Linguistic image of flora in modern English language discourse

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CHAPTER 1. THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATION OF STUDYING THE LINGUISTIC IMAGE OF FLORA IN MODERN ENGLISH DISCOURSE

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“What do we call visible light?” the Frenchman asks. “We call it color. But really, mathematically, all of light is invisible” (Anthony Doerr "All the Light We Cannot See").

1.1 The notion of discourse in modern linguistics

The notion of text is very broad and in current linguistics there is no generally excepted definition of it. The term text has its origins in Quintilian's book on speeches, with the statement that "after you have chosen your words, they must be weaved together into a fine and delicate fabric", with the Latin for fabric being textum [Quintilian 2015, p. 358]. Quintilian's metaphor that text is fabric has survived 2,000 years of use. The writers still weave stories together, embroider them and try never to lose the thread of the tale. Later classical writers took up text to mean any short passage in a book. In modern linguistics, there are three approaches to studying text - structural, communicative and interpretational [Воробьёва 1993, р. 7].

Within structural approach, text is defined in terms of its structure and linguistic rules operating within it. The pioneering work in this field was Vladнmir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale published in 1958 where the author developed the textual scheme of the story including features of structure, motives and points of view [Propp 2013: 43]. The textual scheme suggested by Propp includes two structural patters: linear and systemic. In the first type, the structure or in Propp's words "the formal organization" of a text is described following the chronological order of the linear sequence of elements in the text as reported from an informant. Thus, if a text consists of elements A to Z, the structure of it is delineated in terms of this same sequence. The systemic structural analysis seeks to describe the pattern which underlies the text. This pattern is not the same as the sequential structure; rather the elements are taken out of the order and are regrouped in one or more analytic schema.

Under structural approach, language is considered as primary material, while a text is understood as secondary. In such a way, text is a manifestation of a particular linguistic structure. This understanding has led to text grammar introduced by T. van Dijk [Dijk 1972, p. 23]. Text grammar deals with the norms of text production and its interest in the ways how texts may be structured results from the need to overcome the limitations in sentence-based grammars [ibid., p. 73]. According to E. Werlich, text is “an extended structure of syntactic units such as words, groups, and clauses and textual units that is marked by both coherence among the elements and completion” [Werlich 1976, p. 23].

The structural investigation of the text includes also Leo Spitzer's “philological circle” [Erickson 1979, p. 37-41] and the Prague Circle where the thematic networks and referential diagrams in text grammars were established.

Communicative approach explains text as an integral part of communication. In this approach, R. A. de Beaugrande and W. U. Dressler describe text not only as “a naturally occurring manifestation of language”, but also as “a communicative language event in a context” [De Beugrande 1981, p. 63]. This definition underscores the dynamicity of text production - text is the activity of the participants of a communicative situation. With this in mind, R. A. de Beaugrande and W. U. Dressler defined the notion of textuality - it is a set of features that enable to treat a fragment of content as a text [De Beugrande 1981, p. 69]. There are such textuality standards as cohesion and coherence; intentionality and acceptability; situationality and intertextuality; and informationality [ibid.].

These textuality standards have much in common with the properties of a text suggested by Illia Galperin. He singles out such features as cohesion, coherence and discreteness; personness, impersonness and addressee; reference, concept and intertextuality; and informationality. He calls them the categories of text. Drawing on these categories, text is defined as “a piece of speech production represented in a written form that correlates to some literary norms; it is characterized by completeness, wholeness and coherence and consists of specific units joined by various logical, lexical, grammatical and stylistic means under one title; it has a definite communicative aim as a carefully thought-out-impact on the reader” [Гальперин 1981, p. 18].

Other scholars within communicative approach define text being specifically focused on particular parameters of a communicative situation. B. Hatim and I. Mason are focused on the addressee considering text to be “a set of mutually relevant communicative functions, structured in such a way as to achieve an overall rhetorical purpose” [Hatim 1977, p. 1-2]. N. S. Valgina regards text from the point of view of coding and decoding messages, defining it as `an implicitly united sequence of sign units the main properties of which appear to be cohesion and coherence' [Валгина 2003, p. 7].

M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan assert “text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage - spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole”. However, scholars add that text is best regarded as a semantic unit: a unit not of form but of meaning. It is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by realization, the coding of one symbolic system in another. A text does not consist of sentences; it is realized by, or encoded in, sentences [Halliday 1976, p. 2]. Thus, text is a well-ordered system of sign units, which correlates to some literary norms and is characterized by completeness.

