THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DISCOURSE-FORMING CONCEPTS IN THE US POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

Political discourse, is of great interest to researchers, due to the lack of an accurate system of definitions and terms and great opportunities for potential research. America is one of the largest geopolitical forces in the world, so the internal functioning of the US political discourse is an extremely important target for analysis. The article is devoted to the discourse-forming concepts actualized by the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. Based on the material of the pre-election rally in Tulsa (2020) analyzes key concepts: VANDALISM, DESECRATE, UNHINGED. The methodology includes a definitive analysis of lexemes based on the data from the explanatory dictionaries of English and Russian languages, as well as the analysis of corpus data (LCC, BNC, COCA). As a result of the research, it was found that the actualization of concepts with negative connotation serves as a tool for constructing the image of the enemy and implementing the binary opposition “friend and foe”. Semantic analysis shows a stable negative connotation of these concepts, which ensures their unambiguous perception by the audience. Trump attributes antisocial characteristics to his (leftist) opponents, such as vandalism and desecration of national symbols, contrasting them with “his own” (Republicans who support D. Trump's candidacy). The pragmatic purpose of this strategy is to manipulate the electorate by creating a situation of choice between these designated parties. The study confirms that verbal aggression and linguistic conflict are integral characteristics of modern political discourse in the United States.