Political Media Discourse Research Articles

Representations of the ethno-political situation in the North Caucasus in the regional media space

The article presents the results of a content analysis of regional media, that was conducted within the framework of a pilot study of the methodology developed by the authors for analysing the problems and prospects for the formation of an all-Russian identity in the North Caucasus. The purpose of the study was to determine the structure and content of representations of the ethno-political situation in the North Caucasus in the media space of the region. The relevance of ethno-political issues in the North Caucasus is due to the fact that this is a frontier region, which, due to its geographical location, ethnic, religious and cultural characteristics, is an arena of various internal and external challenges. Monitoring the ethno-political situation is an important area of ​​research, both in theoretical and practical terms. One of the technologies of such monitoring is the analysis of representations of the ethno-political situation in the political discourse of the region. The political discourse of regional media is a thematically focused, socially conditioned system of news, analytical, and prognostic materials in regional media that builds a political picture of the world. Representations are the content of information messages on media resources of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus. The documentary base of the study consisted of 1,656 information messages posted on leading information portals and in non-ethnic media outlets of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus Federal District in April–June 2023. Five semantic categories of analysis were defined: 1) the practices used to strengthen the all-Russian identity; 2) politicisation of ethnicity; 3) the influence of foreign diasporas of the North Caucasian peoples; 4) threats and risks in the sphere of humanitarian security; 5) threats and risks in the sphere of socio-political security. The analysis of representations of the ethno-political situation in the political media discourse of the region allowed us to determine what kind of worldview is created and constructed by regional media: 1) prevails positive content about new practices of forming an all-Russian civic identity in the region, new traditions and rituals associated with the heroes of the North Caucasus Military District prevails; 2) potential risks of destabilisation of the socio-political situation in the North Caucasus are associated with the impact of the information war on the population, primarily young people; the growing threats of increased extremist and terrorist activity; problems of religious security in the region, which are presented in the media space in a very fragmentary manner.

Linguistic expression of basic emotions in the modern English-language political media discourse

The article studies the linguistic expression of basic emotions in the modern political media discourse based on the material of the English-language media. The paper aims to identify the verbal expression means of basic emotions on the material of political articles from the English-speaking mass media. This aim is achieved by using the descriptive method, as well as lexical and semantic analysis, lexicographic and content analysis, discursive and grammatical analysis, stylistic and interpretive analysis. The article confirms the hypothesis that in the modern political media discourse lexical and stylistic means of linguistic expression of negative emotions prevail. The scientific novelty of the study is to identify the lexical features of basic emotions’ linguistic expression in the political media discourse in the XXI century. It has been established that along with the names of basic emotions, media texts use numerous synonyms for the names of emotions due to the various stylistic shades that they express. With their help, the addresser creates a certain emotional and psychological atmosphere in the media text, in which the addressee, who does not have critical thinking, forms the point of view necessary for the addresser. As a results of the study, it was revealed that the emotional nature of the presentation of information in media texts prevails over factual, especially in original articles. Theoretically, the results of the study contribute to understanding the role of emotions in political media activities, as well as establishing the connection of language with cognitive processes. Analysis of the verbal expression of emotions in different linguistic cultures allows us to trace how they are expressed and interpreted, and how they affect intercultural communication. In practical terms, the study of verbal expression of emotions in different types of media, primarily in a political media discourse, will create more effective media texts that will meet the needs and interests of both addressers and addressees. Also, the results of the study can be used in teaching courses in media linguistics, political linguistics, psycholinguistics and discursology. The perspective of the study is to identify grammatical and stylistic means of linguistic expression of emotions in the modern English-language political media discourse, i.e. in a comparative aspect.

Political media discourse in Russian, European and Chinese linguistics: A theoretical and analytical review of current trends

Political media discourse in Russian, European and Chinese linguistics: A theoretical and analytical review of current trends

Structural and semantic analysis of the concept union in political media discourse (comparative study of the English, German and Russian languages)

