SPEECH TACTICS OF THREAT IN AMERICAN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

This article is devoted to threat as a widely-spread tactical means of fulfilling communicative strategy of subordination in modern American political discourse, while political communication is characterized with functional-pragmatic evolution. Political discourse is regarded as a special type of institutional discourse, when the subjects of speech activity are politicians of all stripes. This discursive type manifests itself in the form of political interviews, press-conferences, meetings with voters, debates, reports etc. The main goal of English political discourse is to influence people's choices and actions. The author uses functional-linguistic analysis to determine that threatening people in politics is achieved through a spectrum of rhetorical means including those that have pragma-semantic components of fear, hatred, pressure and tension. Using threatening phrases, speakers try to change foreign policy issue in either positive or negative way. This malicious tendency can be later noticed in physical opposition of different countries or making peace between enemy countries. It is necessary to thoroughly research all the peculiarities of using subordination tactics and its influence on the formation of the foreign policy issue and foreign political discourse.