Supra-phrasal structure of the rhetorical text

Abstract

The study deals with the mechanisms of the supra-phrasal structure of a specific text type – a rhetorical one, with persuasion as the basic property. Given this text type specifics, a two-stage procedure of analysis, a synthesis of methodological principles of text linguistics and theory of argumentation, is suggested. The study considers a communicative register or a type of speech, proposed by G. A. Zolotova in the concept of communicative syntax, as a unit of text formation. Speech registers are the certain ways of mental and sensory fixation of the world picture fragments manifesting the different degrees of the speaker’s abstraction from reality. The first stage of the analysis describes the selection of communicative registers pro-duced by the subject of speech from the paradigm of the corresponding text units. Simultane-ously, the functionality of the speech types in constructing argumentation as a persuasive pro-cess is determined. The second stage studies the combinations of speech registers involving an argument reconstruction, allowing us to observe both text formation and text impact effect formation related to semantics formation. Analysis of the texts actualized in various discur-sive practices (presentation and aesthetic, political, religious, scientific, and educational) has identified the principles of selection and combination of text components as well as argumentation types (evidential and narrative) demonstrating the originality of supra-phrasal structure and typological uniqueness of the rhetorical text.