The Use and the Functioning of the Political Slang in the Media Communicative Space of the USA
Abstract
The division between Republicans and Democrats on fundamental political values reached record levels. The “they” against “us” politics is exploiting this division through racial, cultural and economic polarization within the American electorate, thus eliminating social class differences, which previously were vital for European and the U.S. partisanship politics. The start of 2016 U.S. election campaign has served as a catalyst of intense partisan animosity between GOP and DNC. Sharp political polarization on certain issues can also be manifested though usage of emotional and expressive vocabulary, as well as profanity and obscenity against opposing party members (ex. trumptard, hitlary, snowflake). This article tries to tackle the issue of context usage and function of American political slang within media of the United States. This paper also deals with the hypothesis of domination of identification and expressive slang functions within American political media discourse.
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