Verbal Aggression and False Arguments in Crisis Political Communication

In this study we focus on political discourse and political communication in periods of crisis in order to characterize the speech of public figures from Bulgarian and Czech political life. The text examines political discourse in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic in the context of important crisis events in the political life of both countries - votes of no confidence in the governments. In the studied linguistic material analogical patterns of realization of communicative strategies are observed: linguistic aggression, use of false argumentation, expressed in accusing the opponent of incompetence and committing fraud, excessive use of lexemes with negative connotation, suggesting a sense of catastrophe and misfortune. The intensification of the message is also achieved through the use of a number of lexemes with a negative connotation, which is characteristic of aggression in political speech. As a means to achieve these goals, communication in political discourse usually uses expressive or other marked lexical expressions, as well as false argumentative strategies, aimed not at the content and nature of the problem, but at attacking the positive image of the communication partner. In the corpus of linguistic material studied, linguistic aggression based on the assertion of one's own personality, independently of the communication partner, was identified with high frequency. In the examples given, there is always a conscious linguistic strategy and intent that is clearly identifiable in a given communicative moment.