“LOVE TRUMPS HATE” PROVERBIAL AND IDIOMATIC LEITMOTIFS OF THE ANTI-TRUMP SOCIAL MEDIA DISCOURSE

Abstract

The present paper explores different aspects of the use of proverbs and popular idioms found in anti-Trump social media posts. It draws on the analysis of 700 texts posted on Facebook and Twitter during September 2019 and January 2020 by a number of opposition communities. First, we offer some introductory remarks about the topic, methods, and the practical material. Second, we present a thematic classification of the sampled media texts. Third, we discuss the idiomatic portrayal of the President and the Republican Party and the use of multiple codes (i.e. phenomenon of creolization) in the collected posts. Fourth, we look into how culture specific proverbs, mostly modified, are employed as a form of structuring American socio-political reality and verbalizing the pre-sent-day phenomena, and, then, highlight the problem of paremiological creativity. Last, we specify what cognitive-discursive functions the analyzed proverbs and idioms fulfill in the anti-Trump social media dis-course. The study has confirmed the proposition that proverbs and idioms as lingua-cognitive signs possess significant potential for influencing mass audiences and molding public opinion.