Understanding text not only as a part of a communicative situation, but also as discourse gave rise to interpretational approach to studying text. Within it, text and discourse are brought together and understood as knowledge encoded in linguistic form [Dressler 1978, p. 142]. There are three types of knowledge realized in a text: 1) knowledge about the surrounding world, which make up referential aspect of text analysis; 2) knowledge about the situation in which a particular text is being created which represents intentional aspect of text analysis; 3) knowledge about the situation in which a particular text is being perceived and understood which is receptive aspect of text analysis [Воробьёва 1993, p. 67].

Within interpretational approach, the notion of space is elaborated. According to prof. Olha Vorobyova, there exist the space of the text and the space of the world out there, and the writer usually creates the textual space on the analogy of the real world space [Воробьёва 1993, p. 11]. However, the writer may create the space of the text in a different way, sometimes even contrary to the reality. Under interpretational approach to studying text, the notion of space is the instrument to see how the speaker can understand the world around him or her.

1.1.1 The space of text

With the category of space, the notion of text can be regarded as a complex of meanings. In this case, we deal with semantic space of text, which reveals itself through two dimensions - virtual and actual. Virtual semantic space is determined by author's choice of words, sentences and complex syntactic unities. Actual semantic space is a field where results of reader's perception of text are formed [Бабенко 2005, p. 51].

A literary world which an author creates belongs to the semantic space of text. Such a world is a continuum combining fictional time and space. It is always to some extent conventional. Conventionality of the category of space is reflected in text in accordance with author's intention, main idea and artistic method. Literary space retains some traces of a real, physical space, being just its artistic interpretation [Каширина 2006, p. 1].

So each literary world embodies author's personal manner of perception of the world. The degree of coincidence with the real world may differ from a perfect coincidence to an absolute discrepancy or even contradiction. Subsequently word-concepts of a literary work cannot be defined and described distinctly. Babenko mentions that an author is likely not to represent the reality but to convey his own images of perception, verbalizing them in a text. It is only a topic and a plot, which reflect the reality; in terms of composition of a literary text and its system of images there is no corresponding stock in the real world [Бабенко 2005, p. 340].

Lotman considers a literary space to be `the model of the world of a definite author, expressed by the language of his spatial conception'. Withal this language does not convey individuality, if we take into account the fact, that any author is influenced by time, era and society he lives in. As a result the literary space of text is apt to express author's spatial conception, implied by his surrounding [Лотман 1988, p. 253].

Though each author has his own way of depicting space, which depends on author's perception of the real world, literary text anyway reflects all main properties of space as an objective existential category.

S. V. Kashyryna distinguishes the next descriptive properties of the category of space: spatial topography (characterized by abstractness and concreteness), directionality of spatial topography (verticality/horizontality), spatial extension (constriction/extention/expantion) and spatial localization (openness/cliquishness). The concrete space is developed through the indication of topographic parameters of a depicted world (either geographic, or territorial, or material spaces). In texts topographic parameters are expressed by the use of place names, geographic terms and matching vocabulary (location, space, length, width, far, near), spatial prepositions value (on, to, from behind, over, under, around). The abstract space has unreal and general character, conveying common national specifics of sceneries, objects and even characters [Каширина 2006, p. 1].

According to Lotman, the literary space can be punctual, linear, planar and volumetric. Linear and planar spaces may also have vertical or horizontal directionality. If linear space gets directionality it becomes an efficient instrument for modeling temporal categories (such as a life track of a character). In terms of punctual space there is on the contrary no directionality, it has static character and is delimited with borders. Together with internal and external spaces borders are the main categories of text space. The boundary may belong to one of the regions delimited by it or both. The internal space is atemporal, i. e. it is not related to temporal ties. For external space the property of apartness is inherent [Лотман 1988, с. 269].

Thus, an integral part of a literary text is its space, and semantic space in particular. Many scholars consider the space of text to be a model of the world of a definite author. The space of text has a range of properties, which simultaneously characterize it and reveals its relation to the reality.

1.1.2 The standards of textuality

The property of “being a text” can be entirely expressed with the concept of textuality. A. Neubert and G.M. Shreve define textuality as "the complex set of features that texts must have to be considered texts. Textuality is a property that a complex linguistic object assumes when it reflects certain social and communicative constraints” [Neubert 1992, p. 11].

The three basic domains of textuality are texture, structure, and context. The term 'texture' covers the various devices used in establishing continuity of sense and thus making a sequence of sentences operational (i.e. both cohesive and coherent) [grammar.about.com: e-ref].

De Beaugrande and Dressier assert that “a text is a communicative occurrence which meets seven principles of textuality”. The seven mentioned principles are cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, contextuality and intertextuality. The scholars confirm that if a text does not meet these seven standards of textuality, it will not be communicative [De Beugrande 1981, p.3].

