Psycholinguistic Aspect Of Dramaturgic And Educational Discourse Interaction

Abstract

The article shows that the involvement of psycholinguistic analysis of educational discourse in the analysis of dramaturgic discourse during their interaction makes it possible to identify the components that are characteristic of both dramatic and educational discourses. The study of educational discourse in the context of dramaturgic discourse allows us to analyze these factors on the material of educational textbooks, making it possible to identify aspects of interpretations, setting many potential readings for the production as a whole using an example of a specific play. The dramaturgic discourse openness is of great interest regarding the mainstream of both direct acting decisions and other functions that each of the participants in dramaturgic and educational discourses performs according to the roles assigned to them. The components of the discourse are its participants, who in turn change their status when discourses enter into interaction. When moving from one discourse to another, its participant establishes new references, offers his inferences, which leads to unexpected staged decisions, forming links that reflect the relationship of the recipient and participant as well as the author of the staged work. The integrity and interconnection of the components of the dramaturgic discourse with the educational discourse makes it possible to simultaneously perform several actions: psycholinguistic analysis of the texts of the plays, recommendations of a teacher and direct play of actors in different interpretations. It is necessary to take into account pre-production and staging processes, in which a community of discourse-forming factors is generally observed.

Keywords: Psycholinguistic analysiseducational discoursedramaturgic discourseinterpretationplay

Introduction

The study of discursive issues in the modern scientific world continues to occupy a leading role and minds of scientists in various aspects. Currently it is not possible to limit oneself to the interpretation of the concept of “discourse” exclusively within the framework of the communicative situation, since the discourse continues to be endowed with new functions, nominations and expand its boundaries due to interdisciplinary approach, allowing full, partial, successful and less successful interpenetration and interaction of discourses. The modern scientific paradigm dictates to us the need to take into account the psycholinguistic component of the type of discourse under study each time, since the product of speech and thought activity is taken into account in the first place. When dealing with dramaturgic and educational discourses, there is an evidence of the belief that the psycholinguistic component sets the tone for the functions of these discourses, designed to help understand the content of the text.

Problem Statement

Now, a wide range of studies of dramaturgic discourse is reduced to a linguistic analysis of plays, into which a literary analysis with the elements of interpretation is harmoniously interwoven. If researchers talk about educational discourse, we are definitely talking about studying the interaction of a student and a person endowed with professional knowledge and skills, which he, in turn, seeks to convey to the student through the text.

The psycholinguistic component of the two above-mentioned discourses, as well as any discourse, being a communicative category, consists of verbal and non-verbal components, which do not necessarily represent direct communication, but are very important for describing the stipulated component. However, studies that would analyze educational discourse in a dramatic context, taking into account the psycholinguistic component do not seem sufficient.

Research Questions

An analysis of the psycholinguistic component of educational discourse in the context of the dramatic discourse suggests that successful interaction of these discourses is possible when taking into account the ways of communicative interaction between all participants in joint (speech) activity. The psycholinguistic analysis of educational settings when staging or preparing for staging a dramatic text makes it possible to identify the objective and subjective factors of theatrical interpretation, setting many potential readings for staging plays in general, using an example of a specific play in particular.

Purpose of the Study

The study of the specific nature of psycholinguistic components of educational discourse in the context of dramaturgic discourse aims to clarify and describe such interrelated and interdependent phenomena as extra-linguistic reality, which is important for the communication process; time factor, that is, not only when the play was written, but also when future actors are taught, the period when the play is staged, and also show the role of the sequence of replicas of those who communicate with each other.

Research Methods

The main research method is the descriptive and comparative method of synchronous analysis of the components of the discourses under consideration; observation methods and descriptions were also used; interpretation method; textual; contextual; modeling method.

Findings

The modern stage of development of linguistics is characterized by a stable interest of researchers in the problems of discourse and its varieties, as evidenced by the work of domestic scholars on the theory of discourse and the interpretation of this concept (Fanyan, 2012; Karasik, 2002; Ostrovskaya & Khachmafova, 2016). The study of the educational discourse in the context of dramatic discourse seems to be one of the applied aspects of theatrical interpretations. To successfully teach future actors how to play on stage or to educate future directors, it does not always seem sufficient to just read the work of the future production, get used to the role and present yourself on stage, it is also not always enough to familiarize yourself with the reviews, critical articles on already staged performances. It is considered necessary to take into account training manuals in this process.

