Poetic Text As The Representation Of Peculiarities Of Worldview Of A Poet

Abstract

The article is devoted to the relevant problem developed within the framework of the anthropocentric direction of linguistics, namely the problem of the manifestation of the peculiarities of the poetic picture of the world of a creative language personality in the language of literary works. It identifies the relation between the features of the individual style of a poet and the peculiarities of his or her worldview. In the context of the latest research in the field of cognitive linguistics and linguistic poetics, the poetic worldview is understood as a way of verbal representation of the consciousness of an individual and the whole people in texts. The purpose of the research is to discover the interrelation between the worldview of a poet and the distinctive features of his individual style. Using the example of the analysis of the dominants of poetic text, the correlations are established between the worldview of Ingeborg Bachmann and the peculiarities of the linguistic design and construction of the texts she created. It is emphasized that the formation of a complete worldview and its reflection in the language of literary works depends on the peculiarities of the language personality. Thus, the conducted research allows concluding that the peculiarities of the perception of the surrounding reality by the language personality have a significant influence on the formation of the worldview, which is a combination of objective and subjective ideas about the world and is reflected in the language of the works of this creative person.

Keywords: Worldviewpoetic textlinguistic identity

Introduction

A literary work is a complex organization, a unity of content and form. The substantive aspects of the concepts are connected with content and form: “the outlook of an author”, “ideology”, “worldview”, “point of view”, the creation of a complete image of an author, the expression of the concept of the world, etc.

In modern linguistics, the phenomenon of worldview, expressed in language, is called the linguistic world view, and in relation to an individual it is called individual linguistic world view.

Every language has its own linguistic world view, in accordance with which the native speaker organizes the content of one or another expression. This is how human perception of the world manifested in language is expressed. Investigating the language of a certain people, it is possible to make conclusions about the main spheres of its life activity. According to the language of an individual, it is possible to determine the level of his education, upbringing, life experience, judgments and ideas.

Language is the most important way to form personal knowledge of the world. Reflecting the objective world in the process of activity, a person records the results of knowledge in words. The combination of this knowledge, captured in a linguistic form, represents what is commonly called the “linguistic world view”. “If the world is man and the environment in their interaction, then the worldview is the result of processing information about the environment and a man” (Maslova, 2001, p. 67). The formation of the worldview is decisively influenced by traditions, language, nature, upbringing, as well as many other social factors. In other words, the language does not live separately. Language is the reflection of all spheres of human activity. At the same time, language is the reflection of the model of the world. Everything that happens in a life of a person finds a place in his world view.

The peculiarity of national experience determines the peculiarities of the worldview of various nations. Due to the specifics of a language, a certain linguistic world view is formed, through the prism of which a person perceives the world. The concepts are the components of linguistic world view, which allow identifying some features of the national worldview (Maslova, 2001).The issues related to the worldview and its evolution are considered in the works of Maslova (2007), Nikolaev (2016), Dreeva (Dreeva & Semenova, 2015).

Problem Statement

Every language personality has its own structured world view, which consists of concepts, ideas and reflects the hierarchy of values of a given language personality. Even if two people belong to the same social group, to the same epoch, live in the same social environment, it is impossible to say that they have identical models of the world. Each person has his own experience, knowledge, principles, and, consequently, his own vision of the world. Despite the difference in worldviews of individuals, it is still possible to identify certain common features in the worldview of people belonging to the same ethno-cultural group. This is explained by the fact that the life experience of each member of the community does not exclude the development and functioning of the whole group, which undoubtedly affects all of its representatives.

The world that surrounds a person is not just observed by him. The world is reflected and analyzed in his mind. The worldview is the outcome of the global image of the world, underlying the worldview of a person, representing the essential properties of the surrounding reality in understanding of its carriers and being the result of all the spiritual activity of mankind. This is the result of processing information on the reflection of reality in human consciousness. The diversity of languages reflects the diversity of worldviews. Researchers distinguish cultural, physical, biological, philosophical, scientific, linguistic world views etc. They all have their own characteristics and peculiarities.

The worldview can be represented with the help of temporal, spatial, ethical, quantitative and other parameters. Its social formation is influenced by such social factors as language, nature, education, traditions, etc. Thus, the worldview reveals the properties of the surrounding world in the form in which they are interpreted by its carriers and integrates the entire psychic life of a person.

It is necessary to note that the worldview is not a simple reflection of objects, phenomena, properties, etc., it includes not only the reflected objects, but also the position of the reflecting subject, its relation to these objects.

The worldview, reflected in human consciousness, can be considered as the secondary existence of the objective world, which has been fixed and realized in a peculiar material form. This material form is language. Language serves as the most important way of formation and existence of knowledge about the world. Language reflects and interprets reality.

By means of language, we have the opportunity not only to penetrate into the modern mentality of a nation, but also into the views of ancient people on the world and society. The language reflects everything that happens with its carrier, people or separate language personality. According to Sapir (1993), language is “the most massive and all-embracing of all known arts, a huge, anonymous and unconscious work of generations” (p. 17).

