Strategies and tactics of verbal persuasion (based on Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s speech to joint session of the US Congress)

Abstract

The article deals with the analysis of verbal persuasion strategies and tactiсs, their linguistic presentation in political speech, based on the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s address to the joint session of the US Congress. The main aim of this reserch is to analyse the strategies and tactics used for the verbal persuasion in the public speeches of the political discourse. The object of the study is English political discourse. The subject presents the ways of realization of the communication strategies in the political speech. The research is based on the address of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to the US Congress on September 18, 2014. The main aim includes the following tasks: 1) to define and to classify verbal strategies and tactics of political communication; 2) to define methods of their verbal representation in the public address. The purpose of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s address was to convince the United States that: Ukraine needs assistance in the form of lethal weapons or providing funds for its purchase; Ukraine under no circumstances will accept the annexation of Crimea; Ukraine needs the status of chief ally of the USA outside NATO; Ukrainians will not tolerate dictatorship government, the most important value for Ukraine is freedom, democracy and human dignity; the civilian population of eastern Ukraine was subjected to severe suffering and there is a threat of global terrorism; there is a need to provide investment to reform the economic system and the judicial system of Ukraine; the Ukrainian authorities is to hold radical reforms in the country and in the army; there is an urgent need to unite in the face of the ordeal. The study reveals that the strategy of persuasion involves several supporting strategies needed for its implementation. The main verbal strategies of political discourse, used in the address of the President of Ukraine include: the strategy of establishing a contact (to draw and maintain the attention of the audience); structuring strategy (for structuring information, defining topics); an exemplary strategy (to prove, confirm or explain the statement by summarizing or giving examples). It can be concluded that the most effective means of verbal persuasion of the address of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to the joint session of the US Congress are: argumentative strategy, the strategy call to action, the strategy of forming the positive reaction of the audience, the strategy of non-verbal effect implemented by certain tactics, lexical syntactic means, non-verbal means

Keywords

• мовне переконання
• стратегії
• тактики
• політичний дискурс