ОСОБЕННОСТИ ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЯ ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИХ ПРИЕМОВ В ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОМ ДИСКУРСЕ (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ АНГЛИЙСКОГО И РУССКОГО ЯЗЫКОВ)

Научная статья
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18454/RULB.6.39
Выпуск: № 2 (6), 2016
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Аннотация

В данной статье освещены проблемы перевода политических текстов с учетом лингвистического, психолингвистического, социокультурного факторов, а также представлены наиболее эффективные лингвистические приемы, играющие важную роль при функционировании политического дискурса. В качестве объекта исследования выступают инаугурационные речи 2000 и 2004 годов В.В. Путина в целях выявления определенных дискурсивных сегментов, основных стратегий и тактик.

Problems of proper translated compliance of political texts with Russian-English and English-Russian language pairs require taking into consideration political communication, which is characterized by the existence of such components as political situation, author’s aim, specificity of text perception by addressee and others. For achieving an aim, the author uses some special linguistic modes. In some linguistic theories there are problems which complicate the translation process: linguistic, psycholinguistic, lingual sociocultural, didactic.

In the process that is concerned with linguistic problems there should be noticed the breach of some rules about referential and pragmatic meanings from one language into another, that is the discrepancy of language signs in lexical and stylistic levels: e.g. pre-election gathering in open space. The translator, who hasn’t managed to decode and interpret the meaning of the word “open space” will use the linguistic mode – omission: pre-election meeting. Similar mistakes influence a text structure and the translation quality. Lingual sociocultural problem can also lead to a low-quality, irrelevant to original translation because of misunderstanding of some realities and traditions, moral values of people:  The Senate may vote on the governor’s confirmation during the lame-duck session.. In this case the collocation “lame-duck” should be translated descriptively as it represents the reality demanding an explanation.

There can also be used some recurrent constructions, i.e. special type of set idiomatic expressions, characterized by innovation, and also by their situational and chronological relation to an actual event. The construction one-armed advisors, in its literal translation, has the meaning “single-handed counselors (with one hand only)”. But the given example proves the contrary of this construction: Just give me one-armed advisors. Don’t give me any more people who tell me “on the one hand, on the other hand”. Only deflation of political discourse events can make us realize that the fact is not in advisors’ reluctance to bear responsibility for resolving problems.   

Phraseological units can be regarded as a special type of set expressions, connected with social and political life of the country in political discourse of contemporary English:  kid-gloves policy as “moderate, safe policy”; running mate – Am. “a candidate for vice-president post”; divide the House – Parl. “to conduct a roll-call vote”. Their functioning in speeches of politicians is determined by the basic requirements of political discourse: expressiveness and implicitness. Thus, lingual socio-cultural problems as well as linguistic ones in their full sense are defined as the source of possible difficulties which a translator has to solve by taking those decisions that minimize potential problems.

Another case that is considered to be the most effective means to influence addressee is semantic repetition. Most researchers, such as V.U. Kazakova, L.G. Nevskaya, F.D. Perevozchikova, A.A. Potebnya, G.G. Polishchuk and other scientists addressed to the problem of semantic repetition, having revealed its types, characteristics and functioning.

Semantic repetition plays an important role in political discourse functioning, the main of which is suggestive function, or a function of persuasion, influence. Its importance is linked to the intensifying-disjunctive, actualized effect that occurs with any repetition of language units, and special parts of the content. Semantic (meaningful/substantial) repetition has different implementation. Firstly, it is realized in tautological repetitions that occur with repeated usage of the same linguistic units: morphemes, words, phrases or sentences. Secondly, semantic repetition emerges with the usage of phrases, sentences or foreseeable parts of the textual linguistic units, having semantic community in terms of expression, realized in the phenomena of semantic equivalence.

From this point, there can be presented an analysis of inaugural speeches of Vladimir Putin (2000 and 2004) in order to see the dynamics of political discourse genre organization. In the microsegments of underlining the importance and solemnity of the moment there can be presented references to the recent history and the delineation of Vladimir Putin’s responsibilities as president. But it is possible to see clearly defined discursive segments in the speech of V.Putin (in 2004), typical of the texts of this genre.

