POETICS OF THE DECONSTRUCTION OF REINHARD JIRGL’S TEXT: A TRANSLATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

This article explores Reinhard Jirgl’s concept of literary writing, which uses linguistic and textual deconstruction, alphanumeric encoding, and intra- and intertextual strategies. Semiotic and discursive analyses allow identifying lexical, syntactic, and semantic elements of the structural and functional performativity of Jirgl’s texts. His prose exploits the enormous poetic potential of the alphanumeric code, the aesthetics of narrative simultaneity and hypertextuality, and the fragmentedness of the agent. The principle of aberrant text produc-tion helps the author stage the process of sense formation and brings to the fore the concept of hierarchical rule destruction, which applies to language, society, and reality. By deconstruct-ing syntax and orthography, Jirgl’s system of language and script generates new senses. It also compels the recipient to destroy customary mental matrices and analyse processes taking place in society. Narrative staging of Jirgl’s texts is performed to identify the main problems that student translators are faced with when decoding the writer’s prose. Rendering a contemporary fictional text into a different language requires paying attention to meaning construction and (de)construction, the extralinguistic context, and links and interactions between linguistic and social meanings. Moreover, it is necessary to explore connections between the performative and narrative characteristics of utterances. New literary contexts and the alarmist forms of narrative peculiar to Jirgl’s writing urge the translator to develop specific professional skills and philological competencies.


Introduction
Reinhard Jirgl is a Georg Büchner Prize winner and perhaps one of the most brilliant and original contemporary German authors. Following in the steps of the famous translator and experimenter in all things literary, Arno Schmidt, Jirgl creates prose distinguished by performativity and the (de)construction of language. In his works, he distances himself from the reader by erecting barricades of punctuation signs and letters and vigorously rejects standard spelling and grammar.
Jirgl's texts often come under criticism for their anachronistic mannerism, post-structurally embellished neo-conservatism (Grimm, 2007;Magerski, 2001), and intellectual elitism, which is hostile to the mass reader (Henschel, 1999). Yet his linguistic artistry (Böttiger, 2011), the theatrical tone of his prose (Pabst, 2011), and performative linguistic aesthetics (De Winde, in stylistic analysis may be insufficient when a translator deals with an original concept of text arrangement. In such a case, detailed semiotic (Roland Barthes, Charles Peirce, Yuri Lotman, Charles Morris, Robert Hodge, Gunther Kress, and others) and critical discourse analysis (Ruth Wodak, Norman Fairclough, Jürgen Habermas, Siegfried Jäger, Jürgen Link, and others) may be required.
It is vital to apply the method of critical discourse analysis since any study of a recent literary text should consider the layers of historical knowledge constituting the context of that text. The discursive-historical methodlogy aids in analysing implicit prejudices and detecting codes and hints. Readers will be able to decipher and understand this inferred information only when they have acquainted themselves with the historical events comprising the context of the discourse.
Theory of translation may face a tough challenge in examining a work of prose as part of fictional and socio-cultural discourse. The proposed approach, however, helps identify a range of elements on the levels of the text and metadiscourse. These are: 1) the markers of intracultural and cross-cultural problems; 2) the markers of problems confronting a reshaped society that is looking for a new identity; 3) the basic pragmatics-focused problems in literary text translation, ones that occur when the translator fails to identify culture-bound and society-specific elements in the source text; 4) ways to create and resolve cross-cultural and intracultural conflicts when translating fiction.
These approaches to semiotic and discourse analysis will be used below, along with the author's experimental writing theory, to explore the elements of Jirgl's individual style posing the major challenge for the translator -the deconstruction of the text, the agent, and language.
I believe that a successful translation of Jirgl's novels requires acquainting oneself with the concept of literature and language construction and looking into the background socio-cultural and political context. Meeting these two conditions will help find effective translation solutions.

The concept of jirgl's language and sign system
Reinhard Jirgl has developed a complete and exhaustive system of writing. His theoretical ideas about the role of language and the significance of its elements comprise a multi-tiered philosophical concept. According to the author, the human being is not a creator (Sprach-Schöpfer) but a tool of language (Jirgl, 2008, p. 98). Having entered into communication and thus compelled to integrate into society, a person acts within the linguistic boundaries set by society. She or he is a mere vehicle for words and meanings, which are tightly defined by grammar rules. The inevitable habitual use of a subordinate language is an objective obstacle to an individualised life and self-expression through language. He distinguishes between the communicative aspect of language (objective and 'subordinate' language defined by the ru-les of social and grammatical coercion) and informative language. Breaking away from norms of linguistic usage and denying external liabilities, this self-appropriated subjective language seeks to assert itself and make itself known. 'The more communication, the less information', Jirgl (2008, p. 96) argues. He thus kills the fundamental idea of language as having a communicative function and eradicates the purpose of a translator as a mediator between languages and cultures. People are torn between themselves, their language, society, and society's 'objectification models'. They use languages speaking in them to create an 'alternative reality'.
