Political Media Discourse Research Articles

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.

The resilience of monarchies in the Greater Middle East: The lightning rod effect, crackdown on protest, and patrimonial links

The paper examines the factors that allowed the Greater Middle East monarchies to survive the protests known as the “Arab Spring”. The author considers the popular argument in scientific and media-political discourse about the culturally conditioned legitimacy of the Middle Eastern monarchies, and also presents several cases of successful anti-monarchist revolutions in the region (Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen). In addition, the work develops the idea that it can conditionally divide all the monarchies of the Greater Middle East into two types: individualistic and clan. The paper shows that patrimonial ties, which have been carefully built over several decades, are an important element in the stability of monarchies.

When understanding becomes an insult — to the question of semantics and the role of the neologism “Putinversteher” in the political media discourse

The study is devoted to the political neologism “Putinversteher”. A comprehensive analysis of the language material was carried out: in addition to content analysis, the work contains wordformation, stylistic and semantic types of analysis of neologism based on media publications from the end of 2013 to 2018. In order to double-check and complete the data, in addition to the archival materials of the publications, corpora of news texts were used, primarily the Leipzig Corpora Collection and the corpora of the digital dictionary of the German language (Korpora im DWDS). The chronological framework of the study is determined by the historical and political context and the maximum frequency of mentions of the word and its derivatives in this time period. The selection of sources was carried out on the basis of the principles of media relevance in the system of the mass press and the number of mentions of the word. As part of the semantic analysis, the cognitive and pragmatic components of the meaning of the lexeme “Putinversteher” were determined and the interpretative field of the concept “understanding” was characterized. The study showed that the neologism “Putinversteher” is found mainly in the artistic and journalistic and analytical genres of journalism. The nominative function of the lexeme “Putinversteher” is complemented by significative, evaluative and expressive functions, which allows us to consider neologism as a metaphorical frame that conceptualizes a certain political vision. The use of neologism in a media text serves not only to enhance the expressiveness of the text, but also is a tool for shaping public opinion, when complex socio-political processes are “compressed” to a pre-established judgment, fixed in the meaning of the newly formed word. An inevitable consequence of the widespread use of such neologisms is the simplification of complex political phenomena, the creation and consolidation of certain stereotypes (frames) in relation to socio-political actors and the establishment of a legitimate ideology.

POLARIZATION IN MEDIA POLITICAL DISCOURSE ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

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.

PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF EUPHEMISMS IN POLITICAL MEDIA DISCOURSE

PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF EUPHEMISMS IN POLITICAL MEDIA DISCOURSE

Analyse der Wiedergabe von Kulturspezifika des politischen Mediendiskurses von angehenden Diplomaten und Journalisten

The paper focuses on certain aspects of intercultural communication in professional political contexts. With this aim the authors seek to analyze culture-bound elements in German political media discourse, determine their specific role and place in the language system as well as point out the eventual pitfalls on the way to translating them into Russian. Another important point of discussion in the paper is the importance of translation skills for international relations experts: journalists and diplomats. By following the relatively new academic trend of analyzing the use of language in professional contexts, the authors hope to cover a somewhat uncharted territory with this work. The study was aimed at identifying the difficulties that future diplomats and journalists face in solving practical problems, in particular in the process of translating professionally oriented texts. The methods employed include analysis of scientific literature, description, polling and questionnaires, quantitative data assessment and systematization. The primary experiment was conducted under participation of 57 Russian-speaking master students of MGIMO University: future diplomats (65 %) and journalists (35 %). The students were tasked with translating six German texts into Russian in writing, the text in question originating from various German media outlets such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, Der Spiegel, Deutsche Welle as well as mitmischen.de, the German parliament’s web site for the younger people. The resulting Russian texts were primarily evaluated based on the translation of the 56 German realia (mostly represented in the original text by proper nouns, such as personal names, toponyms, names of political offices, etc.). In accordance with the classification of Ch. Nord the mistakes were divided into pragmatic, cultural and formal groups. The quantitative analysis discovered that cultural mistakes constituted the majority of them. The reason is the lack of correlated denotations in both cultures and of sufficient lexicographic sources. A possible solution to overcome the emerging difficulties is the creation of a digital guide of culture-bound elements of political discourse.

Прагматический потенциал базовых лексико-грамматических категорий в жанре «политическая email-рассылка»

The article examines basic lexico-grammatical categories of modality, temporality and personality contributing pragmatic functions in political direct email genre. There is the lack of research that has explored the language means forming these categories in the new multimedia genre of political discourse. The study aims to identify common to all genres of political media discourse and specific to political direct email genre lexico-grammatical means of expressing modality, temporality and personality. The data of research are lexical and grammatical units used for representing modality, temporality and personality in the political direct email genre by continuous sampling method. This study is based on the methods of contextual and linguo-pragmatic analysis. The main types of modal meanings in political direct email genre are necessity need, should), obligation (must) and possibility (may). The credibility of the statement is ensured by the derivative modal words really, clearly, truly. In the political direct email genre reference to the present and future tenses is expressed both grammatically (the present and future tenses) and lexically (lexical markers ‒ today, now, still). Other lexical means of conveying temporality are direct temporal nominators (time, year, month, week, hour, by age of …, deadline + date ) and indirect indicators of temporality (once, soon). in political direct email genre. Personal pronouns represent a number of pragmatic purposes: create a positive image, express personal opinion, show the significance of being involved in the events, exclusion of the addressee from the mentioned events, indicate special achievements and institutional identity, express ‘other’ opinion.

