Linguistic features of the official speeches of President V.V. Putin (on the example of the inaugural speech genre)

The purpose of this study was to analyze the linguistic features of the genre of the inaugural speech of the President of Russia. The last inaugural speech delivered by V.V. Putin on May 7, 2018. was the lexical material for the study. The descriptive method and the contextual method were used during the analysis. The speech of the incoming President, although relatively new for Russian reality, is an important genre of modern political discourse. Inaugural speeches belong to ritual genres. The tradition of this discursive type originated in the United States. The inaugural speech fulfills the function of consolidating listeners as a people, with its help the new President presents his political credo and defines the principles that will guide him in the future. The article examines the structure of speech, the functions it performs, the characteristic concepts verbalized in it. The analyzed performance has a structure typical for this genre, borrowed from the American tradition (greeting, introduction, main part and conclusion). It implements all the main functions of this discursive genre (integrative, inspirational, declarative and performative) with the help of characteristic topos (topos of inauguration, topos of law-abidingness, topos of a worthy leader, topos of duty, topos of work, topos of reliance on the past, topos of renewal, topos of greatness of the nation, topos of mutual obligations, topos of the unity of the nation). The study shows that lexical units are used by the speaker in such a way as to focus the attention of listeners on the positive, not negative, aspects of reality (a good situation in the country, a bright future for the state, the President as a reliable leader), which is a characteristic feature of this genre of political discourse. The overall positive impression shifts the listeners' attention to other components of the utterance. The concepts typical for this genre are the concepts of “power” and “unity”. The study showed that the concept of “unity” is verbalized in the speech of V.V. Putin with the help of numerous lexical units, but the concept of “power” is realized more indirectly than directly, and it is not the president's power that is emphasized, but his duties and responsibilities.