In the framework of this study, the dramatic discourse is defined as an ambivalent linguistic and pragmatic formation in two aspects of comprehension, i.e. its determination as a completed model, as well as its interpretative potential as an open modeling process in theoretical and applied directions (Zinkovskaya, 2015). The definition of educational discourse, which we will consider in this study, was given by Oleshkov (2007). The institutional type of discourse operates within the given framework of status and role relations and reflects the specifics of verbal interaction of participants of the communicative process in the institutional (didactic) field of communication... The didactic communication in the framework of the educational discourse can be regarded as entire palette of communicative strategies and tactics designed to optimize pedagogical interaction of the subjects of educational process (Oleshkov, 2007).

Referring to the textbooks on acting, theater arts and directorial skills, as well as guides on the production of plays it can be noted that their composition is reduced to at least one structure, i.e., the learning process takes place according to a given plan, but to state that these processes will be similar is unpromising.

Scientists who deal with the problems of psycholinguistic component of the discourse agree that the same text, when interpreted, takes on a new form of interpretation, where the picture that develops in reader’s mind changes under the influence of many factors like a kaleidoscope with colorful glasses: the formation of the recipient, associations, memories, communicative mood, and ability to recognize encoded information between lines (Boronin, 2016, Krasnykh, 1998, Peshkova, 2013). The textbook and manuals for staging the play is no exception. What is the primary text in this symbiosis of discourses, and what is secondary is not always unambiguous, and sometimes even debatable, since the union of these two texts gives rise to the third in the recipient’s mind. The recipients of the text are different people involved into the communication process within educational and dramatic discourse. However, it is better to concentrate attention on two categories of participants, i.e. a teacher who first gets acquainted with the text of the production material, then ponders the settings for the students, which are aimed at helping to understand how the play is, and the way of the game; a student who gets acquainted with the text of the play, possibly in the learning process, as well as with the text of the settings that come from the teacher; at the same time, both participants become interpreters of the text of the play, which creates the third text.

