Representations of Fundamental Cultural Concepts of American National Character within Modern Political Discourse (on the Example of Presidential Elections 2020)

Linguistic methods of the representation of cultural concepts as culturally significant collective cognitive representations which form a system of national character within modern political discourse are studied within this research paper. The structure of the paper includes three chapters, the first one focusing on the definitions of terms “culture” and “cultural concept”, as well as the notion denoting the nature of the correlation between cultural concepts and their reflections in the language systems. The second chapter discusses the phenomenon of political discourse as a linguistic notion as well as its cultural and social importance and the connection with the political sphere. Public speeches performed by Donald Trump and Joe Biden as candidates from the Republican and Democratic political parties respectively within Presidential elections 2020 are used as research material. For identifying how exactly crucial cultural concepts of American national character are represented the following research methods are used: thematic discourse analysis, dictionary definitions approach, component analysis of a word as well as stylistic analysis. As a result, lexical units implemented within representations are identified, as well as stylistic devices that are used alongside lexical means are found and discussed.