THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
The article presents the results of the initial part of the research dealing with reading and understanding official documents by different Russian social groups. The texts under consideration are the official documents on National Health, Culture and Education, from respective sites. Comparison of the objective and subjective interviewing data with regard to the social characteristics of the respondents revealed that the primary factor of a text availability for understanding is its “density”: the weak density does not prevent understanding an official text, while the strong density blocks it. The relevance of the “addressee orientation” of a written document for it to be socially accepted by respondents is also described.