Abstract. The article deals with discourse, in particular with political discourse. Various interpretations of political discourse are discussed in the article. Two big groups of discourse such as personal-oriented and institutional-oriented are described from different point of views offered by various scientist. Features of political discourse are given and supported by a number of examples. From a pragmatic point of view the following linguistic features of political discourse are analyzed: the image of the author, informational content, the factor of addressee, intentionality, estimation, conventionality, emotiveness, modality, intertextuality, social-cultural content, ideological characters, form and means of communication. Specific characteristics of a political discourse such as competitiveness, aggressiveness, ideological character and theatricality are studied as well. All above mentioned characteristics and linguistic features formulate political discourse and contribute its pragmatics in terms of influence on mass consciousness.