Information Documents of Executives: Problems of Identification and Description

Abstract

The article considers the system of information documents of the executives. It is shown that genre forms used in public administration for the purpose of informing are numerous. Many of these forms lack clear genre nominations, which explains the fact that researchers substitute genre nominations by names of the issues in which the informative documents are published. The author characterizes the information genres, which are in major demand with state administration: public report, press release and briefing materials. The article reveals that public report reflects information about the officials' actions or about the actual state of affairs with the relevant government agency; by its structure, it is a standardized text with language units typical of business communication. Press release is a short message about productive work of the authorities, aimed at shaping their positive image; its distinguishing feature is the use of emotionally and expressively colored lexical units and stylistic expressive means. The genre of briefing materials, along with the key objective – to inform, employs an additional setting for popularization of legal information, and hence a wide range of visual tools (tables, charts, flowcharts, fonts, colours, etc.). The author assumes that the contents and the instructive appeal of certain fragments of information genres make them close to the enacting documents genres, although their means of expressing style features are different.