CORRELATION OF STEREOTYPICAL AND IRREGULAR IN EPISTOLARY TEXT ADDRESSEEORIENTATI

Abstract

The research aims to explore the dynamics of the emergence in the written speech of various addressers – on the one hand, standard, stereotypical, commonly accepted forms of addressing the addressee, and individual, non-standard addresses that do not belong to the regularly repeated elements peculiar of the author’s epistolary art, on the other. Accordingly, the objectives include 1) a search for criteria to distinguish the stereotypical forms of address, 2) the establishment of epistolary address models formation, and 3) the comparison of new vocative models emergence dynamics in terms of the gradual rise of the total amount of letters in various addressers. To achieve the aforementioned aim, we have utilized the descriptive method, content analysis, and linguistic modelling approach. To distinguish between the vocative formations regularly used by this or that letter writer and nonstandard, unique writer’s individuality-embodying addresses, we have introduced a one-per cent statistical threshold. This made it possible to attribute to the stable components of the addresser’s behaviour those address models whose verbal implementations had reached over 1% of the total number of addresses in this author’s epistolary. The number of models that had crossed the one-per cent statistical threshold appeared to be much lower than the number of non-standard addresses, yet, in total, regular vocative formations implemented in the letters of any addresser quantitatively exceed the non-usual vocative constructions. Consequently, to provide an accurate picture of the correspondence party’s written speech stylistics, it is necessary to explore the relationship between the regular and irregular in their written speech. To compare the dynamics of the rise of the models that had crossed the statistical threshold, and all the address models recorded in the letters of various writers, we built a diagram that compares the number of letters (a horizontal axis) and the number of vocative formation models implemented in those letters (a vertical axis). The results of comparing the dynamics of vocative models formation in the array of letters by A.F. Koni and V.G. Korolenko arranged in chronological order suggest that, as a rule, the commencement of the correspondence is accompanied by standard and commonly used vocative figures, which we consider to be the stereotypical elements of addressers’ speech behaviour and meet linguistic and ethical standards of written communication. In the case of prolonged correspondence, the individual peculiarities of authors’ vocative art find their expression in a continuous flow of letters. The emergence of new vocative models that become productive in the middle or even at the terminal stage of correspondence by this or that addresser is possible, but it depends on extralinguistic factors (the change of communicants’ social status, the expansion of correspondents’ circle etc.). The dynamics of the rise of stereotypical vocation formations largely follow certain general rules of speech generation; the introduction of irregular address models in epistolary discourse depends on a wide range of communication conditions and characterizes the addresser’s individual style. Further research perspectives are connected with the need to clarify the extralinguistic factors affecting the distribution of the stereotypical and irregular address models in the dynamics of written speech generation, as well as with the consideration in this respect of other structural features of a letter.

Keywords

• address
• vocative
• letter
• epistolary text
• written speech