Linguocognitive analysis of the headings in postmodern jorge luis borges’s discourse

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru

Linguocognitive analysis of the headings in postmodern jorge luis borges's discourse

Nataliya Chorna,

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Associate Professor at the Roman Philology Department Institute of Philology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine)

In the scientific article it is planned to identify the issues which are connected with application of the linguo-cognitive approach of the postmodern text, namely, attempt to analyze the conceptual space of the author world picture through analysis of headings and their role in the organization of postmodern literary texts. In our research we try to equate the functions of heading to the functions of text concept. The heading becomes an important sign of the development of genre style system in the postmodern period due to the meta-communication and meta-language functions. The heading carries curtailed and concentrated information and it is one of the most important elements of the semantic and esthetic organization of artistic creation, therefore the interpretation of the titles is one of the most difficult tasks for philologist. The concept is not only the way to increase expressivity and emotionality, but it also acts as an intensifier in order to compress the information. The reason is that the heading has the possibility to realize poetic images in the small text as a manifestation of the general signification through the single determination. The author's concepts are designated as independent words, word combinations, fragments of text, structural components of the text. They are realized in the form of headings as a strong positions in the text. linguo cognitive author world

The sources of the conceptual world picture of the Jorge Luis Borges's discourse are universal concepts - live, death, space, time - individual concepts - possible world, library, maze, mirror, metaphor, which we emphasize due to deep linguo-cognitive analysis and decoding the information array of all writer's titles by attracting background knowledge which actively works in the cognitive construction and representation of the author's language picture of the world. Division of the titles by the category, gives the possibility identify, not only common tendencies of the conceptual space of the writer's discourse, but also explore the conceptsphere ofpostmodern literary discourse of Latin America in general. The revealed textual concepts are the clearest and most expressive speech-semantic images of the conceptual world picture of Jorge Luis Borges.

Key words: conceptshpere, concept, postmodern literary discourse, linguo-cognitive analysis, heading.

Наталія ЧОРНА,

кандидат філологічних наук, доцент, доцент кафедри романської філології Інституту філології Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка (Київ, Україна)

ЛІНГВОКОГНІТИВНИЙ АНАЛІЗ ЗАГОЛОВКІВ

У ПОСТМОДЕРНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ ХОРХЕ ЛУЇСА БОРХЕСА

У науковій статті планується окреслити коло проблем, які пов'язані із застосуванням лінгвокогнітивно- го аналізу постмодерного тексту, а саме спроба проаналізувати концептуальний простір авторської картини світу за допомогою аналізу заголовків та їх ролі в організації постмодерних творів. У нашому дослідженні ми намагаємося прирівняти функції заголовка до функцій текстового концепту, який завдяки метакомунікативній та метамовній функціям стає важливою ознакою розвитку жанрово-стильової системи постмодерного періоду. Заголовок несе в собі згорнуту концентровану інформацію, є одним з найважливіших елементів смислової та естетичної організації художнього твору, тому інтерпретація заголовків - одна з найскладніших задач для філолога. Концепт є не лише засобом підвищеної експресивності, емоційності, а й виступає у ролі інтенсифікатора компресії інформації, оскільки він як вияв загального через одиничне має здатність стисло реалізувати у невеликому тексті поетичні образи. Авторські концепти позначаються самостійними словами, сполученнями слів, фрагментами тексту, структурними компонентами тексту, у нашому разі реалізуються у вигляді заголовків як сильних позицій у тексті.

Джерелами концептуальної картини світу художнього дискурсу Хорхе Луіса Борхеса є універсальні концепти - життя, смерть, простір, час - та індивідуальні марковані концепти - можливий світ, бібліотека, лабіринт, дзеркало, метафора - які ми виділяємо завдяки поглибленому лінгвокогнітивному аналізу та декодуванню інформаційного масиву заголовків усіх творів письменника із залученням фонових знань, які активно діють у когнітивній побудові та репрезентації структури мовної картини світу письменника. Розподіл заголовків за категоріями дозволяє виявити не тільки загальні тенденції створення концептуального простору дискурсу письменника, але й дослідити концептосферу постмодерного художнього дискурсу Латинської Америки взагалі. Виявлені текстові концепти є найчіткішими та найвиразнішими мовленнєво-смисловими образами концептуальної картини світу Хорхе Луіса Борхеса.

