Socio-political Discourse Research Articles

IMPLEMENTATION FEATURES OF THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

The authors determine the features of the introduction of the concept of sustainable development into the socio-political discourse. The research methodology is based on the political analysis of various views of researchers concerning mechanisms and ways for implementing sustainable development. As a result of the study, the authors made conclusion that the implementation of the concept of sustainable development carry out non-linearly and requires a radical revision of relations with the natural system, finding new mutually beneficial models of cooperation between business, civil society and a state, increasing their environmental responsibility, developing innovations and overcoming the problem of the glass ceiling of environmental modernization. The reverse side of the introduction of the concept of sustainable development in the interests of the West and large financial alliances through the mechanism of creating debt of developing countries, putting them in a deliberately losing position and leading to economic stagnation, is analyzed. The authors present own vision of the transformation and implementation trends of this concept in the world. The present research can be used as a theoretical basis in the development of effective mechanisms for the realization of the concept of sustainable development in the Russia.

A Pragmatic Study of Selected Humorous Discourse by Nigerian Stand-up Comedians

One primary communicative goal in humour is entertainment. Nevertheless, other pragmatic implications result when humourists subconsciously deploy various linguistic strategies, as they entertain their audience through the use of witty sayings crafted in contextualised, real or imaginary scenarios. Following Grice’s Cooperative Principle, this study investigates deeper communicative effects achieved by Nigerian stand-up comedians. It pays attention to cases of the flouting of Gricean maxims, and examines the speakers’ discursive motives. Five texts sourced from three distinguished Nigerian stand-up humourists are presented for analysis, given their thematic focus on trending national socio-political discourses. Findings show that maxim flouting is fundamental to creating humour, as all four maxims are flouted, with some utterances flouting more than one. The maxim of quality is flouted the most, thus emphasising its pivotal role in creating humour. Evidence for this is provided in the comedians’ heavy dependence on hypothetical illustrations, exaggerations and understated realities. In addition, instances of incongruous expressions, narrations and manipulation of news reports serve to contextualise humour. Humourists deploy their art to satirise and challenge the national socio-political status quo, thereby subtly revealing their personal ideologies. The work proves further that irrespective of time, audience or context, comedians use the same linguistic tools to amuse their audience while also advancing claims that humour is an expressive use of language, as a vehicle to canvass for social change. Keywords: Pragmatics, Humour, Socio-Political Discourse, Maxim, Communication

The problem of countering political extremism in the Russian Federation in the early 1990s.

The collapse of the USSR marked the collapse of the former state order. The former Soviet republics faced such destructive phenomena that seemed simply unthinkable in the conditions of the former socialist way of life. Associations and groupings became sharply active in the political arena, the participants of which expressed aggressive hostility to the changes taking place in the country. The purpose of this article is to use various materials (normative legal acts and draft laws, periodicals, statistical data, Internet resources, as well as research literature) on the basis of a comprehensive use of various materials to identify the main problems and contradictions of the state policy aimed at countering political extremism in the first post-Soviet years. The subject of the study is a holistic political and legal process aimed at the development and adoption of adequate anti-extremist legislation. For the most complete disclosure of the problem posed, problem-chronological, formal-legal, institutional and systemic approaches were used. The scientific novelty of the research lies in an attempt to comprehend the state-legal policy aimed at combating various forms of political, national and religious radicalism as an integral and, at the same time, extremely contradictory strategy, which was implemented in the context of the crisis situation in the country. The acquired knowledge will allow us to better understand the changes that have occurred in the understanding of political extremism at the state and legal level in subsequent years. The formation of anti-extremist legislation in post-Soviet Russia was complicated by the confrontation in which all branches of government were involved. Even after overcoming the "crisis of dual power" and the adoption of a new Constitution, the Russian state was in a state of division, which made it difficult to develop and adopt a law on combating extremism. In the mid-1990s, the opinion prevailed in the socio-political discourse about the increased threat from radical nationalist (fascist) formations with the dangerous inaction of law enforcement agencies. These attitudes influenced the President and Parliament, who were the main subjects of the legislative initiative. Excessive politicization of the legislative process made it significantly difficult to develop adequate solutions. The situation was exploited by radicals who continued their illegal activities unhindered. Thus, the problem of countering political extremism did not lose its relevance in the second half of the 1990s and can serve as a subject for further study.

