Golovan V. Down-Toning in Parliamentary Discourse (Based on European Parliament Debates).

In the course of research it has been found that parliamentary debates could be considered as a genre of institutional political discourse because they correspond to the following parameters: institutionality, existence of addresser/addressee relationships, subordination of content and form to professional goal, sociocultural differentiation and differentiation according to event localization. Besides, parliamentary debates have their own specific features. The tendencies for restraint in manifestation of emotions, maintenance of comfort conditions of communication, fear of offending an interlocutor promote moderation of categorical statements (i.e. down-toning). At the same time, parliamentary traditions and peculiarities of official communication require compliance with linguistic etiquette, which, in turn, also determines the choice of linguistic means. In terms of modern communicative and functional linguistics, moderation is considered to be a communicative pragmatic category. Its main categorical content is communicative intention of restraint (i.e. correctness and discreetness in expressing opinions, estimates, emotions, etc.) that is characteristic of representatives of English-speaking communities as an ethno-socio-cultural feature due to their verbal behavior. Thus, the European tradition of linguistic etiquette and verbal behavior distinguishes face saving strategies, resulting in softening communicative intention and moderation of categorical statements. The communication within the European institutions is characterized by restraint, caution statements and the desire to avoid controversy. In view of these linguistic and cultural features, the moderation of categorical statements is observed in parliamentary discourse.