Soukromý dopis: mezi psaným textem a mluveným dialogem
Private letter: between the written text and spoken conversation

Pragmalinguistics, stylistics, syntax in the research of correspondence

Author(s): Jana Hoffmannová
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Syntax, Pragmatics, Western Slavic Languages
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: correspondence; dialogue; stylistics; pragmatics; politeness; spoken Czech; syntax;
Summary/Abstract: This paper begins by discussing the stylistic characteristics of correspondence and emphasizes the concept of correspondence as dialogue (constructed from turns in the form of letters) as well as the inner dialogical character of each individual letter. It points to the increasingly informal nature of letters at presentand to the permeation of spoken Czech into letter-writing. The second part of the paper views the letters of well-known individuals, in this case the love letters of the Czech authors Jan Neruda and Karel Čapek, from a pragmatic perspective. Using pragmatic parameters, the politeness/impoliteness and so-called temperature of the letters are observed. The third part is devoted to a stylistic analysis of contemporary letters, specifically of the typical correspondence of young people (from the Corpus of Private Correspondence, a part of the Czech National Corpus).

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