“Warheit wil gesaget sein”

Abstract This article examines the link between politics and poetry in Sibylla Schwarz’ work. In various texts, the author negotiates socio-political discourses on the hierarchical society, the position and appreciation of poets, as well as on her self-image as a woman and as a female writer. Poetry and the creation of poetry permeate her texts on a thematic level. Literature, however, is also her tool and means of expression with which she challenges injustice and false values and thus inscribes herself in the discourses of her time.

Political Disputes in the Structure of A. Solzhenitsyn’s novel “In the First Circle”

The article is devoted to the analysis of socio-political discussions in A. Solzhenitsyn’s novel “In the First Circle”. The “playwriting” of dialogues and polylogues on political topics has received an original compositional embodiment here and is based on the mobile, acutely conflicting interaction of various speech flows. Political disputes acquire a moral and philosophical dimension in the work, push the interlocutors to historical assessments and prophecies about the future social structure. Episodes of situational mass disputes are combined with individualized, lengthy and conceptually rich discussions, which often have their own compositional preliminaries and “afterwords”. The article examines in detail the substantive and rhetorical aspects of conversations and clashes involving Rubin, Nerzhin, Sologdin, Gerasimovich, pays attention to uncle Avenir’s political strategies, internal disputes, the evolution of Volodin’s social views, the positions of Galakhov, Radovich, Clara Makarygina. Paradoxically, it is the prisoners’ disputes that show in the novel the highest level of moral, intellectual, and political freedom, unthinkable for the social climate of the Stalinist decades. In the structure of the novel, explicit political battles and hidden, forcibly suppressed social differences form a holistic, branched macro-plot in which, despite the pressure of the totalitarian system, individual and collective social reflection continues to pulsate.

Deanthroponymic Contaminants as Objects of the Language Game (Based on Material from Spanish-Language Media)

This article is devoted to the study of anthroponymic occasionalisms and contaminants – lexical innovations created on the basis of anthroponyms – used in the Spanish-language media as part of the communicative strategy and creative potential of the language game realized in the course of the dynamic process that is characteristic of modern Spanish socio-political discourse. The objectives of the article are: a) to identify models of this method of word formation, and b) to establish the types of relations that appear between the components of the abovementioned derived words. Anthroponyms selected by random sampling from internet publications were studied, considered as objects of the language game, on the basis of which, as a result of deliberate word making, occasionalisms– contaminated formations that express, in addition to nominative meaning, expressiveness and emotive colouring – are created. The following methods were used in our analysis of the material: component analysis of the word; the word-formation method of studying transformational techniques; contextual analysis, which allows us to identify the communicative parameters of the use of language units and the contextual features of the implementation of their meaning in the text; the descriptive-analytical method to identify the essential characteristics and features of the linguistic facts under consideration against the background of extralinguistic factors; and the classification method and the method of linguistic and stylistic analysis, focused on identifying the specifics of individual word usage due to the communicative and aesthetic tasks of the author of the text. The relevance of this study is due to the attention of linguists to axiological issues, the increasing regularity of the use of language play in the media space in particular, and contamination as one of the means of expression in the Spanish-language media at the present stage, using anthroponyms as an object. Anthroponymic contaminated formations are becoming more common and diverse, and there is a need to systematize their models and study their structure and semantics. As a result of the examination carried out on a certain array of initial data, semanticstylistic and axiological functions of contaminants – mainly defamatory, invective – are established in accordance with the pragmatic goals of the author of the text. The models of creating anthroponymic contaminants by both occasional and conventional means of word formation are identified and systematized.

