THE SPECIFICS OF ARGUMENTATIVE DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN THE PREFACE TO A SHORT NOVEL BY ANDRE GIDE "THE IMMORALIST"

Abstract

The article represents the experience of interpreting the author’s preface (AP) of one of the most significant pieces of world literature as an actual integrative philological problem. It shows the logic of the transition from literary issues (“pure novel”) to the linguistic aspect of the study. The object of study is the author’s preface as a genre of artistic discourse (AD). The purpose of the study is to identify the elements that determine the specifics of the implementation of the functions of the mini-text. The novelty of the work is the study of the preface as a compositional element of the work within the argumentative aspect. The author’s comprises the application of the author’s own model to the object of analysis. This model includes the categories of argumentative space (epistemic context, causality, modality), as well as a dual understanding of argumentation -- in its narrow (as a process of outing forward arguments) and broad (as a constant, ontological validity) meanings. In a narrow sense, argumentation finds expression in various forms: reasoning as a type of text; cognitive elements of the argumentative process in discourse (hypothesis, concessive, clarification); various syntactic techniques – “argumentative balance”, double negation, parallel constructions. The conclusion is made about the correlation between narrow and broad types of understanding of argumentation based on the unity of three concepts – “explanation – evaluation – comprehension”. “Explanation” and “evaluation” in the narrow sense characterize the argumentative process (“for” and “against”), and in its broad sense they manifest objectivity based on distance aspect. “Comprehension” in the unity of two previous stages indicates the specifics of the implementation of the intention to “prove”, the absence of which – in the beginning and within the ending – creates the framework of the preface. In a broad sense, the analyzed part of a novel is characterized as a genre that performs not an influencing, but an orienting function to understand the creative credo of an objective / unbiased writer. This is facilitated by obvious flexibility of dialogical relations between the participants of the discourse – a great French author and his potential (hereinafter – real) readers, who are able to become equal partners in constructing a relevant picture of the world for themselves. The conclusion is drawn about the position of the author as an artist who is able to engage the maximum number of readers in the dialogue: it can be perceived in two ways – as a withdrawal of the author from his artistic space and as an invitation to a mutual journey.