Epistolary texts in a comparative perspective: the case of readers’ letters in Polish and English

Abstract

The article presents the genre model of the letter to the press based on a comparative study of 140 Polish and English readers’ letters. The analysis encompasses structural, pragmatic, semantic and stylistic matters. The discussed texts are assigned their place within the letter genre, grouped into different types depending on their propositional content and further characterized as marked by a repertoire of genre signals. Additionally, the controversy over their genre membership (editorials vs. letters) is resolved and they are recognized as genuine research material, notwithstanding some degree of editorial bias involved in the publication process.