PRAGMALINGUAL MEANS OF INFLUENCE ON THE AUDIENCE IN MASS MEDIA

The purpose of the research is to reveal the synergistic relationship between methods of psychological manipulation and media texts of socio-political discourse in well-known English-language media resources. The possibility of intensifying the influence of media texts due to the use of pragmalinguistic means at different language levels (from lexico-semantic to morpho-syntactic) has been studied. As a result of the analysis of a large number of academic works on the problems under investigation, it was found that the function of influencing the recipient of information and even manipulating public opinion is the essential function of a media text, and using pragmalinguistic means is one of the most powerful tools for implementing this function. The empirical part of the work was carried out in the translation center LinguoStar of Sumy State University, which made it possible to fullfill a quantitative analysis of translation transformations on the way to the equivalent transfer of various speech means of manipulative influence in English-language media texts of socio-political discourse, which outlines the broad equivalent possibilities of the Ukrainian language in the translation process. The practical significance of this study can be used to improve the qualifications of journalists and translators in the field of media linguistics.

The American elections - 2024 in the Canadian socio-political discourse

The American elections - 2024 in the Canadian socio-political discourse

Программа «Официальная помощь в целях безопасности» Японии: цели и перспективы в условиях новой геополитической реальности

The article analyzes the new program of the Government of Japan – “Official Security Assistance” (OSA). Its key concepts were published in April-July 2023. The purpose of the implementation of the OSA program is to create a group of ‘like-minded countries’, which share foreign policy priorities of Japan, primarily regarding China and Russian Federation, bilateral relations of Japan with these countries have deteriorated in the second decade of the 21th century. Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Fiji were selected as OSA recipient countries in 2023. The author analyzes numerous national security-related international cooperation programs of Japan, and compares OSA with the similar program aimed at socio-economic support for developing countries – “Official Development Assistance” (ODA). The author also determines the level of participation of Southeast Asian and Oceania countries in the above-mentioned international programs of Japan. The analysis of the socio-political discourse shows that the implementation of the OSA program may be held at the same time with the revision of the basic documents restricting the export of weapons from Japan. Other negative outcome is connected with strengthening of global negative perceptions of Japan as a country that has departed from the former principles of pacifism. The negative consequences of the OSA for the Russian Federation include the potential expansion of the pro-Japanese bloc in terms of number of member state, as well as the decision to include Ukraine as OSA recipient country.

ЭВОЛЮЦИЯ ПРЕДСТАВЛЕНИЙ О СУЩНОСТИ МЕСТНОГО САМОУПРАВЛЕНИЯ В ОБЩЕСТВЕННО-ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОМ ДИСКУРСЕ

The article analyzes the socio-political discourse of local self-government in the post-Soviet period of Russia’s development. The aim was to study the transformation of ideas about the functions of local government in the socio-political discourse of 2014-2023. The research method was quantitative and qualitative content analysis of texts. As it turned out, in the associative series with the concept of “local self-government”, word forms associated with the meanings of local democracy, civil society, democracy, and political participation of citizens were least used. To a much greater extent, the concept of local self-government turned out to be associated with concepts describing it as local public administration related to the performance of the function of providing services to the population, solving socio-economic problems. As a result of the study, the hypothesis was confirmed that the idea of transforming local self-government is the lowest link in the system of public power has support in political discourse. In the public consciousness, the function of this institution as a “school of democracy” was almost completely replaced by the idea of it as a “grassroots” management unit, engaged mainly in providing services to the population and solving socio-economic problems. Such a painless rejection of the democratic component in a broader context confirms the hypothesis that the formation of local self-government in the first half of the 1990s was not democratic, but politically situational in nature, associated with the interests of a relatively small number of actors, the lack of formation of local communities in the post-Soviet period, and the weakness of the “middle class”, therefore unable to become social the base of local government. This gave rise to the objective inevitability of the subsequent evolution of the institute of local self-government into the “lower floor” of the regional public administration system, bringing the “superstructure” institute of political management in line with its basic basis.

Editorial: Centering Hope and Organizing for Justice by Integrating a Sociopolitical Discourse

Editorial: Centering Hope and Organizing for Justice by Integrating a Sociopolitical Discourse

