Category of theme in the genre of essay (on the materials of V. M. Peskov’s essays)

Abstract

The subject of this research is the category of theme – one of the leading text categories that reflects the subject matter of speech and extra-textual reality. Analysis of the category of theme in the essay genre is a relevant trend in modern linguistics. The essays by V. M. Peskov, whose works are considered exemplary and representative for the scientific research in the field of humanities, serve as the materials for this article. Among the essays of the Soviet period, the essays of V. M. Peskov rightfully hold a special place and retain its relevance. The research methodology contains categorical-textual analysis based on the category of communicativeness. The novelty consists in application of the categorical-textual method towards analyzing the genre of essay, which implies a combination of uniform by means of explication textual categories, and with a high degree of objectivity, allows to determine the characterological features of the genre and functional style. The means of explication of the category of theme in the genre of essay have the following peculiarities: incorporation of several functions in a single nomination (primary, basic, principal); application of diverse additional nominations (referentially identical nominations, synonyms, taxonomic nominations, substitutions, grammatical transformations, zero nominations). The analysis of a wide range of additional nominations demonstrates that the essays by V. M. Peskov with a high degree of confidence can be attributed to the field of publicistic, fiction and colloquial styles; or in other words, the genre is at the intersection of several functional styles.