Interaction of comparative structures and their elements in modern russian prose
- DOI
- 10.5922/2225-5346-2021-3-7
- Pages
- 109-124
Abstract
The article explores the interaction of comparative constructions in modern prose. The main objective of the study is to determine the types of interaction between metaphors and similes in the texts of modern Russian prose. The material of the study is the works of Buida, Vodolazkin, Ivanov, Ilichevsky, Matveeva, Pelevin, Rubina, Slavnikova, Sokolov, Sorokin, and Stepnova. The authors employed the methods of description, comparison and the structural-semantic analysis and also took into account the semantic field organisation of lexical units. The article distinguishes between formal and semantic interaction of metaphors and similes. The most obvious manifestation of the formal interaction is the reversibility of tropes. Semantic interaction is based on the semantic coordination of elements of comparative constructions based on predicate-actant relations or involves a combination of metaphors and similes in the text based on various relations between elements of the same semantic field. Along with the indicated types of interaction, the article describes cases of multiple images of one depicted object and representation of different objects in a unified figurative way. These cases are characterized as a special type of interaction of comparative tropes. The article highlights the main source domains of interacting tropes. The most frequent semantic classes of metaphors and similes used in interaction contexts are anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and culinary images. In addition to them, mechanistic (including computer), scientific and theatrical metaphors and similes have been identified. The article shows that the interaction of tropes can be intertextual in a literary text. It is concluded that modern Russian prose is characterized by the interaction of metaphors and similes of different types. This interaction is often associated with the presence of contrast, contextual synonymy, the ‘genus — species’ relation between images of comparative constructions in a text.
Reference
Baranov, A. N., 2003. On types of combinability of metaphoric models. Voprosy jazykoznanija [Topics in the study of language], 2, pp. 55—72 (in Russ.).
Jakobson, R. O., 1975. Linguistics and poetics. In: Strukturalizm: “za” i “protiv” [Structuralism: “pro” and “contra”]. Moscow, pp. 193—230 (in Russ.).
Kozhevnikova, N. A., 1979. On reversibility of tropes. In: Lingvistika i poetika [Linguistics and poetics]. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 215—224 (in Russ.).
Kozhevnikova, N. A., 2009. The role of tropes in organization of poetic text. In: Izbrannye raboty po yazyku khudozhestvennoi literatury [Selected works on the language of literature]. Moscow: Znak, pp. 455—471 (in Russ.).
Lakoff, J., Johnson, M., 2007. Metafory, kotorymi my zhivem [Metaphors we live by]. Translated by A. N. Baranov, A. V. Morozova. Moscow: URSS (in Russ.).
Lopatkina, S. V., 2004. Kontekstual'noe vzaimodeistvie tropov v sovremennom russkom literaturnom yazyke (na materiale khudozhestvennoi i publitsisticheskoi rechi) [Contextual interaction of tropes in modern Russian literary language (based on fiction and publicistic speech)]. PhD Dissertation. Abakan (in Russ.).
Pavlovich, N. V., 2004. Yazyk obrazov. Paradigmy obrazov v russkom poeticheskom yazyke [The language of images. Paradigms of images in the Russian poetic language]. Moscow: Azbukovnik (in Russ.).
Petrova Z. Yu., 2011. Extratextual world knowledge as the basis of interaction of comparative tropes in the text. In: Tekst i podtekst: poetika eksplitsitnogo i implitsitnogo. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii 20—22 maya 2010 g. [Text and subtext: Poetics of the explicit and implicit. Materials of the international scientific conference, May 20—22, 2010]. Moscow: Azbukovnik, pp. 66—71 (in Russ.).