Apperceptive Nomination In Literary Text

Abstract

The text examines the functioning of apperceptive nomination as a cognitive-semantic generation of a literary text, which is actualized by extralinguistic and linguistic factors and reflects subjective reality. In a literary text, apperceptive nomination is motivated by such extralinguistic factors as memory and associative perception. The nominative function in a literary text reveals the dynamics of creative perception and, through apperception, reveals the inner world of the author’s worldview. The cognitive approach to the description of a literary text allows us to consider it as a form of representation of figurative cognition, a way of origin, development and improvement of one’s knowledge about the world and themselves. The triad of reality, memory and apperception form the generating topics of value-semantic registers of a literary text, since reality is recorded in memory not as a repeated reproduction, but a sensual transformation of one’s own acquired experience. Apperceptive nomination focuses the author’s experience of the lived reality preserved in the memory and activates the reader’s sensory perception, which allows using subjective experience and emerging associations not only to interpret, but also to perceive the semantic registers of a literary text. The central concept and generative stimulus for generating an apperceptive nomination is the author’s “I”, with the help of which the author’s experiences and feelings are depicted.

Keywords: Apperceptive nomination, literary text, semantic space

Introduction

The idea of apperception was introduced in the scientific space by Leibnitz, who correlated this term with what “I” means. The author considers apperception as consciousness, including attention and memory, and the internal state of a person: “a distinction should be made between perception, which is the internal state of the monad, and apperception-consciousness, or reflective knowledge of this internal state ...” (Leibnitz, 1982, p. 406).

Problem Statement

The model of the semantic space of a literary text is built on the principles:

• apperceptive nomination;
• apperceptive interpretation of a literary text.

The cognitive-semantic content of a literary text is represented by a multi-level structure, which is determined by a number of extralinguistic factors, variation and interpretation of meanings that make up the integral text structure. The semantic space of a literary text reflects subjective reality and is explicated in the course of its cognition due to the apperceptive nomination, denoting secondary perceived literary concepts (subjective everyday concepts and ideas, sensory impressions) – the basic semantic elements of the literary text content (Ozerova, 2012, p. 15).

Research Questions

The research questions represent a complex cognitive-connotative system of apperceptive nomination, due to which sensory and associative value-semantic categories of perception of the experienced events of reality are imprinted in the literary text. Presumably, the apperceptive nomination is the “key to understanding the ethnoculture, the unique value-semantic topics of the people's living space, which determine the dominant principles of world perception” (Alefirenko et al., 2019, p. 670).

The study of the apperceptive nomination is due to the need to consider the sensory perception of the reality depicted by the author, which stimulates the associative-cognitive mechanisms of generating a literary text.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze the functioning of apperceptive nomination in a literary text.

The stated goal involves the solution of the following tasks:

• to explore the apperceptive nature of the literary text generating.
• to analyze the factors that reveal the essence of apperceptive nomination.

Research Methods

The anthropocentric orientation of the linguo-cognitive methodology and the tasks set predetermined the nature of the research methods. The method of cognitive-hermeneutic analysis of a literary text developed by us includes the interpretation of the inner disclosure of sensory perception of the depicted reality. This method is designed to interpret the implicit content of a literary text. For cognitive-pragmatic research, two interrelated methods of literary analysis are used: linguo-stylistic one and linguopoetic one. The linguo-stylistic method of analyzing literary text is aimed at distinguishing the actual semantic content of linguistic units and emotionally coloured meanings. This method allows us to consider the analyzed word from the point of view of its communicative properties and communicative-pragmatic significance in the holistic-semantic content of the entire literary text (Ozerova, 2012, p. 12).

Apperceptive nomination reveals author’s figurative-sensual intentions, reveals the sensual subtext of the work.

The cognitive-hermeneutic method allows to explore a literary text in the following directions:

• penetration into the origins of the author’s experience;
• identification and understanding of the main idea of the studied text;
• disclosure of sensory perception of reality.

