Argumentacja w języku familijnym (na przykładzie listów małżeńskich Teodory i Jana Matejków)

Abstract

The author of this paper separates and characterizes argumentative structures shown in a collection of married letters written in the 60s and 70s of the 19th century. Letters can be seen as the equivalent of a conversation carried on at a distance, they are used to provide for practical needs of the authors of the letters and often have persuasive function that is to win the addressee’s good feeling or to make him/her do or not what is the letter about. Arranged in this study sequences of questions, answers, requests, pieces of advice, pressures, demands, and reproaches used in the studied letters have all comments referring to generic requirements of correspondence and to the then rules of savoir-vivre. Therefore referring to argumentation in epistolary discourse the author of this paper uses the output of modern pragmalinguistics, a theory of argumentation, and a theory of a letter. He also presents extensive excerpts from epistolary output that evidence the stormy vicissitudes of the Matejkos’ married life.