Ключові слова: концептосфера, концепт, постмодерний художній дискурс, лінгвокогнітивний аналіз, заголовок.

The interest of modern linguistics for the study of literary work, its structural, functional and generative aspects has become that conjoint conceptual-methodological aspect which combined linguistics and the study of literature. The study of postmodern conceptual picture of the world has been actualized in the recent decades as the result of new tendencies in culture, art and science including new IT developments, social engineering, political technologies, new ways of interactive communication of people, mass media and new interdisciplinary approaches in linguistics such as neurolinguistic psychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics that stipulate the actuality of work of postmodern picture of the world of modern society. It is the interdisciplinary approach to the literary text that released the linguistics from one-sidedness in perception of processes because it is not restricted to a certain field of knowledge. The text and the discourse became the main objects of study of new philological disciplines: linguistics of the text, linguo-stylistics, textual linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and psycholinguistics. The aim of our research is to solve the communicative-cognitive problems of the analysis of postmodern Jorge Luis Borges's discourse from lingo-cognitive point of view analyzing the author's marked concepts as cognitive processes as well as the content of the semems that are represented not only by the dictionary comments and interpretations explaining the semantics of the lexemes but also their function in the literary text and the reader's perception itself. The author's concepts are marked by independent words, word formations, text fragments, structural components of the text and in our case are realized in the headings of the text in strong positions.

The aim of the scientific article is to analyze conceptual space of Jorge Luis Borges' postmodern discourse, on the basis of headings of writer's literary works. They are semantic expressions of the language world picture of the writer, author's conception and author's intentions.

The theoretical basis of the scientific article were works of the famous ukrainian and foreign scientists who studied structural aspect of the headings and defined it as a secondary sign of discourse and text (Y. M. Lotman, Z. Y. Turaeva), the headings and its functional and semantic aspects (I. V. Arnold, V. Lukin), from the point of view of certain categories (L. G. Babenko), linguocognitive aspect of the literary discourse (V. B. Burbelo, L. I. Bele- khova, J. Lakoff, O. S. Kubryakova, O. M. Kagano- vskaya, O. O. Selivanova).

The subject of research is the conceptual and lin- guo-cognitive features of the headings in the postmodern literary discourse of Jorge Luis Borges.

The research methods are based on linguo-cog- nitive and linguistic stylistic analysis, generalization, comparison and systematization.

The scientific novelty consist of the statement of the problem, proposed research methods and selected material.

In our scientific article it is planned to analyze the conceptual space of the author's world picture by analyzing headings and their role in the organization of postmodern literary works. The world of literary text consists of a certain semantic-emotional space of the lingual units and expressions, which aims to actualize perception by influencing on the certain cognitive processes and mechanisms. The postmodern literary discourse transforms this influence into a conscious strategy of communicative influence on the reader, through which author programs reader. The headings in the postmodern literary discourse becomes a text-forming component and communicative strategy that provokes the reader to consciously complex reading, which simulates an ambiguous situation of repeated reading with a multitude of semantic interpretations.

The most important part of the information that any text carries is supported in its strongest positions that formally are expressed in certain parts of linear extend of the text: the heading, the epigraph, the beginning, the ending (Сулейманова, 2001, Тураева, 1986, Арнольд, 1999). Stronge positions express certain meaning that serves to support the main idea of the text. Terminologically the strongest position is associated with “key words” in works (Арутюнова, 1986, Болотнова, 2007), as well as in the same meaning of “key moment” (Варченко, 2007), “semantic reference point” (Арутюнова, 1996), “semantic kernel” (Болотнова, 2007). The common for all these terms is the characteristic to express a certain sense that serves to support the main idea of the text. The strong text positions serve to fold the information that the text holds and that's why they should be referred to meta-text. Among the fundamental characteristics of strong positions the main quality is their fixed position that is ruined in postmodern discourse. The folding of text information in strong positions - the heading, the epigraph - can influence the integrity of the literary text thanks to unusual contextual use, for example the epigraphs placed in the center of postmodern narrative, paratextual use of the heading, the absence of the traditional nucleus and denouement of the story.