The article analyzes the semantic structure of the concept union by comparing its semantic markers for different European languages within the media discourse. The purpose of the article is to determine the features of individual meanings expressed through semantic markers in the media discourse of these languages and reflecting the uniqueness of the implementation of the concept union in semantic terms. When considering the features of meaning, semantic markers associated with the central concept are established; patterns of their frequency of use in the languages under study and factors influencing the transformation of semantics are determined. The interrelation of situations of communicative interaction and its influence on the realization of the specific meaning of the concept union indicate the high relevance of the study.The choice of linguistic means of implementing the concept and the role of the communicative situation in this process has a significant impact on the negative or positive assessment of the phenomenon itself. The research methodology includes elements of system analysis, linguistic description method, discourse analysis, semantic and component analysis. The study uses statistical data extracted from the corpus corresponding to the declared languages by automatic sampling according to the specified parameters.The authors conclude that the semantic structure of the concept is realized depending on the communicative situation by various semantic markers, which, with the similarity of structures in the course of historical development and various social experiences, have a divergence of meaning, which may later serve as a space for various kinds of semantic manipulations in modern media discourse. The peculiarities of the use of the concept union in politically oriented texts of the studied languages are also of interest.

Особенности реализации стратегий косвенной вежливости в рамках коммуникативных стратегий политического медиадискурса (на материале выступления М. Зедера в ток-шоу «Маркус Ланц»)

The article is dedicated to describing the features of implementing the category of indirect politeness in the speech of the German politician Markus Söder. The research objective is to identify the linguistic means of expressing indirect politeness within the framework of communicative strategies and tactics in the political discourse of the German language. The study describes the linguistic means of implementing indirect politeness in political discourse, specifically in political talk shows. The scientific novelty of the research is linked to the continuous development of political discourse, where the specificity of impoliteness under the mask of politeness within the framework of political media discourse is identified for the first time using previously unexplored material in the German language. The research results revealed that all three types of communicative strategies influencing political positioning are almost equally present in the politician's speech. Strategies of indirect politeness were also identified, with the most frequent being the strategies of using tautology and changing the addressee. These results indicate that despite the confrontational nature of political discourse, the politician is still able to maintain politeness, which explains his popularity among voters.

Realization of intertextuality in media-political discourse (based on the speeches of President Xi Jinping)

Realization of intertextuality in media-political discourse (based on the speeches of President Xi Jinping)

The linguo-pragmatic aspect of translating political media discourse

The linguo-pragmatic aspect of translating political media discourse

Strategies of consecutive interpretation in joint press conferences

This article deals with problems of interpretation of political discourse in joint press conference. Novelty of research is identified by the lack of domestic publications in the field of Translation studies on press conferences in the context of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. Article examines characteristic features of consecutive interpretation of political media discourse. The need of effective strategies that help to provide adequate interpretation is identified and justified. On the basis of the study the authors suggest that backgroundknowledge on communicative situation enables interpreter to solve tasks caused by time deficiency and different semantic structures. It is proved that use of compression, decompression and re-ordering string in consecutive interpretation is key to reach communicative equivalence in target text. Results show that juxtaposition of strategies in one discursive segment illustrates that inherent cognitive feature of interpretation process. Article consists of literature review, methods of research, description and analyses of research material.

Discursive means and tactics of forming the media image of the president of Russia in the German political media discourse

The relevance of the study is determined by the practical necessity of a systematic research of linguistic and pragmatic aspects of communicative tactics and discursive means actualization in forming the media image of V. V. Putin, the president of Russia, in the political media discourse during the period of aggravation of the information-psychological warfare of the collective West in regard to the Russian Federation and, in particular, to the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin, in the context of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. The authors aim to determine the communicative tactics and discursive means of forming the media image of the President of Russia, as well as to identify his media portrait in the current political situation in Germany. The present study offers a theoretical review of modern Russian and foreign studies, devoted to the definition of media image. The material of the present study is the documentary film “Putin – Der gefährliche Despot” (ZDF). The research is based on N. B. Ruzhentseva and O. L. Mikhaleva’s classification of communicative tactics and is carried out with the help of the methods of continuous sampling, discourse analysis, contextual analysis, as well as the method of quantitative calculation. The authors identify 17 main communicative tactics and discursive means of forming the media image of the President of Russia used in 80 contexts. The obtained findings allow to demonstrate the linguistic manifestation of the critical, distrustful and wary position of Germany towards Russia and V. Putin; the presence, to a greater extent, of predominantly negative judgments about the personality of the President of Russia and his activities in the political arena; Germany’s desire to discredit Russia and its President at the federal level in the eyes of its population through the use of a diverse array of communicative tactics and discursive means of speech influence.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ПЕРЕВОДА ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ БЕЗЭКВИВАЛЕНТНОЙ ЛЕКСИКИ В РАМКАХ МЕДИА- ДИСКУРСА (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ THE NEW YORK TIMES)