PRAGMATIC DEVIATIONS IN TRANSLATION OF LEXICAL BLENDS WITHIN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

The research touches upon the innovations in the English word formation processes, i.e., the role of analogy and intralingual borrowings as significant sources and ways of replenishing English vocabulary, interfering entirely with all the languages in the world and greatly influencing their development. Nominative units consisting of two or more words with a contraction of at least one of them at the place of a junction, i.e., blends, are an integral feature of the English language in general and modern English socio-political discourse in particular. Blending has been growing recently among the most productive means of word formation. Blends are needed to denote new concepts and phenomena and are often used to manifest the author’s word-formation skills; they become popular due to their expressiveness and novelty of form and content. The goal of the article is to study the functional features of blends as a means of strengthening the pragmatic component of the socio-political discourse, as well as the strategy and techniques of their translation. The general and special methods were used to achieve the goal and objectives of the study: information retrieval method – to select research material and process basic theoretical knowledge; generalization method – to highlight the most critical academic positions; deduction and induction – to clarify the theoretical foundations, generalize data and formulate conclusions; discourse analysis – to identify specific communicative and pragmatic features of socio-political communication; contextual and functional methods – to actualize the linguopragmatic meaning of the lexical units under the study, i.e., blends; the vocabulary definitions analysis – to examine their linguopragmatic peculiarities; structuralsemantic and component analysis – to determine the ways of blend formation and their main structural elements – all this is necessary for the implementation of translation analysis. The use of pragmalinguistic elements (blends, in our case) involves investigating relationships between language units and the conditions of the communicative-pragmatic space, tracing the relationship between the addressee’s intentional component and the choice of language means when translating the studied units within the socio-political discourse into another language. Conclusions. Regarding the focus of socio-political discourse on speech influence, the conveying of blend stylistics and the transfer of speech realia that form the basis of the blend implication and strengthen the socio-pragmatics of the given text cause difficulties in comprehending the English original and translation variants. The study of the translation aspect of blends within socio-political discourse revealed a lot of challenges, such as the need for a unique means for conveying blend semantics in the translation language, the complex nature of blend explication, and the problem of their interpretation. Among the translation techniques that are most effective in overcoming the outlined translation difficulties of socio-political blends, such ones should be mentioned first: transcription, transliteration, tracing, and creating an analogical model. The descriptive translation method is considered inappropriate when translating political blends (under research) because such a technique does not allow conveying pragmatics of blends and implement them in the translation language as expressive lexical and stylistic units that are components of speech influence on the addressee, and the society as a whole. The principles of the techniques studied in the article can be used for further research as being universal for translating English blends in inflectional languages (Ukrainian including), where such a phenomenon is non-typical. The process of blending hypothetically proves the activation of the redistribution of components within the different language structures and systems and their ability to self-reorganize.

AUDIENCE-GENERATED FEEDBACK ON CONSPIRATORIAL CONTENT ON FACEBOOK AND REDDIT IN SERBIA

Conspiracy theories are a ubiquitous phenomenon in the socio-political discussion. By trusting these theories, society justifies possible events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Through mixed methods research, the article seeks to provide the amount of page-generated and user-generated conspiratorial content that links chemtrails with the COVID-19 pandemic, along with audience-generated feedback on social media content. Facebook and Reddit have been chosen for this research because of their inherently contrasting approaches to content regulation. Facebook’s content moderation tools lacked the impact to remove misinformation, as only 8% of content was flagged as false information. Additionally, even if researched subreddits had two times the amount of relevant content in comparison to relevant Facebook pages, most of the content had 0 upvotes, meaning that the content was either negatively received or lacked adequate support. Serbian-speaking Facebook users expressed support for conspiratorial content on this platform, while Serbian redditors used conspiratorial narratives to ridicule conspiracy theorists. Likes were the most utilized type of feedback on content of relevant Facebook pages, while comments were the most utilized type of feedback on content of relevant subreddits. The importance of this research lies in understanding what conspiratorial narratives try to imply through social media and how the audience interprets and communicates with this content. Keywords: conspiracy theories, social media, chemtrails, pandemic, COVID-19

On the Way to Institutional Synthesis: To the Rehabilitation of Bukharin in Chinese Science

