Speech Tactics of Discrediting Strategy in the U.S. Diplomatic Discourse

Abstract. The paper is focused on the study of the discrediting strategy, which is a linguistic and pragmatic feature of contemporary U.S. diplomatic discourse, namely, to speech tactics that contribute to its implementation in the discourse of the U.S. diplomats. Attention is drawn to the US diplomats’ speeches by V. Nuland, D. Baer, G. Pyatt and S. Power  made in 2013 – 2015, and related to the military conflict in the eastern Ukraine. The object of the study is the U.S. diplomatic discourse, which contains speech tactics of discrediting strategy. The subject matter is the tactics of the U.S. diplomats aimed at implementing the discrediting strategy in their speeches on the eve of military conflict in the eastern Ukraine and during the phases of its aggravation. As it was revealed, discrediting strategy is one of the most powerful conflict strategies of the U.S. diplomats’ verbal behavior, which is implemented in their discourse by means of such tactics as: accusation, impersonal accusation, disclosure, “universal truth”, condemnation, threat, order, mentioning in a negative light, and contrast. Among the leading linguistic tactics of implementing the discrediting strategy in the U.S. diplomatic discourse are tactics of mentioning in a negative light and accusation.