SEMIOTIZATION OF POLITICAL TOXICITY IN THE MEDIA SPACES OF THE USA, GREAT BRITAIN AND UKRAINE: A MULTIMODAL ASPECT

Abstract

The article attempts to build a multimodal model of toxic political communication and determine
common and distinctive features of the semiotization of political toxicity in the media environment of
the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine. Toxic political communication is interpreted as a type of
interaction characterized by a high degree of aggressive (verbal and/or paraverbal) behavior of various
participants in the political discourse, which causes moral harm or discriminates against the opponent
based on race, nationality or gender resulting in such politician(s) being perceived and then defined as
toxic. The constructed model of toxic political communication takes into account multimodal mechanisms
of the discursive expression of toxicity (verbal, paraverbal, extralingual), modes of expanding the toxic
effect (direct, indirect, and mediated), mechanisms of perception and image formation of politicians
(toxic vs. positive) in the media environment of the respective countries.
We determined that toxicity is manifested in derogatory statements by politicians, which contain
insults, name-calling, ridiculing, emotional and inclusive utterances aimed at polarization and causing
psychological and/or image damage to participants in the political debate (opponents). Toxic paraverbal
co-speech means are divided into prosodic and gestural-mimic forms, which include aggressive, caustic,
derogatory, paternalistic, pompous tone of speech, gestures that violate the personal boundaries of the
interlocutor, exaggerated facial expressions. Extralingual forms of toxic communication include poster
colors, electoral campaign symbols, clothing, rally sites, music, etc., which intensify the damaging effect
of actions/utterances of a politician who is defined as toxic in the media.
We found that contrasting forms of the semiotization of political toxicity in the media environment of
the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine are determined by the relevant information agendas for each
of the countries, for example, racism and intolerance towards migrants (USA), Partygate (Great Britain),
zrada (betrayal) vs. peremoha (victory) (Ukraine) and others. Common to the three linguistic cultures is
the aggressive type of politician-speaker, whose utterances/behavior are prone to dramatizing and aimed
at causing psychological damage to the opponent’s personality through direct or indirect derogatory
images accompanied by prosodic, gestural and facial emphases.