Strong positions serve the purpose of understanding the literary text that begins with the heading. In the research of the semantic-stylistic structure of the literary text the heading is viewed as single-phase text that introduces another unfolded one as mentioned in works (Кагановская, 2003). In other words the “olded heading” is intended to unfold the text (Тураева, 1986), on the other hand it contributes to further development of the idea of the story and somehow limits its development (Арнольд, 1999). At the same time this is a signal of conceptual information in the text, the focus that integrates the meaning of the whole macro character nominally (Каскон Мартин, 2000). Being before and above the text, the heading holds the information about its content. Coming closer to a proper name, the heading is a character that has both a “memory” of the linguistic meaning of the word and the direction to the text that has a dimensional contiguity with the heading, that means the heading combines the conditional and indexical character. Except the functions mentioned above the heading of the literary text also fulfils one important function of the identification of the “highest” textual concept the realization of which is determined by the prime position of certain conceptual plan that soon unfolds into the textual concept (Каганове-кая, 2003).

The heading - is a textual character in the strongest position of the text, it is an important part of the text and has a fixed position. Intertextual function of the heading is realized in its formally semantic autonomy, it's an author's step towards the reader's orientation in a great variety of texts. The heading is a structural component of postmodern literary text that facilitates the pragmatic instruction of the latter. The pragmatism of the heading is caused by several factors: its orientation for the next text (prospection), autocentricity (realization of author's intentions) and anthropocentricity (orientation to addressee).

Linguistic theories explain the intertext function of the heading. The heading before reading is an indexical sign being transformed into conditional sign while reading, but after reading the text it approaches a motivated-conditional sign. Before reading the heading of the text not only declares the information put in the text but also denotes it, but after reading the text the heading not only denotes the text but also concisely informs about the content of the text, reveals the semantic relations with the text. The marked status of the heading can be revealed only after reading the text, the comprehension of its integrity. The book is an open heading from start to an end, the heading is a book limited to a few words as it is stated in work (Кагановская, 2003: 67).

The pragmatic function of the heading is realized by addressee's decoding of the semantic relation of the heading and the text - its topic, plot and idea. While analyzing Spanish short story the addressee must perform double decoding: first to find the relationship between the heading and the plot of the literary work and then to identify what unites and differs it from the intertext. In our research we analyze the heading as a textual concept because it serves as a signal of conceptualization of the information in the text, serves as a folding of the information in the text: “...in expressing the conceptual meaning of macro character the heading becomes its focus, and not only the character which nomina- tively integrates the meaning of this macro character” (Кагановская, 2002: 107). The level of textual concept is actual thanks to metacommunicative and metalinguistic functions that become important characteristics in the development of genre-stylistic system of the postmodern period. The concept is not only the means of enhanced expressiveness, emotionality, but also an intensifier of the compression of the information because it demonstrates the manifestation of general through the individual having an ability to concisely realize the poetic image.

The most substantial part of the information that any text carries is reinforced by its strongest positions. Strong positions serve to understand the literary text that starts with the heading. During the conceptual analysis of the heading of all Jorge Luis Borges's works we emphasize the concepts that create compositional and linguistic level of the text, express the certain meaning to support the main idea of the text that is elements which carry the concentrated folded information. The concept is identical to literary image that can be associated with an object of any level. The sources of conceptual image of the world of Jorge Luis Borges's literary discourse are universal concepts - eternity, death, time, space - and author's marked concepts - labirynth, library, possible world, mirror - which we identify thanks to the ground lingo-cognitive analysis and decoding of the informational block of the literary text involving background knowledge which influences the cognitive formation and representation of the structure of literary text.

Due to meta-communication and meta-language functions, level of the text concept is relevant. It becomes an important sign of the development of genre-style system in the postmodern period. In our opinion, the genre canon serves for a productive understanding of the essence of functional style, namely, a stereotype of the generation and perception of speech in specific repetitive circumstances. Genre and stylistic categories of discourse allow recipient to relate a text to a particular area of communication, on the basis of ideas about norms and rules of communication, conditions of expediency and types of communicative behavior. These are indicative categories, because they do not reveal the content. Their essence is determined by the type of communicative situation of the postmodern literary discourse.

