oath

In the present article, I analyze one subtype of readers’ letters, published in Soviet newspapers in 1920ths, namely, letters of recantation. By this term I mean letters where the author announces his or her resignation from a non-Bolshevist political party. The linguistic analysis of letters of recantation which is proposed in the article allows me to trace some important properties of the Soviet discourse which was only beginning to form in the period under analysis.

The oath in child's speech becomes a secondary character. The basis of the article conprices set expressions, functioning in an informal communication. Most of them appeared in the Soviet period, due to the specific role of ritual in the USSR and the characteristics of the Soviet system of the speech genres. The most significant differences between children's oath are: its formal organization (a narrower repertoire of specific components acting as a guarantee in the case of their verbalization, the possibility of rhyme, stability).