The traditional textbook or study guide consists of several parts, which not only complement each other, but also have a specific goal to provide understanding of extra-linguistic reality in which the process of preparation for the production will take place, the production itself, as well as the reality in which the text of the play was created by the author. Without taking into account the details of extralinguistic reality of the era of creation of work, the teacher’s attitudes can lead to incorrect students’ awareness of their actions on the stage, to distort facts and reference points, which, according to the recipient of the primary text (the text of the play upon first reading) the author emphasized when creating a work. Following Krasnykh (1998) and the model of psycholinguistic analysis of the text she proposed, let us turn to such parameter as “time”. This factor is of particular importance in the analysis of the process of interpenetration of educational and dramaturgic discourses. Here a field appears for a special kind of interpretation, namely situational, but of great importance for the learning process and the statement itself: if we turn to the instructional manual, then the “time” factor will imply a plan of events that are described in the play. In our understanding, the situational interpretation differs from the contextual one regarding the influence on the recipient’s perception of the text which is provided by numerous factors, including the time of a day when the text of the play is read. Note that all the participants in the educational and dramaturgic discourses are the readers of a special kind who perform several roles simultaneously. It is worth noting that both the perception and interpretation of the text will also depend on what “role” the recipient is “playing” at the moment: is he just a reader - a person who is fond of the work of this writer, or is this a recipient already a “teacher”, or “a student”, or “illuminator”, or “dresser”, etc. If you miss a detail when reading, the transmission of “time”, the era the events described can be radically disrupted, which will lead to an incorrect interpretation of what is happening on the stage by the audience due to an incorrect play of the actors, which was incorrectly staged by the director, since in turn, he received incorrect attitudes from the teacher when, for example, certain recommendations regarding the peculiarities of the time reflected in the play were understood during training. The “time” factor, as well as the place in the analysis of psycholinguistic component of the described two discourses, points to another component of the content of a textbook or training manual, which carries a significant part of the non-verbal component of the production, i.e. the “background for actions” - the script itself and the semiotics of details. The semiotics of details, which play a significant role in the training manual, is also important for all participants in these discourses, because it contains information that can affect a “specific subject” that generates a specific speech-cognitive product (Krasnykh, 1998; Zinkovskaya, Buyanova, Katermina, Plaksin, & Tlekhatuk, 2019). If to ignore the indication of at least one of the encoded characters of the play, then the perception of the play may fail at an early stage of its production, since all further manuals will lead to a dead end. The model of psycholinguistic analysis of the text also contains parameters such as “sequence of replicas of communicators”, “verbal form of the product of speech and cognitive activity” (the text itself or presentation of the text incorporated with comments that highlight the main features of the use of linguistic means, “specific speech action”, “connection between speech actions”, which can be attributed both to the part of the “semiotics of details” of the textbook or training manual, and to the item the “structure of a plays "in this textbook). Let us just imagine that some replicas will be omitted. Is there a guarantee that a set designer and costume designer, makeup artists, lighting technician, stage personnel, musical accompaniment authors will be able to compensate for the author’s intention? What if the director decides to have an experiment and refuses the classical theatrical production, there is no stage decoration, the performance is without words, and then the success of the production depends on the teacher, director, cast and everyone involved in the production of the play. The audience, in this case, is given a special role since the spectators must be ready not only to see, but also to hear everything what happens on the stage, understand the plan of the author of the work, the plan of the director and to evaluate acting. Besides, they need to understand whether the actor embodied all extra-linguistic means delivered by the teacher, or some points need to be worked through so that the situational interpretation coincides with the contextual interpretation for the text of the play to be understood completely. It has to mentioned that the play is a work of a special type, which is intended for staging and includes diverse texts of characters, as well as author's remarks, which fulfill their functional role. In experimental productions, it is the remarks that serve as a guide to the production. If the director misses or interprets something in his own way when reading catchwords, then careful reading of the remarks can be an auxiliary tool in the production. It has been noted that the openness of dramaturgic discourse is both complex and interesting for streamlining acting decisions ... metaphorical metamorphosis occurs when moving from text to discourse (Zheltukhina, Zinkovskaya, Katermina, & Shershneva, 2016).

Thus, the dramatic discourse is a complex communicative phenomenon, which includes verbal and non-verbal components expressed by linguistic and non-linguistic signs.

The material of the educational discourse carries a powerful educational potential and is a depository of cultural heritage, the quintessence of knowledge accumulated by mankind. Its assimilation and comprehension is directly related to the emotional state of speech partners, the main agents of the discourse, i.e. the addressee, trying to emotionally present, revealing and enhancing this emotional potential, and an addressee passing both intellectual and emotional information through the “emotional sieve”. Positive emotions act as a facilitator of the illocution of the text, because the “emotional beam” highlights the main idea of the message, which, passing through the emotional sphere, the sensual, and biodynamic tissue of the learner’s consciousness is assimilated at the level of personal meaning (Katermina, 2018).

Figuratively speaking, the educational discourse can be represented in the form of a multicolor speech fabric that weaves in the communication space as the speech interaction develops, forming a unique combination of language shades and cultures, due to the individuality of the communication participants.

Conclusion

The psycholinguistic analysis of educational discourse in the interaction with dramatic discourse made it possible to identify numerous components that must be taken into account when interpreting the staged material by all participants in the dramatic discourse. The study of the processes of text perception within the framework of our research indicates that to satisfy the functions of the stipulated discourses, the text should be considered not just as a linguistic reality, but also as a content of the text in a broad sense, which is essential for further actions of participants in interacting discourses. This means that the linguistic structure of the dramatic text serves as a pillar of the semantic system, while perception is aimed at restoring, comprehending and evaluating the representations in the texts of the so-called second reality and the author’s (artistic) intention behind it. The expansion of the discursive space makes it possible for many interpretations in accordance with many references requiring a thorough psycholinguistic analysis.

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