THE MEANS OF MANIFESTATION OF AUTHORITARIANISM IN AMERICAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article is aimed at identifying the means of manifestation of authoritarianism in the statements of politicians, representatives of the US State Department. Authoritarianism is considered from the perspective of the goal-setting by this public authority, which involves the desire to dominate and control the behavior of the audience by means of psychological tools and techniques. The methods of descriptive, interpretative analysis and critical discourse-analysis are used. The study reveals the means of manifestation of authoritarianism within political discourse. They are categorical directives, explicitly expressed by injunctive speech acts, verbs expressing obligation, verbal acts of threat, lexical means of expressing dominance and superiority, evaluative judgments against an opponent expressing condemnation and based on explicitly expressed accusation and discrediting the opponent, exaggerated positive self-esteem. The study shows that the authoritarianism of a politician is the source of expressive and suggestive communication, which is mispresented as persuasion and works successfully owing to the new culture of digital social interaction. Knowledge of the ways to form relations of subordination and domination helps to explain the speech behavior of politicians as a reflection of their way of thinking, attitudes and priorities of the government.