“Wir Schaffen Das!” (Angela Merkel as a Linguistic Persona)

Abstract

The problem posed by the authors of this paper is to reveal peculiarities of linguistic persona of one of the most authoritative state and political actors of our time: Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Material for the research comes from various election debates, speeches at international forums and in Bundestag, addresses to voters, interviews of “the engine of the EU” with journalists of various media outlets. An anthropocentric approach that has become the main principle of modern linguistics, enriched with procedures having being developed within cultural, political and social linguistics, application of methods used in study of linguistic persona in the context of gender and values presented in the media and political discourse, allowed to attain certain results. Lexical and idiomatic markers in Angela Merkel’s speeches, her formulation of basic principles of domestic and foreign policy, linguistic response to crisis events and provocative questions give a possibility to model the main parameters of her linguistic persona. She is a strong leader with muffled gender attributes, which usually appear in selection of linguistic means that always conform to the literary language. Physical chemist by education, Merkel speaks logically and strictly to the point in the media and political discourse as well. Having being ushered into the elite of male rulers, A. Merkel realizes male rigidity when formulating her opinion. As a leader of nation, she presents herself as a representative of the whole German society, a society allotted with a high mission to guard common European values. The main concepts, verbalized in her speeches and utterances are We (, the people of Germany), Peace, Freedom, Democracy, Tolerance.