The article is devoted to the genre qualifications of oral professional dialogue, which is a little-known variety of informal verbal interaction among specialists. It is argued that professional communication, as opposed to other kinds of communication, is included in the context of professional activity, which is characterized by purposefulness, effectiveness and public significance. Specific tonality of the speech in-teraction within the framework of an oral professional dialogue is determined by the nature of the everyday professional situations requiring verbal accompaniment. The originality of the oral professional dialogue used in it is given by professional oral units and units of professional jargon, in which in addition to special knowledge group professional-corporate evaluations of objects, events and relations are embodied. The combination in an oral professional dialogue characteristics of informative, evaluative and imperative genres allows to qualify it as a complex speech genre.