PUBLIC OPINION IN THE LIGHT OF COGNITIVE DISCOURSE PARADIGM.

Political linguistics attracts attention of many researchers, including exponents of cognitive approach, to discourse analysis in linguistics. Within the framework of this approach, metaphorical representation of agents of political communication, namely of countries, political institutions and politicians, is absorbedly studied. At this, political and media discourses created by politicians, journalists, reporters, speechwriters, etc. are put to analysis. We believe that one more agent of political communication is still beyond the scope of cognitive research. That is people, SOCIETY. Many aspects of political communication depend on society -- character and quality of addressant-adressee interaction, effect that power bodies and mass media have on public, public reaction and judgement of this or that social phenomenon, possible direction of this reaction, etc. DISCOURSE OF PUBLIC OPINION is a unique discourse unit, absorbing traits of institutional, media and popular discourse - it occurs as a reaction of projection of institutional and media discourse, and exists and flourishes in popular discourse. Therefore, communication within discourse of public opinion is quite specific and has its own characteristics that are in focus of this research. DISCOURSE OF PUBLIC OPINION represents attitudinal interpretation of a socio-political event and/or its participants, opinion exchange, participation in solution of significant problems of the state and society, influence on conception and stereotypes of communicators, formation or specification of their world outlook. PUBLIC OPINION is often represented in comments to some articles in mass media, in chats, blogs, talk shows, surveys and other interactive kinds of communication. This communication usually abounds in conceptually marked linguistic units. In this paper, we consider main theoretical issues of PUBLIC OPINION DISCOURSE and present results of our cognitive analysis of the public opinion discourse in the situation of the Russian-Georgian military conflict and the information war of 2008 found in comments to corresponding articles on websites of the central British media. Namely, this article considers conceptual metaphors presenting the image of the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, so rich in attitudinal interpretation of international society that was so preoccupied by his personality and actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]