This article is devoted to the analysis of the organization of the New Year's President's speech to the nation on the semiotic level. The research is based on the texts of the New Year speeches of the Presidents of Russia, Belarus and Poland in 2000-2015. The author defines the genre features of the New Year greetings of the head of state, indicates the specificity of the semiosis of this genre, and then considers the formation of the semiotic space of the New Year's speech of the President on the verbal and non-verbal (proxemic and phonetic) levels.

The article discusses the features of the official discourse of the Russian Constitution Day. Particular attention is paid to the design of the narrative of the holiday. Research shows that the main theme of the official statements by B.N. Yeltsin was the task of reforming the political system, as well as the reproduction of the narrative of the «new Russia». In 2000 s the constitution was written into the general course of «a thousand years of history», which is reflected in decreasing of the formal status the holiday and its importance as the instrument of symbolic policy.

Today in political science we are used to distinguish between methods that are qualitative and quantitative. And while the quantitative techniques are based on the apparatus of mathematics, the qualitative ones don’t seem to have any basic methodological framework of this kind. It is suggested to consider semiotics in this role of the «mathematics» of social sciences. The consideration of general semiotic principles and distinction of semiotic research methods can provide political science with intradisciplinary consistency and transdisciplinary integration.

Reinterpretation of approaches of John Locke, Immanuel Kant and Charles Peirce helps to single out three integral organons of cognition. One is mathematics, or cognition of measure and art of all kind of measurement. Another is morphology or cognition of forms and art of arranging shapes and configurations. One more is semiotics or cognition of meanings and art of their transfer. It is demonstrated that all three organons vary and provide specific fields of knowledge and areas of research. Current versions and varieties of disciplinary manifestations of organons are reviewed. Mathematics is the most developed complex of scientific disciplines. Morphology is a constellation of a number of assorted and fully independent disciplines. Semiotics is rifted by a gap between rough outline of general or «pure» semiotics (Morris) and a nebula of unevenly elaborated semiologies of various sorts - that of languages, literatures, cinema, heraldry, race discrimination or ideological manipulations. Analysis of political discourses and speech acts can contribute to integration of common area of semiotic research.

The domain of reference of the political discourse (PD) is a construct, generated by the discourse itself. The language is exploited as an instrument to construct the reality, as well as a special type of verbal behavior. The pragmatics acquired an extraordinary significance. However, the referential semantics of the PD is not diminished but becomes a trans-world relation. PD, pretending to be a description of «the world, such as it is», also obtains a hidden reference to modal contexts (obligation, desirability, etc.), the interpretation of PD is some model structure (set of possible worlds).

It was confidently assumed in the ‘West’ that language is the guarantor of what is distinctively human, rational, essential for reflection, capable of expressing every aspect of human life, but the semiotic world is changing rapidly. So now language is being challenged in its present dominant position by other means of representation (modes). That challenge goes by the name ‘Multimodality’, and it will have far-reaching effects on epistemology and ontology, and with that on all aspects of culture.

Social semiotics is a new interdisciplinary field that explores material resources of communication and the way their uses are socially regulated and the social regulation of their use. The article discusses the basic concepts, methodological approaches, principles and methods of analysis of multimodal texts.

This article explores the specific risks and threats articulated by the Russian parliamentary parties in the program rhetoric. Risks and threats are considered to be multifunctional complexes ideological. The article notes that the appeal to the risks and threats is a traditional tool of party ideological creativity. We consider the specificity of the risks and threats of Russian parliamentary parties, as well as their dynamics from 2012 to the present. The article also notes that in the context of the restriction of competition ideological party ideology show a tendency towards convergence of its ideological positions.

The article refers to the study of changes caused by modernity in the public system of society and, in particular, in its communication system. As a result, the conventionality of individual signs of the authorities «language» of has been lost. At the same time, some interactions continue to be exercised by the authorities rith the Relpab same signs as if no changes have occurred. According to the author, as result, the meanings injected in acts of publicity remain not understandable and the number of acts of publicity are transformed into series of communication inconsistencies.

The article tells about the dynamics of discourse constructing the basic social dichotomy «we - they» in Vladimir Putin's speech. It shows that in the beginning he spoke as a part of «government», but since 2014 he has been speaking as a spokesman of the nation. As about «enemy», the USA and «the fifth column» play this role today.

Language is not the actual subject of linguistics. Linguistic fact belongs to the category of acts of social communication, but language is not an act, it is a system. Speech is an act, but language in it is associated with non-functional facts that need to be eliminated. When this process of elimination is realized, we get the linguistic fact in its pure state, the discourse. Linguistics is the study of discourse. It seeks to determine the rules of its use, and it is those rules that are the language.

This article accounts for the usage of the argumentation strategy in the political discourse. In particular, the Annual Addresses of Russian Presidents B. Yeltsin, V. Putin and D. Medvedev to the Federal Assembly of Russian Federation are analyzed. The linguistic construction of topoi is the primary component in focus. The article explains also the methodological aspects of identification and analysis of topoi.

The article examines five modern approaches to discourse analysis: critical discourse analysis, poststructuralist discourse analysis, cultural political economy, cultural discourse studies and descriptive methods. Comparative analysis is carried out on two criteria: the definition of the notion of discourse and methodological frameworks. It touches upon the problem of intersection between approaches and summarizes advantages and disadvantages of each of them.