GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ARTICLE AS A GENRE OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The paper analyzes the article as a genre variety of modern political discourse. The purpose of the study is to classify and describe the main features that allow the researcher to present the specificity of the article in Russian political communication. Recent texts of active statesmen – V. V. Putin, D. A. Medvedev and G. A. Zyuganov, who hold important political positions in the current Russian Federation, serve as material of analysis. These articles are published in newspapers and on the official Internet portals of organizations represented by the leaders mentioned above. The author gives definitions of discourse, political discourse, and genre. The theoretical part also presents the classifications of genres of this type of discourse, developed in the literature available on the subject. These classifications are based on four criteria, which include: the form of communication, the leading function, the amount of information and the monologic/dialogic nature. Thus, the author distinguishes written and oral genres; ritual, orientational and agonal genres; small, medium and large genres; as well as monologic and dialogic genres. It turns out that the article belongs to the official, institutional and public form of communication. The general topics of the collected publications relate to social problems related to the conquest and exercise of political power, such as, for example, international cooperation in the field of economics. The author’s observations confirm that the article is a written and orientation genre, i.e. empirical material is dominated by informative intention, but ritual is also noticeable and significant in them. The analyzed texts are typologized as medium and monologic genres of political discourse.