Peculiarities of the implementation of confrontational communication strategies in the political discourse of NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg

Abstract

The article analyzes the linguistic ways of implementing and updating confrontational communication strategies in the political discourse of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The study made it possible to ascertain that out of the whole variety of communicative confrontational strategies in the idiodiscourse of Jens Stoltenberg, the most frequent ones were the strategy of discrediting a political opponent, as well as the strategy of persuasion and submission. To a lesser extent, a self-defence strategy was implemented. This fact is due to the nature of the analyzed discourse, since diplomatic discourse, as a special type of political communication, is characterized by greater restraint and caution in assessments than other types of political discourse. The tactical methods of implementing the strategy of discrediting include the tactics of accusation (direct and covert), the language markers of which are lexemes with a pronounced seme of negative evaluation, lexemes, the negativeevaluative meanings of which are contextually determined, means of creating the dichotomy "we / they", verbalizing a typical political discourse category of alienation, as well as tactics of ridicule aimed at identifying the weaknesses of a political opponent. The main tactic that implements the confrontational strategy of persuasion and subjugation is the tactic of threat, which is verbalized by such linguistic means as the use of future tense verbs that give the statement an imperative, ultimatum and limiting character, the use of syntactic parallelism and the repeated nomination of key elements of idiodiscourse, the use of lexemes with the contextual semantics of threat, the use of communicative moves of intimidation. The confrontational communicative strategy of self-defence was implemented by speech tactics of contestation and opposition, the goals of which were not only to object to political opponents, but also to simultaneously represent the positive qualities of the discourse author.