Preview

RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series

Advanced search

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

https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2021-3-125-135

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.

About the Authors

A. V. Sosnin
National Research University “Higher School of Economics”
Russian Federation

Aleksei V. Sosnin, Dr. of Sci. (Philology), professor

bld. 25/12, Bolshaya Pecherskaya Str., Nizhniy Novgorod, 603155



Yu. V. Balakina
National Research University “Higher School of Economics”
Russian Federation

Yulia V. Balakina, associate professor

bld. 25/12, Bolshaya Pecherskaya Str., Nizhniy Novgorod, 603155



E. V. Kiseleva
Nizhniy Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering
Russian Federation

Elena V. Kiseleva

bld. 65, Il’inskaya Str., Nizhniy Novgorod, 603950



References

1. Ackroyd, P. (2000), London. The Biography, Vintage, London, UK.

2. Arutyunova, N.D. (1998), Yazyk i mir cheloveka [Language and the human world], Yazyki russkoy kultury, Moscow, Russia.

3. Barthes, R. (1997), Semiology and the Urban. Rethinking Architecture, Reader in Cultural Theory, Routledge, London, UK.

4. Barthes, R. (2001), S/Z, Editorial URSS, Moscow, Russia.

5. Bochkarev, A.E. (2003), Semanticheskii slovar’ [A semantic glossary], DEKOM, N. Novgorod, Russia.

6. Derrida, J. (2000), Pis’mo i razlichie [Writing and distinction], Akademicheskiy proyekt, Moscow, Russia.

7. Ford, M.F. (1976), The Soul of London, Penguin, London, UK.

8. Harweg, R. (1968), Pronomina und Text konstitution, Beiheft zu Poetica 2, München, Germany.

9. Lehan, R. (1998), The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, USA; London, UK.

10. Lotman, Yu.M. (1986), “Towards the modern understanding of text”, Uchenyye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, vol. 736, pp. 104–108.

11. Petöfi, J.S. (1971), Transformations grammatiken und eine ko-textuelle Text theorie, Frankfurt a.M., Germany.

12. Piaget, Zh. (1983), “The psychogenesis of knowledge and its epistemological significance”, Semiotika yazyka i literatury [Semiotics of language and literature], Raduga, Moscow, Russia.

13. Rastier, F. (2001), Interpretiruyuschaya semantika [Interpretative semantics], Bochkarev, A.E. (transl. from French, commentaries and subject-names index), DEKOM, N. Novgorod, Russia.

14. Taylor, J. (1995), Language and the Cognitive Construal of the World, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, Germany.

15. Wirth, L. (1938), Urbanism, as a Way of Life, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 44, pp. 1–24.


Review

For citations:


Sosnin A.V., Balakina Yu.V., Kiseleva E.V. The metaphor “London-as-text” as a fundamental ontological metaphor in the composition of the London text of English linguistic culture. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2021;(3):125-135. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2021-3-125-135

Views: 183


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.


ISSN 2073-6355 (Print)