Stylistic aspect of the Boris Johnsons’ ideological discourse of his first speech as a Prime Minister, 07.24.19

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Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University

Stylistic aspect of the Boris Johnsons' ideological discourse of his first speech as a Prime Minister, 07.24.19

Humeniuk N.H.

Annotation

speech johnson minister brexit

The following work is focused on the problem of the Stylistic devices and Expressive means usage within the Boris Johnsons 'first speech as a Prime Minister of the UK, 07.24.19, to realize his pragmatic purposes. The first speech of Boris Johnsons is defined as political, institutional, ideological discourse to promote the idea of Brexit among the population of the UK as the most relevant idea for the given community. It is stated that all the language inventory in the form of Stylistic devices and Expressive means used within the Boris Johnsons' first speech as a Prime Minister of the UK serves to influence the addressee to accept the idea of Brexit as the only one way for the better life in the UK. It is stressed that the author of message uses a great number of epithets to show the benefits of Brexit. Metaphors used in the message are considered not only to appeal to the feelings, emotions of the addressee, but to provoke thinking about the described objects, subjects and phenomena. It is underlined that parallel constructions in the form of anaphora and epiphora within the speech of Boris Johnsons are able to make the information more stressed and valuable. Parenthetic sentences and detachments used in the message are determined as means to give some additional information, some arguments for Brexit, as well as means to express Boris Johnsons' attitude to the described events and facts. It is pointed out that polysyndeton, asyndeton within the Boris Johnsons speech are used to arrest addressee's attention to the enumerated items. The usage of polysyndetons and asyndetons within the limited space of speech is defined as specific feature of Boris Johnsons first speech as a Prime Minister of the UK, as the means to strike addressee, to etch the given information in the addressee's memory. It is stated that all used Stylistic devices and Expressive means within the Boris Johnsons 'first speech as a Prime Minister of the UK serve not only to realize speaker 's pragmatic purposes, but they represent the idiolect and form the idiostyle of Boris Johnsons, as well as create the textual ornament of the given message.

Key words: ideological discourse, polysyndeton, asyndeton, anaphora, epiphora, parenthetic sentence, detachment, epithet, metaphor, metonymy.

Гуменюк Н.Г. Стилістичний аспект ідеологічного дискурсу Бориса Джонсона під час його першої промови як Прем'єр-міністра, 24.07.09

Анотація

У дослідженні cфокусовано увагу на використанні стилістичних прийомів та виразових засобів у першій промові Бориса Джонсона як Прем'єр-міністра Об'єднаного Королівства від 24.07.19. з метою реалізації своїх прагматичних намірів. Перша промова Бориса Джонсона визначена як політичний, інституційний, ідеологічний дискурс - просування ідеї Брекзиту серед населення Об'єднаного Королівства як найбільш релевантної для цієї спільноти. Стверджено, що весь мовний інвентар, тобто стилістичні прийоми та виразові засоби першої промови Бориса Джонсона, слугує впливу на адресата для визнання ним ідеї Брекзиту як єдиного способу покращити життя в Об'єднаному Королівстві. Підкреслено, що промовець послуговується великою кількістю епітетів для демонстрації переваг Брекзиту. З'ясовано, що метафори, використані у повідомленні, не тільки апелюють до емоцій та почуттів адресата, але й здатні провокувати думки щодо зображених об'єктів, суб'єктів, явищ; паралельні конструкції у формі епіфори та анафори перетворюють інформацію на більш виразну та ціннісну; вставні речення та конструкції сприяють наданню детальнішої інформації та аргументів щодо Брекзиту, а також є способом для Бориса Джонсона висловити своє ставлення до зображуваних подій та фактів. Визначено, що використання в промові полісиндетона та асиндетона є особливою рисою виступу Бориса Джонсона як Прем'єр-міністра Об'єднаного Королівства, засобом здивувати адресата та закарбувати в його пам'яті подану інформацію. Підсумовано, що всі стилістичні прийоми та виразові засоби слугують не тільки для реалізації прагматичних цілей промовця, але й репрезентують його ідеолект та формують його ідіостиль, а також створюють текстовий орнамент поданого повідомлення.