The first standard of textuality is called cohesion. Cohesion is described as the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations that provide links between various parts of a text. These relations or ties organize a text by requiring the reader to interpret words and expressions by reference to other words and expressions in the surrounding sentences and paragraphs [Seven standards, p. 1].

While cohesion is a grammatical and lexical relation between parts of sentences/utterances or sequences of sentences/utterances, coherence stands for logical integrity achieved in any text through a number of patterns which show how an idea develops [Валгина 2003, p. 7]. Coherence is the network of conceptual relations which underlie the surface text. According to M. Hoey “cohesion is a property of the text” and coherence is “a facet of the reader's evaluation of a text”. In other words, cohesion is objective, capable in principle of automatic recognition, while coherence is subjective and judgments concerning it may vary from reader to reader [Ventola 1991, p. 385].

The next standard of textuality is intentionality. While cohesion and coherence can be called to some extent text-centred, intentionality is user-centered. It is determined by text-producer's intention to achieve a particular purpose (e.g. persuasion, instruction, request, information, etc.) based on a given plan [Seven standards, p. 12].

The notion of acceptability is very much sensitive to the social activity the text is fulfilling. A legal contract does not leave much room for inference. It contains what, otherwise, is called redundancies. Poetic language will be viewed as such because it calls on for inferences [ibid., p. 12].

One more standard of textuality which is integral for any text is informativity. A text can be regarded as informative if it conveys new information, or information that was unknown before. Informativity should not be seen as a constant. The degree of informativity can be assessed. It varies from participant to participant in the communicative event. Situationality contributes to the informativity of the text as for example a book written in 1930 has an informativity that was high appropriate then [ibid., p. 12].

Communicative situation and its components find their reflection in text. A text is relevant to a particular social or pragmatic context. Situationality is related to real time and place. Communicative partners as well as their attitudinal state are important for the text's meaning, purpose and intended effect. While scientific texts share a common situationality, ideological texts have different situationalities across languages and cultures [ibid., p. 12].

Intertextuality is the last standard of textuality. It is caused by a phenomenon of interconnection between texts (i.e. a text is related to other texts). Neubert and Shreve consider intertextuality to refer "to the relationship between a given text and other relevant texts encountered in prior experience" [Neubert 1992, p. 47].

Thus, a text meets seven standards of textuality. They declare precise norms which have to be adhered for a text to be relevant and communicative. Each standard of textuality contributes to the textual character of a text and can not be omitted.

1.2 Historical novel as literary genre

The analysis of any literary text includes the process of distinguishing its properties and characteristic features, what consequently leads to the notion of genre. The word “genre” in its broader meaning is defined as a type of art, literature or music characterized by a specific form, content and style [Literary genres 2016, e-ref]. In terms of “literary genre” it stands for a distinctive type or category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even (as in the case of fiction) length [Britannica, e-ref].

Ancient scholars were the first to distinguish literary forms, which included poetry (lyric), drama, and prose (epic). However, their division is still basic for modern classifications. The lyric (poetry) includes all the shorter forms of poetry, e.g., song, ode, ballad, elegy, sonnet. The relative brevity of the lyric leads to an emphasis upon tight formal construction and concentrated unity. Drama presents the actions and words of characters on a stage. The conventional formal arrangement into acts and scenes derives ultimately from Greek classical drama. The epic, in the classical formulation of the three genres, referred to the "poetic epic", which was in verse, rather lengthy, and tended to be episodic. It dealt in elevated language with heroic figures (human heroes and deities) whose exploits affected the whole of mankind. Nowadays, epic is classified with other forms of the "mixed kind". It includes many kinds of narratives, such as the novel, the folktale, the fable, the fairy tale, even the short story and novella, as well as the romance, which can be in either prose or verse [Guide 2016, e-ref].

One more approach to classifying literary genre is reflected in the following division: fiction prose, nonfiction prose, poetry and drama. Within this classification special attention is paid to distinguishing between two kinds of prose. The genres of fiction and non-fiction sit in direct opposition to each other [Genres, e-ref]. Nonfiction is determined as an informational text dealing with an actual, real-life subject. This genre of literature offers opinions or conjectures on facts and reality. This includes biographies, history, essays, speech, and narrative non fiction. Fiction includes stories that are made up in the mind of the author. They are “make-believe” or imaginary. The stories are not true, although they may be based on truth, including scientific, historical, or geographic fact. Some of the major subdivisions of fiction are realistic fiction (including adventure/mystery/humorous stories), historical fiction (war stories/biographical fiction), and fantasy (supernatural/science fiction, fantasy animal stories/high fantasy) [Literary genres, e-ref].