Thus, the linguistic world view is an expression of the cognitive activity of various groups of people — activities that are determined by historical, geographical, cultural and other factors within a single objective world and are fixed by means of existing, conversational languages.

The concept of “worldview” is closely intertwined with the concept of “language personality”. This is explained by the fact that it is the language personality that acts as a creator, user and converter of the worldview.

For art, including verbal, the most characteristic is the subjective vision of the world, the assignment of reality to the attitude of a particular person, his world view. The basic characteristics of the worldview of a poet, or poetic worldview, are: anthropocentrism, expressiveness, continuity, ethicality, universality. The poetic world view is defined by researchers of the poetic form of speech as a fragment of the naive world view, “a generalized subjective image of objective reality, formed as a result of perception, understanding and interpretation of the world in the mind of a poet- creative individuality” (Dreeva, 2012, p. 31). Thus, the poetic world view is a way of verbal description (construction) the macro and micro worlds of people and a person; Reflection by language / speech means of information about the world (Buianova, 1998).

Research Questions

A poetic text is a literary text that has traditionally been the center of attention of philologists. A text reflects a certain picture of the world. It is identified with a system of knowledge. However, a poetic world view is a combination of objective and subjective ideas about the world. The system of images that arises on the basis of semantic lexical units and gives the reader an idea of ​​objective reality is understood as objective component. Lexical units affect the organization of the content of the whole text. The choice of a certain picture of the world depends on the choice of one or another lexical unit.

With reference to a poetic text in linguistic studies, non-equivalent vocabulary is often mentioned, acting as a formal indicator of the ethnic world view. Researchers understand under non-equivalent vocabulary the special lexemes that reflect national and cultural images and identify poetic images with a specific cultural environment.

In a poetic text, any element of the language level can become meaningful. In addition, the formal elements of prose work may acquire additional meanings in poetry. The very structure of poetic text induces semantic units to enter into a complex system of relations that are not typical of prose.

A word is a lexeme related to a certain group of associations, among which it is recognized as the embodiment of a single meaning (Vinogradov, 1976). However, in the composition of a poetic work, it gains potential ability to be associated with those images and emotions that are embedded in the structure of the whole. Thus, a characteristic feature of a poetic text is the dependence of its content on the composition, when certain images, by virtue of their location, change their meaning.

Vinogradov (1976) drew attention to the fact that the word in literary work, coinciding in its external form with the word of the corresponding national language and based on its meaning, is addressed not only to the national language and experience of the cognitive activity of people, but also to the real world that is created and reproduced in literary work. It acts as an element for its construction and is related to other elements of the structure or composition. Therefore, it is two-sided in its semantic focus and, therefore, in this sense, figurative. Its semantic structure is expanded and enriched by those literary and illustrative “additions” of meaning that develop in the system of a whole aesthetic object.

Poetic language is the language of the “other level”, which is distinguished by the special significance of linguistic units, a special connection between words, when all elements merge of a text into inseparable unity. The meaning of each individual word dissolves in its environment, creating new, unexpected meanings. The volume and meaning of the poetic word is enriched due to the poetic context by means of associations.

Purpose of the Study

In order to understand the essential features of a poetic text, it is necessary to examine its structure, determine its compositional elements and the relation between them. For a poetic text, there are, in the first place, dominants, which are determined by the features of the structure of the composition. The very structure of the poem contributes to their selection, determines their textual and semantic significance. The purpose of this article is to discover the relation between the worldview of a poet and the dominant features of his individual style. In this case these two aspects are considered as means of the construction of a poetic text at the phonetic and lexical levels of its organization.

Research Methods

For the achievement of the purpose outlined in the article, a complex methodology is applied, which includes elements of structural and linguo-poetic analysis, as well as the methods of observation and generalization. Describing a language personality, Karaulov (2004) argues that it is “a person expressed in language (texts) and through language, a person reconstructed in its main features on the basis of language means” (p. 201). In this regard, the scientist proposes to analyze it by characterizing the “semantic-compositional level of its organization” (the term of Karaulov) and the re-creation of the language model of the world based on the produced texts (Karaulov, 2004).

Findings

One of the principles of the contextual interaction of different language levels in a literary text is syntactic and, as a result, intonation-stress selection of words that constitute the logical or expressive center of an utterance. The tool of highlighting a word or phrase in a sentence is the expressive word order (the first or the last place in the sentence), separation and parceling (isolation) as a means of emphasizing. Thus, for example, I. Bachmann in her poetic works quite often uses similar means of emphasizing part of a statement:

Immer die Nacht.

Und kein Tag. (Bachmann, 1987)

In such cases, syntactic separation is accompanied by intonation and accentual designations of a word or a phrase (Tupitsa, 2009). The dominants of a poetic text are lexical poems. Lexical repetition in linguistics is the repetition of words or phrases as part of a sentence, strophe or whole text. The distance between repetitions can be different, but their compositional function immediately strikes the eye of a reader, which allows considering the repetitions as dominants of a poetic text. Repetitions are also found at the syntactic level.

