Semantic Mechanisms of Political Discourse Euphemization in the Russian and German Languages
The paper regards comparative studying of the semantic devices of euphemization used in Russian and German political texts. Based on the public speeches of the political leaders of Russia and Germany, the distinctive features and general functions of political euphemisms as effective means to conceal the genuine sense of utterances are revealed. The most frequent semantic means of negative meaning reduction are found in both languages. They are the usage of lexemes with diffusive semantics, metaphors, diplomatic clichés, and collocations, as well as the introduction of lexemes with positive connotations, etc. The differential and common for both languages tendencies of political discourse euphemization are determined.