The article discusses the evolution of Nikolai Bukharin’s perception in Chinese scientific and socio-political discourse during the years of implementation of the policy of reform and opening up. The Maoist historiography described a prominent figure in the international communist movement, N.I. Bukharin as a person who distorted Marxist-Leninist teachings. As the policy of reform and opening up unfolded, Chinese historiography rehabilitated the historical image and legacy of N.I. Bukharin. There was a part of broad discussions among Chinese social scientists and economists regarding the interpretations of Marxist-Leninist teachings that accompanied and formed the essence of the political and ideological justification for the reforms. Sometimes the obvious parallel between Deng Xiaoping’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and the New Economic Policy (1921–1928) of the USSR is explained by the fact that Deng Xiaoping was inspired by the latter during his years in the USSR. The historical rehabilitation of Bukharin, in which the PRC was certainly ahead of the USSR, is associated with the interest of Chinese politicians and political economists in the New Economic Policy (NEP). It is difficult to prove a direct relationship between the Soviet NEP and the policy of Chinese reforms, and historical parallels are unlikely to be fully correct. But based on the Chinese material involved, we will show that Bukharin’s views, born in discussions about the NEP and reached the level of discussions about the essence of socialism, inspired Chinese political economy to search for new formulations of economic policy goals. Without the latter, the success of institutional reforms would be questionable due to their weak ideological legitimacy.

Утопия, война, постапокалипсис: образ СССР в зарубежных и российских видеоиграх

Introduction. The article is devoted to the study of the representation of the image of the USSR in foreign and domestic video games. The main purpose of the study is to examine the specifics of the impact of video games on the historical memory of the Soviet past. Theoretical analysis. The study was based on the hypothesis that video games in the conditions of mediatization and digitalization of public consciousness turn into one of the significant factors in the formation of historical memory. The research interest in the representation of images related to Soviet history in video games is conditioned by the policy of returning the Soviet heritage to the Russian ideological and socio-political discourse. Since Soviet history, and primarily the period of the Great Patriotic War, has become a significant element of contemporary Russian memory politics, there is a need to analyze the specifics of the images of the USSR constructed and broadcast by both domestic and foreign video games. Conclusion. As the study has shown, foreign video games are characterized by a predominantly negative image of the USSR based on Cold War stereotypes. Domestic video games broadcast various images of the Soviet past, which can be considered as a tool for reflection on the history of the Soviet Union and working through the historical trauma associated with its collapse.

Axiological Foundations of Russian Statehood: “Truth” and “Justice” in the Domestic Ideological and Political Discourse

The concept of “truth” as a valuable spiritual and political category is constantly present in Russian spiritual and political writings from antiquity to the present day. But in the 18th century, there is an important transformation of this concept in the domestic ideological and political discourse: Under the influence of the Western European tradition in Russian socio-political writings of the state, conservative-educational and radical-educational trends, there is a gradual transition from traditional concepts, including the concept of “truth”, to such concepts as “justice” or “common use”. Thus, it acquires a significance that persists, including in modern political science literature. However, the concept of “truth” in its traditional meaning does not disappear at all from the socio-political discourse of the 18th century, but is used mainly in fiction, primarily in poetry, and in the writings of the traditionalist-Orthodox trend. A similar conclusion was made possible by an original methodological approach: the analysis of the works of the authors of the 18th century. It was carried out on the basis of the search database of the National Corpus of the Russian language, while in total more than 800 texts created in 1701-1800 were studied, in which the words “truth” and “justice” were used. In addition to the general scientific methodological apparatus, the main research methods were content analysis and political-textual analysis.

The Patriotic Education Policy Within the Framework of Belarus and Russia Union State: The Potential for Institutionalization

Patriotic issues have been becoming now the focus of socio-political discussions and management practices. Multilayered challenges and determinants of world political development actualize the interrelation of internal and external tasks corresponding to ensuring national security, identity formation and achieving national consolidation. Patriotic education is gaining fundamental importance as one of the main directions on this path. Its constitution as an autonomous sphere of state policy implies the need to improve the previously established mechanisms and regulatory framework. Additional opportunities and tools are also available in the sphere of integration cooperation between the Russian Federation and its closest ally, the Republic of Belarus. The basis is a set of pro-integration factors that stimulate the humanitarian dimension. The institutionalization of the patriotic education policy is considered as a dynamic process of formalization and ordering of the corresponding expectations and intentions, clothed in the norms of national law and integration institutions. The normative and organizational elements characterizing its state and potential within the Union State are analyzed. The incompleteness of legislative institutionalization in the domestic dimension and the absence of specific integration regulations in this area are emphasized, which follows, among other things, from the institutional design peculiarities of the participating countries and the amorphous model of Russian - Belarusian integration, which does not have clear conceptual parameters and methodological foundations. The creation of a union system of patriotic education largely depends on the improvement of the overall integration system, including by deepening its institutionalization and the introduction of integration law.

