The speech genre “advice” in the epistolary communication of the Russian creative intelligentsia of the late 19th – first quarter of the 20th century: communicative and pragmatic aspects

Vollständiger Abstract

Worum geht es in dieser Arbeit?

The purpose of the study is to identify the features of realizing the speech genre “advice” in the epistolary communication of the creative intelligentsia. The article examines the thematic types of advice functioning in the epistolary texts of representatives of the Russian intelligentsia from the late 19th to the first quarter of the 20th century, the specifics of the linguistic realization of the studied genre, and its meaning-making, aesthetic, and communicative roles. The scientific novelty of the work lies in being the first study to analyze the specifics of implementing the communicatively significant speech genre “advice” based on letters by Russian representatives of elitist and literary types of speech culture (writers, theater figures, musicians), presenting the substantive and linguistic features of this genre variant. As a result, it is proven that the speech genre “advice”, as realized in the epistolary communication of the creative intelligentsia, possesses features such as stereotypy combined with expressiveness, a speech-manifested desire for harmonization, unobtrusiveness and delicacy toward the addressee, and an artistic-stylistic design of the text conditioned by the creative worldview of the authors. It was established that the main thematic types of the analyzed genre variant include advice on professional self-improvement, the development of creative abilities, the organization of creative activity, the selection of artistic techniques, the realization of a work of art, self-work, and the cultivation of purposefulness and diligence. Among the functions of advice in the correspondence of the creative intelligentsia, the primary ones identified are prescriptive, text-forming, meaning-making, syndicative, and aesthetic, as well as the functions of harmonizing communication and dialogizing the narrative.