Modality as a Means of Legitimisation in the Video Message of the Minister-President of Bavaria M. Söder
The study deals with the means of modality expression in a video message of the German regional politician M. Söder as well as the tactics and speech techniques used by Internet commentators to legitimize the political decisions of the Bavarian Minister-President. The manipulation of addressee's consciousness and behavior is one of the most important functions of political discourse, and modality is one of the most effective means of its realization. In this regard, the paper examines subjective and objective modalities as well as the communicative modalities characteristic of the German politician's discourse. The aim of the paper is to determine the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of the means chosen by a political actor to express modality in their institutional Internet discourse. The aim presupposes the performance of the following tasks: to reveal a politician's individual speech devices and their perlocutionary effect by analyzing Internet comments. The scope of the research is outlined including the verbal means of expressing the politician's modality and the verbal design realizing the commentators' legitimate attitude to the political decisions of the Bavarian Minister-President. The methods of linguistic and contextual analysis have been used to implement the objectives set. The practical significance of the research consists in the possibility of using its results in the preparation of politician's speeches and their effective interaction with the audience. As a results of the study, the means of expressing modality characteristic of the political discourse of Söder have been revealed. The analysis has shown that modality in the discourse of the German regional politician is realized on all linguistic levels. The means of expressing subjective modality are most widely represented. The analysis of Internet comments has helped to discover the tactics and speech devices that legitimize the political decisions of the Minister-President of Bavaria.