuses on discourse in political forums (such as debates, speeches, and hearings) as the phenomenon of interest. Discourse originating in political institutions can be subdivided into genres that are instrumental in policy-making and thus produced by and addressed to politicians and genres that communicate, explain, and justify political decisions, produced by politicians and addressed to the general public . This article investigates the role of translation and interpreting in political discourse. Purpose of this article is to define and characterize the linguocultural features of the German language in the political discourse and its translation into Ukrainian. Methods. In this study, the following types of research methods were used: descriptive method (by which the use of a certain type of translation was justified), transformation method (using this method, various types of lexical and grammatical transformations (transduction, descriptive translation, tracing) were investigated), statistical method (consists in counting the corresponding linguocultural units by thematic groups and by means of translation of realities). Results. Public speaking is a special form of language activity in terms of direct communication, a language addressed to a specific audience, ie oratory. Oratory is characterized by a number of features that determine its essence (the presence of the reaction of the speaker's speech, oral form of communication, the relationship between literary language and its oral embodiment, the use of various means of communication). Three approaches to the study of political discourse have been explored (descriptive, critical, cognitive). Originality of this study is due to the increased attention of modern linguists and translators to the study of non-equivalent vocabulary and socio-political realities in the political discourse of the German language and the methods of their reproduction in Ukrainian. Conclusion. Political discourse is an essential component of sociocultural communication, the main features of which are interests, goals and the formation of public opinion, which is necessary for the author of political discourse. The functions of political discourse include: information dissemination, agenda setting, projection into the future and the past. The most important function of political discourse is considered the function of political propaganda, persuasion and influence.

This article provides an exhaustive analysis of American and Russian political discourse through the examination of the linguistic techniques employed by President Joe Biden and President Putin in their speeches. The aim of this research is to examine the linguistic approaches employed in referencing social and political traditions in the United States and Russia, investigate disparities in linguistic strategies within both political discourses, and assess variations in semantic outcomes. The analysis has been conducted to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the linguistic methods of referring to social and political traditions in America and Russia? (2) Do the linguistic strategies differ depending on the political discourse? (3) Is the semantic output different depending on the political discourse? The findings reveal marked differences between the two discourses, reflecting the social and political discrepancies between the political systems of the United States and Russia.

The article focuses on the analysis of political discourse, which penetrates the modern society. Political discourse is made up by politicians. Under the framework of cognitive and communicative paradigm political discourse is a complex communicative phenomenon which is directly or indirectly aimed at distributing, exercising the political power and winning the majority of votes during election campaigns. The article yields the results of the analysis of communicative strategies in the political discourse of US President-elect Joe Biden during the presidential race and in his inaugural address. The focus is on the notion of persuasion, persuasive communicative strategies and tactics in political discourse. Persuasion, as a linguistic and cognitive process, is addressed to make a communicative impact on the addressee with the aim to convince him/her to support certain ideas. Persuasion is an illocutionary characteristic of persuasive communicative strategies. The research concludes that a persuasive impact on the audience is made by the tactics of contrast, generalization, reference to authority, and also myth-making. The tactic of contrast is based on semantic polarization. With the help of the generalization tactic the appeal to collective addressee as well as society solidarization are realized. The tactic of reference to authority is represented, on the one hand, by the appeal to religious context, on the other hand, by the appeal to famous historical figures. Historical background is also the basis for myth-making. The main pragmatic aim of the political discourse of US President is a call for unity and respect of democratic values.