The concept DEATH is a universal concept for literary discourse, but in a Jorge Luis Borges's conceptual picture of the world it acquires other unusual hues and new interpretation that is typical for postmodern discourse. The concept DEATH is disclosed thanks to linguosemantic analysis of some short story headings having a lexeme “death”: “El inmortal”, “Los inmor- tales”, “El muerto”, “La muerte y la brujula”, “Histo- ria del guerrero y de la cautiva”, “Otra muerte”, “La escritura del dios”, “Abenjacan el Bojari, muerto en su laberinto”, `Los dos reyes y los dos laberintos”, “El asesino desinteresado Bill Harrigan”, “La vic- tima de Toledo Goliadkin”, “La espera”, “El fin” (Borges). This concept is enhanced by the following lexemes: inmortal, muerto, otra muerte, asesino, vic- tima, guerrero, cautiva, laberinto. All units of the text are interconnected and united by semantic and formal repetitions. The noun “death” is denoted negatively because the person's death is often connected with war. Supposing death is not connected with war, then it is inevitable, expected from the point of view of any religion even though death is the transition to another world, another reality. If death is the transition to another dimension, another reality then life and death are parts of one whole, a constant cyclic change of realities, the change of the reality of death to the reality of life. In this way a possible world of ETERNITY is described, the eternity unfolds in a conceptual metaphor “labyrinth of time” according to the headings of the stories: “Abenjacan el Bojari, muerto en su laberinto”, “Los dos reyes y los dos laberintos”, “Aleph”, “Casa de Asterion” (Borges). The concept DEATH uncovers through a special interpretation and perception of time that is perceived as nonlinear, fragmented and abstract in Jorge Luis Borges's conceptual picture of the world.

The corresponding concept ETERNITY is revealed in J.L. Borges's collection of stories “His- toria de la eternidad”, “La metafora”, “La doctrina de los ciclos”, “El tiempo circular” (Borges). The concept ETERNITY is identified as an infinite time, the loop, cyclic time, metaphor of time that is traced from the paradigm of the headings: eternidad, ciclos, circular. The conceptual information that reflects general tendencies of the story unfolds with the amount of nouns: еternidad, tiempo, simultaneidad, insomnio, individuo, destino, historia, ciclo та прикметників: circular, ciclico, universal, magica, imposible.

To disclose the concept of POSSIBLE WORLD we shall analyze the headings of Jorge Luis Borges's stories that contain semantically marked references to the world of magic and best present the paradigm of the concept researched: “Historia de los dos que sonaron”, “Historia de eternidad”, “La historia de los angeles”, “Ficciones”, “Mutations”, “El milagro secreto”, “La otra muerte”, “Libro de suenos”, “Des- cubrimiento de realidad”, “Continuidad de infierno” де лексеми increible, inmortal, angel, milagro, fan- tasma, sonar, secreto, otro mundo, eternidad create the possible reality, the possible existence of “other worlds” where real people might live.

The text concept LIBRARY which is the basic artistic image of postmodern and the bearer of its conceptual information is revealed in the journey through labyrinth and is intratextual in postmodern literary discourse of Jorge Luis Borges's short stories: “El jardin de senderos que se bifurcan”, “La Biblio- teca de Babel”. It is in “the garden where all paths scatter”, the labyrinth-library where the person wonders looking for his/her self and creates a conceptual metaphor “life-is the garden of endless possibilities” (Borges). The concept LIBRARY unfolds in the main line of the story as artistic image which realizes the natural possibility of a person to see other reality or come to it which is expressed in verbs: descubrir, ocultar, saber multiplicar, desgarrar, miles de pagi- nas manuscritas, novela, libro. Text concepts LABYRINTH-LIBRARY-WORLD, being conceptually interconnected and creating a certain metaphorical paradigm of postmodern literary discourse, belong to the short story “Las ruinas circulares” which unfolds textually thanks to the semantics of such units of language as infinita, circular, redondel, inhabitado, despedazado and lexical markers that express a certain sense. Text concept the LABYRINTH intertextu- ally unites short stories “Abenjacan el Bojari muerto en su laberinto”, “La muerte y la brujula”, “La forma de la espada”, “Historia del guerrero y de la cautiva”. The heading of the story “El jardin de senderos que se bifurcan” is a conceptual metaphor which shows the semantics of the word “labirynth”, which unfolds in time and space of the narration: “Casi en el acto comprendi; el jardin de senderos que se bifurcan era la novela caotica”, “Un laberinto de simbolos. Un invisible laberinto de tiempo” (Borges: 113). A person wonders the labyrinth looking for answers for philosophical questions, looking for only one book that embodies other thousand books - the library: “Al cabo de mas de cien anos, los pormenores son irrecuperables, pero no es dificil conjeturar lo que sucedio. Ts'ui Pen una vez: Me retiro a escribir un libro.Yotra: Me retiro a construir un laberinto. Todos imaginaron dos obras; nadie penso que libro y laberinto eran un solo objeto” (Borges: 116).

