|
Iconic proximity means that “things that belong together tend to be put together, and things that do not belong together are put at a distance” (Dirven,Verspoor, 1998, р.10). This assumption can be illustrated by the following phrases: A charming poor girl. A dignified rich old man. A successful strong young man. An attractive neat little house. A delicious tasty apple pie. Charming big black eyes. In these examples it is clearly seen that the attributes denoting inherent features of the denotate are close to the noun position, they are proceeded by the attributes describing objective characteristics and then come attributes expressing subjective emotional evaluation.
Iconic principle of quantity is based on the assumption that informativity depends on the amount of verbal signs. It can be formulated as “more form – more meaning; less form – less meaning” (Молчанова, 2007). This principle is connected with the problem of redundancy which is also regarded as one of the cognitive principles of presenting information in the text. The problem of redundancy will be discussed further. Here it is worth mentioning that many a linguistic phenomenon are based on the iconic principle of quantity: reduplication, all types of repetition, phonetic means (onomatopoeia, alliteration), paronimic attraction, periphrasis, parallel constructions.
The iconic principle of quantity can be used deliberately in the literary texts and speech acts. It fulfills several functions: a) to attract the reader’s/listener’s attention; b) to put more stress on the redundant element; c) to realize the principle of politeness; d) to exert emotional impact on the reader; e) to serve as a leit-motif of the literary text.
8.2. Cognitive Principle of Relevance/Salience
Another no less important cognitive principle of presenting information in the text is the principle of relevance (salience). According to this principle the most relevant and substantial information is somewhat made conspicuous at the verbal layer of the text. In conformity with G. Grice’s maxim of relevance (speak to the point) the choice of language forms depends on what is considered essential by the addresser. The principle of relevance is of crucial importance for textual communication because any text is built on the relationships of more or less salient information. In terms of Cognitive Linguistics textual information can be placed either in the position of foregrounding or backgrounding.
The notion of foregrounding is defined as a cognitive procedure of selecting the most essential relevant information. It stands out as a stimulus or “key” in the process of text perception and interpretation. The notion of foregrounding was first described in the works of Russian Formal School (Б.А. Ларин, Р. Якобсон) and the Prague Linguistic Circle (Б. Гавранек, Я. Мукаржовский) as a special device of constructing poetic texts. At present this notion is widely used in Cognitive Linguistics and Text Linguistics. Foregrounding is charged with many functions. Putting forward some fragments of the text, foregrounding, on the one hand, segmentates the text into more or less important parts, on the other – establishes hierarchy of these parts, thus promoting coherence and integrity of the text. Besides, foregrounding directs text interpretation, and activates frames, knowledge structures, intentions, attitudes, emotions.
There are different ways of foregrounding information in the text. I.V. Arnold (Arnold, 1974) discussing the linguistic mechanism of foregrounding in a fictional text, outlines the following types of foregrounding: convergence of stylistic devices, coupling, and defeated expectancy. Other linguists indicate strong positions of the text (the beginning and the end), contrast, the title, epigraph, graphical means (Ashurova, Galieva, 2016). At present, cognitive researches focus attention on the psychological aspects of foregrounding. In terms of geshtaldt psychology this phenomenon is analysed within “figure-ground” theory. Figure – is the most salient information, the conspicuous part of the text, the focus of attention perceived against the ground. Ground – is the essential part of the conceptual domain necessary for understanding the figure.
The notion of foregrounding is of special relevance to the literary text. Putting forward some fragments of the text, foregrounding segments the text into more or less important parts, establishes hierarchy of these parts, directing text interpretation and activating knowledge structures. One of the ways of foregrounding, as has been mentioned, is “defeated expectancy”.
The term introduced by R. Jackobson (1987), means the emergence, occurrence of a completely unexpected, unpredictable elements on the linear verbal layer of the text. It happens due to the violation of logical, semantic, grammatical, stylistic, communicative links of linguistic units in language use. Generally, the sequence of linguistic units in the text proceeds with a certain degree of probability. It means that the occurrence of each subsequent unit is fully or partially predictable. Unpredictable elements entail the effect of unexpectedness and surprise, in other words, “defeated expectancy”. Defeated expectancy breaks the “automatism” of perception and creates the effect of emotional tension; it is materialized by means of many linguistic units, among them:
● lexical means: rare words, archaisms, borrowings, occasionalisms, words in an unusual syntactical function;
● stylistic means: zeugma, pun, oxymoron, irony, periphrasis, enumeration, parody, paradox, anti-climax;
● phraseological means: various transformations and changes of both lexical constituents and compositional structures.
Besides, defeated expectancy is realized at the level of the whole text and its plot. Many of O’Henry’s stories tend to exploit this device in the form of surprise endings. The story “October and June” tells us about the captain, who was in love with a lady; he proposed to her, but then received a letter of refusal. The reason for refusal was their age difference. While reading the story the reader can come to the conclusion that the captain was a man of a solid age. The text contains implicit indications of his old age: the sword which reminded of “a long, long time… since old days of war’s alarms”, “… but he was strong and rugged, he had position and wealth”. A surprise ending of the story which says that “the Captain was only nineteen and his sword had never been drawn except on the parade ground at Chattanooga, which was as near as he ever got to the Spanish-American War”, turns out to be quite unexpected and therefore put in the position of foregrounding.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
