Parameters Of Language Modeling Of The Image Of Russia And Its Leader

The main manipulative influence tactics in the Ibero-American media

The most wide-spread among mainstream manipulative influence tactics in the material studied are: methods of programming nomination, labeling, aggravation, specification, theatricalization and creolization (the use of illustrative and visual means), hoaxing facts, fragmented citation, self-explanatory headings, information manipulation (information transformation (understatement, overstatement, violation of proportions); discrimination (the use of information beneficial to stress one’s own point of view only); special means of presenting information (informational overload, fragmentation of information, mixture of facts and opinion (Kopnina, 2007, p. 46-99).

Let’s take as an example the following. Programming nomination – anticipation of events – can be found in media headlines which inform the readership of the planned election result in advance: Rusiaafrontaunaño de enormesdesafíos y unaselecciones de puro trámite ‘Russia enters the year of enormous challenges and purely formal elections’ (Med, 2019, p. 138).

‘Self-explanatory’ article headings are an important programming nomination device as well, as they facilitate shaping reader’s opinion: El zar Putin I de todas las Rusias, las Américas, las Sirias y dentro de poco las Europas ‘Putin I the Czar of all the Russias, Americas, Syrias and soon all Europe’ (Med, 2019, p. 146); El mundo bajo la bota de Putin‘The world under Putin’s boot’ (Zernova, 2019, p. 101). It can be seen that these headings instill the idea of growing influence of Russia, authoritarianism of the Russian president, which threatens the whole world.

Indirect quotation with the source of information indicated at the end of the sentence allows the author to relieve themselves of responsibility for the opinion and at the same time emphasize the negative tone of the text: Los desmentidos, los cruces de acusaciones y las amenazas de represalias recíprocas marcaron la semana y son el resumen de un mandato en el cual Rusia retornó a la escena internacional, en un clima con tintes de Guerra Fría con el conflicto en Siria, la anexión de Crimea y la insurrección en el este de Ucrania llevada a cabo por separatistas apoyados porMoscú, según Kiev y Occidente ‘Lies, mutual accusations and threats of repression characterize this week, and this is the result of the rule, when Russia returned to the world stage in the atmosphere close to the Cold War with the Syrian conflict, annexation of the Crimea and upsurge in Western Ukraine organized by the Moscow-backed separatists, according to Kyiv and the West’ (Nikolaeva, 2019a, p.189).

Specification – using statistical data - emphasizes the long term of the current President:Putin inicia quarto mandato como presidente da Rússia ‘Putin begins his fourth presidential term’ (Nikolaeva, 2019a , p. 178); ZarPutinhasta 2024‘Czar Putin till 2024’ (Med, 2019, p. 138).

Labelling, which means stereotypification and replicatuion of V.Putin’s image as a former KGB officer, can be found in the Ibero-American media as well:se graduó como agente del KGB (siglas en ruso del Comisariado para la Seguridad del Estado) ‘Putin graduated from the Higher School of the KGB (Zernova, 2019, p. 97).

Creolization, often used in the Ibero-American media texts (‘self-explanatory’pictures of V.Putin), facilitates theatricalization of the political discourse (Iakushkina, 2019a, p. 247-248; Sokolova, 2019, p. 222-223).

The abovementioned manipulative tactics imply specific use of linguistic means. The study of linguistic manipulative devices conducted in the pragmatic aspect showed that these devices can be found on morpho-syntactic and lexical levels of the Spanish and Portuguese languages.

Morpho-syntactic manipulative devices in the Ibero-American media

Among manipulative devices we have found preposition adjectives aimed at enhancingnegative effect: El líder ruso tomará este lunes <>último mandato<> con el reto de sacar a Rusia del retraso económico sinmodificar su agresiva política exterior ‘This Monday the Russian leader willtake the last mandate <>todraw Russia out of the list of low-performing economies sticking toaggressive foreign policy’. In thephrase agresiva política (aggressive policy) the negative adjectiv inpreposition enhances the strategy of instilling the negative attitude (Sokolova, 2019, p. 216). The thematic- rhematic articulation, change in theword order, apposition in preposition to the name in the heading «Exagente del KGB al frente del paísdesde hace más de 18 años, Vladimir Putin acaba de ser reelegido por seis años más con una mayoría aplastante» ‘Ex-KGB agent, the head of the country for more than 18 years already, has just beenreelected for a six-year term by a landslide’, form an additional negative attitude (ex-KGB agent), while specification (more than 18 years) stresses his long term in power (Nikolaeva, 2019a, p.189).

Prevalence of hypotaxis (complex sentences) with subordinate clause in postposition should also mentioned; in those negative attitude to the facts reported is explicated as something conventional and hence indisputable: Lo tendrá muy difícil el líder ruso para no perder el último tren antes de que la revolución tecnológica que ya está viviendo el mundo deje a Rusia definitivamente en lacuneta ‘The Russian leader will have to try hard not to miss the last opportunity before the global technological revolution leaves Russia on the margins of history’ (Sokolova, 2019, p. 214).

Breaking the rules of sequence of tenses for better actualization of the message and the use of future tenses with hypothetic modality for judgmental prediction of events is also typical for the Ibero-American political discourse: Se cumprir o quarto mandato que hoje conquistou, Putin terá estado no poder entre 2000 e 2004, quase sempre como chefe de Estado. Mudará Putin a Lei Fundamental? Renovará a manobra medvedeviana de 2008? ‘If Putin is to complete his forth presidential term he has been elected to, he will stay in power from 2000 to 2004, almost entirely as the head of state. Will Putin change the Fundamental Law? Will he renew Medvedev’s 2008 reform?’(Nikolaeva, 2019b, p.98).

