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The lexical thesaurus of the poetic text
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(The poem of H.Belloc “Tarantella”).
The author’s individual perception of the reality in the poetic text is a reflection of subjective features of the language person of its creator. The poetic text is always anthropocentric, representing a reality through a prism of the aesthetic perception by the author.
The description of the author’s individual perception of the reality can be carried out with the help of the conceptual analysis revealing base concepts of the poetic text, components of which comprise its conceptosphere. The aspects of conceptualisation are stipulated by both objective laws of the world, and the author’s personal position, his ratio of a reality. The aspects of conceptualisation help to explain the field frame of conceptosphere, depending upon the ways of the language representation of the concept. (Бабенко, 2000).
According to E.S.Kubryakova, “a concept is a mental essence first of all, and it is studied in connection with the processes of speaking and comprehension as the processes of interaction of the mental subjects” (Кубрякова, 1994).
The conceptual analysis of the poetic text consists in revealing a set of key words of the text; presenting a description of conceptual space, designated by them finally defining basic concepts of this space.
The lexical thesaurus of the poetic text includes the lexicon on the basis of semantic and subject similarity of subject or semantic groups and classes of a word, which are the semantic and subject denotations of spiritual values (Karaulov, 1987).
This selection of subject groups of words is done using the ideographic method or the method of poetic ideography. The thesaurus dictionary is a means of the description of a poetic perception of the reality on the basis of one poetic text, revealing its concept sphere with the help of the deep linguistic analysis.
The thesaurus dictionary of a poem is a lexical and semantic system of the given text, and its structural components are the subject groups having conceptual centres, which are semantic capacitors designating cultural and spiritual values.
To analyze a poetic text I.V. Arnold offers to use a technique of decoding stylistics including the theory of semantic field of a word, componential analysis and, the so-called, subject mapping. Thus, stylistic interpretation of the text presupposes the analysis of lexico-semantic variants of a word, its connotations and associations, paying special attention to common features and occasional meanings, comprising lexical mapping. Lexical mapping is understood as the relations of synonymy, antonomy, morphological and semantic derivation or figurative uses of the given word. In general, they are any relations, based on interraction of general and its parts, generic and aspect relations, interrelation of different components of connotation. The lexical mapping reveals common components in the semantic structure of the word. (Арнольд, 1981).
As an example of such analysis we shall take a poem “Tarantella”, written by the English poet of the 20th century Hilaire Belloc. The denotative space of the text is represented by the group of words, united by the proper name Miranda, to which the poet accesses during all poem, invoking her to recall the happy period of their stay in a small hotel in the Pyranees. The reminiscences are actualized with the help of associative links between various subject groups (further SG) around this semantic centre. They are: SG of everyday routine of young lovers – bedding, tedding, spreading, a straw for a bedding, fleas that tease, wine, tasting of tar. SG of youth and fun of the poor inhabitants of this hotel: cheers and jeers of the young muleteers, who hadn’t got a penny, not paying any. It is a SG of music and dances semantically relating to the previous group: girls dancing, backing and advancing; chancing, clapping, snapping; twirl and swirl of hand; out and in.
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The nostalgic reminiscences are emphasized with the help of parallel constructions, framing the first part: Do you remember the inn, Miranda? Do you remember the Inn? Anaphoric repetitions and polysyndeton and structurally unite the conceptual field of youth, happiness, joy, merriment, music and a dance of tarantella.
The sound atmosphere of happiness is actualized with the help of onomatopoea, imitating the sounds of music and dancing with its gradually accelerating tempo: Hip, Hop, Hap; Ting, Tong, Tang of the guitar. The Participles dancing, chancing, advancing underline a circle chain of movements of the dance with the help of morphemic repetition - ing in the, verbs of movement, using alliteration and assonance to portray the vigorous replicating sounds of the dance: (tw, sw, sn,cl,p,etc.).
The usage of antithesis: out and in adds to the image of the dance thus symbolically representing youth, happiness and merriment.
The whole colourful sound and graphic palette of youth and happiness of life is suddenly interrupted in the second part of the poem by a sudden change of the rhythmic paradigm, which is introduced by the repeated adverbs: Never more, Miranda. Never more. They contribute to the somber and sinister tonality, intensified by the alliteration of sonorous sounds (m, n). The long sound [o:], which prevails in this part together with long sound [u:]: Hoar, door, boom, doom make the whole atmosphere even more gloomy. The convergence of alliterated sound combinations [ tr, trd, grd, sd,dd, lz ] in words: Halls, tread, ground, sound, dead also emphasize the general atmosphere of gloomy loneliness, silence and desolation, intensified by the echoing sounds.
The subject groups also change the tonality: the SG of the deserted nature of mountain tops: high peaks hoar, no sound, walls of the Halls; the SG of the falling water: torrent falls, Aragon at the door, boom of the Waterfall; SG of gloomy hopelessness, approximation of death: the tread of the feet of the dead to the ground.
The conceptual field of loneliness, desolation, approaching death is portrayed on the lexical level by stylistic comparison (simile), on the graphic level by capitalization: Waterfall like Doom. The heavy tread of Death is portrayed metaphorically: the tread of the feet of the death to the ground, with the help of parallelism, anaphora and negative adverbs.