Ключові слова: ідеологічний дискурс, полісиндетон, асиндетон, анафора, епіфора, вставні речення, вставні конструкції, епітет, метафора, метонімія.

Defining the problem and argumentation of the topicality of its consideration. Communicative function of language as the main function of it and the role of individuals in the process of language usage provoked the great interest of scientists for these phenomena investigation. Language inventory of the individual usage was studied from the different viewpoints. The given investigation is an attempt to unite the usage of the Stylistic devices and Expressive means with the pragmatic purposes of its creator in a certain type of discourse known as ideological one.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The problem of discourse investigation is rather studied from the point of view of general approaches [3; 5], as well as special ones [4; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10]. The given work is a further step to investigate the individual language inventory of the political elite in the form of Stylistic devices and Expressive means to achieve their pragmatic purposes [1; 2].

The aim of the paper is to investigate the usage of the Stylistic devices and Expressive means within the Boris Johnsons' first speech as a Prime Minister of the UK, 07.24.19, to realize his pragmatic purposes. Method of immediate constituents, method of simple calculation, discourse analysis method, method of pure sampling and comparative method were used to receive the results of given work.

The outline of the main research material. The first speech of Boris Johnsons as a Prime Minister was announced on the 24-th of July, 2019 after Teresa May resign, the representative of the Conservative Party.

This speech of Boris Johnsons is identified as a political institutional discourse, because the creator of it belongs to the political elite and he should follow the certain strict rules and norms of discourse organization.

The first speech of Boris Johnsons as a Prime Minister is defined in our work as ideological discourse, where ideology is a system of ideas, believes relevant to the certain social group or community, which represents socio-cultural norms and values of the given group [7, 18-19].

It is normal that all the meanings within the ideological discourse are united by only one fixed meaning within it [7, 27]. All the ideas of the first speech of Boris Johnsons as a Prime Minister are centered on the idea of Brexit, or withdrawal from the EU, as the only one relevant idea to the UK community, as the only true way of society development, as the only true way for better life in the UK:

...we are going to restore trust in our democracy and we are going to fulfil the repeated promises of parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October 31 no ifs or huts and we will do a new deal, a better deal that will maximise the opportunities of Brexit while allowing us to develop a new and exciting partnership with the rest of Europe based on free trade and mutual support (1)

So, the idea of Brexit is propaganded by Boris Johnsons in his first speech as a Prime Minister and promoted among the UK people. This propaganda and promotion of Brexit in Boris Johnsons' message represent the pragmatic purposes of its creator.

In this case, the information about the policy lines of Boris Johnsons Cabinet in the sphere of internal and external policy of the UK, which is centered around Brexit, or leaving the EU by the UK, forms the informative component of it.

The first speech of Boris Johnsons as a Prime Minister is oriented to the diverse addressee: British people, his opponents, people working and living in the UK and people of the EU. As a result, he uses different techniques to influence them realizing his pragmatic purposes.

To realize his pragmatic purposes to influence addressee he uses the inventory of language units, among which we can observe Stylistic devices and Expressive means.

Ideological discourse presupposes the existence of some opponents, or people who are against the propaganded ideas, who have some other, alien ideas [7, 36-39; 3, 108-109; 9,180-184] which can be interpreted by propagandists as even dangerous, threatening for the given community. So, Boris Johnsons uses language units with negative meaning to discredite his opponents (prisoner, wrong, crake, incapable, pessimists, indecision and so on) and language units with positive connotation to show benefits of Brexit (exciting partnership, free trade, mutual support, honouring, strong leadership and so on).

In this case, a combination of several synonyms the negative meaning of which is gradually rising from the weakest to the strongest one, known as climax, is able to influence the addressee greatly, showing the rise of the negative features in the nature of Brexit opponents: The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters - they are going to get it wrong again (1).

Adding some energy by pronouncing the given enumeration without any conjunctions or prepositions, known as asyndeton, repeating several combinations of sounds [stes], [tes] within this climax chain is able to make the given utterance more stressed and tensed.

