Debate Tactics (On the Example of Media Representation of the UN General Assembly and the European Commission Sessions Devoted to the Special Military Operation in Ukraine)

Abstract

The article examines the features of political discourse within the framework of the military conflict in Ukraine. The relevance of the study is due to the need to identify communicative and speech strategies and their tactics in the positions of opposing sides to resolve the conflict. The purpose of the article is to analyze the strategies and tactics of the communicative behavior of politicians in a military conflict based on the material of reports at the thematic and linguistic levels. The work was carried out using the method of contextual analysis, descriptive method. The research material was the texts of speeches by the official representative of Russia to the UN General Assembly and the EU representative to the European Commission. The authors come to the conclusion that the communicative behavior of politicians within the framework of non-controversial speeches has its own characteristics at the thematic as well as at the linguistic level. The topic of Ursula von der Leyen’s speeches during this period is reduced to the general theme “The future of Europe”, where the main threat to the future may be “Russian aggression” along with the energy crisis. In the speeches of S.V. Lavrov’s main topic is “the policy of the “collective West”” and “The Ukrainian regime”. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that in official speeches there are emotional evaluative vocabulary, periphrases, evaluative adjectives, metaphorical models that implement such communicative and speech tactics as persuasion, condemnation, appeal to facts, support for the affected state, promises using the techniques of “reference to authorities”, “reinforcement”, “quoting”, “giving examples”, “introducing elements of informality” and others. The authors of the article show that the ethno-cultural specificity of the communicative behavior of politicians involved in the military conflict of countries on the part of European politicians is manifested in such features as “preservation of democracy”, “protection of democratic values” from autocrats. The Russian side in its speeches appeals to the preservation of traditional values calls for the fight against discrimination on religious grounds, with aggressive derussification.

Keywords

• speech behavior
• communicative and speech strategies
• communicative tactics
• political discourse
• ethnocultural specifics
• communicative behavior
• metaphorical models