Categories Of Text Representing Its Authenticity (On The Basis Of German Texts)

Abstract

The research is focused on studying a text phenomenon, its complex nature and the variety of forms which make it relevant to identify the most complete set of categories, reflecting its essential properties as a verbal object. The study is carried out as part of the linguistics of the text. Its purpose is to describe the nomenclature of text categories characterizing its authenticity, as well as to describe the features of the implementation of these categories in various types of the authentic text. We define the authentic text as a kind of the documentary text, i.e. based on facts, not fiction contrary to the fictitious text. This opposition goes back to the works of the French literary critic Genette G., who used the concept of authentic autobiography, separating it from the literary stylization of this type of text. The peculiarity of the authentic text, therefore, is that it is based on real events from the life of the author of the text. According to the research, authenticity is represented with the help of text categories of personality, reference and modality, which manifest their specific features in the text. The material under the study consists of various kinds of autobiographical texts, such as epistolary texts of private correspondence of the Austrian writer Franz Kafka, as well as more modern forms of written communication – message texts on German forums for teenagers and personal blogs of German-speaking authors. Such methods as structural-semantic, contextual, descriptive and comparative analysis are used in the research.