Reference situation in political PR-discourse: specificity of the construction

The article analyzes the process of discursive construction of the worldview which leads to a change in the characteristics of political discourse and its transformation into political public relations discourse, namely to the transition from socially important referents to those that are personally relevant. Based on the modern understanding of the social phenomenon of public relations activity the author gives a definition of political public relations discourse; it is proven that the main principle which allows distinguishing political public relations discourse from political discourse is the construction of the referent situation by a politician. Linguistic analysis of English political public relations discourse (a fragment of B. Obama’s speech made during the election campaign in 2012) shows how the referent situation is constructed so as to discursivize certain personal (positive) qualities of the politician and to carry out a strategy of self-presentation; the politician’s image and reputation as well as the political party he represents become the main themes and referents of his political public relations discourse. It is concluded that in political public relations discourse a version of reality is constructed which is favourable for the politician and which he then uses in order to create another, possible world, represented as a desirable world in discourse.