RHETORICAL STRATEGIES AND PERSUASIVE SPEECH IN PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL COMMUNICATION

Abstract

The complex emotional and psychological situation in Ukraine, as well as the profound changes in the life of the modern Ukrainian society caused by the war, pose an important task for specialists in philology, psychology, and social work to exert a positive influence on the emotional state of Ukrainians, their attitude towards events, understanding of themselves and their role in society, and reflection on the past, present, and future. In the professional social communication, speech performs not only an informative function but also regulatory, motivational, and organizational ones. An effective specialist is to possess various mechanisms of influence and applies them ethically and responsibly. The role of linguistic means in shaping the psycho-emotional state of members of society, their verbal and physical behaviour is the subject of interdisciplinary research − in psycholinguistics, rhetoric, communicative linguistics, discourse studies, NLP, social psychology, and social work. Linguistic means exert their influence through social identification, persuasion (argumentation, appeal to values, reference to authority, demonstration of benefits), and suggestion (confident intonation, repetition, use of status, categorical formulations). An important role is played by the mechanisms of emotional and psychological influence: acting through emotions by varying the tone of voice, using figurative expressions, metaphors, storytelling, since it is the emotions that enhance memorization and motivation. Effective means of persuasion include neuro-linguistic techniques (framing, reframing), as well as linguistic units themselves, which help achieve the desired communicative result. Effective means of persuasion also include neurolinguistic techniques (framing, reframing), as well as linguistic units themselves, which help achieve the necessary pragmatic result. Manipulation may involve covert influence in order to obtain advantage, benefit, or a one-sided outcome; therefore, the analysis of linguistic, persuasive means, rhetorical strategies, and neurolinguistic techniques is relevant and timely and determines the aim of our study. The goal of our research is to investigate the role of linguistic units in the processes of forming the psycho-emotional state of members of society and modifying their verbal and physical behaviour, taking into account the moral and ethical standards of professional activity of specialists. The novelty of our research lies in the interdisciplinary approach to outlining the conditions for successful professional communication, in the multivectoral analysis of the effectiveness of linguistic means and rhetorical strategies in conditions of war and an increased stress. The topic and goal determined the main methods of our research: descriptive method and psycholinguistic method, observation, content analysis, discourse analysis.