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the versatile research carried out in political linguistics has revealed the peculiarities of political texts thereby opening vast possibilities for a fruitful application of the findings to the curriculum of an EsP course of English for Politics corresponding to C1/C2 level of CEFR (2001). the present study analyses the knowledge and experience of students of political science in identifying, using and analyzing metaphor and metonymy in political discourse in the English language. Methodologically, the study is a small scale analysis carried out with the use of a questionnaire delivered to 55 students, where students are asked to answer questions with respect to their general knowledge and understanding of the use of metaphor and metonymy. they are further asked to identify metaphorical and metonymical expressions in a piece of political discourse. Finally, they are requested to express their opinion about the role of metaphor and metonymy in the creation of political texts. the results show that students demonstrate quite good theoretical knowledge of figurative language, namely metaphor and metonymy, however, their discourse analytical skills are rather poor. this conclusion can be made on the basis of students answer to the self-evaluative questions placed to them and on the basis of the given practical task.

In light of the changing picture of gender representation in politics and most importantly in political leadership, Lithuania should be granted a special position among examples of women political leaders’ success stories. On the one hand, the general proportion of female MPs in the Lithuanian Parliament Seimas [1] , is not at all impressive with 26 female (18%) vs. 115 male (82%) MPs in 2008–2012 term and 34 female (24%) vs. 107 male (76%) MPs elected in 2012. On the other hand, however, the highest political offices in Lithuania were held by women in 2008–2012 term: namely the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė, the Speaker of Seimas Irena Degutienė, the Minister of Finance Ingrida Simonytė and the Minister of National Defence Rasa Juknevicienė. The situation itself can be seen as a breaking point with regard to widely-quoted stereotypic assumptions, for instance, professions related to politics, economics and military issues are typical male professions (R. Lakoff, 2000, 2003; Walsh, 2001) or some underlying statistical evidence like the one provided by Wodak (2003) that women rarely occupy the top authoritative positions. Moreover, with around two years in office in her second term President Grybauskaitė has been largely enjoying people’s support in popularity polls. This not only demonstrates a dramatic shift from traditional gender divisions of women being ‘silenced’ (Cameron, 1998, R. Lakoff, 1975), but also a rather significant move from the female discourse of resistance and survival presented by Martin-Rojo (1997) to the discourse of success. G. Lakoff (2004) claims that for political discourse to be successful it needs to be built on values. With these observations in mind, the present paper aims to investigate how such values as responsibility, fairness, active agency, etc. are delivered through choices of pronouns (Cf. Wilson, 1990) and equivalent morphological forms by the main political leaders in Lithuania: the President Dalia Grybauskaitė and the former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius. The data for analysis come from transcripts of political interviews available in the media. The study is based mainly on qualitative discourse analysis with some quantification for comparison. [1] The statistics is supplied by The Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Lithuania. Retrieved from: http://www.vrk.lt/lt/2012_seimo_rinkimai/statistika.html . DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.8.3