Letter in a system of hypergenre “personal file”

Abstract

The subject of this research is the structural components of hypergenre “personal file”. The object of this research is business letters. Analysis is conducted on the basis of archived personal filed of the students of Arkhangelsk State Medical Institute for the period from 1930’s – 1940s. The goal consist in introducing new texts of business correspondence into the scientific discourse. In the course of this study, the author solves the following tasks: extraction of documents from the personal files that genre-wise belong to correspondence; determination of genre distinctness of the extracted documents; description of stylistic and functional characteristic of letters and notes. The discursive-communicative analysis of the texts of business correspondence proves that the addresser and the addressee are based on the general social presuppositions. The genre analysis allowed studying the specificity of the genre of business letter and note. For examination of linguistic units of business texts, the author uses the methods of semantic, stylistic and discursive analysis. It is claimed that the hypergenre “personal file” includes a special genre group – business letter or note that manifests as the structural elements of personal file. The author highlights the documents comprising the group of letters/notes based on the formal criterion, i.e. presence of addressee; from the perspective of functional criterion, namely the purpose of document and intention of the addresser; according to discursive-compositional markers, such as form of address or etiquette formula. The article demonstrates the specificity of indicated genres in the particular historical period within the framework of a hypergenre, which is an important addition to the overall picture of the development of business writing, as well as a source for determining normative and stylistic peculiarities of the document on the various language levels.