Pragmatics of Eponyms in Political Discourse (On the Material of the Speeches of Politicians)

Abstract

Eponyms are complicated, unique constructs named after people and places used in special-professional areas of science. One of those specific areas is politics/political discourse. The main purpose of this article is to investigate the political discourse of politicians (Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin) in the period from 2012 to 2017 to reveal the pragmatic potential and skillful use of eponyms used by the latter when they ran for presidency as a means of influence. Results show that eponyms are becoming powerful language tools of political discourse. At each stage of work, various methods were used to complete the analysis. Such methods include the diachronic method, definition analysis (descriptive method), and discourse analysis. Using different methods, especially discourse analysis, considerably facilitated the research process, enabling the identification of the pragmatic effects of eponyms. The main reasons that eponyms frequently appear in political discourse are the existence of new political eras, modern political events, and controversial political issues.