scholarly journals Evolution of Russia’s ‘Others’ in Presidential Discourse in 2000–2020

Author(s):  
Veera Laine
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2(2)) ◽  
pp. 121-150
Author(s):  
Ruslan Saduov

Presidential discourse is an indicative of axiological and other developmental vectors of a linguocultural community. It informs one about the main social, cultural, economic, and political changes in a country. In this respect, the annual State of the Union Address in the USA and the Address to the Federal Assembly in Russia are seen as the highlights of the political calendar in both countries, as these statements summarise the most relevant issues and enable their respective leaders to elaborate on their vision of their nation’s future. This paper aims to analise and compare the axiological vectors developed in the given presidential addresses in both Russia and the USA in the period from 2009 to 2015. It traces not only the most relevant values promoted by the political leaders, but also any axiological changes that occurred in the eventful years under investigation. The results of the research inform one about the current axiological identities of the linguocultural communities in question and the changing vectors of their development.


Author(s):  
Viktoriia Kozlova ◽  
Hanna Tarasenko

The paper focuses on the investigation of lexical-semantic features of ethnic tolerance representation in modern American presidential discourse. Linguistic studios interpret tolerance as a universal category that forms communication, affects its mechanisms and results. In this paper ethnic tolerance in American presidential discourse is defined as a compliance of the addresser and addressee of the presidential discourse with the ethical model of interethnic relations and popularization of this model that aims at society consolidation. Ethnic tolerance is manifested through an unbiased assessment, acceptance of different worldviews, faiths and cultures, awareness of equal rights and respect for democratic freedoms. The set of semantic components of the concept of tolerance in the English language is distinguished and four lexico-semantic groups representing ethnic tolerance in American presidential discourse: “culture of the alien”, “cooperation”, “attitude to the alien”, “right to independence” are identified. These groups are singled out given the dominance of semantic components of tolerance which denote the object of tolerance, the form of relations with the object of tolerance, the attitude to the object of tolerance and the right of the object of tolerance. The verbal representation of ethnic tolerance in American presidential discourse is characterized by non-categoricity, the use of plural first person pronouns and vocabulary with positive and negative connotation to emphasize positive intentions towards other states and nations. Taking into account the functional and stylistic components, the language means of ethnic tolerance are represented by political, legal and diplomatic terminology. The analysis of the lexico-semantic means that represent ethnic tolerance in modern American presidential discourse makes it possible to identify the basic value of this type of discourse and clarify the main features of the implementation of the ethnic tolerant behaviour.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalia Hamed

Purpose The purpose of this study is to apply a corpus-assisted analysis of keywords and their collocations in the US presidential discourse from Clinton to Trump to discover the meanings of these words and the collocates they have. Keywords are salient words in a corpus whose frequency is unusually high (positive keywords) or low (negative keywords) in comparison with a reference corpus. Collocation is the co-occurrence of words. Design/methodology/approach To achieve this purpose, the investigation of keywords and collocations is generated by AntConc, a corpus processing software. Findings This analysis leads to shed light on the similarities and/or differences amongst the past four American presidents concerning their key topics. Keyword analysis through keyness makes it evident that Clinton and Obama, being Democrats, demonstrate a clear tendency to improve Americans’ life inside their social sphere. Obama surpasses Clinton as regard foreign affairs. Clinton and Obama’s infrequent subjects have to do with terrorism and immigration. This complies with their condensed focus on social and economic improvements. Bush, a republican, concentrates only on external issues. This is proven by his keywords signifying war against terrorism. Bush’s negative use of words marking cooperative actions conforms to his positive use of words indicating external war. Trump’s positive keywords are about exaggerated descriptions without a defined target. He also shows an unusual frequency in referring to his name and position. His words used with negative keyness refer to reforming programs and external issues. Collocations around each top content keyword clarify the word and harmonize with the presidential orientation negotiated by the keywords. Research limitations/implications Limitations have to do with the issue of the accurate representation of the samples. Originality/value This research is original in its methodology of applying corpus linguistics tools in the analysis of presidential discourses.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Bartolucci

In this paper I examine some of the properties of the speeches by former U.S. President George W. Bush framing the issue of terrorism as the most pressing menace humanity is facing and some of the consequences of the selective appropriation of the discourse on terrorism initially instantiated by Bush. The theoretical framework for the analysis is a multidisciplinary Critical Discourse Analysis approach relating discursive and socio-political aspects of U.S. presidential discourses on terrorism in the Bush era. Parallel to an analysis of common characteristics of political discourse, such as ‘us’ versus ‘other’ representations, the device of over/less characterisation, hyperboles and repetitions, attention is also directed towards the socio-political effects deriving from the ways in which ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ have been represented by the presidential discourse on terrorism that condition the contemporary life of individuals and groups all around the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-320
Author(s):  
Catherine Evans Davies ◽  
Maria V. Semikolennykh

When the American President speaks in a way that is later characterized as joking/kidding, a wide range of interpretations become possible. At a minimum, there are two basic interpretations: serious and non-serious.At the other extreme, there may be as many nuanced interpretations as there are audiences for the discourse. In this study, I will first examine the “just/only joking” strategy, considering how it fits within a theoretical understanding of humorous discourse, and lay out the prototypical strategic moves. Then I will explore how the two main audiences (the currently polarized political groupings in the United States) tend to interpret the “joking” in relation to the performance style of President Donald J. Trump. Using three examples, I will attempt to show how the same utterance can be interpreted by one audience as a harmless joke and by the other as a grave threat.


2001 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-262
Author(s):  
VICTOR ARMONY

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the resurgence of populism in Latin America, and particularly with the ideological underpinnings of this phenomenon. Quite unexpectedly, populism has reemerged in several countries, such as Argentina and Peru, in the wake of drastic and all-encompassing neoliberal reforms. This novel situation calls for a reinterpretation of the populist phenomenon. The author contends that neoliberalism and neopopulism have established a strong link at the ideological level. In order to provide empirical evidence for this hypothesis, a corpus of Carlos Menem’s presidential discourse has been analyzed. The author concludes by suggesting that neoliberalism itself tends to stir up populist tendencies in society.


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