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English
The function of paratext in rhetorical prose (illustrated with Jan Śniadecki’s writings)
Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn
Abstract
The paratextuality is one of the transtextual relations distinguished in Gerard Genette’s typology. This relation is considered to be one of the most privileged area of pragmatic dimension of the work and its infl uence on the reader. According to Genette’s theory, paratexts are thought to be texts which surround a central text, i.e. titles, subtitles, intertitles, introductions, prefaces, editorial remarks etc. The article undertakes problems concerning functions of paratextual elements in the rhetorical prose as oriented to infl uence persuasively. As the research material there are taken journalistic writings and orations (i.e. applied rhetorical prose) of Jan Śniadecki – an outstanding representative of intellectual and cultural life at the turn of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The analyzed paratextual units of texts (titles, subtitles, intertitles, and prefaces) enabled to observe that those units make a signifi cant space in constructing rhetorical utterances – they introduce the reader into an atmosphere of rhetorical persuasion, and announce a tone and quality of discourse (polemicity, instructiveness, emotionality, and suggestiveness), as well as they signal persuasive strategies chosen by the author to realize aims of his utterances (e.g. self-creation of the sender through a topos of modesty, arguments appealing to experience and attitude of care).
Keywords:
paratext, rhetorical prose, persuasive functionDetails
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