STYLISTIC DEVICES IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article considers stylistic means in political discourse on the examples of modern and past Ukrainian and foreign politicians’ speeches. The topicality of the research is defined by social significance of political discourse in the life of the community. The term “political discourse” is determined as coherent oral or written text, expressed through both verbal and nonverbal means, which directly depends on the situation of political communication in combination with pragmatic, socio-cultural, psychological and other factors. A “figure of speech” (also called “stylistic device” or “rhetorical device”) is commented on as a modification of the usual or expected sequence of words, grammatical structure of the text, the use of any of a variety of techniques to produce an auxiliary meaning, idea, or feeling. The definitions and examples of “metaphors” (especially those related to war, sports, family, and nature), “personification”, “repetition”, “simile”, “allusion”, “synechdoche”, “hyperbole”, “emotive language”, “balance”, “inverted phrases”, “rhetorical figures” (rhetorical appeals, questions, assumptions, exclamations, statements), “gradation”, “ invective” and “poetic devices” (irony as one of the ways of comic perception of reality, which contains a hidden mockery of facts or people; satire as sharp, sensitive ridicule of vices, errors, negative phenomena of reality, a sharp, scathing mockery; sarcasm as malicious, scathing mockery, caustic irony; humour as benevolent laughter, aimed at exposing certain defects of human character or inconsistencies in people’s lives, in their behaviour; word game as a means of artistic expression that functions in language as a joke, created on the basis of polysemy, homonymy and similar sounding words) are given in the context of political discourse. “Sustained (prolonged) metaphor” is enlarged on with relation to the problem researched. Factors influencing the choice of political discourse strategies and tactics are commented on, namely – a personality of a politician and their function in the political system and the addressee of communication.