LEXICAL AND STYLISTIC MEANS OF PERSUASIVENESS IN BORYS JOHNSON’S SPEECH ON THE RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN WAR

Abstract

Geopolitical, as well as social and political events in the life of any country are always reflected in the language – both in the state language and in the foreign languages, which describe the situation in the world. The Russian-Ukraine war is no exception. The world’s most influential leaders, the United States and Britain, have been providing financial and moral support to Ukraine since the first days of the war with Russia. The leaders of these states clearly and consistently express their pro-Ukrainian position, support Ukraine financially and morally. During his visit to Kyiv, Boris Johnson analyses the situation in Ukraine, admires the Ukrainian people, and convinces them not to give up, but to continue the struggle. The purpose of Boris Johnson’s speech is to convince Ukrainians that they will definitely defeat the enemy and that Ukraine will be free. Boris Johnson uses a large number of linguistic means (the morphological, syntactic, lexical and stylistic ones) to achieve persuasiveness. Boris Johnson’s speech is characterized by the use of personal and possessive pronouns of the first and second person, tense forms (including present and future), different types of sentences (simple, compound and complex sentences), a rhetorical question, political and military terms, toponyms and anthroponyms, realia and others. The author also uses artistic means and expressive techniques: epithets, metaphors, comparisons, anaphors and proverbs. The combination of the author’s means and methods create a holistic picture of the author’s intention – to analyze the situation in Ukraine in detail, to express their own attitude to the war, to encourage Ukrainians to fight, and to emphasize the support of Britain.