Despite the vagueness of the available definitions the notions of literary genre, form and technique should not be confused. There may be given such expressive examples of a literary technique: parody, frame story, constrained writing, stream of consciousness. The notion of literary form can be illustrated with the following samples: plays, sketches, sonnets, haiku, limerick, notebook, novel, novella, short story etc [Guide 2016, e-ref]. Taking into account all above mentioned information, the form of the text `All the light we can not see' by Anthony Doerr may be defined as a novel. Thus the notion of novel deserves closer attention.

Novel is an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. The key-point of this definition is that a novel describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. Though Walter Scott defined novel as “a fictitious narrative in prose or verse”, modern writers usually make use of a literary prose style while creating a novel. The literary form of novel includes the following elements: plot, characters, scene (setting), narrative method, scope [Britannica, e-ref].

According to etymological dictionary the word `novel' originates from Italian novella "short story, new story" and was introduced in 1560s [Britannica, e-ref]. The development of the prose novel was greatly encouraged by innovations in printing, and the introduction of cheap paper, in the 15th century.

Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed an extensive range of types and styles, which include picaresque, epistolary, Gothic, romantic, realist, historical [Britannica, e-ref].

To recapitulate, a type of a literary work may be distinguished while defining its genre and form. Though these two concepts are related to each other, their entities differ. Whereas a literary form concerns the shape of the writing, the literary genre refers to the content of the writing. It may be concluded that the book “All the light we can not see” by Anthony Doerr refers to the epic genre of historical fiction and is written in a form of a novel.

For many centuries historical fiction retains its popularity due to eternal topics emphasized in it. Historical character of a literary work gives to readers the sense of recorded historical experience and national identity. The skillful historical novelist uses the fictional protagonist to picture the economic and political forces that shape and determine subjectivity at a particular time. Historical novels accurately reflect the reasons of main historical collisions. Essential elements of historical fiction are setting of events in the past and attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the period depicted. Authors also frequently choose to explore notable historical figures in these settings, allowing readers to better understand how these individuals might have responded to their environments [The Rise, e-ref].

Historical fiction includes stories that take place in the past and that are based on historical facts. The genre of historical fiction may be subdivided into the genre of war stories and biographical fiction. War stories are historical fiction books set during a period of war and conflict. Biographical fiction includes stories in which the main character is one who really lived in an earlier period of history [Literary genres, e-ref].

The genre of historical fiction serves to perform some particular role. First of all, it rises readers' interest to history in general. In course of history the genre was used to encourage social movements as it has a tendency to influence a reader describing past-time events and implying author's personal evaluation of them. Historical fiction can serve satirical purposes, i. e. it helps the author to criticize the actions of historic characters and to prove the ridiculousness of their actions or of some events [Sanhorizons, e-ref].

Though short stories and poems have been written on important and highly relevant historical subjects and often have a strong emotional value to many people - the novel still ranks as the far most popular genre for historical literature [Sanhorizons, e-ref].

Historical novel is considered to be a novel that has as its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity (which is in some cases only apparent fidelity) to historical fact. Historical novel may deal with actual historical personages or just contain a mixture of fictional and historical characters [Britannica, e-ref]. Definitions differ depending on temporal limits of a historical novel. On the one hand the Historical novel society defines the genre as works "written at least fifty years after the events described", but on the other hand critic Sarah Johnson delineates such novels as "set before the middle of the last century”.

In some historical novels the main historic events take place mostly off-stage, while the characters inhabit the world in which those events are occurring. Other authors give historic characters a fictional setting, being concentrated mostly on historic events and their causes.

In terms of the genre of historic novel the question of accuracy is frequently arisen. Many authors encounter the challenge of striking a workable balance between history and historical literature. It demands a great mastery to combine an interesting plot with technical details. Novelists are apt to operate with notable freedom, mixing historical characters and settings with invented history and fantasy. Though writing fiction, the good historical novelist researches his or her chosen period thoroughly and strives for verisimilitude, a few writers create historical fiction without fictional characters. One example is the historical mystery series Masters of Rome by Colleen McCullough.

Thus, literary works written in genre of historical novel describe past-time events conveying the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail. Historical novels immortalize historic events and help an author to express his personal attitude to them giving a subjective description. Therefore historical accuracy of the genre is an ambiguous question.

1.3 Verbal representation of the surrounding world by a blinded person

In course of evolution, human beings have mastered various ways of representation of their minds - from the ability to represent the world symbolically to more concrete forms of representation, such as verbal representation.

