Confrontational strategies and tactics as a means of representing speech aggression in political communication (based on Olaf Scholz’s speech)

Nowadays, political communication uses a whole range of confrontational speech strategies and tactics aimed at discrediting opponents in an information war, as well as imposing their point of view and forming a certain public opinion regarding discredited objects. A confrontational strategy provides the speaker with the opportunity to express a negative attitude towards his opponent, hostility and willingness to enter into conflict to achieve his own goals, ignoring the goals and interests of the other side. A confrontational strategy involves retreat and even violation of moral and ethical norms. Confrontational speech strategies include strategies of submission and persuasion, discrediting. Each of the strategies is implemented using different speech tactics. In order to effectively counter the threats of negative information impact, it is necessary to identify the speech strategies and tactics used by the German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which determines the relevance of the study. The purpose of the research is to study the confrontational strategies and tactics in O. Scholz’s speech, affecting a mass audience and aimed at discrediting both the image of Russia itself and Russian foreign policy. The source of the research material was Olaf Scholz’s keynote speech, which he delivered to the German Federal Government on February 27, 2022. This speech was the FGR reaction to the beginning of a special military operation by the Russian Federation. Descriptive and comparative methods along with contextual analysis techniques, as well as definitional, semantic analysis were used to achieve this goal. The article analyzes two confrontational strategies used by Olaf Scholz: discrediting, submission and persuasion. The discrediting strategy is used more often than the strategy of submission and persuasion. The following discrediting tactics have been identified: accusation, negative forecasting and polarization. The strategy of submission and persuasion is objectified with the help of threats and orders. Confrontational tactics act both autonomously (in isolation) and in combination with each other (combined).

speech aggression, confrontational speech strategy, discrediting strategy, strategy of submission and persuasion, speech tactics, political communication, the German language, Olaf Scholz