Political Media Communication: Bilingual Strategies in the Pre-Election Campaign Speeches

This article concerns the research of such new aspect of political media communication as bilingualism in the young state of South Ossetia’ election campaign. The study is devoted to the description of tactical and strategic tools of candidates for the presidency of the country in 2017. The strategic use of the Ossetian and Russian language systems, determined by the intentions of presidential candidates, the target audience, and the communicative situation, characterizes the language identities of Ossetian politicians as ambilingists switching easily between the two codes. The study shows that self-presentation is one of the dominant strategies, as candidates seek to present themselves as the most worthy candidate for the presidency, using a specific set of language means and speech constructs. As the language analysis of the pre-election speeches testifies, the ethnic identity of the newly emerged South Ossetian political media communication is characterized by the development of mechanisms for dialogical interaction based on the rejection of the opposability of the leaders of the branches of government in the mass media. The authors state that the main characteristics of electoral meetings with voters and debates represent ritual actions that are part of the traditional Ossetian communication scenario. The role-playing behavior of the participants in the presidential election also reflects the specifics of interaction between the senior and junior. Special discourse signs are the principles of openness and feedback that have been most effective as dominant strategies. The study of the texts of the candidates’ speeches by the candidates is the orientation of the presidential candidates to various segments of society, united according to the family-patronymic, territorial and socio-political principles. Thus, the tactical and strategic complex of this election campaign is based on a self-presentation strategy implemented by the tactics of identification and demonstration of ethnicity.