Having analyzed the headings of author's stories we can see a new interpretation of time as a category which can be transformed depending on author's, reader's or character's intentions, reflects a complex interconnection of different time layers; a fragmented fixation of events in real chronotopos becomes a norm. All this reveals the author's intention to get into a person's world reconstructing his/ her time experience, dentifying his/her deep relations with epochs, generations, and events. The retrospect, the destruction of time plan, the reversibility and shifting the sequence of the events described become typical techniques of structural organization of Jorge Luis Borges's postmodern discourse. In a Jorge Luis Borges's short story “The other” (Borges). an old Borges meets his young one. For old Borges this happens in reality, for a young one - in a dream. That means young Borges in a dream is the observer №2 of oneself - travels in his time like future №1 where he meets his old one, the observer №1 who has lived his time №1. But young Borges forgets his dream and when he becomes old his meeting with his young self, a traveler in time №1 turns out to be a complete surprise. Culture is a huge text that is the main thesis of the stylistics of postmodernism according to the theory of intertextuality.

The concept TIME is fromed with the help of the following semems: tiempo (El tiempo circular, El tiempo y J. W. Dunne), historia (Historia del guerrero y la cautiva, Historia de los ecos de un nombre, Historia de la eternidad, Historia de la noche, His- toria de los dos que sonaron), tres (Tres versiones de Judas), fin (Fin), espera (La espera), noche (La noche de los dones), epilogo (Epilogo), prologo (Prologo, Prologo de “La calle de la tarde”, despues de (Despues de las imagenes), ciclo ( La doctrina de los ciclos). One of the properties of author's perception of time is the fact that time creates a possibility of further rearrangements, the possibility of free cause of events and can be discontinuous and diversely directed. Modern Latin American short stories are as a rule detective stories with psychological and fantastic subtext. Multidimentional artistic time is revealed in parallel times and places.

Moreover, in terms of studying the concepto- sphere of Jorge Luis Borges' postmodern discourse, there are metaphors in the headings that are not in a huge amount, but conceptually creative and express author's postmodern perception of reality: “La escrit- ura del Dios”, “Metafora”, “El tiempo vircular”, “Examen de metaforas”, “Dialogo de muertos”, “His- toria de eternidad”, “La biblioteca de Babel”, “La otra muerte”, “La noche de los dones”. “La escritura del Dios”, “Metafora”, “El tiempo vircular”, “Examen de metaforas”, “Dialogo de muertos”, “Histo- ria de eternidad”, “La biblioteca de Babel”, “La otra muerte”, “La noche de los dones”.

So, the natural property of the heading is to have the conceptual information that is aimed to reflect general tendencies of the story and to show the possibility of certain important transformations because of the functions of “mental container” (Borges: 147) having all communicative-cognitive information. At the conceptual level the tendency of compositionally independent position of the headings in Jorge Luis Borges's postmodern discourse is outlined that implicitly corresponds to further textual concepts.

Bibliography

Сулейманова О. А. Лингвистика на рубеже эпох. Идеи и топосы. Москва : Издат. группа URSS, 2001. 394 с.

Тураева З. Я. Лингвистика текста. (Текст: структура и семантика). Москва : Просвещение, 1986. 126 с. 3.

Cascon Martin E. Lengua espanola y comentario de texto. Madrid : Edinumen, 2000. 306 p.

Hernando Cuadrado L. A. Aspectos gramaticales del espanol hablado. Madrid : Ediciones pedagogicas, D. L.,

251 p.

