EITHER A FRIEND OR A FOE: THE DICHOTOMY “US / THEM” IN POLYCODE INTERNET TEXTS
The following article is devoted to the multidimensional study of a polycode text of political internet discourse in terms of its manipulative potential. We understand discourse as a complex communicative phenomenon including text - a verbalized result of speech, accompanied by extra-linguistic factors (communicative situations, communicants, their goals, objectives, ideological attitudes, and sociocultural parameters of communication). The resources that a producer employs to achieve his/her communicative intention include both linguistic tools and non-verbal means. Speech manipulation tools stand out among verbal components, they are understood as the producer’s special use of the entire multi-level variety of linguistic tools in order to control the perception of reality by a mass audience. The most common non-verbal components of discourse are audio, visual, audio-visual, intertextual, and other elements. The considered texts of the Russian-language political Internet discourse reveal one of the fundamental conceptual dichotomies of the world of politics - the distribution of discourse objects at the poles of “us” or “them”. Intending to present the parties as friendly or hostile, the producer successfully uses a rich repertoire of tools and methods of manipulation, as demonstrated by the extracts of the analyzed publications. The capabilities of the polycode texts are really unlimited, especially when it comes to their impacting potential. The current stage of the Internet technologies development adds bonuses to the bank of devices, used to achieve communication goals.