Communicative functions of business letters in the modern Russian language

Abstract

The article deals with the communicative function of business letters in the modern Russian language and means of its expression. The functions of contact establishing, functions of information, incentive, impact, manipulative, regulatory, expressive, socio-cultural, interpretive, confrontation, supporting, identifying are presented. The dependency of the linguistic organization of a business letter on written communication function is established. Lexical, morphological, syntactic means of expressing these functions in a business letter are analyzed. The importance of infinitive constructions, introductory-modal words in the realization of impressive functions of the business letter is shown. Attention is paid to the semantics of the predicates involved in the manipulative, motive or incentive, and expressive functions. Сliche that establish contact (phatic function) and performs the functions of manipulative, confrontation, supporting, identifying are considered. The dual character of identification function of a business letter are revealed; this function serves to display identity in the professional field as well as posts about the author and the addressee of letter.