Pro-liberalism vs. Nationalism: how critical opinion leaders challenge the persuasive effect of propaganda in China

In Chinese cyberspace, mass media and opinion leaders struggle over socio-political discourses. While the former propagates positive views on national policies, the latter often expresses dissenting opinions that challenge authoritarian rule. In the context of China–US competition, do citizens still perceive non-state sources as more credible? Taking the Belt and Road Initiative as the issue, this experimental study investigates how Chinese netizens process conflicting information from a government-owned news agency and two opinion leaders with varying levels of source credibility. Our findings reveal that high-credibility propagandistic news is effective, whereas low-credibility propaganda is not. Furthermore, an opinion leader perceived as independent surpasses government propaganda in influence, regardless of information credibility. However, when an opinion leader is perceived as backed by a rival nation, the former’s influence is counterproductive unless their message credibility exceeds that of propaganda. This study sheds light on the prevalence of nationalistic sentiment in China, which has raised concerns about the manipulation of Chinese netizens by hostile forces.

Metaphorization of German socio-political discourse

The emergence of new phenomena and concepts determines the constant need for new means of cognition, nomination and evaluation — a process in which metaphors traditionally take the leading place. The article is devoted to the processes of replenishing the actual vocabulary of socio-political discourse through metaphorization as a means of secondary nomination. The subject of the study is the metaphorical character of this part of the modern German lexicon and the processes of metaphorization that took place in the German-language socio-political discourse during the last decade. The object of the study was lexical units selected from publications in modern German-language media. The paper describes the functioning of topical metaphors in the social sphere, domestic and foreign policy, economy, education, modern technologies, and ecology. The processes of metaphor migration between different spheres, as well as the expansion and specialization of their meaning are presented. The linguistic material is considered first of all in cognitive and nominative aspects and is analyzed according to several criteria: conceptosphere, belonging to parts of speech and language of origin, structural and functional characteristics, word-formation potential. Special attention is paid to the description of conceptual (cognitive), figurative and expressive-evaluative metaphors, as well as the anthropocentric nature of metaphor. The article analyzes a number of so-called «leading metaphors» of modern socio-political discourse, which, due to their high frequency and manipulative use, have lost their metaphoricality over time and undergone significant semantic changes. The problem of manipulative nature of some metaphors, the issues of morality and political correctness of their use are discussed. Theoretical considerations are illustrated by actual linguistic material, which is a cross-section of a particular stage of language functioning and allows us to study its dynamic and creative essence.

«MIGRATION CRISIS» THROUGH THE LENS OF UK INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL AGENDA

The article addresses the features of the «migration crisis» in Britain, the signs of which began manifesting itself almost as soon the country had left the EU in 2020. It is exactly the reduction of net migration that could, as the Brexiters hoped, score some points, in the eyes of the public and politically, that the withdrawal from the EU brought about positive changes due to the cessation of participation in the European Single market. In fact, one of the keynote campaign slogans – «take back control» – was never implemented, having morphed into the task of «stop the boats». The unprecedented increase in the number of illegal migrants was provoked both by imperfect asylum policies, unprepared for new challenges, and by legal gaps in the cooperation with the EU in terms of readmission and combating human trafficking. The author examines the government’s response to the «migration crisis» in two aspects. Firstly, the article looks into the changes the governments led by Johnson and Sunak, respectively, proposed to the migration legislation. An increasingly harder line on the asylum rules has become a trigger for public debate and internal party struggle, but also for legal proceedings. Secondly, the migration issue has become an important item on the international agenda of London. The government’s attempts to find reliable and legally defensible mechanisms for the removal of irregular migrants, including agreements with Rwanda to resettle asylum seekers, come into conflict with new political and legal arrangements with the EU and international humanitarian law, and adversely affect Britain’s image as a responsible international actor. It is concluded that the fight against illegal migration has become a top priority of socio-political discussions and the most important task for the Conservative Party ahead of the 2024 general elections.