Emotional language in Political Discourse

The article is devoted to the analysis of emotional language as a key tool of political discourse that determines the nature of speech influence and the formation of public opinion. Emotional language is considered not just as an expressive means, but as an important mechanism for constructing meanings. In today's mediatized politics, emotions are becoming a powerful resource for influencing the electorate: they help politicians build trust, increase engagement, and evoke an emotional response from the audience. The research is based on the provisions of modern political linguistics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, which consider language as a tool of persuasion and manipulation. Using the example of Donald Trump's 2016 speech, it is shown that emotionally colored words and expressions perform the function of not only enhancing expression, but also structuring a political message, setting a framework of interpretation for listeners and forming a stable emotional image of a politician. The evaluation analysis model developed by J. Martin and P. White is used as the main method. Within the framework of this approach, all emotionally colored units of speech are identified, classified into three categories – affect (emotions), judgment (assessment of human behavior) and appreciation (assessment of phenomena and objects), and their quantitative and qualitative analysis is carried out. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time the model of evaluative analysis by J. Martin and P. White was applied to the study of emotional language in political discourse based on the material of Donald Trump's 2016 speech. This approach made it possible to identify patterns of the use of emotionally colored vocabulary and to determine its role in the formation of moral and ideological assessments. The analysis showed that emotional language performs not only an expressive, but also a strategic function – it is used to construct a political identity, mobilize support, create a positive image of a politician and discredit opponents. Special attention is paid to the category of judgment, especially its subcategory social sanction, reflecting moral judgments and social expectations. The results obtained clarify the ideas about the pragmatic potential of evaluative vocabulary and demonstrate its importance for shaping political influence in modern conditions. The findings of the study can be used in a comparative analysis of emotional language in different cultural and historical contexts

Novelty · Persuasion · Politics · Pragmatics · Discourse Analysis and Cultural Communication · Language, Communication, and Linguistic Studies · Psycholinguistics and Behavioral Studies