Ethnocultural peculiarities of political communication

The main purpose of the study is the analysis of the peculiarities of development and functioning of the South Ossetian political communication in its presidential and parliamentary aspects. The South Ossetian political discourse is defined as a speech act of an institutional political communication development realized in the conditions of Ossetian-Russian bilingual community. Social life of the Ossetians was traditionally based on the relations within the South Ossetian community which represents quite a sophisticated social mechanism, implying territorial links between different segments of the community, stability of interpersonal and intergroup relations. Thus, traditions and mentality of the Ossetians find their reflection in the South Ossetian political discourse which is characterized by some ethno - specificity presupposing both the combination of all speech acts used in political discussions, and the rules of public politics, time-honoured and testified by tradition and experience. The strategies and tactics of oral political discourse and linguistic means of their expression are studied on the material of speeches of the leading South Ossetian politicians. The basic method of the research is the method of cognitive-discursive analysis which involves definition and description of the specificity of realization of speech interaction with reference to the contextual environment that influences the choice and usage of language means. The study is based on the material of Russian language scripts of such genres as press-conference and interviews. Live dialogue is interesting due to the fact that in contrast to official rhetoric it demonstrates the dominant, system-forming strategies and tactics of political discourse producers. Realization of the strategies of openness and feedback is regarded to be the specific feature of the political communication of South Ossetian political leaders. Role self-presentation of the representatives of two branches of supreme power is based on the South Ossetian cultural tradition, characterized by a certain hierarchy and community-based relations: the politicians exercise supreme power either through their individual “selves” or, in line with the principle of plurality, explicating the collective “we”. Speech behaviour of the South Ossetian political leaders acquires the structure of the Russian political discourse, as the South Ossetian political discourse is developing in association and close connection with the Russian political discourse