Communicative loading of rhetorical questions in the artistic speech

Abstract

The thesis sets out to make essence of the notion of “rhetorical questions”, as the problem of investigation of the communicative loading of rhetorical questions in the artistic speech remains still open. This deals not only with different views of linguists on the given question, but also of great quantity of factors, which influence its decision. Due to the fact that rhetorical questions may display different functions in English than those found in Ukrainian, some problems of misunderstanding are expected to appear. It is hypothesized that many intricate functions are realized in Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, William Thackeray and Oscar Wilde which require great attention. The study has found out that rhetorical questions is somehow difficult to understand because it necessitates the speaker to have good knowledge of all their functions in English in general, and in the mentioned above texts in particular. Rhetorical questions are not really questions, but statements given in question format. The question format thus allows others to disagree, but is not necessarily seeking agreement. In literature, rhetorical questions can be a very powerful persuasive or thought-provoking tool. They can be humorous, obvious, or reflective. In our thesis we have separated them into “self-evident rhetorical question” and “not self-evident rhetorical question”. Most recently we have turned our attention to the “self-evident rhetorical question” in which questions have the implicit meaning as the result cause some difficulties of their understanding. In summary, the rhetorical question reinforces the meaning of the interrogatives and declaratives and conveys a stronger shade of emotive meaning.