A Study on Punctuation in the Russian Document in the Formulaic Aspect: A Case of Tyumen Business Documents Dating Back to the Last Third of the 18th Century

The article addresses the formation of the Russian punctuation system and its dynamics over time. The research draws upon 450 archival documents of 82 genres preserved in the State Archive of Tyumen Oblast; some of them were published earlier by the author and others are introduced into the academic discourse for the first time. It was found that, during the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796), punctuation marks in Tyumen business documents had undergone significant changes in their quantity. As opposed to the 1760s, when every third document had no punctuation marks and the rest 35% had only one, at the end of the 18th century, only every seventh cursive business document was devoid of punctuation and twice as less (19%) documents contained only one punctuation mark. The study employs a grammatical-diplomatic method of analysis based on a formulaic analysis of the document structure by its distinctive structural components. It was established that structural parts of business documents could be marked by any punctuation mark: comma, semicolon, colon, etc. Tendencies in the “specialization” of punctuation marks depending on their use in the introductory, main or final part of the business document were identified. It is argued that the main reason for adding punctuation marks to written business communication is a change in the text modality. Grammatical expression of volition in the pragmatic section of the main body of a document is often associated with a change of the writer/speaker. The article presents a classification of subjects of the oral and written speech in question, who, as a rule, are different in the studied documents. The author of the research compared and described how punctuation marks function in the documents of four genres: proposals (administrative types of documents), pro memoria (types of reports), announcements and notifications (belong to request and report types). Genre correlation in the use and distribution of punctuation marks at the end of the structural parts of an abstract document was found. In proposals, reports and announcements (documents with personalized subjects of the oral expression of volition), the end of the main body is more often marked by a punctuation mark to show transition to the “signature” part. As a rule, at this point, the main handwriting of the document (the handwriting of the scrivener) changes to the handwriting of the subject of speech (subject of the volition). In pro memoria, the most important part of the document in terms of punctuation is the date which reflects the stage of the document flow between colleagues, subjects of speech/writing (various offices) in their professional correspondence.

Keywords

Authors

References