Anna Plisetskaya,

2d year PhD student,

FF UK

Modern Russian political language: discourses and practices

Syllabus

Learning objectives of the course are:

- to give students a historical approach to modern political rhetoric in the broader academic context;

- to introduce students the basics of political rhetoric within the frames of content analysis as well as discourse analysis;

- to show through the case studies in Russian political rhetoric the interconnection between the history of the nation, its politics and the rhetorical strategies of its leaders;

- to give students basic knowledge of various rhetoric types and genres within political rhetoric;

- to impart their communication skills, ability to reason and discuss theoretical academic literature, to clearly express their position, in relation to the nature of the audience;

- to enable students develop their ability to prepare discourse analysis of political texts

The following knowledge and competences are needed to study the discipline:

Spoken and written English at level B2+.

Ability to define the related concepts and phenomena, identify and creatively interpret the required academic literature, to discuss on a given topic using appropriate arguments, to provide the link between political and linguistic phenomena, identify causal relationships between events, use scientific and bibliographic sources.

Main competences developed through studying this discipline can be used later on in course and dissertation papers.

1 Course Plan

№	Topic	Total hours	Contact hours	Independent students’ work
№	Topic	Total hours	Lectures	Independent students’ work
1.	Self-presentation; Introduction to the course. The definition of discourse. Political discourse. Critical discourse analysis. Concept of politician and power. Political language.	4	2	2
2.	Concept of rhetoric. Types of rhetoric. Political rhetoric. Russian history and Russian political rhetoric. Political discursive practices in Old Russia, New Age and revolution. Soviet and post-Soviet political rhetoric. Post-communist democratic transition and its influence on the political language of the country.	4	2	2
3.	Genres of Russian political communication. Official and popular rhetoric. High genres and low genres.	8	4	4
4.	Modern Russian presidential rhetoric. Populism and elitism. Slang and cliché. Analysis of presidential speeches.	8	4	4
5.	Different methods of analyzing political discourse. Political rhetoric and cognitive linguistics. Archetypes and metaphorical concepts in Russian political rhetoric. Tropes and figures of speech. Alliteration. Tricolon. Chiasmus. Anaphora, repetitions, allusions, rhetorical questions, periphrases. Rhetorical analysis of Russian political speeches.	8	4	4
6.	Political manipulation and propaganda. Black rhetoric. Manipulative tricks in modern Russian political language.	8	4	4
7.	Political satire, humor and language resistance: opposition slogans, mems, headlines. Soviet and Russian political jokes.	4	2	2
Total:		44	22	22

2 Requirements and Grading

Type of grading	Type of work
Type of grading	Type of work	Commentaries
Current	Active work in class	Participating in the discussion; compensating absence by doing written tasks
Current	Homework	Reading and analyzing theoretical and political texts
Final	Essay	Rhetorical analysis of a Russian speech in English done in accordance with the given criteria

2.1 Course Grade Criteria

This is a summer course of 11 seminars (2 academic hours each). The final grade is ‘passed’. A student can miss up to four seminars during the semester but compensate for them by sending written tasks. Current control is carried out in the form of assessment of oral discussions at class as well as written tasks as a form of compensation for those who either missed the opportunity to work actively in class or missed the class. The written task is fulfilled in 2-3 days after the seminar it refers to and includes the summary of the main points of the discussion, 3-5 questions based on the text discussed as well as an analytical commentary or a description of a modern political case referring to the topic.

Preparation for each new seminar consists of reading theory and/or doing rhetorical analyses of speeches and case studies.

Final analysis of Russian political speech is prepared at home, according to the criteria sent by the teacher via e-mail in advance, on the basis of read research materials, and emailed to the teacher by 06.04.2020.

The proportion of all the elements for the passing is like this:

Active participation in class discussions (no more than 4 classes missed with written tasks sent to the teacher instead of missed classes) – 50%

Analysis of Russian political text emailed to the teacher by 06.04.2020 – 50%

In the classroom the student should demonstrate: knowledge of the theoretical literature on the topic, good understanding of the assigned literature, the ability to analyze read lecture materials, the ability to summarize and compare sources of arguments, facts, views; to use received information in Russian and international context, the ability to meaningfully and in well defined manner answer questions from the lecturer, the ability to lead the discussion and communicate.

During the final control a student should demonstrate that s/he has fully mastered the material, provided by the course, i