FEATURING SUBTEXT IN CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL DISCOURSE

In: RSUH/RGGU Bulletin. "Literary Theory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies" Series, Heft 4, S. 415-424

Abstract

The article discusses the pragmalinguistic phenomenon 'subtext' in today's political discourse. It seeks to review a number of examples that demonstrate semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects of the "linguistics of lies", or more precisely, accentuate the distinction between conventional and communicative implicatures. The varieties of subtext refer either to euphemization processes and inflated meanings, or to stealth persuasion strategies resting on the use of jargon and bureaucratese. In most analyzed cases of the first cluster, there is an abundance of words with a positive connotation, but with vague subject semantics, which often helps the politician distract the audience from the actual meaning of things. The second cluster of examples highlights the problem of bad style on the part of a person endowed with power. Subtext studies may thus, on the one hand, be of interest to researchers of neo-rhetoric, semantics, and semiotics, and, on the other hand, to instructors and learners of English stylistics.