Emotivity Category as a Means of Popularizing the Political Propaganda Video of the Communist Party of China (CPC)

Chzhu Yunping Postgraduate student, Department of Russian as a Foreign Language, Saint Petersburg State University 199155, Russia, Leningrad region, Saint Petersburg, Korablestroiteley str., 20, sq. 302 2763496449@qq.com Other publications by this author

 Introduction

The question of the role of emotions in politics began to be considered in science as early as the 1930s.

Thus, it is already represented in the works of L. Fevre and N. Elias, in which emotions are explored as an important component of political, sociological, psychological, and philosophical spheres. Being a complex phenomenon of human life, emotions manifest themselves at different levels of reality and "for the modern socio-political context [act as] a way of experiencing the world and reflection, <...> allow a person to preserve his identity in a situation of challenges of political life" ^{[6, p. 367]}.

In linguistics, the essentially psychological concept of emotion is considered through the prism of the category of emotivity, which, following V. I. Shakhovsky, is understood as "the semantic property inherent in language of expressing emotionality as a fact of the psyche by a system of its means" ^{[13, p. 87]}; its implementation in real texts and speech acts is based on linguistic emotive means (lexical: emotive-affective, emotive-connotative, emotive-potentiative ^{[13, p. 14-19]}; syntactic – emotive utterances ^{[2, p. 126]}), and on paralinguistic units such as gestures, facial expressions, etc.

Among modern researchers, linguists such as M. V. Belyakov ^[2], Guo Lijun and Wang Ziyu ^[3], I. P. Ryabkova and M. V. Varganov ^[8] have written about the role of emotions in politics; they study the reflection of the category of emotivity in various political speech acts, such as public political speech, diplomatic speech, a political propaganda film about the party, etc., noting the special role of the category of emotivity in constructing the image of a political subject ^[1].

Being one of the most mysterious political organizations for the Western community and at the same time the ruling subject of modern China, in order to expand its international influence, the Communist Party of China (CPC) seeks to "internationalize the image of the party in order to adapt to today's open world and the era of globalization" ^{[11, p. 41]}.

The material of this study was a political propaganda video about the CPC, presented to the Chinese public on the Internet on October 19, 2022 and simultaneously translated into several foreign languages (including Russian) and posted on a number of major websites, video hosting and social networks popular abroad. This video, which is called "The Communist Party of China", lasts 2 minutes and 50 seconds, and its essence boils down to a positive representation of the CPC, propaganda of its positive image, which is designed to serve the formation of a benevolent public opinion about the party in the international arena.

Genre specifics of a political propaganda videoThe material we have chosen – the video "Communist Party of China" – is defined by us as a polycode text consisting of an audio part – a voiceover text accompanied by a soundtrack, and a video part representing a number of professionally shot frames – these are fragments from feature films and TV series, documentaries, and other video materials about the CPC, equipped with subtitles corresponding to the sounding text.

The combination of different codes in the material contributes to an increase in the level of its content and semantic load; in addition, the simultaneous perception of information through different channels is designed to facilitate its understanding by the addressee.  

The video informs the viewer about the development of the CPC in the course of its history – in front of the viewer, the party goes from weakness to power. This contributes to a deeper understanding of the Communist Party by a person, since only a correct and objective understanding of the past and present of the CPC can be a prerequisite for its wide recognition in the international community ^{[11, p. 44]}.

The narration in the video is conducted in the first person. As a popularizing technique in this material, which is close to an autobiography in its form, the personalization of the CPC team in a specific personal image is used, which is revealed in the narrative from the "I" by means of emotions affecting the addressee, which contributes to the creation of a situation of equal dialogue between the narrator and the addressee: instead of the image of a large, hierarchically built party, the addressee the image of a person who does not occupy a high position in the same party-state structure and aspires to capture the attention of the addressee, to reduce the distance with him.

This allows us to characterize the material we have chosen as person–oriented; personalization in this material is defined by its nature as direct – emphasizing a specific person ^{[4, p. 45]} or the image of a person, the PDA (the image of "I") acts "in three functions simultaneously - the author as a historical person, a subject leading a story about his own life, and the hero or object of the story" ^{[7, p. 111]}.

The material reveals a clear composition: at its beginning, the question Who am I? is posed; in the main part, the image of "I" is revealed through a chronologically arranged story, at the end, the question Who am I? The answer is given: My name is the Communist Party of China; all this makes up a connected and integral narrative. The composition of the material simulates guessing and guessing, which is consonant with the cognitive process and is designed to awaken the addressee's imagination and interest, aimed at increasing the attractiveness of the video.

Thus, the video we have chosen is defined as a polycode person-oriented text with a question-and-answer composition, which uses the personalization of the PDA in the image of "I", telling about his difficult life path and willingly sharing his emotions with the addressee.

