Transformation of phraseologisms as a means of verbal expression in political discourse

The study was carried out in the framework of political linguistics - a scientific field formed at the intersection of linguistics and political science, which in the late XX and the early XXI centuries began to develop rapidly both abroad and in Russia. This discipline is closely related to cognitive linguistics, sociology, rhetoric and media linguistics. The question of political discourse as a multidimensional and complex communicative phenomenon is of linguistic interest, as verbal means of communication is a political language that performs not only the function of information transmission, but also refers to one of the effective means of influencing the mass audience. The relevance of the topic is due to the widespread use of means of speech expression in acts of political communication. The purpose of the article is to study the transformed phraseological expressions as expressemes, to determine their meaning, component composition and to trace stylistic functions in the speeches of politicians, state and public figures, as well as social and political media publications. The paper describes such speech-making techniques of phraseological unit modification as quantitative change of their structure (reduction or expansion of fixed collocation components), replacement of component composition, two-dimensional use of phraseology, fragmentary citation of fixed collocations; it also considers the pragmatic function of the transformed language units - i.e., the intentional impact on the addressee. This study allows to conclude that through creative transformation of the idioms political discourse participants reveal their functionality: transformed collocations can serve as a means of creating a comic effect, they help to generate new images, express different shades of attitude towards the facts of reality, trace the emotional connotations of contexts, and stimulate interest in the relevant issues of our time. The texts for the analysis were the materials of various news agencies and television broadcasts.