Findings

The literary word, conditioned by the apperceptive nomination, demonstrates the figurative and aesthetic integrity of the entire work, meanwhile the semantic topics of the word predetermine the explicit or implicit fixity of such a nomination (Gallistel, 2017). For example, the Russian word “silence” in the thesaurus of Bunin accumulates signs of different vectors not only of the linguistic naming, but also of the addressee’s emotive intentions: “intense silence”, “enchanted silence”, “reverent silence”, “sacred silence”, “dead silence”, “deathly silence”. A different architectonics of the presentation of the apperceptive naming of silence is contained in Boris Vasiliev’s story “The Dawns Here Are Quiet ...” The implicit interpretation of “silence is enough here” is transformed into an explicit form: “dead, afterlife silence ...”, “grave silence stood, already ringing in the ears” – and becomes a text-forming stimulus that forms an emotive-evaluative dominant that generates a literary text (Barsalou, 2015).

Emotional perception and sensory experience of the phenomena of reality motivates the generation of a literary text and forms the semantic space of the work (Geeraerts, 2015).

For example, I.A. Bunin in the text of “Shrove Monday” opposes the silence to the creak of snow, the author refers to the acoustic association when the reader perceives the text: “Creak in silence in the snow ..”, sensory perception represents the phrase "special silence" when describing the state of the hero who is afraid to breathe while in empty church.

In the Old Testament, silence is identified with divine revelation; in the Third Book of Kings, the auditory image of silence is used: “the sound of absolute silence”.

In the National Corpus of the Russian language, merely within Bunin’s texts, the word “silence” represents apperceptive perception and is used 206 times. Exploring the philosophy of the Russian word, Kolesov comes to the conclusion that “mentality is a world perception in the categories and forms of the native language, combining the intellectual, volitional and spiritual qualities of a national character” (Kolesov, 2004, p. 260).

The semantic topics of apperceptive nomination integrate the connotative, figurative and expressive perception of the Russian word through subjective ideas and sensory impressions, conditioned by the associative-emotive experience of the author and the reader.

Conclusion

In a literary text, apperceptive nomination is motivated by such extralinguistic factors as memory and associative perception. The nominative function in a literary text reveals the dynamics of creative perception and through apperception reveals the inner world of the author’s worldview. The cognitive approach to the description of a literary text allows talking about it as a form of representation of figurative cognition, a way of origin, development and improvement of a person’s knowledge about the world and themselves. The triad of reality, memory and apperception form the generating topics of the value-semantic registers of a literary text, since reality is recorded in memory not as repeated reproduction, but as a sensual transformation of one’s own acquired experience.

Consequently, the apperceptive nomination focuses the patterns of the addressee’s experienced reality preserved in the memory and actualizes the addressee’s sensory perception, which makes it possible, with the help of subjective experience and emerging associations, not only to interpret, but also to perceive the semantic topics of a literary text.

Apperceptive nomination is the result of a new experience formed in memory. Such a recollection actualizes the creative realization of the author’s generation of a literary text and, through apperceptive nomination, captures what seems to be significant for the semantic content of the text.

Thus, the cognitive mechanisms of apperceptive nomination form such a semantic space of a literary text, which contains extralinguistic and linguistic factors conditioned by experience and verbalized by the word. Such a synthesis focuses the semantic space and forms the integrity of the perception of a literary text through associative and sensory sources of interpretation, which makes it possible to combine perceived subjective representations into artistic images.

The dominant role of subjective factors of perception of reality and the formation of one’s own knowledge and impressions reveals the anthropocentric nature of the apperceptive nomination.

The central concept and generative stimulus for generating an apperceptive nomination is the author’s “I”, with the help of which the author’s experiences and feelings are depicted.

In the process of gaining experience, the author forms the creative and cognitive base of the apperceptive nomination, thanks to which a literary text is generated.

Psychological theorists note: each person is the architect of their own behaviour and life experience. This idea is confirmed by the analysis of literary texts, since the authors, using the acquired experience, in speech intentions create images in which the author’s personality is manifested.

So, the cognitive mechanisms of apperceptive nomination are the central creative constant of the entire architectonics of a literary text, the constantly updated dynamics of the author’s value-semantic representations, reflected in the synergistic space of real and imaginary events. Apperceptive nomination is not only a constructive mechanism for the formation of semantic content, but also the epicenter of the generation of the internal form of the text.

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