Ideological discourse is characterized by opposing to the alien ideas which is realized in discourse as some contrasting, based on the antonymic usage of the words: ...it is time we looked not at the risks but at the opportunities... (1)

The given example contains the antonymic pair “not at risks but at the opportunities” the meaning of which is not based on the usage of antonyms, but on the usage of the words which became opposite in their meaning contextually.

Boris Johnsons uses a lot proper names, which is normative to the given type of discourse: Downing Street, Queen, United Kingdom, Britain, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Brussels and so on. The usage of a great number of abbreviations: GP, NHS, UK, EU, CO2 gives some rhythm to the given utterances, making them stressed and even able to economize the time of the pronounced speech. Some of them are even able to avoid the negative meaning of the clipped word- combinations. So, abbreviation LGBT of the word- combination “lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender” is able to hide its negative connotation, which is more striking for elder persons.

The usage of the idiomatic phrase “to lose their shirts” given below makes the underlined phrase emotionally coloured, stressed and believable:

The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts (1)

The usage of the categorical transposition by adding suffix -s to the conjunctions if, but and changing them into Nouns in the form of “no ifs or buts” is able to strike the addressee by the unusual form of their usage, making the given utterance more emotional and categorical:

...we are going to repeated promises of parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October 31 no ifs or buts and we will do a new deal. (1)

We can also state that Boris Johnsons uses a great number of anaphoric parallel constructions with the repeated initial part of it in his first speech as a Prime Minister:

My job is to make your streets safer - and we are going to begin with another 20,000 police on the streets and we start recruiting forthwith (1)

My job is to make sure you don t have to wait 3 weeks to see your GP and we start work this week with 20 new hospital upgrades, and ensuring that money for the NHS really does get to the front line (1)

The repeated elements of the parallel constructions help to arrest addressee's attention, to stress the importance of the given information, to etch the information given by addressor in the memory of addressee.

With the same purpose, Boris Johnsons uses epiphoric parallel constructions with the repeated final part of it:

... and the ports will be ready and the banks will be ready and the factories will be ready and business will be ready and the hospitals will be ready (1)

The given example contains also the usage of polysyndeton, when the conjunction and is repeated several times to slow down the tempo of speech, to emphasize the information about the enumerated subjects, objects, phenomena, to arrest addressee's attention to the given facts.

We can state that Boris Johnsons uses a great number of polysyndetons in his speech which represents his individual feature and form his individual style. The number of polysyndetons varies from polysyndeton with the conjunctions “and” and

“or” up to polysyndeton with the prepositions “in” and “for”:

...we know the enormous strengths of this economy in life sciences, in tech, in academia, in music... (1)

and political personality is admired and even loved around the world for our inventiveness, for our humour, for our universities (1)

for the equalities on which we insist - whether race or gender or LGBT or the right of every girl in the world to 12 years of quality education ... (1)

The results of the investigation show that Boris Johnsons uses also asyndeton, or enumeration without any conjunction, to rise up the tempo of speech, to make his message more energetic, vital and vivid:

... whose brand and political personality is admired and even loved around the world for our inventiveness, for our humour, for our universities, our scientists, our armedforces, our diplomacy for the equalities on which we insist. (1)

Another feature of Boris Johnsons' first speech as a Prime Minister is the combination of several polysyndetons and asyndetons within the limited space of speech, which means sudden tempo speech changes, when slow speech tempo is suddenly changed, turned into the high speed speech tempo or vice a versa:

whose brand and political personality is admired and even loved around the world for our inventiveness, for our humour, for our universities, our scientists, our armedforces, our diplomacy for the equalities on which we insist - whether race or gender or LGBT or the right of every girl in the world to 12 years ofquality education and for the values we stand for around the world... (1) We consider that sudden tempo speech changes have the effect of the defeated expectancy, when addressee supposes to listen to the material given in one kind of tempo, but sudden its changing makes addressee struck, surprised, astounded and astonished. As the result, the given information etches in the addressee's memory and is recorded in it as the most striking and unpredictable items.

Boris Johnsons uses a lot of repetitions in his speech - distant and chain. So, several words are repeated in some distance to each other, but they form the milestones of the message: Brexit, deal, change, it's time, be ready, let's, decision, leadership, work, opportunity, partnership and so on.

