Lexico-stylistic and structural features of Volodymyr Zelensky’s political address to Congress

Abstract

The defiant russia’s aggression upon Ukraine changed the world order and made countries choose between good and evil, stand aside or act, focus peoples’ attention on human rights and values important for everyone. All these inevitably encourage linguists and researchers of related disciplines to transfer their investigations into the arena of political communication, where of statesmen play a primary role in influencing the minds of the masses. In this regard, the address of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Congress as a material for analysis is definitely relevant. The purpose of the study is to consider the structure of the political speech itself and the linguistic means of the speaker’s communicative intent realization which lies in providing comprehensive assistance to Ukraine, defending the basic human values. The use of structural-semantic analysis made it possible to distinguish three blocks in Volodymyr Zelensky’s address: introductory, informative, and conclusion, as well as to reveal their characteristic features. An appeal to the mass addressee, taking into account such factors as position, gender and nationality as official forms of address and nonofficial Friends!, contribute to setting up a warm atmosphere. The informative block is presented by five subtopics, each of which serves as an independent element of the political address. An expression of gratitude to Joe Biden and American people for their strong support for Ukraine, reinforced by the demonstration of a video with episodes of the war, is found in the conclusion, which is an effective method of influencing the audience. The elements of discourse analysis made it possible to highlight positive images of America as a defender, Ukraine as a fighter, and negative russia as an aggressor and analyze the linguistic means that form them. An effective means of influencing is reference to important historical events for the USA and the words of Martin Luther King, which mark the common aspirations of American and Ukrainian people. Russia’s trampling upon basic human rights and values, such as democracy, independence, freedom, peace are key points in Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech. Joe Biden is considered the leader of the nation, the leader of the world and the leader of peace, that mark President of high reputation. The successful implementation of the communicative intent by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is evidenced not only by the greeting of his speech with loud applause, but also the USA’s strong support and real assistance to Ukraine in the war against russia.