The role of the category of emotivity in the formation of the image of the CPCThe video begins with shots in which the legs of different people are shown, taken in close-up: these are legs walking on grass, legs stepping on steel ropes, legs in shackles, legs running through flames (in which you can see a hint of war); the addressee's attention should be attracted by a change of the same type of frames designed to cause his question is, what is the essence of what is shown on the screen?

The first sentence of the video, which is a question, is who am I? – presented as a voiced text screensaver printed in white on a black background; the contrast of colors attracts the viewer's attention to this short sentence, at the same time informing him in advance that it has special importance in the context of the composition of the video. Taking a significant initial position, this question prompts the addressee to associate the frames appearing at the beginning of the video (and all of them) with the image of "I", which has its effect on building the image of "I" in the future.

The main part of the video from the perspective of the plot development is divided into two parts: the first of them tells about the difficult past experienced by the protagonist, and the second tells about the successes achieved by him in modern times.

Let's take a closer look at the first part:

I did not immediately receive universal support, once I was so weak that I had very few like-minded people. Not always a fair wind blew for me, my path was full of difficulties and dangers, I sacrificed a lot.

I was not born invincible, but always aspired to a dream, never ceasing to fight.

This fragment consists of three sentences, each of which uses a negative particle not, which serves to create parallelism, emphasizing the difficulties in the life of the heroine of the video (the fact that this is the heroine can be understood by the use of past tense forms of verbs in the feminine gender in Russian translation: received a, was a, sacrificed a) and thereby leaving the addressee with a deep impression of the difficult path of her formation as a person; in addition, a certain rhythmic organization can be traced in these sentences, which creates a shade of expression that meets the expectations of the addressee who wants to see a bright, emotionally saturated picture.

In the first and second sentences, the difficult situation at the beginning of the heroine's life path is outlined by means of lexical means, thanks to which "emotional impact is achieved indirectly, with the help of an association arising from the use of such vocabulary" ^{[11, p. 21]}. So, the text uses lexemes with a negative emotional assessment (so weak) and lexemes naming emotionogenic situations (full of difficulties and dangers, sacrificed a lot) associated with external factors. Thus, the image of the heroine is formed as a strong-willed person who has experienced many difficulties, but is always ready to fight for the sake of achieving her goal (she aspired to a dream, without ceasing to fight), which should cause the addressee sympathy and at the same time respect, leaving a positive impression about this heroine.

The voiced text is accompanied by frames showing some iconic situations for the image of the "I". So, a red boat on the Southern Lake in Jiaxing city on a black and white background is a hint at the first congress of the CPC, which was attended by only about ten communists. Thus, the visual components echo the meaning of the sentence. Once I was so weak that I had very few like-minded people, which makes the verbal components more convincing for the recipient's perception. Another example of such a roll call when demonstrating an emotional situation: in fact, in the War of Resistance to American Aggression and Assistance to the Korean People (known in Western sources as the Korean War), Chinese soldiers on the battlefield were dressed in thin clothes in extreme cold and turned into ice sculptures to wait for the opportunity to hit the enemy. This fantastical, but patriotic situation should cause the addressee of the video emotions such as sadness, pity, respect for the Chinese soldiers, who are also involved in the process of building a positive image of the still unknown heroine of the video. A complex historical situation is transmitted in the frame by means of visual components, which are an auxiliary means of perception by the addressee of the verbal text. Thus, the visualization used in the video – which is a way of popularizing complex information – facilitates the perception of the video by the addressee and positively affects his emotional mood.

Then the voiceover says the following sentence: Going a long way, I have never forgotten where I started, which echoes the communist slogan "" (do not forget your original intentions, remember your mission; our translation is Ch. Yu.), put forward by CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping in his report on the 19that the National Congress and seen as a call for the party to continue moving forward, not forgetting about the people. During the sound of this sentence, the soundtrack of the video becomes more expressive, the level of emotionality of speech also increases, which gives the addressee the opportunity to feel the inner strength behind the heroine of the video (which, as the viewer who understands Chinese political discourse can already guess, is the CPC).

In this sentence, it is worth paying attention to the emotive-potentiative long way, the emotional and semantic component of which is revealed in interaction with the previous images of the video: a long way is a difficult path of development of the party, which - using images from human life after the video we are considering – is full of pain, victims, blood, tears and visualized as a dirt road, a modern expressway, a railway and other types of roads, which deepens the recipient's idea of the difficult life path of the heroine-party.

Then the figure of a man standing on the street with his back to the viewer appears in the frame – the image of the "I" is relatively concretized, but its final disclosure is yet to be revealed. This component resonates with the voiced initial screensaver Who am I?, which increases the recipient's expectation of a response.

