HUMOR IN UKRAINIAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

ORCID: 0000-0002-9589-7716

Nataliia KONDRATENKO,
Doctor of Philology, Prof., Head of the Department of Applied Linguistics of the Odesa National University by Mechnykov, 2 Dvoryanskaya St., Odessa 65082, Ukraine;
E-mail: kondr_nat@ukr.net

The research focuses on the problem of humor in Ukrainian political discourse, which is interpreted as a manifestation of human activity. The peculiarities of the combination of political and game discourses in Ukrainian political communication were clarified, which resulted in the active use of humorous components in the speeches of politicians. Linguistic means of expression of humor in posts on social networks and speeches of Ukrainian politicians are analyzed.

The purpose of our study is to investigate linguistic means of humor representation as the main manifestation of comic relief in Ukrainian political discourse. The purpose was to solve the following tasks: to outline the concept of political discourse in terms of the game concept of communicative activity; to analyze political genres in the speech of Ukrainian politicians; identify the linguistic features of political trolling; to find out the specifics of humor in the Ukrainian political discourse.

The material of the research was the statements, speeches and posts in the social networks of famous Ukrainian politicians (L. Kravchuk, P. Poroshenko, V. Zelensky, Yu. Tymoshenko, U. Suprun etc.).

Political humor is a communicative strategy in communicating politicians with one another and with ordinary citizens, and is a form of protection and distance from political problems. The appearance of a comic effect in communicative interaction depends on the intensity of the speaker and the extralinguistic factors. The main expressions of political humor are jokes, jokes and trolling. Trolling is featured in social media posts and aimed at ridiculing political opponents. The specifi city of the Ukrainian political humor in the linguopragmatic aspect is provocative, irony and personal addressing of speech

Key words: political discourse, political humor, political communication, communicative strategy, social network, trolling.