THE SEMANTICS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION IN TEXTS OF POLITICAL SPEECHES OF V.V. PUTIN AND XI JINPING: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

Abstract

The article studies the semantics of lexemes and sentences expressing the meaning of creation and destruction, based on the political speeches of the Chairman of the PRC Xi Jinping and the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin. The study is conducted through the analysis and comparative characterization of the speeches of the two heads of state in the model of semantic syntax. The work identifies common features of the speech image of the leaders’, formed when describing areas of national construction and countering threats to the development of the country or the world. As a result of observations, it is shown that V.V. Putin and Xi Jinping use verbs with the meaning of creation, which have the same semantics and similar actants. The main difference lies in the expression of destruction in the public speeches of the two politicians. The differences concern the intensity of the process denoted by destructive verbs. In V.V. Putin’s speeches, there is a contrast between the abstract expression of creation and the more concrete expression of destruction, whereas in Xi Jinping’s speeches, such contrast is not observed.