5.3. Understanding as a linguostylistic problem

The outline of the problem discussed

1. Types of Information.

2. Metasemiotics of Speech.

3. Extralinguistic factors.

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Literature is a medium for transmitting aesthetic information. It involves not

only the addresser (the author) but also the addressee (the reader), it is an act of

communication of the author with the reader. But the existence of the relationship -

the author-the literary work-the reader - does not give ground for an assumption that

what the author has conveyed passes on to the reader naturally and easily. The

reading does not always result in the reader's direct perception of what the author

conveyed.

The relationship between author, book and public changes radically. The latter

two become more important. Voltaire once proclaimed: "Any line of verse or any

sentence which needs explanation does not deserve to be explained" (P.W. Wetherill.

The Literary Text. Oxford, 1974, p.XIV)

What is "proper" (adequate) understanding? "Complete understanding is only

attainable by degrees. Everybody who knows some English will understand any text

on the “first level” or in the “first dimension”, but the more deeply a person goes into

the text, the more sophisticated he is.

... Aesthetic value can only be appreciated through repetition. Spontaneity is

the foe of Aesthetics. The aesthetic value can be properly estimated by a slow and

gradual process of absorption of the additional information contained in the text.

The term "information" is used in two meanings. The first meaning implies

statements of any kind. It may be a sentence, /SPU/(supra-phasal unit) or the text

itself. In this case information is identified with nomination - He is coming tomorrow.

I am hungry.

The second meaning of the term "information" is used in works on the theory

of communication and implies receiving some new data on this or that object or

phenomenon.

The category of informativity comprises a number of problems. One of them is

that of novelty. The amount of novelty (unknown) contained in the information

depends on many factors. It can't be viewed without considering social, psycological,

cultural characteristics of those who receive information.

In one case it will be fresh and unknown, therefore it will be "information" in

the proper sense of the term. In the other it will be devoid of novelty for the fact is

well known. Information repeated over and over again loses its informative value.

There should be distinguished factual and conceptual information. Factual

information is explicit in its nature because language constituents are used in their

direct, vocabulary meaning. Newspaper articles, scientific prose aim at a one to one

correspondance between sign and referent. So far as conceptual information goes it is

the domain of verbal art works. The latters can't be limited only to factual

information. Conceptual information is the nucleus of a literary work which may

have several different interpretations. "Первой и важнейшей категорией худ.

текста является концептуальность, которая в известной степени соотносится с

идеей произведения. Концептуальность заостряет внимание на понятии нового,

которое можно увидеть лишь в объеме целого высказывания". Искусству

противопоказано прямоговорение. Ни слова в простоте.”A writer should be son

of a bitch.” (Ezra Pound)

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In handling "Understanding as Linguostylistic Problem" we shall deal with the

theory and method suggested by Professor O.S.Akhmanova in "Linguostylistics:

Theory and Method" (MGU), 1992. Language as a material for creating a literary

work is regarded as a semiotic system to distinguish it from the "semantic" one.

When people speak or write there is always certain aims to be achieved besides

information proper. This purports might be of different character - appellative,

hortative, emotive, etc. The main distinctive feature of imaginative literature is its

"poetic" function (it was called so by Roman Jacobson). O.S.Akhmanova calls it

"metasemiotic" function of speech and applies this term to the actual principles and

method of research in the field of belles-lettres.

Any work of imaginative literature irrespective of its genre (poem, short story,

novel, etc.) can be properly "analysed and understood only if no less than three

levels or three distinct stages are kept clearly apart."1

I.V.Arnold in "Stylistics of Modern English Language" which has subtitle

"Stylistics of decoding" writes that the first questions to ask while reading a work of

verbal art are: What does it mean? Have I understood it correctly? This approach in

stylistics is called stylistics of perception. It is carried on from an addressee's

viewpoint. But there is another viewpoint which deals rather with the history of

literature than with linguistic analysis proper. Linguostylistic analysis combines

them both.

One can't fully understand and appreciate a work of verbal art unless one has

not a very clear idea of it on the semantic level. Let us analyse a few lines of Russian

poetry to understand O.S.Akhmanova's idea of metasemotic function of speech.

Na rodinu t'anetsa tuca

Stop tol'ko poplakat' nad nej.

Akhmanova follows G.O.Vinokur in his analysis of poetry (Izbrannyje Raboty

po Russkomy Jazyly, M., 1959). According to G.O.Vinokur every single word

within the two lines is metaphoric from Akhmana's point of view:

1) We are to understand clearly the words "tuca", "placat" etc. on the semantic

level. Without this we can't understand their metaphoric significance.

2) On metasemiotic level the idea of rain is there, but the whole thing is used

metaphorically by the poet. What he is really talking about is not "rain" but tears.

