Abstract:

The study of literary text includes the definition of pragmatically important elements of the text in which the author especially clearly expresses his opinion. The pragmatics of the literary text studies the writer’s attitude to reality and what he expresses. At the same time, the criteria for identifying pragmatically important artistic tools are somewhat blurred and there is no systematic classification of such tools. In our opinion, it is the study of the stylistic means that can create a pragmatic effect in the text.

The article, based on the works of English-speaking writers of the mid-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, considers the main types of foregrounding that contribute to the author's creation of a pragmatic effect in his literary text (paradox, allusions, convergence, and the effect of failed expectancy). By descriptive and comparative methods of research, as well as by carrying out a stylistic analysis of the English literary text the author sees text pragmatics as a multilevel structure with its stylistic characteristics not the least important.

Keywords:

Text pragmatics, a stylistic means, foregrounding, convergence, allusion, the effect of failed expectancy, literary text, American literature.