On April 4, a law entered into force, which significantly facilitates the procedure for registering political parties. The result was not slow to affect: the flow of relevant applications literally poured into the Ministry of Justice. In recent years, there were only 7 registered parties in Russia. All the more curious look at the list of applicants. Here are a few at random names: the political party "The World Brotherhood of Cossack and Officer Special Forces", "The People's Party of Russia", "The Communist Party for Social Justice" and, finally, the Russia "Russia without obscurantism". What parties in the parties linguists recognize successful, but which ones are not? We ask the senior researcher of the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nina Rozanova about this: - The issue of choosing the name for the party is a very serious question, because the party should actively interact with society, with its electorate, conduct a dialogue with it. Such communication always involves three participants. Firstly, this is the one who sends the message, that is, the speaker, the addressee. Secondly, this is the one who receives a message, that is, the addressee. Finally, the third participant, very important - this is the message itself, that is, the subject of communication. This communicative process can be indicated by the formula who - to whom - about what. Ideally, the name of the party should include all these three semantic components. In other words, the name should explain to the voter what the composition of the party members (component "who"), what is the electorate whose interests are defended by the party (that is, the component "to whom"), as well as what are the political platform and political goals (these are the component of "what"). If at least two out of three components are present, then the name is informative, we can understand what these are the party, what are its goals and objectives. - Let's look at the name of the "People’s Party of Russia" I mentioned. Does it meet these criteria? - I'm afraid that not really. If we talk about the subject of communication, that is, about the goals and objectives of the party, they are incomprehensible. Perhaps there is only a hint of the electorate, that is, the wide folk masses of Russia. And all. So, of course, the name is not very informative. It does not have an answer to the question "about what." By the way, you can recall many parties names, which included such words as “worker”, “democratic”, “free”, “justice”, “responsibility”. But these are all very beautiful words, nothing more. They do not tell us anything about the real tasks of the party. - In addition, when too often the same word is used in the names of various structures, it misleads people. These words become worn out. They cease to be perceived. For example, the word "Russia". In what combinations we did not meet him! - Yes, but those who come up with such names, apparently, do not bother this. I looked at this Minhust list of new parties. Many names here are not built on the principle of clarification for voters of their political platform, but on the principle of attracting attention in any way. In many names, we are well -familiar from the language of advertising different advertising strategies. For example, a significant place in the names of the parties is occupied by such beautiful words that have a positive assessment halo in the minds of people - of course, “Russia”, “Fatherland”, “People’s”, etc. But they are absolutely non -reference in this context. Such is the "Patriotic Party of Russia" or the party, whose name is the abbreviation honestly. It immediately deciphers "man. Justice. Responsibility." Just a set of very good words. And there is a "party of the world and unity" and even the "party of love." - You said that advertising strategies are often used. But is it bad in this case? Is it possible for the name to be successful, it should not be catchy, memorable, different from all others? -Of course, it would be good for it to be remembered, but it seems to me that, after all, the process of elections to the State Duma, the choice of the country's political course implies primarily a conscious choice. Therefore, the name should be primarily informative, meaningful, and only then with its positive content that satisfies the interests of people, it should somehow influence their choice. When the name contains such hidden manipulative techniques of an advertising nature, it seems to me that this is just a deception of the voter. I want to give a funny example. This list has the name of the party "Smart Russia". Here is an obvious case of a manipulative strategy. The creators of the party, as it were, want to say: "If you consider yourself smart, vote for us." In the end, we will recall one remark from the monologue of Mikhail Zhvanetsky: "There are no views in our country yet. People share in parties, depending on offenses." In my opinion, this is very accurate and, alas, sad.