3) But the most important thing if we want to speak of literature as a form of

social consciousness (форма общественного сознания) these lines would not serve

their purpose, unless the reader simultaneously visualizes something that finds

expression not on the metaphoric or metasemeotic but on the metametaseiniotic

level". In order to understand a work of verbal art, more specified, a poetry, we must

rise to the metametasemiotic level. So it is not merely tears which somebody is

shedding in this metaphoric way, but complex emotions of a certain persons who are

separated from their homeland, which is in a very desperate state of oppression, that

a person longs to see their mother country again to pour his tears over it.

When a poem taken as a whole we must first understand it on the semantic

level. Not only the words but language as metaphor for its whole mode of

expression. The most important part is that the metasemiotic level is by no means the

limit, it is by no means what the linguostylistician is supposed to be confined to or

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where the linguostylistic analysis stops.

The problem of extralinguistic factors is one of the most important one. One

cannot properly understand the significance of poetic images unless he or she

considers the factors of culture and tradition that effect the poet.

A past period is like a foreign country peopled by human beings with different

customs and traditions. If we don't understand these customs and traditions we shall

misunderstand books:

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair or star-cross'd lovers take their life.

(W.Shakespeare “Romeo and Juliet”)

W.Shakespeare Sonnet 33

1) Full many a glorious morning have I seen

2) Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

3) Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

4) Gilding pale steams with heavenly alchemy;

The metaphor "heavenly alchemy" reflects the medieval beliefs and prejudices

still existing in Shakespeare's time. We know that the chief purpose of alchemy was

to change ordinary, base metals into gold. So the metaphor "alchemy" is the ultimate

expression of the power of the sun which unlike people possesses the secret of

turning ordinary objects into gold.

"The can must be so sweet" - cap, flack, glass, jar, jug, stoup - are brought

together on the assumption that they denote the same thing. But the choice of this

word is not occasional. It is determined by the poet's (Hopkins) intention to point to

the certain social group for which the usage of this word was characteristic at the end

of the XVIII c.

"All these different levels form part of our general stylistic layout, the system of

expression which is described as the "poetic" or "metasemiotic" function of speech.

Let us analyse a few lines from "The Eagle" by A.Tennyson.

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands,

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls

And like a thunderbilt he falls.

An eagle is no longer a "museum specimen", here it is the living eagle.

According to Akhmanova's method we "must begin by clearly understanding

the meaning of the words - 'clasp', "crag', "crooked", 'azure'', "crawl", etc. When we

are quite sure we understand all the inherent potentialities each one of these words

has, only then we go to the connotations or rise to the metasemiotic level (the

metaphoric approach comes in).

On the metasemiotic level it is a question of looking at the text from the point

of view of transferred meanings, of how the meanings art transposed on to the

second or metasemiotic, or poetic level. This can be shown very clearly. The verb

"to clasp" always implies "holding smth tightly or closely", the "crag" is a high,

sharp mass of rock. By skilfully bringing "clasp, crag", "crooked hands", using the

connotations which are inherently contained in all these words, the author achieved

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metaphorical expression. By metaphorical expression we mean a complex semantic

structure, one of the expressive means used in poetic fiction, because it is not a

question of "hands", "the word "clasp" would not usually be spoken of birds...

"Crooked hands" - a very interesting metaphor, though many critics say that

"crooked" is not a very good word to use here; "Close to the sun" is a metaphoric

expression again, for the eagle is not close to the sun at all. "Ringed with the azure

world' is a metaphoric expression for the sky, the blue sky, the infinity of the allembracing

blue sky. "Ringed with'' - this would imply metaphorically again that the

whole of the blue sky is here to serve as a setting for the eagle, "He stands" - very

expressive - stands proudly among those "lonely lands". "The wrinkled sea beneath

him crawls" - on the metasemiotic level the "sea" is regarded as smth. that is far

below, the expression is clearly derogatory.

"Mountain walls" may be introduced to create metaphorically the idea of smth.

that is like a castle or a tower.

"And like a thunderbolt he falls" - the act of falling is again metaphorically

compared to a "thunderbolt". This is the analysis on the metasemiotic level. The next

stage is the metasemiotic one. To really understand this poem by Tennyson we must

comprehend what is behind the whole thing. Thus on the semantic level we

understand all the words as such. Them, both the expression and the content of the

word on the semantic level goes up to the metasemiotic level, where both the

expression and the content of the word becomes expression for the meta or

metaphoric content. And the third, the metametasemiotic stage is when both the

expression and the content on the metasemiotic level becomes expression for the

metameta content. Thus: 1. the semantic level — 2 the metasemiotic level — 3 the

metametasemiotic level.

LITERATURE

1. Carter R. The web of words. Cambridge, 1990.

2. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. Lexical Expressive means. M. Higher School. p.p. 136-

190.

3. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. M. Higher School. 1997 p.p. 70 - 119.

4. Kukharenko V.A. Seminars in Style. M. 1991.

5. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка (стилистика

декодирования). – М.: Просвещение, 1990.

6. Гальперин И.Р. Стилистика английского языка. – М.: Высшая школа, 1981.