IMAGE INTERVIEW-PERFORMANCE OF V. ZHIRINOVSKIY: CHANGE OF GUISE, SHOCK AND PRIMITIVISM TECHNOLOGY
The article characterizes speech and text means of representation of humor in the political image interview. The author presents the political image interview as a secondary genre form, comprising the features of a talk-interview, portrait interview, star interview and political performance, which includes histrionic components attracting a potential reader to the text of interview and the image of the politician. The article discloses the connection of humor as a form of the comic with the image types of V. Zhirinovskiy (“Actor”, “Punter”, “Scandalist”, etc.). The author offers various speech masks of the politician, producing a theatrical effect of his answers to the questions of the interviewer. These masks include the following: a mask of an average person appealing to stable ideas, values and presuppositions of mass consciousness; a mask of a truth-seeker demonstrating sheer sincerity of judgment and evaluation; a mask of a great man - a unique person, confronting the whole world; a mask of an offended politician, who is constantly being attacked by mass media. The author of the article turns to shocking statements of V. Zhirinovskiy and the technology of primitivism realized in the politician's speeches on the level of language, speech and text and combining the use of colloquial, low colloquial and vulgar colloquial vocabulary; colloquial syntax, simplified colloquialized constructions; translation of serious political problems into the language understandable by the mass addressee and giving these problems a utilitarian character. In conclusion, the author generalizes the genre properties of the image interview-performance as a kind of political interview and summarizes the functions of the humor relevant for the given kind of interview.