Linguopragmatic specificity of the discursive genre “mission” in book publishing communicative practice

The objective of this study is to identify the linguopragmatic specificity of the discursive genre “mission”, as represented in the image-building texts of contemporary Russian book publishers. The article presents qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the publisher's mission genre: the logico-rhetorical structure of the genre is described, and its axiological and thematic dominants are identified. The main focus is on the pragmatic features of the genre, due to its hybrid, polyfunctional, and multi-addressed status. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that this promotional genre is being considered for the first time not only in book publishing discursive practice, but also within the paradigm of a new scientific direction – marketing linguistics. The research results indicate that the mission genre is stylistically and substantively heterogeneous; its argumentative structure reflects the realization of the functions of informing, influencing, promoting, as well as image-building and differentiating functions. The multi-addressed nature of the publisher's mission genre is expressed in appeals to a mass or target audience of readers, as well as to the professional community of book distributors. The thematic dominant of the texts of the genre under study is the book and everything related to the process of its creation and distribution.