Article.
Ірина Архіпова
УДК
811. 111. 81'42
RESEARCH OF
AUTHOR`S DIGRESSION IN STRUCTURAL, SEMANTIC AND SEMIOTIC CLUES
Стаття присвячена вивченню лінгвостилістичних особливостей авторського відступу. Мета статті полягає у визначенні статусу авторських відступів як
композиційних одиниць англомовних художніх прозових текстів. Об'єктом виступають авторські відступи
в англомовних художніх прозових текстах ХІХ-ХХ ст. На основі комплексного
підходу до аналізу текстових внесень з’ясовано критерії визначення авторського
відступу та уточнено поняття «авторський відступ».
Ключові слова: авторський
відступ, ліричний відступ, коментар, вставні слова, англомовний прозовий текст.
To
ensure the coherence of literary text a significant role belongs to the
different types of text insertions focusing the reader's attention on the
necessary information and contributing to the expressiveness, emotional and
aesthetic effect. The following composite text elements include the out of cast
units of the compositional structure of the text:
titles, episodes, stage directions, notes, inserted constructions and author`s
digression actually.
The relevance of the work is determined by
its correspondence to the general direction of the modern linguistic studies
from the theory of composition of the literary text to establish linguistic and
pragmatic properties of the composition-and-plot, composition-and-structural as
well as composition-and-semantic units of the text.
The aim of the article is to determine the
status of author`s digression as
the compositional units in English literary prose texts.
The object is the author`s digression in the English literary prose texts.
The
analysis of the linguistic works devoted to the study of the author`s digression suggests that the author`s
digression as included in the work text has not been studied enough in the
linguistics, and the used in works terms like: "detailed consideration" (Kuharenko 135), "author's of direct language structures"
[268], or the term in grammar "inquit"
as a juxtaposition of "direct
language", as well as the terms "lyrical digression" or "author's comment"; in literary studies the term "remark" to refer this phenomenon
in the drama, they do not reveal to the full extent the features of the text
included in work. The use of different terms ("author`s
digression", "author's
comment", "set piece" and "lyrical digression") to describe
the same phenomenon, namely the text included in work; does not provide the
differences between these concepts. "The term "lyrical digression" was named not so much due to the
peculiarities of its content, but due to the frankness of expression of the
author that is revealed in the reasoning" (Kuharenko 135). It is proposed
the use of the term "author`s
digression", which in our opinion, reflects in the best way
the essence of the phenomenon.
From the perspective of semiotic
theory, the out of cast units of the
text are treated as meta-text
elements that act like a means of connectedness
(Apresyan), switch attention of the addressee to
the more meaningful fable moments, they help to navigate in the literary text
space (Lotman).
In the framework of structural and
semantic approach, the subject of study are parentheses as a grammatical
phenomenon limited to the scope of sentence; while in the spotlight there were
the nature of syntax of relationship between the matrix and
the parenthesis (Kobrina) and the principles of delimitation of the
different functional parentheses types; among them there were inserted and
input one, their stylistic features in the text (Aleksandrova, Kostyuk). With the development of text
linguistics the tendency was set up to study text inclusions with the
textocentric approach that allowed to highlight the textual inclusion in
particular (Samoletova) and to examine their functioning in the literary text
from the position of linguo-cognitive approach (Bun, Vorobieva). In linguopoethics (Arnold,
Vinohradov) the following units and their variants were considered from the
perspective of narratology (Kuharenko) as the types of presentation: author
language, dialogical language, internal, quasi-direct as the forms: note,
remark, and author`s digression). Thus, the included units were
studied as both composite units, and as the author's language. As the author's
language, it is one of the brightest ways to highlight the image of the author.
Significance
of the lyrical digression in the literary texts was highlighted by O. O.
Potebnya, identifying it as a special type of "subjectivity" (Potebnya). The literary meaning of the
subjective beginning in prose was exposed for the first time by M. M. Bahtin: "Subject for the prose
writer – the focus of the contentious votes, among them his voice also should
sound; these voices create the necessary background for his voice" (Bahtin
67). This thought of M. M. Bahtin received a general recognition and a
significant development in the science. For Example, T. Silman calls the author`s digressions like "lyrical insertions" and considers
the author`s digression as an "inclusion of character", where the author acts as an equitable
character with his voice (Silman 190-205).
І.