An instrument to resume the dialogue between language and the personal language is the reservoir of script signs. Here Jirgl builds on Vilém Flusser's concept. For the latter, the writing script (die Schrift) is another visual code, a series of visible signs, which our imagination can translate into images. Flusser (1992) revokes the independence of the script because it is always connected with the image. It always makes one return to the image. The script both succeeds the image (the preliterate culture) and precedes it (the image obtained through technology -a photograph or the 'picture' on the TV screen).
For Jirgl, letters, numerals, and punctuation marks constitute an alphanumeric code. One cannot but rely on this limited selection of signs when dealing with a discourse. Barthes and especially Flusser have shown how letters subjugate digits within this prescriptive code. Jirgl links this fact, among other things, to historical and cultural antagonisms. The languages of such different cultures as Ancient Egypt and Assyria were iconographic. The Egyptian and Assyrian ways of thinking were reflected in ideograms, which captured ideas rather than the phonetic exterior. The main cultural codes were inserted into images (myths) to cater to magical rather than historically-oriented thinking. Finally, the long struggle of cultures culminated in the defeat of magical image-intensive thinking by its critical-discursive counterpart.
Letters enable the transition from the unconscious to the conscious. Yet each script sign bears the sensuousness of the visual image. When transformed into an abstraction of symbols, complex topics and ideas may become tied to letters in the form of a code. A digit integrated into the text makes the reader abandon the linear reality of letters for the 'insular' reality of digits. On the level of neurophysiology, the reader is impelled to decode and recognise the text as if it were a mathematical formula. Jirgl contributes to the theory of imaginative thinking, which Yakov Golosovker (1987) developed as a counter to Claude Lévi-Strauss's concept. Golosovker writes that '[t]he art of using imagination to contemplate the essence of things and render this essence into ideas-images (this does not happen as long as discursive thinking is involved) takes the thinker-contemplator to a self-propelled and selfdeveloping logic -a logic of imagination. This logic winds spontaneously into a spiral of meanings' [own translation]. Golosovker (1987, p. 149) maintains that the word is an excitant. 'The excitant word apparently causes a symbol or image to appear in the symbolical system of the human cortex, and the cortex responds. In escaping excitant words, we find refuge with words-symbols and images-symbols and thus leave the reality that is full of excitants. What for do we leave it? For a world of symbols, i. e. an imaginary world' [own translation].
In Jirgl's view, the script offers two ways to abandon the script: 1) going back to the image (a pictogram or CGI, virtual reality); 2) going forward to digits. The return to imagery means a return to the power of imagination. Embracing the digital means promoting calculative thinking . At any moment, computer technology can translate a visual image into digits and vice versa. Events of any kind and any genre (electronic music) can be synthesised into previously unknown shapes and sounds and then transformed back into digits (i. e. be analysed). Imaginative and calculative thinking creates a new space for textuality. Like Flusser, Jirgl believes that the mathematician and the artist are eliminated in the personality of a writer. They both outgrow themselves and reach a new level of reflection.
Flusser sees photography, which has an unlimited audience, as the material resource that allows spectators to become active participants in image production. For , this resource is literature, albeit not on the level of the content but rather that of the form, and this form is the poetic power of the alphanumeric code. This code lets the body (pleasure) re-emerge in the world as the text and defeat death and the futility of being.
Jirgl agrees with Benjamin's idea that '[s]piritual being communicates itself in, not through, a language' (Benjamin, 2011, p. 252). He maintains that the meaning of his texts resides not in the content (which is determined by many discourses) but in the human body -an immediate arena for historical chaos (Jirgl, 2008, p. 108). In any historical age of the forced denudation and restriction of language, the body is the only text that tells the truth, that rebels and revolts. 'Using my language and my way to structure the text, I look for the means of expression that will aid me in designating injustice in social and mental realities, escalating and devaluating it. This rejection has to happen in the minds of spectators rather than on paper' [own translation] (Jirgl, 2008, p. 109). He continues: '[o]nly ruthlessness and injustice towards injustice can act on the side of those terrorised by daily terror and give them something positive. In this context, my writing is the search for the maximum subjectivity of the text' [own translation] (Jirgl, 2008, p. 109).
In his article 'Das poetische Vermögen des alphanumerischen Codes in der Prosa', Jirgl writes that his manner of writing is a tool to find 'a possibility and way for prose to win the fight with the meaningless garrulity of a collectivised language' [own translation] (Jirgl, 2002, p. 62). He contrasts literary language with everyday collective language.
