FUNCTIONAL AND LINGUISTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE BRITISH POLITICAL DISCOURSE: R. SUNAK ’S SPEECH IN THE UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT

Abstract

A political speech, as a prepared message with a strong political focus, occupies a significant place in political discourse. The study aims to examine the linguistic and functional characteristics of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Ukrainian-Russian War-era political discourse. The importance of the study lies in the need to examine the linguistic image of the Ukrainian-Russian War and its main political actors in current political discourse. The relevance of this study is also determined by the goal of demonstrating the use of the system of expressive means and stylistic devices in current political discourse using the example of Rishi Sunak’s speech. The research methods of the article combine the simple calculation method, the discourse analysis method, the style analysis method, the pure sampling method and the comparative method. We also used the corpus research tool “Voyant Tools” to process and analyze the selected speech. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Rishi Sunak’s speech in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on January 12, 2024 serves as a material for our study. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak uses a variety of stylistic devices to achieve the desired effect, which is determined by the pragmatic characteristics of the speech and the specifics of the audience to which the speech is delivered. In terms of vocabulary, Rishi Sunak uses rhetorical devices such as metaphor and repetition and words and phrases that convey urgency along with words that express emotions and attitudes. In terms of grammar, the speaker often uses active voice, first and second person pronouns, modal verbs, inversion, superlative degree of adjectives, and logical connectors. The British Prime Minister’s speech is convincing due to the use of various combinations of personal and possessive pronouns “we / our”, “we / our + you / your”, “I / my + you / your” to refer to parties to political interaction; proper geographical names of countries and nationalities; the grammatical category of the present tense to emphasize continuous active actions aimed at the victory of the Ukrainian people, to statistics and figures, and repetition.