IV.

Modern mass media are distinguished by the desire for individual ("branded") content. style, expressiveness, often bordering on carnival, and emancipation, sometimes turning into permissiveness. At the same time, the public consciousness is extremely quickly filled with an inexplicable trust not only in certain political leaders and parties, but even in certain political terms and metaphors, and then just as quickly loses illusions.

The main function of political speech is to change the addressee's ideas about political reality, a kind of transformation of the political world in the minds of readers and listeners. One of the most important means of such transformation is a metaphorical model, which allows you to present a complex problem as quite simple and well-known, make it more significant or, on the contrary, distract public attention from it, show one of the options for the development of events as completely impossible or, on the contrary, quite natural.

Each productive metaphorical model is capable of actualizing a certain set of conceptual vectors existing in the national consciousness. For example, the metaphors we discussed earlier with the initial conceptual areas of "Crime", "War" and "Disease" are characterized by strong conceptual vectors of aggressiveness, anxiety, disbelief and unnaturalness of the existing situation in the country. The conceptual potential of the metaphorical model "Politics is sport"considered in this article is somewhat different. Let us first turn to the main manifestations of this model.

1. "Sports".

A significant number of political metaphors are focused on team sports. These are usually well-known ones in

* See: Russian speech. 2001. N 1, 3, 4.

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All types of competitions (football, basketball, tennis, hockey) in which teams headed by captains (government, presidential, gubernatorial, etc.) participate, which include not only main players, but also reserve players, and which are managed by a coach who develops the strategy and tactics of the match:

"Boris Nikolaevich doubted until the last moment whether to go for a second term with such a rating. And on the bench - zero" (A. Gamov); "As a person, I don't like the President. However, as a football player, I play with him in the same team." Novodvorskaya Street); "The NDR team has an experienced captain who will not allow self-will: some players have already been expelled" (A. Gorbunov).

Perhaps the most favorite game of our politicians and journalists is chess. The terms of this game ( castling, knight move, stalemate, queen sacrifice, passing or bargaining pawn, etc.) are found in a wide variety of political contexts:

"We are present at the grandiose Putin-Washington chess match, where a Russian player plays a game that is not provided for by the theory of the chess game "(e. Myachin); "The Kremlin does not yet attach importance to rumors about possible castling in the government" (T. Netreba); "Each of the three outsiders will face the fate of a bargaining chip, and therefore it is a pity that these candidates will participate in someone else's game" (A. Vybornov).

A special group consists of metaphors based on sports that aim to be first in overcoming a certain distance (this can be a marathon, sprint, etc.). Participants in competitions usually run, but it can also be horse racing, yacht racing, cycling, or car racing. Often, viewers bet on the victory of one of the participants in the competition:

"It will be possible to have a little rest before the final stage of the pre-election marathon" (p. Vedernikov); "An outsider of the pre-election race was denied registration" (S. Mitrofanov); "Those who bet on Sheremet won't bet on Spector, and Kovpakov fans don't like Sheremet or Specter. Hippodrome, however "( A. Vybornov).

Sports concepts like start and finish are also often used in the political metaphor:

"The majority of votes was won by L. Mishustina, who had minimal chances at the start of the campaign" (L. Dmitrieva); "The presidential campaign has reached the finish line" (V. Nilov); "The main rivals of the incumbent governor - Grishankov, Hartung and Utkin - started the election campaign in completely different ways" (A. Chistyakov).

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Metaphors related to other sports are also quite common: shooting and martial arts (wrestling, boxing, etc.) are especially popular among our politicians and journalists.:

"When the book appeared, our opponents went berserk. All this shows that we are in the top ten " (Sergei Shoigu); "Long work with Yeltsin in the regional economic apparatus made the current governor an experienced political fighter" (I. Belykh); "After the elections, the PDR was deeply knocked out" (V. Filimonov).

At the same time, sport in the Russian national consciousness is still perceived as a game, fun, and not a business to which the main time and main forces should be devoted. Therefore, the metaphorical representation of politicians (for example, candidates for governor) in the form of boxers showering blows at each other, participants in a marathon race, a football or chess match often has a negative emotional assessment.

2. "Qualification of athletes and results of competitions". In sports, there are different favorites (participants of competitions who are considered by experts to be the strongest in advance), leaders (participants of competitions who go first at some stage of the competition) and winners (champions) who are first at the finish line. The favorite and even the leader is not always the winner. Sometimes good results are achieved even by an outsider, who was rated as the weakest participant before the competition or even at some stage of it. Similar situations are often encountered in political life, which makes it possible to use sports terms:

"The current governor and the recent vice-governor are the favorites of the election race. According to analysts 'estimates, P. Sumin is still the leader" (A. Vesnin); "And who headed the list of favorites of the election race in April 1999? "(G. Yavlinsky): "Both of them are now political outsiders, and maybe this unites them" (A. Vybornov).