Gordon considers the author`s
digression into the
comments, analyzing the author's position as a commentator on what he portrayed
(Gordon 165). І. V. Arnorld defines the intratextual comment, which is issued
in the form of a word, expression or sentence within the text itself; it is
placed in brackets and is intended to explain the obscure places that appear in
the development of the story; the
author's intratextual comment that merges with the narration, acquiring the
form of author`s digression, or
it is included by the author in the language of the characters; and a
non-textual comment: here we have by-page notes or endnotes, marginal notes and
even epigraphs, prefaces and individual sections (Arnold). T. F. Plehanova
believes that the author`s digression is the text composition element, i.e. the
author's commenting of the depicted in the work paintings and characters
(Plehanova 6-14). The author can
interrupt the unravelling of the plot in text and enter into the direct
conversation with the addressee (rarely with the character) to evaluate
depicted, express own thoughts and feelings. T. F. Plehanova in her work draws
an analogy between the author`s
digression and the
parenthesis. The author considers possible to regard parenthesis "and in
the larger than the sentence background. It can also include the author`s digression in the extended interpretation of the
parenthesis" (Plehanova 7-8). We adhere to the perspective that the
parenthesis is a phenomenon that is introduced to the structure of a sentence,
and can be deleted from the sentence without damaging of its structure. The
various functions of the parenthesis reduced to the formation of the speech
figures, mainly different types of the repeat: anaphora, epiphora, graduation,
anticlimax (Skrebnev 252). K. R. Novozhilova
calls the author`s digression as one of the form of violation of the
predictability, since they are the fallout of literary norms into the world of
the real norms, which leads to the violation of the conventions of the literary
work (Novozhilova 66-68). Introductory unity (structural and text author`s digression names) reflects the absence of the author's
knowledge of the story subject matter, and his knowledge about the world in
general. In this relation of the literary and the real world that was
explicitly presented with author`s
digression, the main direction of the thoughts of the artist is
performed, from the particular to the general. The authors of the works can
appeal to the imaginary listener and conversationalist (reader). These appeals
are reflected in the numerous digressions from the novel. These digressions are
necessary for the author to express his attitude to the situation described in
the communication, to the communicative intentions of its members and planned
by them perlocutionary effects, as well as to the participants themselves and
their actions. Despite the fact that the author`s
digression helps to
disclose deeply the idea and the whole content of the work, they have an impact
on the reader, with their help the image of the author-narrator is introduced,
which rises above the depicted, H. Flober believes that the author should
"create and be silent", i.e. in the minimum way to show his opinion,
not destroying the illusion of a fictitious world. This view is also shared
by O. M. Levidov, who believes
that the author's intervention complicates the objectification of reality,
negatively affects the perception of the character by the reader (Levidov 145).
Yu. M. Lotman comes to a conclusion about the existence of two types
of speech, he named them "someone
else's word" and "author's
word" (own author's story). He allocates six functional types of
"someone else's speech"
(monologue by the character's, quote, foreign language text, etc.) and three
functional types of actually author's wording: 1. "Common", novel
story in a very neutral forms, that does not create a tangible image of the
native speaker. 2. Speech, directed
to the interlocutor – replacement of the monological story with "one
party" of the dialogic speech. 3. Author's stories about the author's
story (Lotman 55-56). The second and the third types of actually author's
wording are often correlated with the author`s
digression.
V.
А. Kuharenko calls the author`s
digression as an expanded
consideration, which includes the author's ideas that express the perception of
the author, in her opinion, this is an explanatory form of language, where the
author comes into a direct contact with the reader. The Consideration in the
literary text is the megaphone of author ideas, not embodied in the form
(Kuharenko).
The
modern literary studies accepted the following definition of the author`s digression: "Lyrical digression is the form of the
author's language, the word of the author-narrator that distracts from the plot
description of the events for its commenting, estimation, other reasons not
connected directly with the work cast... the author`s
digression directly injected introduces into the world of
the author's ideal and helps to build the image of the author as a live
interlocutor, reader" (Kvyatkovskij 124).
Composition
and lyric digressions have a double meaning: on the one hand, they play the
role of braking of the fable development of a novel or poem, and on the other
hand, they allow the writer to express his opinion in an open form on various
issues that have a direct or an indirect relationship to the central theme
(Kvyatkovskij).
This
definition indicates that the author`s
digression gets a
conceptual meaning only in the ratio with a category of the author image. The
interpretation of the concept of "image
of author" is quite diverse; "it is like active participant of
the story, or like the creative individuality of the writer" (Hrapchenko
97-108). Probably, such a terminology difference occurs because the author
actually appears in the work in his several manifestations. In this regard,
V. V. Vinogradov set the problem of typology of the image of the
author in the fiction. V. V. Vinogradov using the notions of objectivity and
subjectivity solves this problem. In the texts with the "objective"
structure of the storytelling, according to V. V. Vinogradov, the author is
hidden in the depths of the composition, style, and other major elements of
poetics and respectively he is verbally imperceptible. Here in the center we
have not the author, not the narrator, but the depicted reality itself. In the
texts with the "subjective" storytelling structure the author
manifests itself like explicit with this or the other language forms
(Vinogradov).
For
the linguistic studies of the included text the most typical is primarily the
appeal to the texts with the "subjective" structure of the story,
where the author is presented as a linguistic entity, i.e. he expresses;
manifests itself, first of all by means of the signals of the language of
nature in fact.
The
anthropocentrism in the modern linguistics allows us to look at the author`s digression from other positions, or to interpret the
author's image problem in the other way, which was previously studied mainly by
the literary studies.
The
image of the author, according to V. V. Vinogradov, with one side is turned to
the world of ideas, attitudes, outlooks of the writer, and on the other side to
the language structure (Vinogradov). Vinogradov has always stressed that the
image of the author is structural, as any verbal form. The analysis of this
structure is able to reveal the outlook. Thus, linguistic and literary
approaches to the literary work are fundamentally compatible.
In our research we determine the author`s
digression as an autosemantic compositional unit of literary text,
which ensures semantic relationship of different elements of the text, performs
emotional and esthetic, phatic and cognitive functions, and is considered to be
explicit means in defining the author’s and reader’s images. The studies of the cognitive aspect of author`s digression in the different genres of the literary texts
of English and American prose is promising one.
References.
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Надійшла до редакції 05 лютого 2017 року.
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