Analysis of Russian PresidentIAL Address to the federal assembly of 2016 from the Perspective of SystemIC AND Functional Linguistics

Abstract

The article analyzes register characteristics of the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly of 2017 with regard to the conception of systemic-functional linguistics by M. Halliday. The Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly is a special genre of political text at the intersection of official and publicistic styles. This genre has become a peculiar type of verbal text constructed gradually, purposefully, meaningfully, consistently and logically. The tone of the Address is official, non-personal. The type of information presentation is oral, but the text is written earlier and during the event it is simply read. The main topics of the Address are economics, social problems, internal (the dominant one) and foreign policy. The Address is rich in personal pronouns of the Russian language. Personal pronouns of the first person are the most frequent; personal pronouns of the second person appear very rarely. The personal pronoun of the first person singular - I - emphasizes the personal view of the President and underlines his authority, while the plural pronoun WE refers to a group of people including the speaker and the Russian Government, administrative bodies and the country in general. The use of the personal pronoun of the second person plural (YOU) aims at attention attraction and helps to cut the distance between the speaker and the audience. Personal pronouns of the third person point out an object, company or person.