SOCIOLINGUAL AND LINGUOPRAGMATIC PARAMETERS OF BORIS JOHNSON’S SPEECH BEHAVIOR

Abstract

The article is devoted to defining the sociolinguistic and linguo-pragmatic characteristics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s current Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech behavior by analyzing the communication strategies and tactics that the politician uses to express his attitude to the traditional national values and modern social trends of tolerance and political correctness concerning racial, ethnic, gender, religious, social and lifestyle diversity. The main communicative intention of B. Johnson is to create and maintain a positive image, for which he uses communicative techniques and language means to exert ideological, informational and emotional influence on British society, adhering to national traditions and at the same time taking into account new socio-political trends. The main communicative tactics that reflect the sociolinguistic parameters of B. Johnson’s language personality are expression of gratitude, condemnation, contrast, consolidation of the people, representation of news value, explication of socio-political position, intimacy of communication, integration. These tactics are actualized by various language means, such as lexical units with ameliorative connotation, lexical and grammatical expressions, stylistic devices (tautology, allusion, parallelism, synonymous repetition), words and phrases that belong to the conversational style. It is noted that society, in turn, influences the choice of topics for speeches and communication tactics, i.e. the speech of a politician in general. The sociolingual parameters of the language personality of a politician are social factors forming his language personality, such as education and professional activities, his attitude to members of other races, ethnic groups and genders, different religions, professional backgrounds and lifestyles, and his appeal to folk traditions and values, i.e. the complex interaction of the linguistic personality with society. The linguopragmatic aspect helps to systematize and generalize the means that objectify these sociolinguistic characteristics in the speech of the current Prime Minister of the United Kingd om.