STYLISTIC DEVICES IN XXI CENTURY ENGLISH PRESIDENTIAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to analyze the peculiarities of the use of stylistic devices in the dominant political discourse of the last two decades, in particular, the presidential English-language discourse, which represents a strongly argumentative type of discourse. The significance of the research is determined by the growing interest of researchers in the phenomenon of political communication and its mechanisms and the importance of an in-depth study of these mechanisms.

Political discourse is a complex system of correlated linguistic and sociocultural signs aimed at influencing the audience. A specific social and cultural environment determines the choice of stylistic devices while constructing the political discourse. There is a wide variety of stylistic devices. Each of them has a special persuasive power since it synthesizes linguistic, cognitive and pragmatic competences with regard to culture, history and ideology, effectively enabling politicians to create the desired public opinion and emotional background, to influence the intelligence and will of the audience members.

By analyzing the addresses of American presidents of the aforementioned period, the main stylistic devices observed in the research material (metaphor, comparison, epithet, periphrasis, personification, hyperbole, metonymy, parallel syntactic constructions, antithesis, allusion) and the specifics of their functionality are presented. We defined the main models of stylistic devices, the frequency of use; We made their content-thematic classification and pragmatic interpretation. The wide range of stylistic markers used by the country's most successful politicians when conveying different types of political messages indicates the high oratorical art of the politicians.

Keywords: political discourse; presidential discourse; stylistic devices; stylistic analysis.