Discredit strategy as a way of speech aggression realization

The article analyses different definitions and approaches to studying speech aggression in psychology and linguistics, defines dependence of speech aggression functions in the context of particular discourse. Political discourse is defined as a space of speech aggression functioning. On the material of political interviews of A. Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, the author researches the discredit strategy as a method of speech aggression realization and as a means of reducing opponent status in political discourse