FUNCTIONAL AND PRAGMATIC POTENTIAL OF TOPONYMS IN RUSSIAN POLITICAL ADVERTISING VIDEOTEXTS

The paper is aimed at studying the functioning particularities of toponyms in videotexts of Russian political advertisement and determines the role of these onyms in the implementation of linguistic manipulation. Toponymic lexis is classified in terms of its functioning. The study reveals tendencies of interaction between verbal and visual components of multimodal videotexts and determines the specificity of world-building that involves toponyms in Russian political advertising discourse. The research material includes political advertising videotexts referring to all presidential campaigns in Russia from early 1990s to 2018. The corpus is examined with the help of componential, contextual and semiotic analyses. The research has revealed two basic groups of toponymic lexis in the mentioned videotexts: toponyms in their conventional reference, and precedent toponyms. The former are mostly used in their denotative meaning and in a verbal form. The latter have additional value-based and cultural connotations, are well-known and recognizable, and often correlate with visual components. It is noted that conventional toponyms are more numerous and are usually involved in political advertising discourse for discussing domestic or foreign policy issues. Precedent toponyms are encountered less frequently but, due to their unique properties, serve as important tools of affective influence on the voters. Both groups of proper names contribute to modelling the spatial and political worldview, which reflects the position of Russia and the key directions of its domestic and foreign policy. The author pinpoints the generalized and schematic character of the revealed geopolitical worldview, which is determined by the heterogeneity of the toponymic content of different political advertising videotexts and by their thematic variety.