Metaphor as a Means of Implementing Communicative Strategy in Foreign Policy Discourse

The article examines metaphors of the US and Russian foreign policy discourse used with regard to the state of foreign relations, processes, events, and actors in foreign policy. From the perspectives of conceptual metaphor theory and metaphorical modeling theory, the linguo-cognitive mechanism of conceptualization and categorization of foreign policy events is analyzed. The study focuses onthe analysis of the peculiarities of the “axis of evil” and “reset” metaphors in terms of the pragmatics in the context of foreign relations. Based on the analysis data, the author concludes that the exploited metaphorical images and pragmatic vector of the analyzed metaphors determine the implemented communicative strategy and, consequently, the rhetorical potential of the statement for the development of cooperative and non-cooperative relations.