When people remember a list of words, read a sentence, listen to a story they do not function solely at the symbolic level. They use imagery to make words more memorable, construct situation models that are multimedia creations; and perceptual and motor areas in the brain become activated, e.g. most of the words people know they have learned from reading, which precludes a direct perceptual association. Thus, verbalization is likely to be interconnected with the act of perception.

1.3.1 Verbal representation of the surrounding world by blinded people

Verbal representation may be defined as a process of applying symbol formations to external speech. Representing fundamentally involves connecting image to symbol and word. Verbal representation may be regarded as an act or an instance of expressing thoughts or feelings in words (producing a statement, utterance or just sounds).

The process of verbalization is determined by an urgent need to express the peculiarities of person's perception of the surrounding world. Referring to Edward Sapir's study, verbalization reflects the relation between language and experience. Therefore person's speech conveys their experience of sensing, i.e. perception [Sapir 1931, p. 578].

An examination of the lexical structure of languages may reflect relations between various aspects of human conceptualization. Spatial relations and their expression seem to lie very deep in the content of vocabulary. Words referring to time are drawn metaphorically from spatial words with great frequency: a long/short time, the near future, far ahead/separated in time. Although time is a continuum, people readily divide it up into bits and record it rather as they do materials extended in space: five years, three months, six seconds [Britannica, e-ref].

Spatial terms are also freely used in the expression of other, more abstract relationships: higher temperature, higher quality, lower expectations, summit of a career, far removed from any sensible course of action, a distant relationship, close friends, over and above what had been said. It has been theorized that the linguistic forms most closely associated semantically with the expression of relations--case inflections in languages exhibiting this category--are originally and basically spatial in meaning. This “localist” theory, as it has been called, has been debated since the beginning of the 19th century and probably cannot be accepted as it stands, but the fact that it can be proposed and argued shows the dominant position that spatial relations hold in the conceptualization and verbalization of relations in other realms of thought [Britannica, e-ref].

Some scholars maintain the idea that the human brain has a preference for binary oppositions, or polarities. If this is so, it will help explain the numerous pairs of related antonyms that are found in course of verbalization: good, bad; hot, cold; high, low; right, wrong; dark, light; and so on. These words of evaluation may be used apart from each other, but their most general use is in binary contrasts. Here, however, one term seems to represent the fundamental semantic category in question. In asking about size, one asks How big is it?; about weight, How heavy is it?; and about evaluation, How good is it? It is possible to ask how small, how light, or how bad something is, but such questions presuppose that the thing in mind has already been graded on the small side, on the light side, or on the bad side [Britannica, e-ref].

Though verbalization of the surrounding world by blinded people may be based on above mentioned categories, their perception still differs from the way sighted people perceive realia. Being unable to use visual channel of perception, blinded people may rely either on other channels or involve mental processing of previously received experience of sight [Cytowic 2002, p. 1].

Thus, the process of verbalization is an act of expressing thoughts or feelings with the help of words. Sighted people are more concentrated on the variety of evaluative words while verbalizing their perception of the world; blinded people emphasize their senses in speech relying on available channels of perception and previous experience of sight.

1.3.2 The role of synesthesia for verbal representation of world

Taking into account previously described mechanism of verbal representation of the surrounding world by blinded people, their simultaneous appeal to various channels of perception may result in synesthesia. Edward Hubbard defines the latter notion as a condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality causes unusual experiences in a second, unstimulated one [Hubbard 2005, p. 509].

Unlike perception based on mental processing of previously received experience of sight, in course of which human brain juxtaposes certain stimuli with the corresponding expreriences, synesthetic perception predetermines mixed interpretation of perceived information.

Martino and Marks distinguish two form of synesthesia, such as strong and weak ones. The characteristic feature of strong synesthesia is the appearance of a vivid image in one sensory modality in response to stimulation in another one. The notion of weak synesthesia refers to cross-sensory correspondences expressed through language, perceptual similarity, and perceptual interactions during information processing [Marks 2013, p. 14].

Weak synesthesia may be described as the process of recognition of similarities or correspondences across different domains of sensory, affective, or cognitive experience, e.g. in case auditory perception of increasingly high-pitched sounds trigger visual percept it may be expressed in speech with the lexis standing for increasingly bright lights or colours [Cytowic 2002, p. 49].

Though the notion is mainly based on changes of perception, weak synesthesia manifests itself in speech. It is notably revealed through the production and understanding of cross-modal (synesthetic) metaphors, found in both everyday and literary language. The comprehension of synesthetic metaphors by both children and adults often parallels cross-modal similarities in perception. It is likely that, whatever their source, many cross-modal similarities, perhaps most of them, begin in perception and then become available to language [Marks 2013, p. 28].

