Humanities & Social Sciences 9 (2016 9) 2082-2091 ~ ~ ~ УДК 811.161 Speech Strategies and Self-Presentation Techniques of Candidates for the Head of the City Administration (as exemplified by the 2010 election campaign in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia) Rimma A. Ivanova* National Research University Higher School of Economics 25/12 Bolshaya Pecherskaya Str., Nizhny Novgorod, 603155, Russia Received 19.02.2016, received in revised form 26.04.2016, accepted 15.07.2016 The article concerns the research of modern Russian regional politicians’ speech portraits. <...> In the report the author emphasizes speech traits and qualities typical for both experienced and popular politicians and political start-uppers. <...> The research shows different speech portraits of candidates for the head of the city administration of Nizhny Novgorod (Russia), their various communicative images. <...> The candidates’ speech strategies prove to be the only possible variant for elective position assignment. <...> The language analysis of the pre-election campaign speeches demonstrates the candidates to use two kinds of speech strategies: positive and negative. <...> By the forming of the pre-election campaign speeches strengths the neutral adjectives with some additional positive and negative connotations are used. <...> Keywords: political discourse, speech portrait, politician’s communicative image, speech strategies, self-presentation techniques. <...> Introduction The article highlights the main communicative properties of modern political speeches of regional officials and a complex of linguistic means contributing to a speech portrait of an individual. <...> The inevitable interest to the political elite of countries, regions and districts has grown © Siberian Federal University. <...> This circumstance is a reason for many investigations in various aspects of activities of a politician of any standing as well as in “his/her needs, motifs, Rimma A. Ivanova. <...> Speech Strategies and Self-Presentation Techniques of Candidates for the Head of the City. goals, intentions and expectations, his practices and communicative actions, communicative situations in which (s)he acts as the initiator and leader or, otherwise, as a secondary performer” (Aristov, Susov 1999, 5). <...> It is noteworthy that the major portion of modern research in the field uses speeches of state level politicians such as Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, Dmitri Medvedev, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Gennady Zyuganov as a source of information while social and speech portrait of regional leaders is not analyzed. <...> This report focuses <...>