The metaphor “London-as-text” as a fundamental ontological metaphor in the composition of the London text of English linguistic culture

Abstract

The article examines the key ontological metaphor within the London supertext of English linguistic culture – the metaphor, according to which the topos of the British capital is represented in the form of semiotic space, or a text open to reading and interpretation. The London supertext is viewed as an invariable semantic construct, the total sum of semes to be found in all the texts about the city, which have already been or will potentially be written. Along with the combinations of semes, static and dynamic, the London supertext incorporates standard algorithms of their deployment into real textual sequences. The article regards metaphor as a basic operation linking the supertextual levels. Metaphor is substantiated semantically, i.e. the article explains the possibility of predicating unobvious semantic components. The article views the metaphoric realizations of the London supertext from the perspective of possible worlds in semantics. Proceeding from an analysis of belles-lettres texts from the English literary canon, the article concludes that reading London as a text implies the scenarios of its intra- and intertextual interpretation (with the involvement of other cultural codes and information from previous eras) of topographical and notional wandering, and of acquiring space as perceiving textual meaning. Such scenario-type groups of semes coupled with the standard strategies of their realization constitute the dynamic component of the London supertext.