Cognitive & Pragmatic Approach to the Phraseological Intensifiers of Political Discourse

Abstract

The present paper reports on a study that aims to explore the cognitive and pragmatic potential of leveraging phraseological intensifiers in English political discourse. The authors argue that the phraseological intensifiers of political discourse could not be discussed without any contribution to the extra-linguistic context. Therefore, the present study works with a cognitive linguistic explanation of the phraseological intensifiers used by English politicians and journalists as well as performed pragmatic impact that aimed to foster the relevant conceptualization process. The suggestion of phraseological intensifiers depends on context linguistic meaning in the employed by the authors cognitive-pragmatic paradigm. This paper also denotes a wide range of relative to intensity categories, which should be distinguished from it. Such an analysis allows the authors to account for the wide distribution of intensifiers and their co-occurrence with categories that do not encode degree variables. The results of the study show that phraseological intensifiers significantly outperformed in the degree of pragmatic suggestion in political discourse and made use of them in a more appropriate way.