The article examines the issues of the non-equivalent vocabulary translation in the sphere of English political media discourse. Today, due to the processes of globalization and the expansion of the media space, the issues of translation of the non-equivalent language units in different spheres, including lexical units in the sphere of media discourse, become more and more relevant. Because of the rapid development of political relations between countries, new words appear in the media that may not have their exact equivalents in the target language, which becomes one of the most challenging tasks not only for the translator, but also for translation studies, lexicology, intercultural communication and other linguistic disciplines as a whole. The aim of this article is to consider the main problems and ways of translating the non-equivalent vocabulary of modern political topics, to analyze the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the translation of the non-equivalent vocabulary in the media discourse, and to draw conclusions about which translation techniques are the most common and adequate when translating the non-equivalent lexical units in the social and political texts of the media discourse. In order to achieve the aim in the article we have reviewed the existing classifications of the elements of the field of the non-equivalent vocabulary, provided the basic research terms, as well as analyzed the translation techniques, typical for the political texts of mass-media discourse. Having carried out a comprehensive analysis of the studied material, it is noted that if the lexical unit of a media discourse text belongs to the field of non-equivalent lexical units, the ways and the adequacy of its rendering is determined not only by lexical and grammatical transformations, but also by extralinguistic knowledge and the translator’s cultural grasp; the most difficult lexical elements for translation are political terms, jargon and emotive-evaluation vocabulary, the rendering of which is often determined by pragmatic aspect of the translation; the most common and adequate translation techniques were semantic development, compensation, descriptive translation, and contextual transposition.

Метафорическое моделирование образа президента США Джо Байдена в англоязычном политическом медиадискурсе

This paper dwells on the metaphorical representation of the image of the current US president, Joe Biden, in contemporary English-language political media discourse. The study aimed to describe and systematize the metaphorical models of Biden’s current media image as well as explicate its perception reflected in the national worldview of the native speakers of English. The article considers conceptual metaphor as one of the main image-creating tools in media texts having considerable pragmatic potential. A variety of scientific methods were used in the research: continuous sampling to select texts published from Biden’s inauguration to the present day; cognitive discursive interpretation of metaphorical models to describe their frame structure; component analysis to identify the source domain of the metaphorical expansion of some concepts and their contents (pragmatic meanings); classification method to systematize the models and their representations. The research results show a dominance of the metaphorical models that engender a negative image of the 46th US president in contemporary English-language media. These models actualize the negative signs of being too old, aggressive and unfit for ruling, as well as intellectual decay and some other negative traits of his image, which demonstrates a clear dislike of Biden in the English-language political media discourse and can indirectly cause corresponding reactions and attitudes towards him in society. The comparison of the subspheres of metaphorical expansion showed that the source domain Society has the highest productivity and a slight positive potential. This domain’s representations demonstrate an attempt at a positive conceptualization of Biden’s personality in American discourse. Furthermore, comparing the subspheres of metaphorization contributes to a better understanding of conceptual metaphor functions and common tendencies towards metaphorical representation of a political figure in mass media discourse.

ПРАГМАТИЧЕСКИЕ АСПЕКТЫ ЛИНГВОКРЕАТИВНОСТИ В ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОМ ДИСКУРСЕ АНГЛОЯЗЫЧНЫХ СМИ

The purpose of the research is to identify the discursive and pragmatic reasons for linguistic creativity in political media discourse. The author of the article defines the types of linguistic creativity in the political discourse of English media, reveals the influence of both pragmatic factors and modern English communication on the emergence of linguocreatems. The scientific novelty of the research is related to the desire to determine the linguistic creativity usage patterns in the political discourse of English media. The results of the research show that the reasons for linguistic creativity in the political media discourse are due to linguistic, communicative, socio-political factors.

Политическая медиариторика: системный подход к исследованию речевых практик политического медиадискурса

The article outlines a new integrated approach to the study of political media communications, represented as a separate discipline — political media rhetoric. The academic demand for media rhetoric as a new branch of media linguistic and rhetoric studies is determined by the growing interest to the rhetoric aspect of political media discourse and hence the necessity of introducing a complex systemic approach to its analysis. The theory of political media rhetoric is constructed on the basis of key assumptions of classical rhetoric, media linguistics, media stylistics and other disciplines related to the study of media discourse in the aspect of political communications.
 The article defines historical roots of the formation of media rhetoric,
 its academic goals, methodology, and its place within general structure of humanities. The subject of political media rhetoric is the actualization of different speech rhetorical practices in the sphere of political media discourse.
 The basic category of political media rhetoric is represented by a polycode multimodal rhetoric mediatext, functioning within the system of political media communications. The research potential of political media rhetoric has been analyzed on the material of public speeches of the French modern politicians. The conducted research shows that the terminology and methodology of political media rhetoric can be effectively applied as a complex systemic approach to the study of rhetoric media practices in the sphere of political media communications.

