The subgenre “address” in the speech of the Soviet intelligentsia (abased on the Soviet dramatic texts of 1950–1980-s)

Abstract

The present article deals with the subgenre ‘address’ in the speech behavior of members of the Soviet intelligentsia. The research is based on 9 Soviet plays of V. Azernikov, S. Aleshin, A. Arbuzov, L. Zorin, S. Mikhalkov, M. Roshchin. The character’s education, profession, the author’s description, the actual speech portrait of the character (lexical, stylistic, communicative content), moral qualities of the character were important criteria for definition of a member of intelligentsia. All the selected characters were divided into three generational groups. The analysis showed that the subgenre “address” is a polyfunctional communicative unit, one of the components of the genres “greeting”, “farewell”, “congratulation”, “gratitude”, “apology”, “compliment”, “consolation”, “reproach”, “argument”, “declaration of love”. Addresses with possessive pronouns, ameliorative adjectives, metaphors and precedent names are actively used in the speech of members of the intelligentsia. 

Keywords

• address
• subgenre
• speech genre
• speech behavior
• speech portrait
• soviet intelligentsia
• dramatic dialogue
• soviet dramaturgy