Language means of Subjectivity and Objectivity in the modern Russian political discourse (based on the texts of Vladislav Surkov)
0. Introduction
The topic of our course paper is “Language means of Subjectivity and Objectivity in the modern Russian political discourse (based on the texts of Vladislav Surkov)”. The primary purpose of this research is to show the person in politics, his intents and strategies in terms of modality. How the one particular speaker presents himself in political discourse by own texts in terms of Subjectivity and Objectivity of the utterances.
In this course paper a personal political style of Vladislav Surkov is the subject of our research. Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov is the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the President of Russia. His influence (obvious and more hidden) on Russian political system known as “vertical of a power” is a reason for heated discussions in political circles. According to the main features of oral discourse and political rhetoric strategies, we analyzed the texts of the politician from the point of view of information presentation as Subjective and Objective in order to prove that in some cases Russian political discourse is a very personalized and has little common with the reality.
1. Russian modern political discourse
In the first chapter a short review on political discourse is offered.The term discourse is broad in meaning. There is a large number of specific definitions, but generally discourse refers to “written or spoken communication”. In this work we deal with oral discourse (we analyzed texts presented openly by Vladislav Surkov). Naturally approach to the analysis of texts varies according to the structure of texts, genres so on and so forth.
The final definition of discourse we took from the researcher Nina D. Arutyunova. According to her point of view, discourse is a process of linguistic activity and its result is the text, discourse is comprehensive, it includes both speech and text, “in conjunction with extralinguistic - pragmatic, sociocultural, psychological and other factors”.
Political discourse is a discourse in which the main is the expression of the relationship between person and society.Political discourse analyses focuses on discourse in political forums (such as debates, speeches, and hearings) as a phenomenon of interest.
2. Subjective and objective knowledge in a political text
In the second chapter two processes of subjective modality of the text named Subjectivity and Objectivity are introduced to the reader, specific language means, which work on it, are pointed out. Overview of scientific works related to the topic is presented.
According to the problem of defining both processes, the opposition “dictum vs. modus” arises. What it is and how it works at the sentence-level was explained by French linguist Charles Bally. He described dictum as a fact, an event whereas modus is a persons’ relation to a delivered speech, to recipients of a speech. Thus the main distinctive feature between modus- and dictum-predicate plans in an utterance is a relation.
Subjectivity and Objectivity can be illustrated by different language means (in this work we focuses on lexical and syntactical). For example, the language means which detect Subjectivity associate with I- and He-person and can be expressed differently:
1) in the structure of the modus-frame:
a) 1 person pronoun;
b) with the help of syntactical “zero” (with the substitution of the pronoun – “мне”);
c) implicitly, expressed in the semantics of discourse lexeme (“возможно”).
2) in relation to dictum-structure:
a) 1 person pronoun;
b) with the help of syntactical “zero” with the opportunity to fill positions;
c) implicitly, when they are in the position before text.
3. Language means of Subjectivity and Objectivity in the texts of Vladislav Surkov
In the third chapter the political texts created and presented by Vladislav Surkov areanalyzed in detail.
The results of the Subjective and Objective analysis we can illustrate by the most spectacular examples. On the level of Lexis we found frequent use of different kinds of oppositions in terms of dictum when the modus-plan of the utterance is implicit (e.g., “Янехочуникогообидеть, нояабсолютноуверен,какиебымынибылипатриоты, высшимпатриотизмомсегодняявляетсяименнопониманиетого, чтобезинтернационализациисферыразвитиямыстрануразвиватьнесможем. Всеостальноенепатриотично”). On the level of Syntax a great number of introductory-modal words, which form a multistructural modus-plan, were discovered (“Всилуэтого, отчастиспорного, предположения, опытпрошедшеговремени, какправило,оказываетподавляющеевлияниенаорганизациютекущейдеятельности”). As a result, speeches of Vladislav Surkov are stronglypersonal.
4. Conclusion
The course paperbasically focuses on analyzing processes of Subjectivity and Objectivityexpressed by different language means in the texts which were presented orally (at different times)by Vladislav Surkov.
Russian political system is a very dependent closed hierarchical system suffering from the top-impact(we deals with the influence of high officials such as Vladislav Surkov). Russian political discoursestructurein general and key-words and terms of it in particular in most cases are only the effect of afree choice of the so-called dark prince of the Kremlin Vladislav Surkov.
The rather controversial terms “subjectivity” and “objectivity” has been chosen intentionally. It refersto the potential effects of the political meanings on political events e.g. election, the formation ofnew governments, changes in the composition of governments, etc. Also processes of subjectivityand objectivity work on the level of utterances and belong to (as it is called) the mood predicate-plan.
In this paper, terms of “subjectivity” and “objectivity” are perceived as processes whichconnected with Bally's opposition: dictum vs. modus.
The results of the text analysis (we analyzed more than 50 texts of Vladislav Surkov) showed a highlevelsubjectivation of the mood in the Surkovs’ political speeches, its claim on Dostoevsky style.Surkovs’ speeches have a tendency to polyphony, they are full of meanings and they have a strongimplicit effect on recipients based on recurrence. Summarizing what has been said, we canconclude, that Vladislav Surkovs’ influence is great on political system in Russia, Government,political parties and Media in part because of his well-structured speeches with a strong intention tobuild a strict system of “sovereign” regime in the country.
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