Особенности конструирования гендерной идентичности в современном политическом медиадискурсе Германии (на примере прозвищных наименований женщин-политиков)

The aim of the study is to identify the features of gender identity construction in the modern political media discourse of Germany by the example of women politicians’ nicknames. The article discusses the main strategies for creating the gender identity of women politicians in order to form their positive or negative image. The scientific novelty lies in the research of women politicians’ nicknames as a means of constructing masculinity and femininity. As a result, it has been found that a positive image of politicians correlates with the sphere of masculinity, however, women politicians tend to compile the features of male and female communication styles in their political activity.

THE SPECIFICITY OF LANGUAGE STYLE IN MEDIA-POLITICAL DISCOURSE

In media-political discourse, the implementation of certain tactics and techniques of realizing manipulation from the stylistic aspect of the language is important for consideration. Nowadays, there are lots of social media platforms where people can get information from, and in all senses, the same event, specifically political, happens to be illustrated differently by journalists to hold the interest of the reader depending on their intention. Those tactics and techniques can be used to make speech richer, more impressive and powerful in nature. At the same time, those devices are used to manipulate the crowd and gain as many supporters as possible by persuading to follow them and gain more click baits. In this paper, our object of investigation is the analysis of media articles through the linguo-stylistic method of analysis, via which, we will be able to detect those expressive means and stylistic devices that can be manipulative in the context of the articles.

Мультимедиальность американской политической email-рассылки: гибридные и поликодовые медиатексты

The research is focused on the study of a political direct e-mail as a multimedial genre of political media discourse as for the last decades of the XXI century e-mails have become one of the most popular ways of communication establishment within the groups of politicians and electorate in the USA. The aim of the study is to identify the genre, structural, semantic and stylistic linguocultural markers of American political direct e-mail to make it possible to attribute political e-mail messages to the genre of political media discourse, to distinguish between the formal and substantive components of this kind of media texts, and to identify the models of hybrid texts broadcast by e-mail. The empiric material consists of the text corpus of political direct e-mails in English addressed to the United States residents during the 2016-2020 election campaigns. Based on the discursive analysis, the correlation between the verbal and nonverbal components of political direct e-mails is established. The integration of both verbal and nonverbal components makes a certain structure of the printed media text. Within the framework of this study, we distinguish the signs of both individual and mass communication in political direct e-mails. Communication between the sender and the receiver in direct e-mails is based on the strategy of their identity. It is achieved by including personal pronouns, lexical units emphasizing the personal nature of correspondence, the use of direct address, rhetorical questions, facts from biography and personal photos of candidates during election campaigns, etc. in the texts of the political direct e-mails. In the future, it is planned to consider the strategies and tactics of the addressee of American political e-mail messages, to establish universal and specific linguistic and cultural markers of influence on the addressee.

Metaphor in political media discourse as the object of translation

Metaphor in political media discourse as the object of translation

Political media discourse and linguistic means of realizing its intentions

Political media discourse and linguistic means of realizing its intentions

Multimodal Means of Intensifying the Evidential Impact of Political Media Discourse

Multimodal Means of Intensifying the Evidential Impact of Political Media Discourse

Actualization of the opposition “friend - foe” in paroemias (Based on Chinese political media discourse)

Actualization of the opposition “friend - foe” in paroemias (Based on Chinese political media discourse)

Modern Forms of Discrimination in the American Political Mediadiscourse

Modern Forms of Discrimination in the American Political Mediadiscourse

Emotives in the speech of linguistic personality of the politician in the US and Russian media discourse: comparative analysis

The relevance of this research is substantiated by the growing importance of the emotional aspect of modern media communication discourse, as well as the by the fact that linguistic personality of the politician in the realities of current electoral systems of the United States and the Russian Federation can be an instrument of emotional impact upon the audience, first and foremost with the use of emotive lexicon. The goal of this article lies in description of the results of comparative study of emotives in the US and Russian media discourse, determined in the speech of linguistic personality of the politician. The research material leans on media speeches of the candidates for the presidency of the United States and the Russian Federation, covering the period from May 2016 to April 2018. Methodological framework is comprised of the linguoecological and emotionological approaches, namely the linguistic theory of emotions of V. I. Shakhovsky, who outlines the three semantic statuses of emotivity of the lexicon. It is established that linguistic personality of the politician in the US and Russian media discourse is actively and diversely represented via emotive lexicon. However, the degree of intensity of emotional manifestations of linguistic personality of the Russian politician is greater than the verbal manifestations of the US politician. The determined emotives and their frequency in the speech of linguistic personality of the politician in the US and Russian media discourse are a new achievement for the discursive linguistics, pragmalinguistics, and emotionology. This research contributes to the development of psycholinguistics, political linguistics, and media linguistics, as well as further study of emotives in the political media discourse of different linguistic cultures from the comparative perspective.