'My writing is marked by a tendency towards maximum subjectivity in the content and the form, a tendency explained by a predisposition to the subjectivity of experiences and events. Thus, the emotions coming from experienced reality are transferred -through language and various means to document it in writing -onto the emotional plane of the text not as is but in a concentrated, condensed form' (Jirgl, 2002, p. 55).
To convey his view of the world, Jirgl chooses the form of the monologue (or a combination of several monologues). The situation in which these monologues are delivered is never clearly defined. It leaves room for interpretation. The person going into a monologue is in a critical condition resembling delirium. She or he tends to misreport her or his story.
Jirgl intentionally complicates the process of reading by using too long or, conversely, short and abrupt phrases. They reproduce the actual rhythm of thinking, which may slow down or accelerate.
Punctuation marks, which Jirgl uses not traditionally but in accordance with his system rooted in Arno Schmidt's ideas, and other spelling features capture the reader's attention and make her or him dwell on the intonation and the emotional quality of selected meaning-bearing speech units. He presents readers with puzzles and cyphers to push them towards 'active' reading to unlock their associative ability and engage their minds in a game.

Jirgl's sign system
De Winde stresses that the writer uses his idiosyncratic spelling and eccentric characters to create text intertwinements that stand up to unambiguity.
Gustav  believes that the spelling reminiscent of Schmidt's works is not the chief obstacle faced by the reader. The quaint sentence structure, the abundance of metaphors, constant shifting between narrative perspectives, non-linear and spasmodic narrative technique, and musical motifs keep the reader tightly focused. The text de-automates all customary thinking processes. 'Those who want to make a progress in reading feel like sprinters swimming underwater and forced to overcome the enormous resistance of the environment' [own translation] .
The pronounced artificiality of the forms of Jirgl's literary techniques helps the reader stomach the content of his novels. The principal function of the action is to create meticulously selected terrifying situations meant to justify grotesque stylistic means.
Lowlifes, undersides of family relations, the absence of ideals, and social problems are leitmotifs in Jirgl's novels. To depict them, he picks out and invents new stylistic devices.
Recurring plots are not the only thing that makes his books come across as one text. The very 'fabric of Jirgl's writing contributes to the effect. His writing is overtly philosophical, scandalous, journalistic, and artistic at the same time. It has a refined literary form. It is intricately and beautifully built' (Baskakova, 2005, p. 75-172).

The challenges of translating jirgl's novel im offnen meer
The novel Im offnen Meer, which was published in Hamburg in 1991 by Luhterhand, was a landmark in Jirgl's career. The book was critically acclaimed (his first two novels went unnoticed by the literary community). Jirgl won the Anna Seghers award for the book.
In his earliest works, the writer started to merge the views of an artist and an impartial sociologist. In the novel in question, this merger is of particular interest. The book does not have a plot. At first sight, it is an agglomeration of disparate and diverse fragments -descriptions of nightmares, dramatic sketches, and scenes from the street. Yet these fragments make up a cohesive whole: they are tied together by the introduction and the final chapter -a myth highlighting the most dangerous elements in the life of modern humanity, as well as its prospects.
It is a cascade of experiments, where each fragment has been assigned a unique means of expression. Epic, drama, and lyric alternate and spill over into each other throughout the book.
Leafing through the novel shows that it is very different from an ordinary text: the spelling is unusual; the orthography and punctuation are nonstandard and misplaced; digits substitute for numerals and indefinite articles; there are several variants of the conjunctions und and oder; the text structure is peculiar. At first glance, the text looks like an e-mail. The language used in electronic messages appeared, however, years after the novel.
During pre-translation analysis, student translators have to answer several questions. What made Jirgl resort to such a non-standard manner of writing? What functions do these non-standard features have in the text? Do they constitute a philosophical system, or are they a mere means to complicate reading? Answers to these questions will determine what strategy the translator should choose. Does the translator have to develop a similar system, or should the translation randomly use similar effects?
Jirgl covers these questions in his essay 'Das poetische Vermögen des alphanumerischen Codes in der Prosa'. 'In my language and in my way of text arrangement, I look for such expressive means that make it possible to name, aggravate, and reject the evil that exists in social and mental reality. Against this backdrop, my writing is becoming a yearning for the maximum text subjectivity in both the content and the form. Emotions emerging from experienced reality can be embedded in a text (and turned into its emotionality) only by linguistic devices or by changing the spelling of words. Within the text structure, all sore spots and conflicts of outer reality must be transformed … they must appear as processed, exaggerated, and a 'staged' reality' [own translation] (Jirgl, 2002, p. 58).
By changing the usual spelling and inventing new punctuation rules, the author tries to communicate his thoughts, convey every nuance of the lexical meaning, and unlock the semantic potential of every word. The translator should tackle these meanings with great care and ensure that the original stylistic features be perceived correctly.
