POLITICAL DISCOURSE AS A MEANS OF DEVELOPING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE

We reviewed the theoretical aspects of the study of discourse in
the English language. We also studied the very concept of this
term and adhere to the following definition: “discourse is a text
that consists of communicative units of a language – sentences
and their associations into larger unity, which are in continuous
semantic connection, which allows to perceive it as an integral
entity”. In modern linguistics discourse can be ranked into 3 main
classes which correspond to all sorts of national traditions and
innovations of specific authors. The first class is directly
linguistic use of the term. The second class of understanding the
term “discourse” in recent years has gone beyond the scope of
science and has become widespread in French scholarly
journalism. The third class of the use of the term “discourse” is a
separate perfect form of communication, embodied in the
maximum possible removal from social reality, the
communicative routine of authority and traditions, and aimed at a
critical discussion and justification of the views and actions of the
participants in communication.
Discourse theory is one of the newest areas of linguistic theory
but there are more questions than answers. The main
problematics of this part of the theory of language is considered
the theory of reference, that is references to persons and objects
in the discourse. Turning to the history of discourse, we found
that from the beginning of the 60s of the last century, the word
“discourse” gradually began to acquire a philosophical meaning,
and the semantics of this word began to change over time.
However, the set of basic meanings remains without significant
changes which in turn had a huge impact on the emergence of
other meanings and gradually led to an increase in the scope of
the concept of this word. It is important to clearly understand the
features of the functioning (use) of the concept of discourse in
various fields and areas of humanitarian knowledge, only so we
can rationally consider the magnitude of the meaning of this
phenomenon, referring primarily to the data in the dictionaries,
which can define the general structure of the meanings of this
word. The main parameters of discourse, such as worldview,
channel of empathy (rational, intuitive, emotional), motives and
goals, etc., are considered. Political discourse necessarily
becomes official, both in terms of content and in terms of style,
often copied by the media, which, in turn, cover the work of the
above-mentioned services and institutions. It is important to note
that the discourse described can be calculated as biased, racist or
stereotyped, depending on the political party and political
context. In itself, the definition of political discourse may seem
ambiguous and contradictory, but if you try to give a literal
meaning, it can be formulated as follows: political discourse is
what policy says. political discourse as a special class of genres,
limited to the social sphere, in particular, namely politics. The
speeches of politicians, government discussions, party programs,
parliamentary elections are those genres belonging to the sphere
of politics. E.I. Sheigal revealed two major concepts in political
discourse: the concepts of “Power” and “Politician”. She
identifies seven fundamental parameters of political discourse. Y.
Erfurt in his work “Political Communication, Political Discourse
and Political Text” asserts that political communication as an
activity has a predominantly social direction and has many
characteristics. When analyzing the texts of political discourse, it
is important to take into account not only linguistic factors
(lexical and grammatical features of the text, the phonetic
structure of the text), but also extralinguistic factors (assessment
of the participants of the event, background explaining the events,
circumstances accompanying the events described in the text).
Often, researchers of political discourse focus on the
characteristic expressive elements used in this type of discourse.
Many of them contain in their semantics irony, anger, sarcasm,
and the most unusual, insult. Political discourse is somewhat
similar to religious. Note also the peculiarity of the language of
political speech as a language of promises. B. Norman notes that
political discourse is characterized by significant language
features (features) like cliches, evaluative vocabulary and so on.
Therefore, political discourse – the discourse of manipulations
and promises.
Keywords: discourse, communication, political discourse

Anna A. Lugareva
South Federal University
Rostov-on-Don, Russia
e-mail: anlug@bk.ru