If there is a significant number of participants, the results of competitions reveal the champion, who is usually awarded a "gold medal", the vice-champion - the owner of a" silver "award, as well as the third prize-winner, who is awarded a" bronze " medal. Often success is considered to be the very fact of getting into the national team, participating in the Olympic Games or a prestigious championship, maintaining a place in the highest league of the national championship (other teams play in the first, second and regional leagues). The well-known structure of sports achievements is constantly used metaphorically in political speech:

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"There is nothing offensive for a player of the" second political league " to lose to the leader. But how you came to the final - second, third or last-is very important" (L. Vershinina); " Chernetsky even has nothing to open, except for a new bread kiosk! After that, he was named the ribbon-cutting champion among mayors" (D. Astralova); "The election results are predictable. Intrigue remains only in the fight for the "bronze "" (V. Nilov).

In some sports, success is measured by the number of points scored, which can be equal. A similar method of determining the result is also used in political texts:

"And here is the score of an imaginary match with Brusnitsyn: Chernetsky - 53.5%, his opponent - only 8%" (I. Belov); "Now I see that any problem is considered from the point of view of gaining political points, and not of real benefit to the city" (Yu. Brusnitsyn); "Thus, a fighting draw: the bison of regional politics remained each in its own way" (L. Koshcheev).

As you know, losers of sports competitions often complain about the unfairness of fate, the bias of judges and unsportsmanlike behavior of rivals, and the winners talk more about the regularity and fairness of the result. According to these characteristics, many political press conferences are surprisingly similar to sports, which is especially emphasized by the general terminology.

3. "Rules of the game and punishments".

Sports activities are subject to rules that include limiting playing time and space, dividing them into "friends" and" strangers", and defining prohibited techniques and methods of action. Both in sports and politics, there are also ethical norms, the violation of which does not entail immediate punishment, but can spoil a person's reputation. The metaphorical use of sports terminology in political speech is often associated with the need to accurately define the rules of political activity: "The main problem is on the side of the state authorities, which are unable to create such rules of the game so that criminals go to prison, and honest citizens feel safe" (B. Fedorov).; "What is striking is both the lack of thought-out decisions of the local parliament and the lack of written rules of the game" (M. Murzin).

It happens that athletes break the rules of the game. Deliberate violations, rude methods, and dishonest behavior are especially condemned. Authors of political texts seek to transfer negative attitudes towards violators of sports rules to violators of the rules of the political game:

"Do you remember the' hand of god ' that helped soccer player Maradona score the decisive goal? And in the current elections, we see a desire ."-

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arm the army " (or even both at once). There is no other way to explain the willingness to make any pre-election promises before the elections "(Komsomolskaya Pravda); "Spreading false rumors is a blow below the belt, for which an immediate disqualification follows in boxing" (B. Naydin); "It is important to develop citizens' immunity to actions beyond the foul line " (A. Vybornov).

In sports, a certain system of punishments for unfair wrestling is adopted: it can be a warning, temporary or permanent removal from the field, accrual of penalty points, withdrawal from competitions, disqualification. Decisions made by sports judges are almost impossible to appeal. The audience always sympathizes with athletes who lead a fair fight, and condemns sports hooligans. All this structure, which is well-known to sports fans, often becomes the basis for political metaphors:

"A foul game is being played against the governor. On the football field, such players would have received red cards long ago, would have been removed, or even disqualified altogether "(Komsomolskaya Pravda); "Political bullies should be removed from the field, as a strict referee removes hockey players who have made a mistake" (k. Vesnin); "Boris Fedorov is suspended until the end of the game. His path to the Gazprom Board of Directors was finally closed " (O. Gubenko).

Recently, the judicial authorities have really started to "remove from competitions" violators of existing political rules, which is comparable to the disqualification of an athlete. However, viewers constantly express doubts about the objectivity of Russian judges (and not only sports).

The materials of this article testify to the high productivity of the sports metaphor in modern political speech. Political activity is regularly metaphorically referred to as a sporting event, where strict rules of fair competition must be observed, where success is largely predictable, victory comes to the strongest, although there are all sorts of surprises. In such images, the conceptual meanings of "competition", "struggle", "excitement" are very vivid, but there is no bitterness that is inherent in a military or criminal metaphor, and there is no pessimism that is characteristic of metaphors with the original conceptual sphere of "Disease". At the same time, the sports metaphor is often associated with the assessment of political activity as an area where there is much that is far from the most important problems of the ordinary person; random, not authentic, significant only for the participants of political games and their fans.

Ekaterinburg

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