Deviant expansion of neoanthroponyms in the speech of social media users

The article analyzes modern ways of creating occasional anthroponyms in political media discourse as linguistic triggers of the slang level, aimed at modeling a certain type of perception of reality by the recipient, laid down and provided by the creator-speaking. The cause-and-effect relationships of going beyond the limits of the usus in the derivation of units in the historically conservative layer of anthroponyms are traced. There is a tendency towards active use of actual occasional and exotic word-formation patterns for derivation of derivatives. The orientation of derivational shifts towards the creation of pronounced invective lexemes and phrasemes in the context of the direct dependence of the degree of deviation on the expected communicative effect is stated. The exceptional significance for the described processes of action of structural-semantic analogies and associations with structurally similar lexemes from the normative dictionary is indicated. The processes of actualization of cognitive-affective triggers in recipients due to the connotative variability of non[1]derivatives have been investigated and described. The impossibility of establishing denotations of occasional derivatives in the case of their contextual isolation from a specific speech act is emphasized. Attention is drawn to the multiplicity of combinations of psycholinguistic meanings of derivatives and the blurring of their lexical semantics. The place of occasional derivatives-anthroponyms in modern political media discourse as deliberately used depressurizers of precedent statements is considered. The prospects for the development of the psycholinguistic aspect of occasional derivational processes for various communicative situations and spheres of human activity have been determined for the purpose of a comprehensive and more thorough study and description of the speech manifestation not only of an individual linguistic personality, but also of native speakers in general.

Дискурсивная личность политика в жанре американских политических дебатов: интертекстуальные отсылки как средство актуализации дискредитирующих тактик

The aim of the study is to identify the role of intertextual references as a means of implementing discrediting tactics in the discourse of an American politician – presidential candidate. The study is novel in that it is the first to consider intertextual references in media political discourse as an effective tool for the implementation of discrediting tactics based on a three-stage analysis of the discourse of debates within the framework of N. Fairclough’s model. In addition, the scientific novelty of the study consists in identifying the features of the speech behaviour of each of the political figures, including some gender-specific characteristics. In particular, it was found that gender differences between candidates can serve as a basis for the implementation of discrediting tactics. The results showed that the dominant types of intertextual references as a means of implementing discrediting tactics were reference, allusion and quotation. Speech aggression can be considered the leading communicative tone of the discursive personality of a politician participating in the debates. It was proved that the discursive personality of a politician influences the choice and nature of the implementation of communicative tactics.

USAGE OF ANTHROPONYMS IN MODERN GERMAN AND UKRAINIAN MEDIA DISCOURSES

The article is dedicated to establishing the peculiarities of using anthroponyms in modern German and Ukrainian political media discourses. The study materials were modern online media news from Germany and Ukraine during January-March 2023. Onyms in general and anthroponyms in particular occupy a central place in reference in the information flow. Proper names are undoubtedly an essential component of media discourse, as any complete message presupposes the presence of referents that are identified through anthroponyms, toponyms, or other types of onyms. When referring to anthroponyms in German and Ukrainian media practices, a similar set of collocations with anthroponyms can be observed: from maximal identification of the referent with attributive expressions to the use of traditional contextual synonyms. Nevertheless, certain features of reference to onyms in the analyzed political media texts can be observed. In German media linguistic culture, the use of elaborate anthroponyms is typical, where party affiliation, age, and other information can be indicated, which is obviously due to the desire for comprehensive identification of the actors. In Ukrainian media practice, there is a tendency towards shorter identification of anthroponyms In modern German and Ukrainian media texts, we observe the following principle of using anthroponyms: the headline provides minimal identification for actors, the opening provides maximum identification of the anthroponym, and in the text itself, reference to the anthroponym is made through the surname or other reference markers.