The main strategy, as well as in any text of ritual genre, is the strategy of forming emotional spirit of the recipient, which is also characterized by tactics of unity and solidarity and tactics of value orientation of the recipient. Tactics of unity and solidarity in V. Putin’s speech is realized primarily through the repetition of 1st person singular and plural pronouns. It is interesting to note the particular usage of pronouns in every inaugural speech of Vladimir Putin. Let’s compare his speech in 2000: “we” in different grammatical cases – 14 times, “our” – 7, “I” – 12, “my” – 1, and 7 cases of sentences with the verb in 1st person plural (e.g. Can assure, Want to thank). The president’s speech in 2004: “we” is used 14 times, “our” – 5, “I” – 5, “my” – 1 and 6 sentences, which imply the subject “I”. Predominance of plural pronouns and sharp reduction in the usage of pronoun "I" in the nominative case is noticeable in his later speech (compare, in 2000 – 9 cases, in 2004 – 1). Moreover, in the text of his inaugural speech in 2004 the pronoun “we” is amplified with words that convey in its meaning the seme of unity (we are together, we are with you).

In realization the strategy of forming emotional spirit of the recipient, the tactics of recipient's value orientation can play an important role, which is implemented primarily through lexical tautological repetition of key words, denoting nation-wide values (democracy, free, development), phrasal tautological repetition (democratic government, political stability), root tautological repetition (development – to develop, success – successful, the economy – economic), semantic repetition (growth – development, success – prosperity). But the most important value that the Russian president often names is Russia itself – in the text of both speeches it occurs 19 times, moreover, other nominations for Russia are used: The Russian Federation, the Russian State  2 times, the Motherland  3 times, our Homelandour state. V. Putin  declares the great significance of the Russian state for him, saying that he must fulfill the covenant of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, "Take care of Russia", it is his main presidential duty. Thus, repetition of concepts, denoting the value dominants, emphasizes the fundamental idea of his inaugural speech in general.

In Putin’s speech there is also realized the informational-interpretive strategy, and it belongs to the group of strategies that retain the power. Realizing this strategy, the politician not only impartially delivers the information but picks up the necessary aspects and expresses his attitude, thus affecting the addressee. Realization of informational-interpretive strategies is not typical of the ritual genre and in Putin’s inaugural speech it is only characterized by tactics of explanation (1) and emphasizing positive information (2). Compare his speech in 2000: In fact, the first time in the history of our country, in the Russian history ever,  the supreme power in the country is passed in the most democratic, the simplest way, by the people’s will, legally and peacefully (2). In realization of tactics (2) there can be involved lexical tautological repetition of keywords of microsegments (for the first time, Russia, democratic), anaphoric lexical (most democratic, the simplest way) and phrasal tautological repetition (ever...), and also other non-repeated text elements with positive semantics ( legally and peacefully), which also emphasize the main idea of the passage.

In the inaugural speech of the Russian president there is also implemented the agitation strategy, which is characterized by tactics of appeal and promises. Let’s compare realization of the tactics of promise: (1) I understand that I take great responsibility and know that the head of the government in Russia had always been and will always be a man who answers for everything. (2) The president’s responsibility to keep the country safe and serve the nation faithfully will remain sacred for me.

The promise is always aimed at the future, that is why the realization of tactics of promise is associated with the verbs in the future tense, and verbs occurred in the structure of the repetitions.

Explicit expressions are not common for inaugural speech of the Russian president, for the purpose of realizing the tactics of appeal (e.g. traditional form of appeal and the usage of verbs in imperative mood). There used some other forms of realization, the ones that include the appeal to the Russian people in implicit form: (1) Each of us has his own experience, his own views, but we must be together, we will do a lot jointly. (2) We shall cherish our achievements, keep and develop the democracy. The tactics of appeal is realized here with the help of synonymic verbs must, shall or the noun duty. But they don’t apply only to the addressee, but to the president himself or all the Russian citizens along with the president (We shall).

Thus, it can be concluded that there can be used different linguistic modes in political discourse. But the peculiarities of the Russian political discourse consist in the realization of separate tactics. This way the tactics of considering the addressee’s set of values is notable for lexical fullness. Lexical realization of the most significant concepts varies according to intentions of the author, genre and linguistic-cultural peculiarities. In addition, in realization of different tactics in the speech of V. Putin, the repetitions take the most important place either in terms of quantity or typology: lexical, phrasal, root, tautological and semantic repetitions, and syntactical parallelism. As a result of long-term political and economic instability in Russia, there was formed the everlasting distrust towards the government that politicians must get over. This has a great impact on realization of some tactics. Functional analysis of the semantic repetition in the Russian president’s speech revealed the linguistic features that characterize political discourse in general, irrespective of its genre differentiation.

Список литературы

  • Казакова В. Ю. Семантические повторы: универсальное и национальное. Современные проблемы языка и литературы / В. Ю. Казакова. – Саратов, 1996. – С. 168-171.

  • Koch B. Repetition in discourse: cohesion and persuasion / B. Koch. – Oxford, 1996. - 350 p.

  • Lyons J. Linguistic Semantics: an introduction / J. Lyons. – Cambridge, 1995. – 236 р.