Due to the variety of sensory modalities different types of weak synesthesia may occur in speech. In terms of blinded person's speech described by Anthony Doerr in the book “All the light we cannot see”, cases of auditory-visual and olfactory visual weak synesthesia are represented.

Auditory-visual synesthesia is defined by scholars as perceptual phenomenon in which the perception of auditory stimuli triggers a simultaneous visual percept or vice versa. From the above stated case of auditory-visual synethesia may derive the notion of chromesthesia - the association of words, letters, and sounds with a particular colour. Olfactory-visual synesthesia predetermines the association of smells with visual percepts [Cytowic 2002, p. 61].

Though scholars consider the stated types of synesthesia to be not prevalent, they may be traced in speech of the main character in “All the light we cannot see” by Anthony Doerr.

CONCLUSIONS ON CHAPTER 1

In chapter 1, the main definitions relevant to the point of the research were examined. The notion of the text, its space, the literary form, the genre of historical novel, and the process of verbal representation of the surrounding world by a blinded person.

Text is a well-ordered system of sign units, which correlates to some literary norms and is characterized by completeness. Text is a communicative occurrence which meets seven standards of textuality. The seven principles referred to are cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, contextuality and intertexuality.

The space of the text is considered as the spatial organization of all events and the system of spatial images of the text. Besides, the space of text may be regarded as a model of the world of a definite author.

The notions of genre and form must be distinguished as genre refers to the content of the writing, while form concerns the shape of the writing. The literary form of novel is an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity. In examining the genre of historical novel the latter is defined as a genre of literature which describes past-time events conveying the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail.

The process of verbalization is an integral part of human life as people have an urgent need to express their perception of the surrounding and to share their personal evaluation of it with others. While sighted people express spatial evaluations in their speech, blind people are apt to verbalize the surrounding with words of sense perception.

CHAPTER 2. LEXICAL MEANS OF REPRESENTATION OF THE SURROUNDING WORLD BY A BLINDED PERSON IN THE BOOK “ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE” BY ANTHONY DOERR

English has a great number of lexical units to name the referents people perceive with such sensory modalities as sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste, and the choice of a suitable word depends on the way a person categorizes the stimuli they perceive. This chapter represents the analysis of lexical units used by the blinded girl, Marie-Laure LeBlanc; in the book "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr to describe her perception of the surrounding world. Having analyzed the peculiarities of verbal representation of the world by the blinded girl, we singled out two groups of lexical units:

(1) Lexical units expressing perception based on sight;

(2) Lexical units expressing synesthetic perception.

2.1 Lexical units expressing perception based on sight

Visual perception of the world by the blinded girl, Marie-Laure LeBlanc, is not based on the immediate processing of information received from visual sensory modality. In view of the fact that she used to see till the age of six, the units expressing visual perception are based on mental processing of her previously received experience of sight. Throughout the novel, lexical units expressing visual perception describe such basic features of objects as colour, shape, size, and quality as well as the distance between several objects.

2.1.1 Lexical units expressing visual features of objects

Lexical units expressing visual features of objects describe such basic properties as colour, shape, size, and quality. Being unable to use her visual sensory modality, Marie relies greatly on her mental processing of already known visual features of objects she wants to describe. Throughout the text, she mentions the same visual features of objects as sighted people do; they are colour, shape, size, and quality of an object.

As for the colour of objects, the speech of the blinded girl is replete with the names of various colours and hues which sighted people can differentiate, e.g. Color - that's another thing people don't expect. In her imagination, in her dreams, everything has color (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 43). These sentences demonstrate that her memories of the colours are still fresh and she relies on previous experience of color perception.

In the book, the girl lost sight only some years ago, so she still remembers all the hues and shadows she used to see, e.g. The museum buildings are beige, chestnut, hazel. Its scientists are lilac and lemon yellow and fox brown. Piano chords loll in the speaker of the wireless in the guard station, projecting rich blacks and complicated blues down the hall toward the key pound. Church bells send arcs of bronze careening off the windows (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 44). In this passage, the underlined adjectives denote various colours and hues which a person can see. When she grew ten, her imagination is described as a black screen, yet she can clearly see the images in her mind as described in the following sentence: Ten years old, and onto the black screen of her imagination she can project anything: a sailing yacht, a sword battle, a Colosseum seething with color (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 43).

However, in the mind of the blinded girl, the colors do not always coincide with the typical color perception, such as in the following sentence where bees are for no particular reason silver; pigeons are variously described as ginger, auburn or golden, e.g. Bees are silver; pigeons are ginger and auburn and occasionally golden (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 43).

