Verbal means of expressing aggression in political talk shows

The paper aims to examine verbal and paraverbal means of expressing aggression found in political talk shows. In the media of the XXI century there has been an increase in emotional tension as well as the activation of ideological opposition both in relation to political opponents and in relation to unfriendly states. This tendency determined the necessity of addressing the issue in this study. Speech samples of Russian journalists and political scientists were chosen as research material. In the course of study, various types of lexical means used to explicate verbal aggression (labeling people, evaluation nominations, invective language, mimicry, irony, sarcasm, etc.) were identified and described. As a result, it was found that the most frequent means to manifest verbal aggression in political talk shows was the use of invective vocabulary (57,7%) with the technique of labeling people. Irony bordering on sarcasm was more than twice less frequent. Paraverbal means of aggression were also found including the use of a dismissive tone and sharp exclamations, mimicking, unjustified raising of the voice, inappropriate pauses during conversation. The material proves that disputes between Russian politicians and journalists do not always correspond to the tactics and strategies of cooperative communication.