Organization of punctuation in represented written communication

Abstract

The article examines the features of the linguistic peculiarities of the personages' written speech, in particular, its punctuation organization. The aim of the article is to analyze the degree of punctuation saturation and to determine the distribution and frequency of punctuation marks in different types of represented written speech with different communicative focus: letters and diary entries.

In letters, the main element influencing the punctuation organization of a written communicative text is the factor of the addressee.  Punctuation in the personages’ letters serves to enhance the informational significance of the written text and achieve the adequacy of the message perception. The autocommunicative nature of a diary activity manifests itself in different ways. In the pragmatic situation of keeping a diary, two types of autocommunicative activity are distinguished. In the frame of first one, the entries are based on the syntax of inner speech: the sender in such a situation does not care about the mechanism of text formation and the form of diary entries. With another strategic line, the so-called «writing factor» operates, where the transmission of actions – external and internal - is organized by the communicant according to the laws of written or oral, but not inner speech. The subject of autocommunication in this case seeks not only to name what happened, but also to display it as concretely as possible, in detail. The dominance of the «writing factor» in the diaries is usually accompanied by a higher frequency of punctuation marks. 

The results of the quantitative analysis indicate that the frequency of the use of punctuation marks depends on the communicative focus of the represented written speech and on the pragmatic strategy of diary entries.