Linguistic and Cognitive Features of English-Language Political Discourse

Abstract

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that pluralism, dialogism, and a new model of political communication have forced a change in the way power communicates with society. Nudity, formulaic newspeak has been replaced by expressive texts subordinated to the function of persuasion. Nevertheless, there are many publications in the scientific literature describing the shortcomings of contemporary English-language political messages. Political discourse has been accused of vulgarity, banality, and arbitrary presentation of reality, bias, use of templates and stereotypes, excessive aggressiveness and incorrectness. There are various forms of public discourse characteristic of democracy, which are characterised by certain constant features. Political discourse has its characteristics. Each political environment develops certain kinds of communication under the influence of relevant experiences. Discourse is one of those concepts in the social sciences characterised by exceptional terminological confusion. This is because it is an area of interest of different methodological sciences. Based on English-language studies of the phenomenon, the term is also the result of a clash of linguistic traditions with a more recent English-language understanding. Discourse analysis becomes an attempt to remedy the shortcomings of the linguistic and cognitive aspects, consisting in studying language in isolation from practical human experience and trying to find internal structures and dependencies in a language only in a theoretical dimension, on imagined examples. Its axioms include language as a holistic system integrated with the speaker's knowledge of the world and society. This system has to be described in linguistic, cognitive, and social terms, together with the conditions in which the speaker uses it during the discourse. The practical significance lies in identifying the linguistic and cognitive features of English-language political discourse.