LANGUAGE AS A MEANS OF MANIPULATIVE IMPACT (on the example of the English-language political media discourse)

Abstract

Introduction. This article exposes manipulative impact of the political media discourse of the Russian Internet resource sputniknews.com for September 2016, represented by English-language political media texts about events in Ukraine.

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to disclose the role of language in exerting a manipulative impact in the frame of the political media discourse in question.

Results. The article holds that immanent chacarteristics of language and its units, in particular lexical and syntactic, make it possible to covertly (manipulatively) affect public consciousness, shaping or changing it. It also shows that the language of the political media discourse differes from the ordinary, every-day language in the way information is presented, i.e. facts and events are named and assessed. Thus, a purposeful use of nominative, axiological, and rhetorical linguistic means makes it possible to covertly insert in people’s mind certain ideas, values, and beliefs, which is a manipulative impact on the public consciousness.

Originality. Originality of this article is provided by a complex approach to the analysis of the political media discourse. The article contributes to the discourse analysis, in particular to the studies of its communicative, pragmatic and linguistic-pragmatic characteristics.

The perspective of the problem under discussion can be seen in the analysis of the role of quazi-linguistic and extra-linguistic means that, by accompanying linguistic means, are used to exert a manipulative impact on public consciousness.

Conclusion. Thus, according to the obtained data, English-language political media texts about events in Ukraine that represent the political media discourse of the Russian Internet resource sputniknews.com for September 2016 typically exert a manipulative impact on public consciousness. It is done by a purposeful use of linguistic means that provide various interpretations of concrete facts, political events, and social reality with the aim to orchestrate their understanding and evaluation.