In the same essay, Jirgl explains what significance deviations from the norm have in his novels and stresses that each reader has to look for her or his own ways of 'translation'. The signs and digits he uses are inseparable from the context in which they appear.
Even native German speakers have difficulty familiarising themselves with Jirgl's language and deciphering his signs. The translator takes over the weighty responsibility of being a mediator between a foreign author and the reader. The way the text will be perceived heavily depends on decisions made by the translator.
Umberto Eco writes, 'if there are no rules that help to ascertain which interpretations are the "best" ones, there is at least a rule for ascertaining which ones are "bad"' (Eco, 1990, p. 169). One of them holds that 'any interpretation given of a certain portion of a text can be accepted if it is confirmed and must be rejected if it is challenged by another portion of the same text' (Eco, 1990, p. 181).
As mentioned above, style is the author's way of looking at the world; all elements -morphological, syntactic, semantic, and graphical -should be arranged according to her or his style.
Having analysed the selected text, most students identify the essential components of Jirgl's non-standard writing and describe their functions as follows.
1. The markers of the author's style are his frequent use of italics, capital letters, and different typefaces; punctuation marks in unusual syntactic positions; contraction of phrases; numerals replaced by digits; occasional wordformation.
2. The writer employs various typographic devices: font variations, punctuation marks, and odd layouts. This play with para-linguistic elements aims to reinforce the implicative meaning on the visual level: the more profound the implicative meaning, the more there are para-linguistic elements.
3. Para-linguistic text components include font variations -the use of super-grapheme devices such as italics, capital letters, lowercase-uppercase combinations, and elements of different typefaces. Information cannot be fully retrieved from the text without decoding and interpreting these components.
4. As to syntax, a distinctive feature of Jirgl's individual style is dashes, colons, exclamation and question marks in unusual syntactic positions.
6. The source text abounds with non-standard lexis and colloquialisms. In the excerpt above, the author conveys the phonetic peculiarities of the characters. To this end, he uses transcriptions and capital letters: Plötzlich schrill 1 Fraustimme -Laß meinn MANN in Friehn Dassis MEIN Mann Ich SAAK dir das zum LETZtn Mal! -ein Möbel stürzt hallend zu Boden, Porzellan klirrt, und dieselbe Frauenstimme schrillt -Ich HAAP tich geWARNT! Jetzt ISses ge nuk -dumpfer Anprall gegen die Wand, als schlüge ein Körper gegen den Stein. (Jirgl, 1991) 7. In the novel, the conjunctions und and oder have a crucial role. In the preface, Jirgl lists the variants of conjunctions and explains their meanings. In particular, he distinguishes between und, u, u:, +, and &/ oder, od, each having a special interpretation. This differentiation helps the author communicate the meaning of the text with greater precision. Und, + and & are easy to render into Russian as и, + and &. Still, u, the clipped form of und, poses a challenge since the Russian conjunction и has only one letter. One of the meanings may be lost in translation.
8. The novel plays with lexical and semantic occasionalisms and occasional collocations. Occasional word formation and other language play techniques are a hallmark of Jirgl's style. Original lexical units, which follow common or Jirgl's own models (Un = Heimlich, Ab = Reise, die Fisio = Gnomie, die Jack-Kills, etc.), account for vivid and expressive naming.

Conclusion
In teaching translation, pre-translation text analysis, interpretation, and textualisation help identify and juxtapose causal and functional connections between the active position of the author and the semiotic manifestation of that position. Translating contemporary literary text requires analysing the extralinguistic context and the (de)construction of meanings. It also demands that interdependencies and interactions between linguistic and social meanings be detected. Moreover, it is necessary to consider the connections between performative and narrative characteristics of utterances. A symbolic meaning may reside in the very format of information when a combination of signs implies a semantic divergence between the form and the content. It is important to remember that such divergences affect the cognitive and emotional state of the reader and draw her or his attention to complex and contentious issues of reality. The key to working with contemporary texts is in linking composite socio-cultural, political, and structural contexts, textual and intertextual features of new communicative forms and technologies, and the constructed meanings of texts.
Contemporary authors seem to believe that the problems they are faced with go unnoticed in the world. These issues have become too familiar a story, and writers, Jirgl among them, resort to unusual means of expression in their striving to 'bring round' readers, make them ponder the problem, and react to it in some way. Meanings determine the form, which in its turn attracts the recipient. The deconstruction of language and the text, structural and functional performativity, alphanumeric encoding, intra-and intertextual strategies, unusual typography -all these devices are extremely difficult to tackle. And a translator of Jirgl's texts has to recognise them, process them cognitively and emotionally, and render them into a different language.