Motives of tragedy and commedy in modern political discourse of Ukraine.

Abstract

In the article it is analyzed the notions of style and genre of political discourse, substantiated the expediency of researching these concepts in the modern political science. The author outlines the main features of the genre and style of political speeches of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, which were given 2014–2017 on Independence Day of Ukraine. It is revealed that they have signs of conflictive political language. Also, the analysis of the speeches of P. Poroshenko has shown following features of the style of the President: the presence of metaphors; using of symbols that have a positive connotation and play a role of a benchmark for state’s development ("freedom", "independence", etc.); historical categories are used in order to create political mythology; the presence of religious metaphors ("collective sin", "the sin of elites to redeem the people", etc.); intertextuality (or quoting); using of slogans; presence of labels, which are called to discredit opponents; using of cultural codes ("Ukrainian family", etc.). In the article there are described features of tragedy as a genre and an author’s stylistic choice, also are indicated criteria of tragedy and described its possible influences on the political audience. The author considered the mechanisms of heroization as an element of tragedy in political discourse. The motives of comicality in political discourse are described in view of the development of democracy. In the article, there is expressed and substantiated an assertion that in conditions of democracy, conservatives or representatives of the government use mechanisms of ridicule to discredit a competitor. There is also made an assumption that the effect of comedy is used in order to relieve the influence of certain ideas, since it is impossible to treat seriously ideas what you are laughing at, while the effect of tragedy is used when it is necessary to provoke an active political reaction from audience.