The article is devoted to the specifics of the use of linguistic influence techniques by the American mass media involved in the bipartisan political discourse. The article provides an overview of research related to the confrontation in political discourse, as well as the direct involvement of the media in political processes. The conclusion is made about the bias of many modern media and their use of manipulative techniques to influence the audience. A brief historical summary is given of the two main opposition parties in the United States, the history of their emergence and the ongoing confrontation since then. The news releases of the pro-Republican Fox News channel (hosted by Jesse Watters) and the prodemocratic MSNBC (hosted by Jen Psaki) devoted to the re-election of Donald Trump were selected as the material for the analysis. The study uses the classification of communicative strategies in political discourse by O.L. Mikhaleva, as well as the «classic» American list of manipulative influence techniques. The article makes use of general scientific methods, descriptive method, method of discursive analysis, contextual analysis, interpretive method, methods of comparative analysis. The author comes to the conclusion that none of the presenters adhered to the standard of impartial news broadcasting, on the contrary, both actively used communication strategies in order to influence the public. The article describes the similarities and differences in the choice of manipulative tactics and techniques by opposition commentators, most of which are aimed at denigrating the opponent. The same political event is given a diametrically opposed assessment by media representatives, which makes it difficult for the voter to make a choice. The analysis of political confrontation discourse in American entertainment television shows seems promising in terms of further research of this topic.

The article is devoted to the specifics of the use of linguistic influence techniques by the American mass media involved in the bipartisan political discourse. The article provides an overview of research related to the confrontation in political discourse, as well as the direct involvement of the media in political processes. The conclusion is made about the bias of many modern media and their use of manipulative techniques to influence the audience. A brief historical summary is given of the two main opposition parties in the United States, the history of their emergence and the ongoing confrontation since then. The news releases of the pro-Republican Fox News channel (hosted by Jesse Watters) and the prodemocratic MSNBC (hosted by Jen Psaki) devoted to the re-election of Donald Trump were selected as the material for the analysis. The study uses the classification of communicative strategies in political discourse by O.L. Mikhaleva, as well as the «classic» American list of manipulative influence techniques. The article makes use of general scientific methods, descriptive method, method of discursive analysis, contextual analysis, interpretive method, methods of comparative analysis. The author comes to the conclusion that none of the presenters adhered to the standard of impartial news broadcasting, on the contrary, both actively used communication strategies in order to influence the public. The article describes the similarities and differences in the choice of manipulative tactics and techniques by opposition commentators, most of which are aimed at denigrating the opponent. The same political event is given a diametrically opposed assessment by media representatives, which makes it difficult for the voter to make a choice. The analysis of political confrontation discourse in American entertainment television shows seems promising in terms of further research of this topic.

Starting from the thesis that critical discourse studies, with their qualitative, critical and explanatory approach to the study of political communication, represent a valuable complement to the dominant approaches that privilege the positivist paradigm and quantitative research, in this paper we tried to provide more complex insights into the scientific contributions of these studies to the study of political discourse, through observing the specifics of their theoretical-methodological frameworks, analytical categories and interpretive procedures. For this purpose, some of the key features of Teun van Dijk's sociocognitive approach, Paul Chilton's cognitive-linguistic approach, Ruth Wodak's discursive-historical approach and Norman Fairclough's dialectical-relational argumentative approach were considered. In the introductory part of the paper, we provided an overview of the general distinctive features, main starting points and research interests of the critical analysis of political discourse, as well as an insight into the basic dilemma related to the scope of the content of the term "political discourse". The central part of the work consists of two complementary parts. In the first part, we started from the presentation of the analytical aspects of the following levels and dimensions of the political discourse structure: topics, superstructures or textual schemata, local semantics, lexicon, syntax, rhetoricand speech acts. Using an analytical-synthetic approach, we connected the semantic-grammatical dimensions of the textual level and the cognitive-pragmatic dimensions of the discursive level of production and analysis of political discourse. The second part of the central part of the work is focused on the presentation of the theoretical framework of the argumentative approach to political discourse, as a kind of upgrade and reframing of existing conceptual settings and analytical categories. In the concluding review of the insights reached in the article, as the main scientific contribution of critical studies of political discourse, we singled out the way in which is achieved the synthesis of systemic, but contextually sensitive textual analysis on the one hand, and descriptive, normative and explanatory viewpoints of critical social research, on the other.