VERBAL REPRESENTATION OF THE CATEGORY OF AGONALITY IN THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE OF THE CONFRONTATIONAL PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPE OF LINGUISTIC PERSONALITY

Abstract

The article dwells on verbal representation particuliarities of the category of agonality in the political discourse of the confrontational psychological type of linguistic personality. The relevance of the study of agonality of the political discourse from the psycholinguistic perspective is substantiated by its relation to a psychotype of a politician’s linguistic personality. Research into the category of agonality allowed us to view it as one of the key categories of the political discourse which represents itself as an intrinsic competitiveness, antagonism between people in politics whose ultimate objective is power. Having set the purpose of establishing lexico-syntantical and pragmatic features of agonality verbalization in the political discourse we selected texts of electioneering speeches and presidential debates of Donald Trump as an exponent of a confrontational psychotype of a politician’s linguistic personality. This psychotype is characterized by egocentric narcissistic scope, low agreeableness, callousness and self-assertive and / or aggressive speech behavior. It exhibits inward-focused thinking, evinces signs of a noticeable drive for the role of the communicative leader, displays limited span of topics due to a politician’s rigidity of mentality. It was revealed that lexical peculiarities of verbal representation of agonality of the confrontational psychological type of linguistic personality in the political discourse constitute nouns, adjectives and verbs with negative connotation and the usage of abstract nouns as a means of enhancement of terseness and actionality of speech. On the syntactical level agonality of the psychotype in question becomes obvious via short simple sentences, numerous anaphoric and epiphoric repetitions and anadiplosis. Special emphasis was given to outlining pragmatic specificity of agonality verbalization means in the political discourse of the confrontational psychotype. It is implemented by means of the communicative strategies of self-assertion and vilification of opponents. Each of the strategies was analysed in terms of its specifics and tactics based on the examples provided.