LINGUISTIC EXPERTISE AS A LANGUAGE POLICY TOOL
In sociolinguistic terms, certain aspects of academician Grot’s activity can be seen as language policy. Therefore a discussion of the new conflictological direction of sociolinguistics (along with status and corpus directions) is of current importance. Its object is delinquent communicative situations: 1) speech crimes against non-proprietary rights of people and organizations (deffamation and libel), against societal and governmental rights to normal functioning (speech extremism); 2) discussions of mass media deontology violations. Its objectives are identification and resolution of conflicts in communication, as well as punishment and prevention of speech crimes. Within its framework, the decision of a court or a deontological authority is a direct act of language policy, whereas a linguistic expertise is its consecutive act and simultaneously its tool. A linguistic expertise as a procedure of search for an evidential base of a speech crime is performed in governmental and independent centers. This correlates with a governmental and public direction of speech policy, revealing their inherent contradictions. As an illustration the author uses a lawsuit on protection of honor and dignity of a «United Russia» party member V. Svirid versus a well-known political figure of the opposition field, A. Navalny, in which the court verdict didn't take into consideration the professional opinions of linguistical experts from a regional university.