Texts on memorial plaques as a speech genre

The article presents the analysis of the texts of personal memorial plaques placed in the administrative centers of the Volga Federal District of the Russian Federation.The relevance of the paper is determined by the increased attention of society to the problems of historical memory, the widespread use of memorial plaques as an important means of commemoration, as well as a small number of linguistic studies of these memorial signs. The purpose of the article is to describe the structure, content and stylistic features of the texts of personal memorial plaques. The research is based on the following methods: observation, functional analysis of linguistic units, and description. From a semiotic point of view, the article contrasts memorial plaques-evaluations and memorial plaques-indexes. It is concluded that the texts of memorial plaques represent an independent speech genre. They are characterized by 1) a single goal of creation – to perpetuate the memory of outstanding personalities; 2) similarity of structure and content (the texts of personal memorial plaques include the name of the person, the dates of his life, indication of title, position, awards, description of merits); 3) belonging to the official business style, from which, however, deviations are possible in the form of lyrical reflections, poetic fragments, precedent statements, quotations that bring a touch of expressiveness to the text.