The use of various grammatical and lexico-grammatical constructions with gerund and participle can be used a manipulation device as well. Thus, in the following sentence ‘V. Putin, ex-agente del KGB lleva 18 años imponiendo su autoridad en Moscú‘V.Putin, ex-KGB agent, has been imposing his authority in Moscow for 18 years already’ persuasion is reacheed by the use of progressive gerund construction which marks the continuance combined with negative semantics of the verb ‘to impose’ and the use of an adverbial modifier (18 years) (Sokolova, 2019, p.215).

This article does not allow to discuss such grammatical devices as the use of impersonal pronoun passive (zero-subject) which results in formation of various comnnotations, constructions with the indefinite subject to eliminate personal opinion, structures based on coherence and cohesion (for instance, distant repetitions which enhance the sender’s communicative intention (Nikolaeva, 2019b; Sokolova, 2019).

Lexical manipulative devices in the Ibero-American media

Among lexical manipulative devices the most frequently used are conceptual metaphors, key homonyms, ideologemes, affective words, invective words, modern coinages, loan words, allusion, irony, precedent phenomena, phraseological devices, play on words, citation, the use of warspeak, and all these aim at creating positive/negative image of Russia in the Ibero-American media.

The main aim of a political metaphor is to affect popular mentality through vivid metaphorical images and to form the relevant public opinion. The Ibero-American mediatexts display a lot of anthropomorphous (Csar President), religious, theatrical, morbial metaphors etc. Thus, for instance, conceptual metaphor of the game compares V.Putin with a strong chess player skillfully setting up the global chess board: Mientras el mundojuega a las damas Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin triunfaen el ajedrez ‘While the world is playing checkers Vladimir Putin triumphantly wins a game of chess’ (Med, 2019, p. 148).

Ideologemes “putinismo, putinología, putinización” (‘putinism’, ‘putinology’, ‘putinization’) are used for negative characterization of political views of the Russian president and his supporters. We see a lot of affective words which verbalize positive and negative emotions: Ele fala as coisas interessantísimas. É um dos maiores lideres mundiais ‘He says most interesting things. He is one of the most outstanding worldleaders’ (Nikolaeva, 2019a, p. 180); <>es un líder culto, carismático, valiente, con los pies bien puestos sobre la tierra, un orgullo para el pueblo Ruso. A diferencia deTrump, que es una vergüenza para el pueblo estadounidense» ‘, <>aneducated, charismatic, brave leader, with both feet on the ground, pride of theRussian people. Unlike Trump, who is a shame for the American people’ (Voiku, 2019, p. 75). Wide use of lexical devices with semantic dominant of the ‘power’ (hombre fuerte, hombre viril, hombre invencible – a strong person, a courageous person, an invincible person) forms a positive image of the Russian leader (Zernova, 2019, p. 99-100).

The use of precedent names, known to the public and giving rise to either positive or negative associations (Roosevelt, Churchill, De Gaulle, Machiavelli, Napoleon, Nicholas I, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen) together with the name of the Russian leader is an important manipulation device as well: Putin es un gran político, un estadista a la altura de Churchill;pero la historia la escriben historiadores ingleses y americanos que nunca dejan bien ni a españoles ni a rusos de manera muy injusta, así que ellos ya empezaron hace años a escribir la historia a su manera sobre Putin ‘Putin is a great politician, a statesman of the level of Churchill, yet the history is written by the British or American scholars who have never spoken well of the Spanish or the Russians, thus for several years already they have been writing the history of Putin in their own manner’(Med, 2019, p. 155).

Manipulative semantics as a special use of lexis and phraseology is also characteristic of the Ibero-American media. For instance, the use of adjective «demoscópico», usually used in study and analysis of public opinion through polls and interviews: estudio demoscópico, análisis demoscópico» ‘demoscopic study’, ‘demoscopic analysis’ out of the usual context brings about new meanings. Thus, Putin is usually ascribed so-called demoscopic health, based on TV reports of his keenness on sport: <>su buena salud demoscópica es a prueba de bomba ‘his demoscopic health is excellent’. Collocation “hacerse un traje a medida” ‘make a suit to measure’ is a tailoring term. Yet in characterizing Putin’s election campaign the term is used for critical estimation of the constitutional reform of the electoral system: «Precisamente por eso, se preparó un traje a medida antes de su regreso, una reforma de la Constitución alargando de cuatro a seis años la duración de los mandatos presidenciales ‘That’s why he made his suit to his measure before his return – a Constitutional reform which extends the presidential term from four to six years’ (Med, 2019, p. 151).

We should also pay attention to warspeak as a means of linguistic manipulation which shows alleged threat from Russia and the Russian President, who is to protect the country from the hostile world:carreraarmamentista ‘arms race’, nuevo arsenal nuclear ‘new nuclear arsenals’, defensa nacional ‘national defense’,gastos de defensa‘defence spending’(Iakushkina, 2019a, p. 257).

Compared to the electoral situation which is ambiguously interpreted in the Ibero-American media the analysis of newspaper articles of 22 Ibero-American countries which covered the FIFA World Cup showed predominantly positive reaction to it, expressed by positive judgmental lexical devices (fabuloso, fantástico, espectacular, impresionante- fabulous, fantastic, spectacular, impressive), characterized by destruction of negative stereotypes in perception of Russia and hence creating an attractive image of an open, friendly, hi-tech country (Iakushkina, 2019b).