Allusion as discourse symbol - Курсовая работа

Discourse (from Latin discursus, meaning “running to and from”) generally refers to written or spoken communication . In a poetic text allusion as one of the most frequently used stylistic devices, plays an important role while being a discourse symbol, uncovering its meaning to a reader. The thesis of the work: the systematic use of the stylistic device of allusion in Lewis Caroll’s eccentric tale “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” depicts great variety of the author’s contexts which are the important feature of Caroll’s poetic text. The rationale for the study is conditioned by the fact that major linguistic researches pay great attention to the notion of discourse and the related notions. Achievements of this goal implies a solution of the following problems: examination of the notion of allusion and its major types;This can be explained by versatile approaches of analysis of the allusion phenomenon and also by the fact that structural-semantic and functional peculiarities of allusion are different in texts of different styles. According to scholar Khristenko “allusion is a term denoting a stylistic device” [16, p.38]. So allusion was treated as a verbal figure [16, p.39]. A philological reference book gives us a following definition of allusion: “Allusion (Latin allusio - a joke, a hint) - a stylistic device, a hint, a reference to some poetic text, topic, image or historical event counting on the erudition of the reader who will decode the hidden content” [8, p.30]. She makes emphasis on the fact that allusion is a kind of “bridge” between two poetic worlds, two different epochs.We can not study the phenomenon of allusion without knowledge of its types and their major differences so let us dwell upon various approaches to the classification of allusion. In nominative allusion the denotatum can be various while in quotation allusion the denotatum can only be the text and objects connected with the text under consideration metonymically. So he devided allusions into quotation and nominative according to the language and text levels, assuming their representative in the metatext as a basis of the classification [7, p.12]. Mamaeva points out the classification of allusion on the basis of their relation with one or another category of cultural facts: Allusions on information which constitute the main stock of facts for the social culture of certain society Semantic-stylistic classification of allusions is based on methods of meaning actualization of allusion in the context.As we have already mentioned allusion is a technique used in literature in which a literary work references another work of literature, work of art, historical figure, place, or event. In some special cases, allusion is used because it already communicated what the author wants to say better than he could have himself. More often, though, the writer uses allusions because of the many emotions or ideas that readers may associate with the text to which the writer alludes. This technique is often used to refute the meaning of the original and to assert a new meaning.” [20] Other case of the use of allusion in poetic texts actually reference several different sources simultaneously to create new associations and to make the reader to evaluate one or more sources of allusions. Allusion implies presence of the contextual elements which function consists in indication on the relation between the given text and other texts or reference to the certain historical, cultural and biographic facts.The context is a fragment of the text verbal background of the text element chosen for the analysis, a certain group of words, grammatical forms and constructions where the certain word of any other unit equal to it is used. Linguist Vinogradov states that the term vertical context can be understood as the background information, situational, subject historical and philosophical information that the text contains. But on the other hand, vertical context may be totally controlled by the sender of the message who creates the text in such a way that it contains a hint to some literary, lingual, social fact. Let us proceed to the examples from Lewis Caroll’s tale Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to understand the role of allusion in vertical context and analyze the interrelation between the given poetic text and source texts and information (events, characters) executed through the allusive process. After giving the classification of allusion we should analyze those its types which we can find in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.This research paper has focused on allusion as a discourse symbol. Allusion as one of the most frequently used stylistic devices, often performs a remarkable role in a poetic text. Among the most important types of allusion are the following: nominative allusion and citation, dominant and localized allusion, reminiscence. Allusion can perform a great variety of stylistic functions; the major of them are: expression of the idea of the text

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1. FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ALLUSION THEORY

1.1 Definition of allusion

1.2 Classification of allusion: different approaches

1.3 Stylistic functions of allusion

CHAPTER 2. STYLISTIC FUNCTIONS OF ALLUSION IN THE POETIC TEXT (IN LEWIS CAROLL’S ECCENTRIC FAIRY TALE “ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND”

2.1 Allusion as a category of vertical context

2.2 Varieties of allusion in the eccentric tale “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

2.3 Stylistic functions of allusion in the eccentric tale “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

CONCLUSION

LIST OF REFERENCE SOURCES