Color Designations in German Political Discourse

About the author:

Dmitriy V. Shapochkin, Cand. Sci. (Philol.), Associate Professor, Department of German Philology, University of Tyumen; d.v.shapochkin@utmn.ru, ORCID: 0000-0003-4954-8256

Abstract:

Political discourse is currently the subject of various interdisciplinary studies involving a lot of scientific approaches to its description. This article highlights an enormous potential of the use of color in the political discourse. On the one hand, the color involves the emotional sphere, while, on the other, it can lead to instant associations with a certain phenomenon of reality. Politicians actively use the color not only as a distinguishing sign that allows them to identify parties, movements, ethnic groups, etc. with the establishment or the denial of mutual contacts, but also as an independent symbol, which has tremendous possibilities for regulating and organizing of social political processes.
Functioning as a symbol of political forces, color greatly simplifies the perception of the political situation. However, the differentiation of political forces is not its only function. Evaluation is of the great importance, i. e. the consolidation of the assessment for a specific phenomenon, which is achieved by many repetitions in the same context. Because of the brightness of color associations, the color designation of political parties is a powerful tool in the political struggle. At the same time, the use of color symbols in the political discourse reveals national-specific features in the struggle for power. Thus, there is a need to study the functioning of color designations in the national political discourses.
In this article, the author pays special attention to the study of the color in the German political discourse of the leading political figures of Germany, such as Angela Merkel (CDU), Katya Kipping (Die Linke) and Christian Lindner (FDP).

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