The Political Marginalization as a Communicative Strategy of Power Domination in Political Discourse

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the study of political marginalization viewed as a communicative strategy, aimed at retention or attainment of political power. Political discourse, despite the perceptible tendency towards personalization of the political communication particularly noticeable in politainment, is defined as a predominantly institutional type of discourse in which the dyad ‘agent – client’ plays an important role. From the traditional standpoint of view, it is believed that agents have discursive power while clients have none. However, as the undertaken research shows, it is quite difficult to draw a distinct line between agents and clients in political discourse. The point is that using the strategy of marginalization, politicians can present themselves as non-politicians (i.e. non-agents), untypical (atypical) politicians, for example women politicians, politicians holding on to minority political views, etc. At the same time, the strategy in question is most likely unrestricted by political forms of marginalization in the sense that it can correspond to the politician’s search for selfidentification with marginal social groups whose rights are infringed upon, including national minorities and LGBT. Furthermore, even those social groups which, in fact, have long ceased to be marginal in the Western world (e.g. women) can be exploited by marginal politicians who prefer to characterize them as people who are not enjoying equal rights with elite, privileged representatives of the society (e.g. men). Thus, the study of marginalization presupposes the analysis of the complex structure of social relationships, unveiling manipulative aspects of marginalization (NB: the politician’s self-representation as the non-politician should almost always be considered as an instance of manipulation) and exploration of linguopragmatic aspects of marginalization.