Author(s): Natalia Kravchenko,Viktoriia Blidchenko-Naiko,Oleksandr Yudenko / Language(s): English
Issue: 2/2023
The specificity and conjugation of discursive pragmatics and classical rhetoric manifests itself when politicians are faced with the need for evasive formulations to mitigate a potential threat to their face. To substantiate the conceptual basis of discursive argumentation, the article differentiates between “topoi-integrators” and “topoi-arguments”. The topos-integrator "responsibility", actualized at the local and global discursive levels, appeal to ethos, supporting the logos-based argumentation by involving the ethos-based moral foundations of the speaker's position. Topoi-arguments "responsibility", “threat”, “reliability” and “law’ are rhetorically based on enthymeme as figures of reasoning that appeal to logos as well as on auxiliary figures of digressio, Past Fact / Future Fact, exergasia, climax, congeries, hyperbole and apagoresis, appealing to logos, ethos, and pathos. Pragmatically, the restoration of implicit premises and conclusions of enthymemes corresponds to explicatures, which become the basis for the generation of implicatures, provided that the speakers flout cooperative maxims. Disobeying the maxim of quantity of information is based on the figures of exergasia, climax, congeries, the maxim of relevance - on digressio, Past Fact / Future Fact, and the maxim of quality - on hyperbole and apagoresis. Through rhetorical figures and the corresponding pragmatics, the speakers implement the strategies of transferring and reducing responsibility, substitution of arguments, mitigation, partial distortion by exaggeration, simplification, etc.
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