The authors give the fragment of the poem of Ingeborg Bachmann “Lieder auf der Flucht”, where the author uses both lexical and syntactic repetition:

Ich bin noch schuldig. Heb mich auf.

Ich bin nicht schuldig. Heb mich auf.

<...>

Ich bin es nicht.

Ich bin’s . (Bachmann, 1987)

Due to the repetition of words or phrases, the attention of a reader is captured, thereby enhancing their role in a text. Repetition gives connectivity, emphasizes the most important thoughts, it also emphasizes the structure of the construction of an utterance.

A poetic text is an aesthetically organized system. Its form and meaning are subject to aesthetic purposes. Such components as rhythm, melody, intonation, rhyme, meter, alliteration, assonances, etc. are organized in poetry. Together they bring the poetic text closer to art. To illustrate alliteration, the authors give the following example:

Eine Gemeinsamkeit ist auch zwischen uns

und dem Verurteilten, da er uns zu überzeugen vermag,

daß dem Mord, den wir bereiten,

und dem Mord, der für uns bereitet wird,

die Wahrheit vorangeht. (Bachmann, 1987)

The analysis of the phonological level of the organization of poetic works by I. Bachman allows stating that assonances, being a means of creating cohesion in a poetic text, can give additional nuances of meaning and thereby increase the semantic potential of a poetic utterance:

Lang ist die Nacht,

lang für den Mann,

der nicht sterben kann, lang

unter Straßenlaternen schwankt

sein nacktes Aug und sein Aug

schnapsatemblind... (Bachmann, 1987)

As it is clear from the cited example, the sound repetitions (in this case, repetitive consonant sounds “d” and “r”, as well as the stressed vowel “a”) convey the feeling of heaviness and emotional load that is characteristic of the entire work of the poetess. Formal media, for example, graphical are also of great importance:

Hunger

Schande

Tränen

und Finsternis. (Bachmann, 1987)

Here I. Bachman uses the “ladder” technique to reflect the growing gloom of world perception.

A poetic text is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. First, in a poetic text, as in any other, the elements of reality are displayed. Thus, a poetic text is the source and carrier of verbal information. Secondly, a poetic text belongs to a certain ethno-culture: the information encoded in its linguistic material provides the necessary share of objectivity with a possible interpretation of an author. Thirdly, a poetic text always consists of units (separate images, senses), from which the meaning-content of the whole work is formed. These units act as a means of realizing the corresponding ideological and literary conception of an author. Their role in it may be different; their textual significance also differs according to this, so it is possible to speak about the dominance of certain words in the hierarchy of a poetic text (Tupitsa, 2009).

The study of the concept of “creative worldview” of an individual is relevant problem. This is explained by the fact that this phenomenon is important in the development of cultural and historical experience, education, and plays a large role in personal knowledge of the world, in the choice of strategy of behavior in the world. A creative worldview directly affects the growth of the creative function of human consciousness. Any creative worldview has a valuable meaning. The world view is not anonymous or impersonal; it always belongs to someone, because it includes not only knowledge, but also values, ideals, feelings. Value is a source of motivation for behavior and actions of a person, and it is also formed during the activity of the emotional sphere.

Conclusion

Summing up it is possible to make the following conclusions:

Within the framework of the anthropocentric scientific approach, the linguistic world view is presented in the form of a system of images reflecting the surrounding reality. A person creates a system of images, adapting the perceptible phenomena and facts of the external world under his principles. The worldview includes subjective moments, as they are formed by a particular person and are constantly changing. Consequently, it is possible to speak about an individual world view. However, it is impossible to deny the fact that there are common elements in it, which ensures mutual understanding between people.

The worldview and knowledge are two concepts that are directly proportional to each other. The interpretation of one necessarily implies the other. The concept of a word as a unit of an individual lexicon takes into account the possibility of transition through a word, individual knowledge to an individual world view.

The text reflects a certain picture of the world and is identified with a system of knowledge. However the poetic world view is a combination of objective and subjective ideas about the world. The choice of one or another lexical unit by an author influences the formation of an idea about the features of the poetic world view of an author.

In order to understand the essential features of the poetic text, it is necessary to investigate its structure, determine its compositional elements and the relation between them. In a poetic text, there are dominants which are determined by the special features of the structural composition. The very structure of the poem contributes to their isolation, determines their textual and semantic significance. Nowadays despite the insufficient level of knowledge of the phenomenon “poetic world view”, it is worth noting the constant interest from the part of researchers to this issue.

The complexity of the study of this concept is also dictated by the difference of views and the lack of a unified position in relation to the aspects of its aspects - creativity and worldview. However, no matter what aspects and sides of the poetic world view are studied, all the researchers emphasize the importance of the creative direction of human activity, enhancing the value of a person with a creative view of the world. In order to solve a large number of problems of the modern world, it is still not enough to learn and accumulate the increasing volume of knowledge. It is necessary to creatively understand and apply modernized views in everyday life. Therefore, further development of this multi-aspect concept is necessary.

References

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