Occasionally, Marie cannot recollect the colour that could be suitable for a particular object in a particular situation; that is why she compares one object to another that comes to her memory, or she identifies such properties as shadows or shimmering light. In the following sentence, for example, the girl fails to imagine what color cypress trees may be, because the trees may be different depending on the season, weather and location, so they remind her of kaleidoscopes where several colours are mixed, e.g. The huge cypress trees she and her father pass on their morning walk are shimmering kaleidoscopes, each needle a polygon of light (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 43). Moreover, the adjective shimmering underscores the idea of seeing something vague that the girl cannot identify.

When Marie-Laure contemplates about people around her, she also relies on her prior knowledge of colours. She has no memories of her mother but she imagines her "as white, a soundless brilliance" (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 43). It is not clear from her description what she means by white - either the skin colour which shows her mother as a representative of a European white community, or her mother's pale complexion. Since Marie-Laure is a French girl and the events in the book start in Paris, the color name white combined with the noun brilliance in the sentence above prompt her mother was a young, tender, pale Parisian radiating brilliance from her face.

As for Marie's father, she associates him with a combination of colours, e.g. Her father radiates a thousand colors, opal, strawberry red, deep russet, wild green; a smell like oil and metal, the feel of a lock tumbler sliding home, the sound of his key rings chiming as he walks. He is an olive green when he talks to a department head, an escalating series of oranges when he speaks to Mademoiselle Fleury from the greenhouses, a bright red when he tries to cook. He glows sapphire when he sits over his workbench in the evenings, humming almost inaudibly as he works, the tip of his cigarette gleaming a prismatic blue (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 49). In this fragment, the underlined colour names describe the father's colour of face, his clothes and how they may change in different situation. This description is very important in the book because since the time Marie lost her sight, her father was the first person to be with her wherever she was and to teach her to navigate by touch.

For the girl, the colours and different shades associated with her father became symbolic because they describe not only a particular physical property of a colour, but also convey his mood, attitude or his state of mind at a particular moment. When he talks to a department head, he is symbolically described an olive green, and when he speaks to Mademoiselle Fleury, he becomes an escalating series of oranges. These words not only name the colours of green and orange, they also evoke the images of olives and oranges with the associations they have.

With more and more time passing Marie-Laure uses coloures symbolically as illustrated by the following sentence: Marie-Laure sits at the square table, a plate of cookies in front of her, and imagines the old women with veiny hands and milky eyes and oversize ears (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 99).

The shape of objects is described by the blinded girl by comparing to a familiar image, e.g. From what she can tell, it's a low grotto, maybe four yards long and half as wide, shaped like a loaf of bread (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 168). In this sentence, the shape of the grotto is compared to a loaf of bread. A person used to see loafs of bread since early childhood and taking a loaf of bread in the hands and see it is a common everyday experience. Entering a grotto is not that common, so the blinded girl uses her everyday experience of taking a loaf of bread to understand and explain the shape of the grotto she entered for the first time in her life.

Generally, all the examples of describing the shape of objects that we have found throughout the novel reveal comparisons with the objects of everyday life and experience. The blinded girl does not use any precise descriptions of shape because for her it is impossible to evaluate the shape without seeing an object. In the next sentence, for example, Marie-Laure compares the shape of an object to that of a teardrop because she might remember how teardrops look like, e.g. The shape was of a teardrop (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 18). Another object is compared to a house because the shape of a house will stand long in the memory of a person who saw it at least once, e.g. Often they are shaped like houses and contain some hidden trinket (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 37).

While comparing objects, she relies heavily on her childish experience: every day, people see houses, they live in them and since early age they can differentiate various houses by height, breadth and shapes. The same is true about the following sentence where the girl compares an object with a cube, e.g. Inside waits a single cube of creamy Camembert that she pops directly into in her mouth (All the Light We Cannot See, p.58). Differentiating various figures is a common activity for children and it is their early experience on which they draw the rest of their adult lives. In the following sentence, the adjectives broad and oval refer to the shape of an object which the girl used to know and understand before, e.g. The aperture was broad and oval (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 91).

Finally, the bob is compared to a child's top in the sentence Its bob, he said, was a golden sphere shaped like a child's top (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 136). The word child's underscores the idea of childish memories and experiences.

The size of the object is described with a variety of adjectives. In the speech of Marie-Laure, there are not many instances of using the most common adjectives such as big and little that are typically associated with the size. In the novel, we have found only seven sentences where the word big was used, e.g. A cold wind sends the big dry leaves of plane trees rolling down the gravel lanes of the Jardin des Plantes (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 102). Marie-Laure could guess the size of the leaves by the sound they made in the garden. However, it is not clear how the blinded girl could measure the size, as it is demonstrated in the following sentence, e.g. Her fingers are too big, always too big (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 31).

