Sokolov D. Political Vocabulary: Semantic-Functional and Cognitive Aspect (on the Material of German-Language Political Texts)

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive study of semantic, functional and cognitive aspects of the political vocabulary that is used in the German political discourse. The analysis of semantic and functional characteristics includes: revealing the distinguishing features of the evaluative and deontic potential of lexical units that are employed in the political discourse and acquire the status of political vocabulary units; generalizing and refining the classification of the political vocabulary, which is divided into the institutional, departmental, general interactional and ideological vocabulary; differentiating two subgroups - key words of the current moment and symbol-words - within the group of the ideological vocabulary by taking into account the semantic features and functions of the relevant lexical units. The investigation of the cognitive features of the political lexicon includes revealing the associative links between the political vocabulary units that denote politically relevant notions and are present in a certain context; and allocating the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that cause the meaning of the political vocabulary units to be unstable / dynamic in a sequence of discursive events. That is achieved via comprehensive frame-based modeling that enables to explore the interaction of the political vocabulary units in the political discourse. Key words: political lexicon, ideological bias, evaluative meaning, deontic meaning, network of notions, frame-based modeling, political discourse.