Categories of literary text as a communicative and aesthetic phenomenon

Abstract

Introduction. This article examines the distinctive qualities of literary texts and establishes fundamental principles for their analysis through the identification of text-specific categories. The study demonstrates how these defined categories enable analytical precision for fictional texts comparable to that typically applied to pragmatic texts.
Materials and Methods. Through close textual analysis, six constitutive categories of literary texts are identified and operationalized: linguacentricity; virtual informativeness, non-conventional imagery; unreal modality; egocentricity; interpretability; subject-oriented narrativity.
Results. The analysis reveals that linguacentricity fundamentally shapes literary texts, as the author’s artistic world and its virtual reality emerge through deliberate lexical selection and combinatorial patterns. Parallel to this, non-conventional imagery underpins the aesthetic and figurative reality interpretation in literary texts. It manifests through innovative figurative constructions and original tropes. Virtual informativeness operates as a distinct textual category, presenting fictional information within a constructed reality that maintains selective correspondence with the empirical world. Literary pragmatism assumes a secondary position in this framework, functioning primarily through the text’s capacity to transform the reader’s spiritual and ideological perspectives rather than through direct cognitive or plot-driven communication. This substantiates the concept of secondary pragmatism as a defining characteristic of literary discourse. Egocentricity positions the authorial consciousness as the organizational center of the textual world, materially manifested through specific linguistic markers. Concurrently, interpretability engages the reader’s presuppositions across three dimensions: the fictional world’s architecture, the implied author’s persona, and relevant extratextual realities. Conclusions. The study shows that linguacentricity and non-conventional imagery stand out as primary differentiators of a literary text.