Thus, in a small microtext of a poem the poet’s vision of the reality is revealed being founded on antithesis of youth, pleasure, happiness symbolizing life and opposed to loneliness, desolation, silent grandeur of a mountain landscape associated with eternity, approximation of mors. The life appears as bright and happy reminiscence of happy days of youth and love of the man feeling inevitability of mors. All the language resources are subordinate to the author’s idea and portrayed through convergence of stylistic resources in their interrelation and interaction, united by the key concept of Life and Death antithesis. Thus, it is possible to speak about conceptual integration (Молчанова, 2001), that is junction of two or more concepts, representing various semantic groups united by the law of the language economy.
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The lexical thesaurus of the given poetic text involves the complex of general and specific relations between the concepts of Life, Youth, Happiness portrayed through the microconcepts of dance, music, sounds of a guitar, as philosophical antithesis to Silence of Eternity and inevitability of Mors.
RECOMMENDED LIRERATURE:
1. Бабенко Л.Г., Васильев И.Е., Казарин Ю.В. The linguistic analysis of text of emotive prose. Ekaterinburg. Изд-во УрГУ.-530 pages.
2. Кубрякова Е.С., Демьянков В.З., etc. Brief dictionary of cognitive terms. М., 1987.
3. Молчанова Г.Г. Cognitive linguistics and stylistic typology. // the Bulletin of the Moscow university, №3,2001, pp. 60-72.
4. Степанов Ю.С. Constants. The dictionary of Russian culture: empiric research. M., 2001.
5. Karaulov U.N. Russian and language person. М., 1987.
Questions and tasks to the article “Lexical Thesaurus of a Poetic Text” (H.Belloc ”Tarantella’’)
1. What are the aspects of the individual poetic reality?
2. What elements comprise a poetic concept sphere?
3. What does lexical thesaurus of a poetic text involve?
4. What methods are employed in singling out lexical groups of the poetic thesaurus?
5. Define the denotative space of the poem “Tarantella”.
6. Trace the difference in the poet’s vision of the world comparing the first and the second parts of the poem.
7. How do syntactical and phonetic layers of the text contribute to the general tonality of the first part / second part?
8. Define the language means used to portray the conceptual integration.
9. How does the proper name Miranda contribute to the atmosphere of love, happiness and youth in the poem?
10. Discuss examples of allusion in the second part of the poem and think of their relevance in creating the effect of intertextuality.
UNIT 4
Stylistic Phraseology
A n Outline
1. Stylistic differentiation of phraseological units.
2. Formal (Bookish) phraseological units.
3. Familiar colloquial phraseological units.
4. Slang and jargon in phraseological units.
5. Neutral phraseological units.
6. Occasional phraseological units.
a) Prolongation of occasional phraseological units.
b) Insertion of elements in occasional phraseological units.
c) Substitution of elements in phraseological units.
d) Prolongation and substitution.
e) The authors’ phraseological units.
7. Stylistic functions of phraseological units.
A phraseological unit (PU) is “a block longer than one word, yet functioning as a whole. It is a semantically and structurally integral lexical collocation, partially or completely different from the meaning of its components”. (A.Kunin) Its main characteristic feature is that its meaning can’t infer from the sum of its components because each PU is characterized by a certain degree of cohesion or semantic integrity. The main features of PU are stability, semantic integrity and ready-made nature.
There exist different classifications of PU. According to I.R.Galperin’s classification of the English vocabulary all the PU can be subdivided into neutral, literary and non- literary PU.
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Neutral PU:
Ex.: “to let the cat out of the bag”, “ups and down,” “at the eleventh hour”.
Idioms and set expressions impart local coloring to the text and make it sound more expressive. Ex.: Come on, Roy, let’s go and shake the dust of this place for good … (Aldridge) – Cf. … let us go and leave this place for ever. (Skrebnev, 2000) Some of them are elevated: an earthly paradise, to breathe one’s last; to play fiddle while Rome burns.
Among the elevated PU we can discern:
a) archaisms – to play upon advantage (to swindle), the iron in one’s soul (the permanent embitterment);
b) Bookish phrases - Formal (bookish PU): “ to breathe one’s last (to die); “The debt of nature” (death), Gordian knot (a complicated problem);
c) Foreign PU – a propos de bottes (unconnected with the preceding remark, bon mot (a witty word).
Some are:
a) subneutral or familiar colloquial PU: to rain cats and dogs, to be in one’s cups (=to be drunk), big bug, small fry, alive and kicking, a pretty kettle of fish.
b) Jargon PU – a loss leader (an article sold below cost).
c) Old slang PU – to be nuts about, to kick the bucket, to hop the twig (to die).
Occasional PU are based on the following cases of violation of the fixed structure of a PU:
a) Prolongation: “He was born with a silver spoon in a mouth which was rather curly and large”. (Galsworthy)
b) Insertion: “ He had been standing there nearly two hours, shifting from foot to unaccustomed foot”. (Galsworthy)
c) Substitution: “ to talk pig (shop).”
d) Prolongation and substitution: “ They spoiled their rods, spared their children and anticipated the results in enthusiasm”. (Galsworthy)
e) The author’s PU: “Oh, my ears and whiskers” (L.Carroll); “Too true to be good” (B.Shaw), The Gilded Age (The Golden Age.)
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