Josef Jungmann: theory and practice of the letter

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Josef Jungmann’s work offers three different sources of data for the analysis of author’s view of letters and epistolary communication: lexical material collected in author’s Czech-German dictionary, theoretical explanation of so-called epistolary style in Slovesnost (“Belles-lettres”), and author’s own correspondence. The relevant entries and lexical material from the dictionary reveal that letters were a relatively important genre in the given historical period and that they were relevant for a large variety of life situations. The theoretical explanation and the examples of letters in Slovesnost reveal that Jungmann’s theory of letter was focused on pragmatic aspects of epistolary communication. The key function of the letter was to maintain the relationship between the writer of the letter and the physically absent addresse. A sample analysis of Jungmann’s letters indicates that the relationship between the writer and the addressee were important in Jungmann’s own letters as well.