MEANS OF EXPRESSING EMOTIONAL CONCEPTS IN THE INAUGURAL SPEECHES OF THE US PRESIDENTS DONALD TRUMP AND JOSEPH BIDEN IN A COMPARATIVE ASPECT

Abstract

Emotions are an integral part of human existence, and a language is the main powerful tool in the formation of opinions and positions, transmitting information and reflecting the emotional world of a person – his or her various feelings and reactions (states). The manifestation and reflection of a person’s emotional state by linguistic means and the influence of emotions on the formation of an (emotional) linguistic world view are reflected through emotional concepts. Concepts are the subject of interdisciplinary research. At the moment, there is no generally accepted classification of emotions. Moreover, the issue of defining the notion of a ‘concept’ and, accordingly, an ‘emotional concept’ is rather ambiguous in cognitive linguistics, which indicates the complexity of the object being defined, reflecting different approaches to its description. An emotional concept, which reflects and forms an emotional picture of the world, is a component of political discourse, the interest in which is due to the important role of politics in the world, as it is an integral part of our culture, permeating both private and public life. An inaugural speech is a separate genre of political discourse and a component of political communication. Despite the sincere interest in political discourse in general and inaugural speeches in particular, their emotive component (as opposed to the persuasive and manipulative one), especially in the comparative aspect, remains poorly studied, which makes our study relevant. The article investigates the presence and linguistic and stylistic means of realisation of emotional concepts in the inaugural speeches of US Presidents Donald Trump and Joseph Biden in a comparative aspect within the paradigm of political linguistics and emotivology of a text. Both isomorphic and allomorphic features in the use of emotional concepts by both politicians, as well as in the spectrum of verbal and non-verbal expressive and figurative linguistic means of their expression at different levels, are revealed.