Official political discourse texts as an indicator of the political regime evolution (by the mean of speeches of Ukrainian presidents).

Abstract

In Ukrainian scientific discourse politics’ speeches are predominantly studied within political linguistic. Primarily scholars pay their attention at foreign politician speeches. Additionally, qualitative methods are usually used, and there is almost impossible to measure political processes’ dynamics for large periods of time.

In the paper 856 speeches of Ukrainian presidents (Yuschenko, Yanukovych, Poroshenko) are studied – all the speeches for the whole period of presidency. With the formal analysis oscillations of different parameters in the political texts, due to changes of political regimes is demonstrated.

The main hypothesis of the study is the interrelation between more intense and diverse (in the terms of genres, formats of events, informational occasions, audiences, geography) communication and more democratic regime. The first part of the hypothesis was partly approved. Simple count of the quantity of the speeches shows, that low intensity of speeches was observed only during the first two years of Yanukovych presidency. The second part of the hypothesis was approved.

Yuschenko’s and Poroshenko’s speechwriters used not only main genres of speeches (statements, appeals and etc), but subgenres as well. Additionally it is stressed, that in the Ukrainian scientific tradition genres of direct appeals aren’t studied enough.

The third and the fifth Ukrainian presidents’ teams created more diverse and unique actions formats (29 and 39 respectively; 18 for Yanukovych). Information occasions were mostly connected with current affairs, whereas in the Yanukovysh case historical and calendar occasions prevailed (58,7% historic and calendar occasions for Yanukovych, 46,3% Yuschenko, 44,9% Poroshenko).

As for audiences, there are three the most popular recipients for all the presidents (people, international institutions, and parliament). However, the difference is in the attention distribution and the bigger number of audiences mentions in democratic leaders’ speeches. Geographic names mentions analysis shows different approaches towards international blocks (the Western countries and more democratic countries for the democratic leaders; the CIS countries and more authoritative countries for Yanukovych).