The Persistence of the Emotional Lexicon in Political Discourse

Abstract

Several researchers argue that political discourse or, especially, political communication, is strategic interaction, because several actors participate in this communication, such as: a politician and the public, or a politician – a politician. Political discourse is one of the most emotionally consistent. The emotional universe in political discourse is sometimes even exaggerated and/or false. It is represented by means such as: affective verbs, conditional-optative verbs, inverted topic, adjectives at the superlative degree. The purpose of political discourse is to manipulate the opinion of the public so that the speaker emerges a winner, to present his own opinion in a reasoned manner. The speaker’s desire is to gain the public’s trust, to accumulate sympathizers, to spread political ideologies in masse, most often political speech arouses controversial opinions among the public, therefore it is considered a speech with a strong degree of emotionality.

Keywords

• specialised discourse
• political discourse
• transmitter
• receiver
• emotive lexicon
• logos
• ethos
• pathos
• figures of speech
• modalizers