Political Discourse: Expression of the Solidarity Strategy

Abstract

The article aims at investigating the tactics of solidarity in political discourse. The texts of the Election Programmes of the candidates, that took part in the 2009 Lithuanian presidential election, have been analysed (A. Butkevičius, D. Grybauskaitė, Č. Jezerskas, V. Mazuronis, K. Prunskienė and V. Tomaševski). The principles of the pragmatic linguistics research have been applied for the analysis. Solidarity is understood as a certain communication tactics, a tool that may consist of various registers. The success of a communicative goal depends on the choice of these registers. The study reveals that the two grammatical categories, such as pronouns and verbs, especially the category of tense, are the most effective linguistic registers.  It is noted that unsuccessful candidates, for example A. Butkevičius, relies on the use of past tense verbs, speaking of the obstacles and difficulties which were overcome in the past. V. Tomaševski often uses present tense verb forms, which is rather pure information without persuasion. K. Prunskienė often uses subjunctive mood and conditional verb forms, identifying the desired goal, without giving guarantees it will ever be achieved. D. Grybauskaitė (the candidate that has been elected), unlike the other candidates often uses the future tense verb forms, indicating the physical material process that will result after the candidate is being elected: the obstacles will be overcome, the enemies will be defeated, in other words, the guarantee is expressed by using speech acts. Thus, it may be stated that the future tense verbs imply as well as give assertions and guarantee that the future developments will take place as the candidate becomes the president.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.0.19.952