Technocracy as a Cultural Concept in American Discourse: Cultural Linguistic Insight

Abstract

At the time of geopolitical tension and deepening of financial crisis, the idea of a technocratic government is urgent across the geographic spectrum. Appeared in the USA at the beginning of the 20thcentury the concept of technocracy comprises various information of technical elite and its ideology. The paper aims to explore cultural meaning of the concept in American culture. Based on the premise that cultural meaning of a concept manifests in the language, this paper focuses on discourse representation of the concept. The research includes a brief historic outline of the term “technocracy” and a corpus-based analysis of cultural associations and public opinion of the concept. A cultural value of technocracy is associated with a new aesthetic that evokes mainly hostile attitude and criticism in American society as inhuman doctrine. Prevailing negative implications show that American society rejects technocracy as progressive and reformative power in the country.