ИСТИНА

In modern research of political discourse, special emphasis is laid on the study into the motivational component of the communicative behaviour of a political leader as it has a heuristic value for explaining why and predicting how important political decisions are made. The pragmasemantic analysis of presidential rhetoric that we use in the paper involves identifying, counting and comparing verb phrases which are metacommunicative predicates that correlate with the three main motives of politics, power, achievement, and affiliation. Research into the speeches of the 41st US President George W. Bush shows that the cluster of markers of motivational pragmatics in the rhetoric of the head of state has a significant linguo-cognitive potential, which is to suggest that the motives of achievement and affiliation dominated in Bush’s motivational profile along with average indicators of the power motive, which enabled him to accept compromises for the sake of concluding arms limitation agreements in the conditions of mutual trust and detente. Key words: political discourse, linguistic personality of a political leader, metacommunicative predicates, markers of motivational pragmatics, presidential rhetoric, George W. Bush Sr.