Authors’ names:
- Zhanna V. Nikonova – Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
- Valery M. Bukharov – Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
- Sergey I. Dubinin – Samara National Research University, Samara, Russia
Abstract:
In the last few years, fake news texts have attracted more and more attention of linguists due to their unprecedented spread in modern public and political discourse. As a linguistic phenomenon, the texts of the fake news type are considered by linguists from a number of different perspectives. This article analyzes the functional and pragmatic potential of fake news texts in German political discourse. The methodological basis is the theory of speech acts, which is considered by the authors as an effective tool for identifying and revealing the ontological nature of fake news, as well as the peculiarities of the functioning of this type of text in the sphere of German-language political communication. It is emphasized that the theory of speech acts offers objective tools for studying the mechanism of manipulation in the texts of the fake news type, used in German political discourse to discredit, denigrate, and lower the authority of certain political forces. Even though, ontologically, fake news texts are seen as carriers of factual information, they contain deliberately false information of unambiguously provocative and manipulative character, maliciously placed in the outer shell of real events. The problems of linguistic research and verification of fake news texts are highlighted in order to develop models for their description and to outline practical recommendations that would help users identify them in discourse. The authors conclude that the high perlocutive effect of fake news in modern German political discourse is due to the inconsistency of false propositional content with the constitutive rules of the illocution “assertion” that underlies the “news” text type. The authors analyze the pragmatic potential of fake news texts in how they function in German political discourse and evaluate prospects for further research in analyzing such texts within the paradigm of speech act theory, related to identifying and describing linguistic markers of intentionally distorting the truth of propositional content in texts of this type.
| Section | LANGUAGE AND CULTURE |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2024-68-4-128-138 |
| Downloads | 86 |
| Key words | fake-news; speech act theory; propositional content; German political discourse |