Statement of the problem. This work is devoted to the study of the linguistic image of a Russian woman politician – a special type of public image that attracts the attention of both the mass addressee and the professional expert community. The very concept of “linguistic image” is used in many social and scientific practices, being of great interest for modern humanitarian knowledge – imageology, linguistics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, advertising, public relations, etc. Within the field of linguistic image, as well as in the linguistic theory of linguistic personality, the aspect of the subjective component of public speech, the so-called “author in the text”, has always been highlighted as a separate aspect. This is interconnected not only with anthropocentrism as a universal scientific idea of the 21st century, but also with the global process of mediatization of all spheres of human activity. The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the subjective component of the linguistic image of a woman politician in the context of public social and speech activity. The methodology (materials and methods). The methodology of the analysis undertaken is based on the provisions and ideas of imageology, the theory of linguistic personality and linguistic semantics, in the context of which descriptive-analytical and comparative methods were used, as well as the method of semantic text analysis. The research material included the texts of public speeches and statements of 2016–2018, belonging to two representatives of modern Russian politics – Maria Zakharova and Natalia Poklonskaya. Research results. In the speeches of M. Zakharova and N. Poklonskaya, the description of social-speech communication corresponds to one language model and is presented in three aspects: 1) space (where?), 2) participants (who?), and 3) metascenarios of social-speech communication (what is happening?). In the texts of these women politicians, this semantic model is filled with its own content, which has general and specific elements that characterize their public images in different ways. Russia is described as a common communicative space for the activities of political subjects, despite the fact that for M. Zakharova the Ministry of Foreign Affairs turns out to be a specific medium of communication, and for N. Poklonskaya these are the State Duma, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Crimea. The common thing is that both speakers inscribe their own communicative activity in a threefold structure, where the main participants are a) the speaker himself, b) his associates and c) his opponents. In the contexts of M. Zakharova, the listed participants are embodied in roles: a) “Me” as “an intermediary” or “a moderator”, b) “We” as “diplomats”, as “teammates”, or a subject of the “conciliar” type (Russia, Moscow, diplomatic corps);in the contexts of M. Poklonskaya – a) “Me” as “a stateswoman” or “a prosecutor”, and also b) “We” as “prosecutors”, as “associates” and as “trustees”, respectively. As for the opponents, in both cases the set is practically the same: USA or the Ukrainian. The content of the described model is complemented by the so-called metascripts, which represent the social-speech situation in a new way and have a different functional purpose in every statement. Conclusion. The linguistic image of M. Zakharova is more objectified and restrained, in fact merging with the typical diplomatic image, while the image of N. Poklonskaya is more emotional and subjective, reinforced by the characteristic features of speech spontaneity and directness. At the same time, both images, framed by the modus of involvement and team goal-setting, organically fit into the space of the professional communication.
