The Role of Political Rhetoric in the Development of Soviet Totalitarian Language

What is it about?

The issues analysed in this paper are derived from the phenomenon of Soviet totalitarian language. As is well known, the Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideology defined itself as a strictly objective, scientific world-view. Scientific discourse is characterised by attempts to minimise the ambiguity of the lexicon, which should ideally halt the drift of signifiers in relation to the signified. One would assume that the scientific nature of the reconstruction of society would have an impact on communication and natural language. The characteristics of totalitarian language reveal, however, that it is not in fact describable by a rigid connection between the signifiers and the signified, and that the semantic distinctiveness of words in the communicative function is compensated by the precise determination of their location in the axiological good — bad axis. In order to overcome this paradox, I will attempt, from a theoretical perspective, to draw out a fruitful intersection between Juri Lotman’s concept of symbol and Ernesto Laclau’s ‘empty signifier’, in light of which a symbol, as a special case of ‘empty signifier’, performs the function of a hegemonizing signifying practice. I will also highlight the role of symbols in political rhetoric and their impact on the development of Soviet language policies and the appearance of totalitarian language, and will point out, by way of a conclusion, that the more totalitarian a society is, the greater the role played in the construction of its socio-political reality by linguistic elements ambivalent in their content.

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