Representation of multimodal evidential semantics in political mass media discourse

The purpose of this article is to study the specifics of the synergy of evidential semantics with the meanings of other modus categories in the space of mass media political discourse. The study is based on 1000 discursive evidential contexts from the electronic version of the British newspaper “The Economist”, obtained by continuous sampling. The research applies the linguosynergetic method of discourse analysis, which makes it possible to describe a synergetic evidential model and identify additional multimodal semantics, alongside with the main notion of this category, which implies the qualification of a source of information about a particular event. The study proved that the basic evidential semantics (evidentiality, authorization, personality, perception, temporality) can be expanded by including in its semantic field the values of approximation, negation, modality, evaluativity, expressivity, emotiveness and persuasiveness in the context of implementing the principles of complementarity and interpenetration of modal meanings. The described multimodal evidential semantics is actualized in the discursive space by means of various linguosynergetic models of linkage, reflecting the intentional dominant of the political mass media discourse, associated with the need to persuade and encourage the reader to take certain actions, as well as to present facts in accordance with the author’s needs. The significance of the given study lies in the possibility of further utilization its results in the course of studying the features of the representation of the suggestive strategy of political discourse through evidential meanings, as well as the classification of types of suggestive evidentiality in the discursive space.