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2025 Vol. 16 №2

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Dobrovolskij D.O. Zalizniak Anna A.

“Rhetorical question” in linguistics and speech

DOI
10.5922/2225-5346-2025-2-3
Pages
53-70
rhetorical question question answer communicative act speaker inter­ro­ga­tive sentence Russian language

Abstract

The article examines the concept of the rhetorical question, which — quite surprisingly — is still not part of the standard and widely recognized inventory of linguistic categories, and the term ‘rhetorical question’ is rarely used in linguistic studies. At the same time, the ex­pres­sion ‘rhetorical question’ is actively employed in discourse, and, at first glance, seems to be used in a rather broad and undefined sense. The goal of this article is to distinguish between the­se two fields: linguistics and everyday speech. On the one hand, the concept of a rhetorical question is given a clear definition, allowing the term to be introduced into the linguistic framework, and on the other hand, the actual usage of this expression in discourse is desc­ribed. It is shown that the general principle of using the word ‘rhetorical’ in discourse in relation to a question is that this question is ‘not genuine’ in some way, i. e. it is a question that is not being asked in order to get the answer. To characterize a question as rhetorical, two parameters are significant: “Why does this question not require an answer?” and “For what purpose is this statement being made, if not to get an answer?” By calling (his own or so­meo­ne else's) question ‘rhetorical’, the speaker indicates the implementation of one of the values of these parameters.

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