The other type of repetition, known as chain repetition, is used in Boris Johnsons speech with the same purpose to make the repeated information more valuable, to arrest addressee attention to it, to etch the given information in addressee's memory, to influence addressee with the purpose of accepting the idea of Brexit as the most relevant to the UK community:

...we level up across Britain with higher wages, and a higher living wage, and higher productivity... (1) The given example also contains the usage of the Comparative degree of the Adjective higher to show the rise of quality within the objects, subjects and phenomena as the result of Brexit.

Boris Johnsons uses emphatic sentences to stress some ideas, to make his message more emotionally coloured:

It is here in Britain that we are using gene therapy. (1)

... and that is the work that begins immediately behind that black door . (1)

To give some detailed information, to prove some facts, to give more arguments for addressee, Boris Johnsons uses detachments and parenthetic sentences:

... and so I am announcing now - on the steps of Downing Street - that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan. (1)

My job is to make your streets safer - and we are going to begin with another 20,000 _police on the streets and we start recruiting_ forthwith... (1)

Some detachments are used to express Boris Johnsons' attitude to the given facts, to the no-deal Brexit as an urgent problem of the UK:

.and we are forced to come out with no deal not because we want that outcome - of course not - but because it is only common sense to prepare. (1)

Inversion known to have strong position and emotional colouring is able to influence audience greatly, stressing the most valuable ideas, making information more convincing and acute within the first speech of Boris Johnsons as a Prime Minister:

with high hearts and growing confidence we will now accelerate the work of getting ready. (1)

The usage of a great number of epithets, both of the adverbial and adjectival nature, makes the speech of Boris Johnsons more emotional, expressive, on one hand, and more convicting, on the other hand: high-skilled jobs, extraordinary bioscience sector, new partnership, anti-democratic backstop, begins immediately, fantastic new road and so on.

Metaphors within the speech of Boris Johnsons are able not only to influence the addressee emotionally but to provoke thinking over the described problems:

...it has become clear that there are pessimists at home and abroad who think that after three years of indecision that this country has become a _ prisoner to the old arguments of 2016 (1)

No one in the last few centuries has succeeded in betting against the _ pluck and nerve and ambition of this country ( 1)

Pun, or play upon word, is known to be one of the most powerful Stylistic devices which states the high level of its creator IQ, as well as addressor orientation to the high level of addressee knowledge to decode this message in the form of pun. Pun contains the elements of humour, satire and this fact makes it more emotionally coloured:

Never mind the backstop - the buck stops here (1) The usage of metonymy, or part of the whole, in Boris Johnsons' speech makes his message more expressive and allows to avoid long terms, names by appealing to associations:

1. ...we prepare for the remote possibility that Brussels refuses any further to negotiate... (1)

1. 2 .it is time we unleashed the productive power notjust of London and the South East but of the awesome foursome that are incarnated in that red white and mblue flag who together are so much more than the sum of their parts and whose brand and political personality is admired and even loved around the world ... (1)

So, Brussels as a seat of the main EU institutions is associated with the EU leaders, managers of the EU policy and it sounds clearly without any detailization of the names and groups. The word-combinations every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in combination with conjunctions who, whose are able to provoke thinking about the people of these parts of the country.

The usage of intensifiers makes the speech of Boris Johnson more expressive and convincing, influencing the feelings and emotions of addressee: only common, far less serious, now and only now.

Conclusions and perspectives of further research in this field. Summing up the material we'd like to stress that Boris Johnsons uses a great number of Stylistic devices and Expressive means to realize his pragmatic purposes: propagate and promote the idea of Brexit among the UK population as the most relevant idea of the given community. The usage of polysyndenots, asyndetons, parallel constructions, metonymy, metaphors, epithets, degrees of comparison, categorical transposition, parenthetic sentences, detachments, chain and distant repetitions, pun plays the great role in the discourse realization as well as in forming the text ornament of the first speech of Boris Johnsons as a Prime Minister and in creating his idiolect and idiostyle.

It' s rather prospective to investigate the idiolect, idiostyle of Boris Johnsons as a newly coined Prime Minister of the UK, as well as argumentative and manipulative component of his speeches.

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