LINGUISTIC MECHANISMS AND PRAGMATIC STRATEGIES FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF IRONY AND SARCASM IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE CONTEXT OF D. TRUMP’S ELECTION SPEECHES AND DEBATES

Abstract

The article examines a problem of implementing irony and sarcasm in the election discourse of US President Donald Trump. Particular attention is paid to the pragmatic and communicative role of irony and sarcasm in achieving the speaker’s goals in attracting the audience’s attention to significant aspects of his speeches. The subject of the paper is the substantive and pragmatic features of irony and sarcasm in Donald Trump’s election speeches and debates. The objective of the paper is to identify the role and place of irony and sarcasm in the politician’s election discourse. The article analyzes the statements of the current US President during the election campaign, based on irony and sarcasm, realized through the methods of contextual, linguopragmatic analysis. Based on the results of the research, the article proves the fact that irony and sarcasm play an important role in Donald Trump’s election discourse, since the language means allow to make the politician’s statements more precise, vivid and memorable, thus reflecting the pragmatic goals and objectives of election speeches. In particular, the most productive is the application of irony and sarcasm to express criticism of Trump’s political opponents. The scope of the research results is related to the linguistic layer of modern American political discourse and the analysis of its substantive and pragmatic features.