Inaugural Speech as a Part of Political Discourse Basing on the Material of South Korean Presidents’ Inaugural Address

The present work dedicated to identifying specific aspects of the inaugural speech as a part of political discourse in the Republic of Korea. Since 1950’s studies in the field of discourse (“speech”, “communication”) became actively conducted, researches start to indentify institutional discourse and its part – political discourse. As a genre of political discourse, inaugural speech possesses political communication characteristics and its own specific features, functions and toposes (topics, specific cliches). Inaugural speech reflects socio-political background, society’s values, strategic aims and main problems in the country – these terms determinate specific aspects of inaugural speech. In the work theoretical base concerning discourse, political discourse and inaugural speech, their functions and characteristics will be presented. On this ground we will analyse inaugural addresses of RoK presidents (Roh Tae-woo, Kim Dae-jung, Park Geun-hye), as well as Park Geun-hye’s apology speeches. Comparative analysis of Park Geun-hye’s inaugural speech and apologizes will show main changes in her rhetoric, which is of special interest of the present work. Main methods among general scientific methods applied in the work are content analysis, comparative analysis and descriptive method. We concluded that main aspects of inaugural speech in RoK are active usage of toposes of renewal and nation’s unity; inaugural speech reflects such values of South Korean society as: strength of spirit, perseverance and diligence. Through the analysis we also found out that constant key aims of the RoK are economic development, closer cooperation with USA, Japan, China and other countries, following democratic values. Main used manipulative techniques are parallel constructions and affective words.