| Popis: |
At the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of world’s economies experienced a severe economic downturn, which caused a cloud of insecurity and uncertainty in society. These troubled times are characterised by economic instability, political tremor, unemployment, poverty, and inflation, creating disorder in economy, politics, society and human minds. Each crisis mobilizes the creativity of human minds to make use of manipulative forms of power mechanisms, in which language is given a central role, as through it the dominant groups in society try to succeed in persuading subordinate groups to accept their decisions and policies making them appear sensible and systemic and hide the real effects of austerity measures. The article examines the relationship between language and power in two countries having experienced the recent economic crisis: Latvia and Spain. The linguistic means of semantic manipulation in the two countries are similar: they are aimed at a positive representation of political decisions, achieved with the help of euphemisms, for instance. It can be observed that politicians try to create their own order with the help of language (e.g. metaphors) in order to deal with the chaos caused by the economic downturn. On the one hand, this is acceptable for society; on the other hand, society proves that it is not that easy to manipulate with it. Society’s reaction tends to be negative, which is exhibited in the use of dysphemisms. Thus, society proves that it is not that easy to manipulate with it. |
