Promotional aspects of the author’s name

Abstract

The idiom of book reviews and promotional materials contains elements of various degrees of entrenchment, the reader is taught to decipher shorthand expressions and allusions, to understand messages that add variety to the text or that introduce valuation and shape the receivers’ tastes. The article discusses the ways of linking the author’s name with various spheres of life and literary work, with fashions and literary trends. The function of press releases, i.e. publisher’s reviews and book announcements, is not only to inform but also to persuade. In order to underscore the writer’s and the editorial success, the author’s name is used in the context of his or her pen name, popularity ranking, another author’s name, literary genre and trend, writing style etc. The linguistic devices used in reviews (published in specialist and opinion-forming journals) or in book announcements (in popular journals and editorial catalogues) indicate how and why these texts become similar. The similarity results in the emergence of “discourse about books” as a distinct variety of journalistic style.