Abstract:

In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in functional-linguistic studies of English political communication, especially its modern American variant. Although a lot is written about the characteristics and properties of this particular type of discourse, many issues still need to be investigated into, e.g. search for effective models of verbal behaviour in different situations, ways to optimize strategic plans and organize the functional (pragma-semantic) field as a step-by-step process, identification of the most powerful means of pragmatic impact on intellectual, emotional and volitional aspects of recipients’ personalities. Teaching professional communication in English to non-native speakers – future specialists in cross-cultural communication and international affairs – requires constant feedback from functional linguistics as a theoretical grounding for linguodidactics. Analysis of various fragments of the US 2016 electoral political discourse shows the rise of relatively new evolutional tendencies in persuasive political rhetoric, such as frequent use of unconventional language units, violation of long established communicative norms and rules of confrontational interaction, de facto legalization of verbal aggression, etc. Since goal-setting plays a crucial role in planning the functional perspective of electoral discourse, and initial intentions of interlocutors rarely overlap, it is important to thoroughly study peculiarities of tactical realization of confrontational speech strategies that are so popular among today’s politicians. Teaching English as a tool for political interaction should be in harmony with the findings of functional-linguistic theory. Advanced command of English usually presupposes the formation of skills that allow students to find the best resolution to any communicative crisis in a standardized situation as well as to realize that the key to effective verbal interaction is to be constantly aware of their interlocutors’ goals and intentions as compared to those of their own, thus adjusting and structuring the functional perspective of discourse to become a winning party of the confrontation. By confrontation we mean not just conflicts and acts of verbal aggression, but rather any typical interaction when interlocutors disagree and resort to “win-lose” strategies. Naturally, this dynamically developing aspect of modern political discourse ought to be reflected in the educational process. This paper is about one particular way of how to do it.

Keywords:

Political discourse, communicative strategy, pragmatics, rhetoric, teaching methodology.