Executive discourse: the concept revisited

The paper considers the interrelation between discourse analysis and functional stylistics. Following the agreement between the main methodological principles of the two linguistic areas, the use of the concept discourse is justified when studying the corpus of texts produced by the executive officials in the process of acting according to the functions prescribed by law itself and described in theory of administrative law: law-enforcement, advocacy, socio-economic, norm-setting, regulating, jurisdictional, and other functions. It is explained that the discourse component of the approach is relevant to analysis of extra-linguistic factors during the executive interaction, while the stylistic component is relevant to that of linguistic means for representing a specific content. The extra-linguistic basis of the executive discourse is seen as a combination of factors, namely, the executive (bodies and officials) as subjects of communication, various kinds of their activity, functions exercised in the nation state by the branch, and other communication parties in this sphere, with their communicative goals. The paper presents an approximate list of the executive discourse genres, which are expected to be studied in terms of functional stylistics.