The publicistic style belongs to the formal variety of English. It is “the language of mass communication which is used not only to inform but also to convince and persuade, i.e. its functions are referential, conative and, to some degree, poetical”. [1:89]
The general aim of publicistic style is to exert influence on public opinion through logical argumentation and emotional appeal. Logical argumentation is provided by coherent and logical syntactical structures, connectives and paragraphing.
Emotional appeal is achieved by the use of words with emotive meaning and various connotations, as well as phonetic, lexical and stylistic devices. The used stylistic devices are closely interwoven and mutually complementary thus building up an intricate pattern. For example, antithesis is framed by parallel constructions, which in their turn are accompanied by repetition. Climax/ gradation can be formed by repetitions of different kinds, such as anaphoric repetition, framing, linking or reduplication/ anadiplosis, chain repetition and epiphora.
The stylistic device of repetition aims at logical emphasis, it fixes the attention of the reader/ listener on the key word of the utterance and intensifies the whole utterance too. Repetition is also resorted to in order to convince the audience, to add weight to the author’s opinion.
A variety of repetition is synonymical repetition. Synonymous words and phrases add a slightly different nuance of meaning and intensify the impact of the utterance.
Repetition can be regarded as the most typical stylistic device of English oratorical style as well as parallel constructions, antithesis, suspense, climax, rhetorical questions and question-in-the-narrative. [2: 87]
Sara Thorne points out that the words and structures politicians use create a certain view of the world. This world view will be directly linked to their purpose and audience and will affect the language they choose in