Политический медиадискурс как интеракциональное пространство: метадискурсивный аспект президентских телевизионных обращений к народу

The study of political media discourse as an interactional space requires an analysis of not only its linguistic characteristics and propositional content but also its metadiscourse component, strategies employed to express speaker’s attitudes and involve the addressee into a dialogue. This paper aims to identify tools exploited to realize the interactional metadiscourse strategies in the genre of Presidential New Year’s addresses to the nation. To achieve this goal, the study determines the types of metadiscourse used in the texts of New Year’s Addresses, their functions and frequencies. The texts of New Year’s addresses broadcast in 2001-2022 were used as the research material for the present study. The analysis of these texts identified five categories of metadiscourse used with different frequencies: intensifiers of the categorical of statments (boosters), mitigators of categorical of statments (hedges), explicators of affective state, self-mentions, and engagement markers. The study revealed that these metadiscourse devices predominantly serve the following communicative functions: explicate the speaker’s confidence in the truth of the propositional content, demonstrate solidarity with the addressee, explicate the speaker’s affective states, involve the addressee into a dialogue, indicate the speaker’s personal responsibility for the utterances. The analysis showed that the most frequent metadiscourse categories are boosters and explicators of affective states, the shares of which in the total number of metadiscourse categories were 53.7% and 28.3%, respectively. The findings allow for the conclusion that metadiscourse is a crucial strategy contributing to the interactive nature of political media discourse.

Неологизмы в политическом медиадискурсе: особенности перевода

The article is devoted to the study of methods and techniques of translating English-language neologisms of political media discourse into Russian. The authors point out the importance of three factors that are decisive in the analysis of neologisms – time, linguistic space and the novelty of the linguistic unit. The research material includes the texts of articles in English and Russian from the socio-political online publications The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Spectator, New York Post, Gazeta.ru, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Tsargrad, RBC news portals, Ria-news. A review of theoretical sources on the research problem has shown that neologisms reflect the most relevant trends inherent in a particular period of socio-political development. The authors note that neologisms are specific to a particular language space, since they are based on the conceptual values of representatives of a particular linguistic culture. Their important characteristic is novelty, because they express concepts that had no previous names, respectively, are not recorded in lexicographic sources. The article presents a comprehensive linguistic analysis of neologisms of political mass media discourse, including word-formation, etymological and translation, during which the authors identify the most productive word-formation models and effective ways of translating English-language neologisms into Russian. The authors conclude that the most common ways of forming neologisms are affixation and telescoping. Using the example of the analysis of the research material, the authors demonstrate that the basis of neologisms are proper names and common names, to which international prefixes or suffixes are added, which makes them recognizable. Among the methods of translation, the authors note transliteration with / without explication as the most effective.

Influence of spoken language in English-Speaking political media discourse

A great deal of attention is paid to the problems of political discourse because political discourse is the most frequently used event in society. The impact of speech on political discourse is discussed within the framework of political linguistics, pragmatic linguistics, discourse theory and psychology. The relevance of the topic of this article is due to the increased interest in the problem of manipulation of public opinion. As E. Siegel points out one of the clear manifestations of power is the monopoly on information and the right to speak. The ability of language to shape the worldview of the public plays a big role in the mentioned case. In this regard, one of the characteristic features of research in the field of political communication is that language is perceived as a means of achieving a pragmatic goal: to manipulate the addressee's cognition. Thus, we can talk about the strategy of manipulation. The great role of metaphors is noteworthy here. This article is devoted to the impact of speech with a metaphor, the source of which is the sports concept "loser". This metaphorical unit has a negative connotation and contains a strong emotional signal.

A Transitivity Analysis of Two Political Articles: An Investigation of Gender Variations in Political Media Discourse

The purpose of the present study is to use transitivity analysis to investigate gender variations in political media discourse from the point of view of male and female columnists. To attain this purpose, this paper adopts a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Halliday’s theory of transitivity process types. Literature shows that gender variation is one of the key elements affecting language. However, variation in gender studies, particularly in article writing, has not been recently addressed in relation to transitivity analysis. To scrutinize types of transitivity involving material, mental, relational, verbal, existential, and behavioral processes, qualitative and quantitative methods were deployed to achieve a deep understanding of transitivity process types. Paired Sample T-Test has also been employed to investigate whether there is a significant difference in gender variations pertaining to frequencies of process types of transitivity. The results revealed that the material process has been the most frequent process used by female and male political columnists and has highly dominated the discourse in both articles. In addition, the finding showed that there is no significant difference in gender variations pertaining to the frequencies of process types of transitivity. Analyzing participants’ roles and circumstances elements could provide more pertinent data for further research.