Metaphoric Power as a Culturally Determined Characteristic of Discourse

In the process of intercultural communication, it is important not only to identify the features of the communicative behavior of representatives of a certain ethnic group, but also to comprehend their nature. Research in cognitive linguistics can help meet this challenge by expanding the understanding of the relationship between language, culture and thinking. One of the tools for rethinking this relationship is metaphor as a cognitive phenomenon, reflecting the culturally conditioned experience of human interaction with the outside world in linguistic form. The purpose of the article is to study metaphoricity as a culturally specific characteristic of discourse. The key method used in the research was the complex analysis of metaphoricity of discourse aimed at the comprehensive study of the functioning of metaphorical models in the text. The method is based on the calculation of a set of indices: the strength of the metaphor (according to K. de Landtsheer), the functional typology of metaphors, the external and internal metaphoric power of the text. The material of the research included texts representing political, official and mass media discourses in Russian, Chinese and English, with a total of 255,119 words. The metaphoricity of the texts was determined by calculating the indices, which made it possible to quantitatively measure the intensity, density and dominant functions of the metaphor. As a result of calculating the indices, it turned out that the metaphoricity of texts attributed to the same type of discourse in different languages, while united by common pragmatic and extralinguistic characteristics, differs: texts in Chinese have a higher density of metaphors. It was revealed that this dependence is culturally determined. It is concluded that the higher density of metaphors in the Chinese language is explained by the specifics of the Chinese linguaculture represented in different aspects of the language, as well as the construction of Chinese discourse. Its specific features are first of all determined by the syllabic type of the Chinese language and the verbal-syllabic type of hieroglyphic writing, and, secondly, by the peculiarities of Chinese cultural thinking. The increased metaphoricity of discourses in Chinese also correlates with the collectivist type of Chinese culture and its long-term orientation.

A frame analysis of political-media discourse on the Belt and Road Initiative: evidence from China, Australia, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States

The article seeks to unpack the increasingly polarised discussion on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and provide a holistic understanding of it by identifying the diverging interpretations in the form of frames and analysing the competing framing practices of actors figuring prominently in the debate. To that end, this study leverages conceptual insights from cultural framing and content-analyses a purpose-built corpus of political and media communications on the BRI gathered from China, India, the US, Japan, the UK and Australia. It first identifies, reconstructs and juxtaposes 14 culturally-embedded frames along five dimensions: China’s intensions (Ploy, Zero-sum game, Equality), the BRI’s implications for other countries (Bane, Lopsided, Boon), compliance with high standards (Below par, Qualified yes, Up to par), outcomes (Bumpy ride, Catchall, Off with a bang), and linkage to the past (Old wine in new bottles, Historical legacy). A subsequent deductive analysis, along the lines of the 14 frames, sheds light on the core claims constituting China’s discursive legitimation of the BRI, the salient difference between Chinese officials and foreign political-media elites, the continuity or change in the position on the BRI taken by foreign governments and their justifications, and the increasing critical coverage by foreign elite media.

Образование неологизмов в медиаполитическом дискурсе современного английского языка

The purpose of the research is to identify the most productive ways of neologism formation in the modern English-language media-political discourse. The research is novel in that it is the first to study and classify neologisms formed in the political media discourse in 2018-2020 in accordance with political trends to provide a comprehensive picture of how the English language has changed over the past few years. As a result, the researchers have determined productive ways of neologism formation, described their grammatical and semantic features, and identified thematic groups of neologisms that reflect the current socio-political situation.

Censorship and self-censorship in the modern political media discourse of the USA and Russia: comparative linguocultural aspect

This article is devoted to studying of the phenomenon of censorship and self-censorship in the modern American and Russian political media discourse. The authors analyse the pre-election speeches and the publications in the social networks of K. A. Sobchak and V. V. Zhirinovsky, as well as of D. Trump and H. Clinton. The purpose of the article, which consists in conducting a comparative linguocultural study of the mechanisms of censoring and self-censoring information in the modern American and Russian political media discourse, is achieved by using a comparative method, linguocultural analysis, a complex method of lexical and semantic, stylistic, interpretive, and emotive analysis. The analysis of the material shows that traditional forms of censorship in Russian political media discourse are not identified, but they can be found in the media space of the USA, causing a relatively weak public reaction among the communicators. In media space of the USA and Russia, the absence of formal external censorship restrictions leads to the updating of self-censorship to maintain the integrity of the manifestations of the language personality of a politician. Censorship in modern American and Russian media environment lies in such a structuring of information, that deliberately prevents the addressee from interpreting the information in an undesirable way. Self-censorship in modern media environment of the USA and Russia is characterized by an increase of the volume of information and the relative preservation of its valuable aspect. In addition, media discourse can be implicitly censored by filtering the comments under social media publications or by artificially increasing the number of approving reactions to them (by getting «cheat likes»). Self-censorship may use some features of the response to visual elements, when the picture and text supplement each other, causing the desired for the addressee emotional response. Hypertext can also direct the emotional response in the desirable direction, referring to the beneficial for the addressee elements of media discourse.