Арнольд И. В. Семантика. Стилистика. Интертекстуальность : сб. статей, науч. ред. Л. Е. Бухаркин. Санкт- Петербург : Изд-во Санкт-Петербургского ун-та, 1999. 444 c.

Арутюнова Н. Д. Диалогическая цитация. Вопросы языкознания. М., 1986. №1. С.50-64.

Болотнова Н. С. Филологический анализ текста. Москва : Издат. группа URSS, 2007. 520 с.

Варченко В.В. Цитатная речь в медиа тексте. Москва : Издат. группа URSS, 2007. 240 с.

Кагановська О. М. Текстові концепти художньої прози: [монографія]. Київ : Вид. центр Київськ. нац. лінгв. ун-ту, 2002. 292 с.

Кагановская О. М. Метаобразна функція сильних позицій в ідентифікації текстових концептів / Мовні і концептуальні картини світу : зб. наук. праць /відп. ред. Олена Степанівна Снитко. Київ : Видав. Дім Дмитра Бураго, 2003. С. 239-243.

Borges Jorge Luis. El Aleph. Madrid : Biblioteca Borges Alianza Editorial, 2004. 201 p.

Borges Jorge Luis. El informe de Brodie. Madrid : Alianza Editorial, 1998. - 47 p.

Borges Jorge Luis. Ficciones . Madrid : Biblioteca Borges Alianza Editorial, 1999. 219 p.

Borges Jorge Luis. Historia de la eternidad. Madrid : Biblioteca Borges Alianza Editorial, 2004. 176 p.

References

Suleymanova O. A. Linguistica na rubiezche epoj. Idei y toposy [Linguistics at the turn of the eras. Ideas and Toposs]. Мoscow : Publishing group URSS, 2001. 394 p. [in Russian].

Turaeva Z. Ya. Linguistica texta (Text: Structura y Semantica) [The text Linguistics. (Text: Stucture and Semantics)]. Мoscow : Englightement, 1986. 126 p. [in Russian].

Cascon Martin. Lengua espaniola y comentario de texto. [Spanish language and text analysis]. Madrid : Edinumen,

306 p. [in Spanish].

Hernando Cuadrado L. A. Aspectos gramaticales del espanol hablado [Grammatical aspects of spoken Spanish]. Madrid : Pedagogical Publishing Studios, D.L., 1999. 251 p. [in Spanish].

Arnold I. V. Semantica, Stilistica, Intertextualnost. [Semantics, Stylistics, Intertextuality] Digest of articles, science editor L. E. Bujarin. Publishing House of Petersburg's University, 1999. 444 p. [in Russian].

Arutiunova N. D. Dialogicheskaya tsitasiya. Voprosy yazikoznaniya. [Dialogical citation. Linguistics Issues]. Мoscow, 1986. №1. pp. 50-64. [in Russian].

Bolotnova N. C. Filologicheskiy analis texta. [Philological Text Analysis]. Мoscow : Publishing group URSS, 2007. 520 p. [in Russian].

Varchenko V. V. Tsitatnaya rech v media texte. [Citation Speech in a media text]. Мoscow : Publishing group URSS, 2007. 240 p. [in Russian].

Kaganovska O. M. Textualniye konzepti judozhnioyi prozi. [Textual concepts of Literary Prose: Cognitive and Communicative Dynamics]. Kyiv, Kyiv National Linguistic University, 2002. 292 p. [in Ukrainian].

Kaganovska O. M. Metaobrasna funktsiya sylnij positsiy v intensificatsiyi textovij contseptiv. [Meta-shaped function of strong positions in the intensification of text concepts]. Linguistic and Conceptual Worldview: Digest of science articles, executive editor O. S. Snitko. Куіу : Publishing House of Dmytro Burago, 2003. pp. 239-243. [in Ukrainian].

Borges Jorge Luis. El Aleph. Madrid : Biblioteca Borges Alianza Editorial, 2004. 201 p.

Borges Jorge Luis. El informe de Brodie. Madrid : Alianza Editorial, 1998. 47 p.

Borges Jorge Luis. Ficciones. Madrid : Biblioteca Borges Alianza Editorial, 1999. 219 p.

Borges Jorge Luis. Historia de la eternidad. Madrid : Biblioteca Borges Alianza Editorial, 2004. 176 p.

Размещено на Allbest.ru