Next, consider the second part of the video, dedicated to the successes achieved by the heroine in modern times. At the beginning of the second part, personalization also takes place – but instead of one mysterious "I", several specific people are shown who utter spirit-lifting phrases. It looks like this:

Zhang Guimei (director of a girls' high school who devoted her life to teaching girls in the highlands): As long as I am alive, I will serve the cause of public education.

Qi Fabao (commander of a regiment of the People's Liberation Army of China, dedicated to protecting the country's borders): It is better to go forward and sacrifice yourself than to retreat, but stay alive.Zhang Dingyu (hero doctor fighting coronavirus despite his own health problems): You need to run even faster to save more lives from the virus.

Huang Xuhua (leading Chinese designer of nuclear submarines): My whole life is in service to the Motherland.

And I never regret it.The four characters chosen by the creators of the video are our contemporaries working in different jobs (teacher, doctor, military, scientist); their images are specially selected so that they are close to a variety of specific recipients, including foreign ones (relative to China).

Visual components (video sequence) in combination with voiced verbal components reveal their personality and strong character; these images of strong people also contribute to the creation of the image of the as yet unnamed heroine-"I".

The emotional state of the addressee is also affected by the emotionally saturated statements of these people. Thus, in the speech of Qi Fabao, a comparative construction is used better than, and the first position in it is filled with the words go forward and sacrifice yourself, and the second with the words retreat, but stay alive; expressions here are combined into pairs entering into antonymic relations, while there is a strong emotional contrast between going forward and sacrificing yourself as well creates an antithesis. The moral choice of the hero of the video is intended to evoke deep respect from the addressee and contribute to the formation of his image as a brave, courageous Chinese military man with strong patriotic beliefs.

The statements of these four characters clearly convey their positive attitude to work, to the people, to the Motherland, which can be summed up under a common feeling – patriotism ("one of the most important bonds of society, testifying to a fervent love for the Motherland, reflected in labor, heroism, deeds and intentions" ^{[12, p. 344]}). Thanks to this, a deep sense of patriotism also joins the characteristics of the mysterious "I".

Then workers on construction sites, cattle herders on pastures, village doctors, cosmonauts, soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, firefighters, etc. are shown in the frame; this is accompanied by the voicing of the following text: I came out of the people, I am rooted in the people and serve the people. No one can separate me from the 1.4 billion Chinese.This fragment gives the image of the "I" a folk, collectivist beginning.

The following is about the contribution made by the mysterious "I" to international affairs: I care about the Earth, about the future and the fate of mankind. I am ready to move forward together with all the advanced forces, hand in hand; at the same time, filming of the China–Europe railway express is shown, footage illustrating China's assistance to countries Africa. The image of the "I" is complemented by such qualities as openness, humanity, willingness to cooperate, which also has a positive effect on the addressee.

At the end of the second part of the video, an audio recording of Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is quoted: Our party invariably devotes itself to the eternal great cause of the Chinese nation, the great cause of peace and human development. Our degree of responsibility is extremely high. Our mission is extremely honorable; here the party is already called directly (although it is not yet identified with the "I"). But this speech is accompanied not by footage of the chairman's speech, but by a video sequence with smiles of different people, which, being emotionally charged, infects the addressee with positive emotions and, moreover, reflects the positive emotional attitude of the Chinese towards their happy and joyful life under the leadership of the Communist Party, which strengthens the addressee's positive impression of the whole video and the image "I", to the final disclosure of which the narrative is suitable.

The final part does not deceive the recipient's expectations and finally answers the question "Who am I?" put forward at the very beginning: My name is the Communist Party of China.At the same time, the PDA flag is displayed on the screen – a yellow hammer and sickle in the upper left corner on a red cloth, which completes the holistic positive image of the PDA in the addressee's mind.

Conclusion The video "Communist Party of China" selected for analysis in its Russian-language version is characterized by person-orientation, which is expressed in the personalization of the CPC in the image of "I", in the disclosure of which images of real people are involved, contributing to the creation of a positive image of the party.

This representation is built through the skillful use of emotionally charged verbal and nonverbal elements, the emotional nature of which is based on their person orientation. The closely related category of emotivity is realized in the video through not only verbal means, such as emotive vocabulary, emotive statements, but also visual and auditory means, such as emotionogenic frames and soundtrack; these means have a positive emotional impact on the addressee and contribute to the formation of a positive image of the CPC as a great, popular, honest, powerful party, aimed at serving the Chinese people and contributing to the development of the whole world.Thus, in the modern media space of China, for the purpose of political propaganda in the international arena, an emotionalization strategy is actively used, consisting in "intensification and legitimization of emotions and emotional discourse in public spheres of life" ^{[9, p. 596]}, based on the implementation of the category of emotivity and aimed at evoking a positive emotional response from the addressee.