Literary critical discourse from the position of argumentation and rhetoric

The article deals with realization of the argument as one of the basic functions of a literary - critical discourse. The argument is considered as a special macrotype of the speech act in aggregate of various subdiscourses. The author carries out the analysis of rhetorical relations, which the argument - beginning and an argument - remark (as discourse units) enter with each other, from positions of the theory of rhetorical structure, revealing special character of connection between units of a literary - critical discourse.