COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGIES AND TACTICS OF ARGUMENTATION IN THE ELECTORAL DISCOURSE OF JAVIER MILEI

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the study of communicative strategies and tactics of argumentation used by the candidate for the post of President of the Republic of Argentina Javier Milei in his election speeches during the 2023 election campaign, as well as the analysis of the linguistic means used for their implementation. The study is based on communicative-pragmatic, semantic-cognitive and contextual analyses of political discourse, which allowed to reveal the value aspects and possible interpretations of language in a particular context, as well as to determine the speaker’s pragmatic intentions.
The study analyzes the linguistic means of implementing communication strategies and argumentation tactics in Javier Milei’s election speeches and reveals the prevalence of the following tactics: self-approval, opposition (self-presentation strategy), consideration of the audience’s values, irritation, solidarity (integration strategy), accusation, insult (strategy of discrediting the opponent), agitation and argumentation (strategy of discrediting the opponent).
The article also describes the peculiarities of using specific linguistic units, taking into account their connotative meanings and their specificity in the linguistic and situational context. The article studies 7 election speeches by Javier Milei, freely available on the Youtube platform, in each of which the use of 7 key words and phrases was studied, namely: libertad, dinero, moneda, inflación, Banco Central, casta, ladrón. The frequency of use of each of these words and phrases in relation to the total number of words in each speech was also calculated. 
The analysis of the implementation of communication strategies and tactics in the political discourse of the Argentine politician shows the effectiveness of four main communication strategies: self-presentation to create one’s own positive image, integration of the politician into the political and cultural life of Argentine society, discrediting the image of the opponent and convincing the electorate and encouraging certain political and legal actions. The effectiveness of the chosen strategies and tactics depends on the choice of lexical means based on the moral and material dominants of the Argentine worldview.