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The study of mitigation in political discourse deserves the closest attention since it concerns the manipulative dimension of politics in the modeling of public consciousness. This research is aimed at identifying linguistic and pragmatic mitigators associated with the topos of Precaution and its manifesting strategies in the discourse of assistance to Ukraine. It reached the main finding about the correlation of mitigators with the implementation of discursive strategies mediated by the influence of bushes, hedges, and shields on the illocution of speech acts. Since the illocution is influenced not only by hedges distinguished by this criterion, but also by other types of mitigators, we have introduced, in addition to the propositional, illocutionary, and deictic coordinates of the utterance, an additional criterion for the distribution of mitigators -- their correlation with discursive strategies. Bushes implement the strategy of reducing the speaker's responsibility for the asserted facts, promises -- indirect commissives and recommendations -- implicit directives by triggering conventional implicatures that imply the conditions for these acts feasibility. Shields transfer, generalize or depersonalize the speaker's responsibility for assertive facts, implicit promises and indirect recommendations, "blurring" the deixis to a denotative situation. Hedges in assertives transfer responsibility to the sphere of subjective epistemic modality with increasing probability instead of the certainty about what is being asserted. In directives, hedges generalize / depersonalize the speaker's responsibility thereby intersecting with the functional scope of shields. Polyfunctional mitigators implement several discursive strategies. The article specifies each group of mitigators in terms of its constituent linguistic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The specificity and conjugation of discursive pragmatics and classical rhetoric manifests itself when politicians are faced with the need for evasive formulations to mitigate a potential threat to their face. To substantiate the conceptual basis of discursive argumentation, the article differentiates between "topoi-integrators" and "topoi-arguments". The topos-integrator "responsibility", actualized at the local and global discursive levels, appeal to ethos, supporting the logos-based argumentation by involving the ethos-based moral foundations of the speaker's position. Topoi-arguments "responsibility", "threat", "reliability" and "law' are rhetorically based on enthymeme as figures of reasoning that appeal to logos as well as on auxiliary figures of digressio, Past Fact / Future Fact, exergasia, climax, congeries, hyperbole and apagoresis, appealing to logos, ethos, and pathos. Pragmatically, the restoration of implicit premises and conclusions of enthymemes corresponds to explicatures, which become the basis for the generation of implicatures, provided that the speakers flout cooperative maxims. Disobeying the maxim of quantity of information is based on the figures of exergasia, climax, congeries, the maxim of relevance - on digressio, Past Fact / Future Fact, and the maxim of quality - on hyperbole and apagoresis. Through rhetorical figures and the corresponding pragmatics, the speakers implement the strategies of transferring and reducing responsibility, substitution of arguments, mitigation, partial distortion by exaggeration, simplification, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to identify possible worlds and their mediators in their metaphorical, symbolic and archetypal properties in fairy tales and Afro-American rap lyrics. The rap lyrics semantic structure involves a great worlds variety. Some of them intersect with the fairy tale magic worlds. The world of death imagery indicated in the rap lyrics by demetaphorized compound imagery with a naturalistic-physiological component, is associated with the archetypally bound fairy tale "the other world", denoted by fabulous toponyms and fairy topoi. The mediators of these worlds encompass some magical tools and super-abilities, designated by conceptual metaphors, metonymies and hyperbolized similes in the rap lyrics and by narrative means in fairy tales. The oneiric world is mediated by nominations of hallucinogens in the rap lyrics and sacred food and drinks in fairy tales. While the latter mediators add strength or serve as a means of correction of an evil character, based, respectively, on the narrative motifs of redemption and victory of good over evil, the rap oneiric mediators refer to fear and degradation, indicated by visual oneiric images. The mediators of world of inspiration, not appropriate to fairy-tales, use wings (ability to fly and counteract the gravity), designated by conceptual metaphors. The world of wonderful status transformation, inherent to the rap lyrics, is denoted by the symbols of material well-being, based on the archetypal narrative motifs of the hero transfiguration and reward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]