Textual level of actualization.

Language Units Actualization in a Work of Fiction. The stratification of actualized language units in a work of fiction.

Phonographical level of actualization.

Morphemic level of actualization.

Lexical level of actualization.

Syntactical level of actualization.

Textual level of actualization.

V.A. Kuharenko suggests identifying actualized language units in the work of fiction on phonographical level, morphemic level, lexical level, syntactical level, and textual level)

General premises:

A linguistic unit can be considered a signal which generates energy that can exceed its initial “volume”, i.e. within a literary text it can communicate some additional meanings.

These additional possibilities of units of all levels of language structure are realized in the presence of specially organized environment - a context. Against the context there is a promotion of a language unit in the foreground (foregrounding or actualization). For the first time this phenomenon was noted in the early twenties by representatives of the Prague school.

Actualization is defined as «such use of language means which draws the reader’s attention and is perceived as unusual, deprived of automatism, deautomatized”.

1. Let’s identify actualized text units on the phonographic level:

- repetition of sounds (alliteration);

“You, lean, long, lanky lath of a lousy bastard!” (S. O'Casey).

- graphon – graphical fixation of individual articulation features;

“Why doesn’t he have his shirt on?" the child asks distinctly. "I don't know," her mother says. "I suppose he thinks he has a nice chest."

"Is that his boo-zim?" Joyce asks.

"No, darling: only ladies have bosom" (J. Updike).

"Ah canna see her changin' her mind so quickly. In fack, Ah never thought she'd change her mind" (S. Chaplin).

- occasional graphons:

· "selly-brated" (ce­lebrated), "benny-violent" (benevolent), "illygitmit" (illegitima­te) (W. Thackeray); "customary procedure" - "crustymoney pro-seedcake" (A.Milne);

· "My daddy's coming to-morrow on a nairplane" (= an airplane) (D. Salinger); "'It's a ninseck' (= an insect), the girl said" (H. Lee).

· "Speaknubout prices" = speaking about prices; "jiver" = did you ever; "pleasmeech" = pleased to meet you; "Snoway talkcher father" = it is no way to talk to father.

· "eddi-cayshun" (J. Up­dike), "probably" as "probly" (J. Jones), "pictures" as "pit­chers" (I. Shaw), "love" as "luv" (St. Barstow), "night" as "nite" (D. Salinger);

- recurrent graphons:

· "Have a nahss, trip, chillum, y'all sen' me a postcard, heah?" (J. Hersey); "Ah may not be able to read eve'then' so good but they ain't a thing Ah can't do if Ah set mah mind to it" (N. Mailer).

· Не spoke with the flat ugly "a" and withered "r" of Boston Irish, and Levy looked up at him and mimicked, "All right, I'll give the caaads a break and staaat playing" (N. Mailer).

· "c-c-c-c-c-com-ing", "c-c-c-c-case", "b-b-b-b-bas-tud" (R.Penn Warren).

- onomatopoeia;

- word stress,

- types of graphical actualization (font, italics, hyphening, doubling / tripling of graphemes):

"Help! Help! HELP!" he shouted (A. Huxley).

"He called it a helmet, though it certainly looked much more like a saucepan" (L. Carroll).

2) In which ways actualized language units contribute to charactering of persons in the works of fiction?

 

2. Let’s scrutinize morpheme’s semantic potential in a work of art. Set off the regularities of information increment as follows: a) interaction with contact units of the same level (immediate contact milieu); b) repetition.

2) Identify actualized text units on the morphemic level:

- occasionalisms (personal neologisms) formed according to the type (a) regularity;

· "Militant feminists grumble that history is exactly what it says,— His-story, and not Her-story at all" (J. Robinson).

- morphemic actualization based on repetition (type (b):

· "Не wished she would not look at him in this new way. For things were changing, something was changing now, this minute, just when he thought they would never change again, just when he found a way to live in that changelessness" (R. P. Warren).

· "There was then a calling over of names, and great work of singeing, sealing, stamping inking and sanding, with exceedingly blurred, gritty and undecipherable results" (Ch. Dickens).

- rhythmical potential of morphemic repetition:

· "What's done, can't be undone" (W. Shakespeare);

· "Once you've learned a lesson, it's hard to unlearn it" (E. O'Neil);

· "She was waiting for something to happen. Or for everything to unhappen" (T. Howard).

· "(chickens)...passed on into semi-naked pullet-hood and from that into dead henhood" (Sh. Anderson).

- authors’ neologisms,with only derivative morphemes recognizable;

· "Should, anerous, enthroprose call homovirtue, duin-nafear!" (J. Joyce).

3) Generalize the role of morpheme as a bound form in saturating the text with additional meaning and mood (V.A. Kuharenko, p. 29).

 

3. Actualized text units can be indentified on the lexical level: