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Peculiarities of Argumentative Strategies of Modern English Political Discourse

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Functional Approach to Professional Discourse Exploration in Linguistics

Abstract

The present article studies peculiarities of argumentative strategies in political discourse. It is argued that as the main goal of argumentative strategies is to persuade listeners of correctness or incorrectness of certain activities or ideas, relations or values, they can be considered as a part of general persuasive communicative strategy. On the basis of quantitative and content analyses the important argumentative strategies are revealed which include the strategies of positive representation of the self and negative representation of the other. It is shown that in political discourse argumentative strategies are based on all three methods of speech influence and persuasion such as logos, ethos and pathos. The system of argumentation in political discourse includes both descriptive and value components, which lie in the basis of two main elements of persuasion—rational mechanisms and proofs, on the one hand, and irrational methods and suggestion, on the other. As a result of the study a conclusion is drawn that the persuasive potential of argumentation is enhanced by the use of both rational and irrational arguments which relate to the pragmatic goals of the speaker and the context of communication.

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Correspondence to Samvel A. Abrahamyan .

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Abrahamyan, S.A., Banshchikova, M.A. (2020). Peculiarities of Argumentative Strategies of Modern English Political Discourse. In: Malyuga, E. (eds) Functional Approach to Professional Discourse Exploration in Linguistics . Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9103-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9103-4_6

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