Psycholinguistic Potential of Political Concepts of the Election Campaign (on the example of the slogan-motto “Army. Language. Faith”)

Abstract

The aim of the study is a psycholinguistic analysis of the stimulus words (Ukrainian) army, language, faith as concept-forming nominations of the appropriate text concepts in the structure of the slogan-motto (advertising slogan, political slogan) “Army. Language. Faith.” the 2019 election campaign (that is, in the context of a particular discursive practice). Methods of the research. The application of the method of free associative experiment basing on the theory of speech influence allows to interpret the semantics of the analyzed concepts, as well as to establish their closest connections and logical relationships with other concepts. Verbal reactions to a political slogan as a whole and to its individual structural units as concept-forming nominations are interpreted as verbal representations of cognitive features of concepts. Results. The results of the associative experiment are a relevant source of data in order to identify markers of the deep (including subconscious) mechanisms of verbal and non-verbal behavior of individuals, which can be used to form new and transform old political concepts. The presence of intersecting segments in their semantic fields testifies about the partial synthesis of diverse concepts in the recipients’ minds, in which the effect of the psycholinguistic influence of the slogan-motto is increased. The absence of such an intersection is an indicator of the information the general information field of the concepts, which is expressed in the discrete perception of the advertising slogan. Conclusion. In the context of the speech theory influence, the first two stages of implementation the text slogan-motto “Army. Language. Faith.” into mass consciousness (attracting attention to the text and optimization its perception) were successfully implemented. A number of reasons (extralinguistic and linguistic formation, for example, the use of words with abstract, non-specific semantics “language”, “faith”) complicated the implementation of the third stage (acceptance of the content) of the implication of the text. Concept-forming nomination “army”, potentially containing negative semantic components, caused reactions associated with the emergency of cognitive disbalance in the consciousness of individuals. Comparison of the associates of the two stages of the experiment showed that the context of perception of the stimulus words is important for the respondents. Thus, the evaluative connotations of reaction words (in particular, concerning the nomination “army”) in the context of the advertising campaign of P. Poroshenko’s party and outside this context differ significantly.