To describe the referents that are extremely big, the blinded girl uses the adjectives huge, massive and gigantic, e.g. The plane trees drop their seeds and huge drifts of fluff gather on the walkways (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 12). Here, the girl has obviously touched the fallen leaves and seeds with her feet when walking in the garden, or she might have heard them rustling nearby. But still, she relies on her prior knowledge of having seen similar drifts of fluff before. Sometimes, not the shape of the object is evaluated as huge, but something not clearly perceived, as the following sentence, e.g. Something huge. The neighborhood. The entire town (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 61). Something is compared to the size of a neighborhood or the whole town.

The adjectives massive and gigantic describe a hedge and a narwhal, e.g. A gigantic horned narwhal? (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 165). And yet by early autumn, once or twice a week, at certain moments of the day, sitting out in the Jardin des Plantes beneath the massive hedges or reading beside her father's workbench, Marie-Laure looks up from her book and believes she can smell gasoline under the wind (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 141).

The word little is used only twice in the speech of Marie-Laure. First, she describes the trapdoor which she had seen before in the following sentence: She should be making for the corner of the kitchen where a little trapdoor opens into a cellar full of dust and mouse-chewed rugs and ancient trunks long unopened (All the Light We Cannot See, p.18). One more instance of using the adjective little is the following: Dr. Geffard pronounces this almost gleefully and pours wine into his glass, and she imagines his head as a cabinet filled with ten thousand little drawers (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 130). Here, the girl recollects and imagines the drawers she had seen before.

The adjectives big, large and small are often used in the comparative and superlative degrees in the speech of the blinded girl. It means that it is easier for her to compare two objects in terms of the size rather than to measure the size of one object in isolation, e.g. I lined up the pinecones largest to smallest (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 87). Smallest on the left, largest on the right (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 156). These sentences demonstrate that relying on her previous experience of sight, she can now sort out the objects using touch.

Comparing two objects is typical for Marie-Laure in the novel, e.g. Next he places her hands on a big cabinet radio, then on a third no bigger than a toaster (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 92). In this context, she compares a radio to a toaster.

The bulk of size descriptions are based on comparison of one object to another. In the novel, we have found the constructions smth is the size of smth else where the one object evokes the image of another object, e.g. It's the size of a pigeon's egg (All the Light We Cannot See, p.18). Such comparisons draw on the girl's previous experience. As illustrated by the sentence above, Marie compares a new object to a pigeon's egg - obviously being a child birds attract attention as everything else in the nature and animal world and this comparison prompts that Marie might have seen the nest of a pigeon and the eggs before she lost sight.

There are several examples where the construction smth is the size of smth else is extended with the words about/ around, e.g. In her hands, it's about the size of one of her father's cigarette boxes (All the Light We Cannot See, p.18). This sentence demonstrates the girl's taking a new object in the hands - by its shape the object reminds her of her father's cigarette box. It is clear that she had seen a cigarette box before she lost sight and she remembers how it looks like. It is unlikely that she had taken it in her hands - such things as cigarette boxes are usually kept at distance from children, so she might have only seen it. Now, the memories about it are evoked when she touches an object of similar shape and being unable to see and restore the memories of a cigarette box clearly enough, she uses the word about in her description.

In terms of height, the objects are described by the girl with the help of adjectives high, tall and short, e.g. She seems short; she wears blocky, heavy shoes (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 81). In this sentence, Marie tries to guess the height of a woman by the sounds of her footsteps and shoes. Here, she relies more on hearing, but her memories of having seen people of different height are still fresh and dominate.

The breadth is described with the words broad and narrow, e.g. Here the sky opens up, and she hears the clacking of branches: that's the narrow strip of gardens behind the Gallery of Paleontology (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 41). The Gallery mentioned in the sentence is the place where Marie's father works, and he used to take her with him to the museum very often, so she remembers what is there - and the narrow strip of gardens is the image from her memory evoked here as she heard the clacking of branches.

Occasionally, Marie-Laure identifies several characteristics of one object at once - their size and shape, size and height, breadth and height, etc., e.g. Madame Manec's big, thick hands enfold hers (All the Light We Cannot See, p. 85). In this sentence, the girl describes the size and shape of the maid's hands - they are big and thick. Marie met the maid in her uncle's house after she fled Nazi-occupied Paris with her father. Interestingly, when she met this maid in Saint-Malo, she has already been blinded for some years, so she could feel the maid's hands as big and thick only when she embraced her. So, when identifying several features of referents at once, the capacity of sight is obviously supported by the other sensory modalities. In the sentence above, it is touch that plays a great role.