Tyumen State University Abstract
The article is dedicated to the issues related to linguistic modelling of the literary text meaning. The model for interpreting author's intent in the text of a German short story is developed on the basis of the model of generation and comprehension of literary texts by analogy with the process of registration and reconstruction of a hologram; it is an algorithm of disclosing author's intent through the sequence of events and the macro-event. Consideration of a series of actions in chronological order and their generalisation to the level of events resulted in identification of two types of the sequence of events in the text – one-component and two-component, which allowed us to find the key event, or macro-event, of the text and reveal author's intent. Our research makes a contribution to the development of algorithmization of the process of studying literary texts and understanding their meanings.
Keywords: literary text, German short story, sequence of events, author's intent. Introduction
The ambiguous combination of the inner and outer forms of a literary text leads to the need for studying the mechanisms of its semantic interpretation. The subject of such study encompasses not only narrative and ideological uniqueness of a literary text but also the diverse character of embodiment of author's intent, multi-level semantics of the text and the coexistence of explicit and implicit meanings that shape the overall impression of a literary work.
Of particular interest to researchers is the issue of the content capacity of text units of different length, correlation between explicit and implicit components of the text meaning and the mechanisms for retrieving the information implicitly embedded in the text (I.V. Arnold, A.I. Novikov, M.Ya. Dymarsky, N.S. Bolotnova, L.A. Chernyakhovskaya, L.A. Nozdrina, A.F. Papina, V.P. Rudnev, L.V. Sakharny, L.S. Vygotskij, G.Ya. Solganik, G.G. Moskalchuk, K.I. Belousov, and others). The key notions used in the analysis of a literary text are the text generation and the text comprehension. The literary text generation presupposes author's unique, original organisation of the text language and meaning. The literary text comprehension by the reader is not limited to fixing the verbally expressed information on the "surface" of the text – it also assumes disclosure of its encoded deep semantics and author's intent.
Materials and Methods
In order to find a solution for a rather complicated linguodidactic task of revealing author's intent of the literary text, we find it relevant to develop a model for the process of the literary text generation and comprehension. Needless to say, such a model can be especially explicit when illustrated with the texts of smaller narrative forms due to better possibilities of their integral perception. For our study, we analysed texts of 100 German short stories written and published over the period of 1945-2010. The genre of a German short story appeared in Germany and other German-speaking cultural entities after the Second World War. As indicated by most researchers, its distinctive features are compactness, careful word choice, maximum brevity, ambiguity and coded messages (V. Auffermann, 2004; W. Bellmann, 2004; H. Bender, 2004; H. Böll, 2004; R. Brückner, 2004; K. Doderer, 2004; M. Durzak, 2004; U. Meyer, 2002, etc.). According to a well-known opinion by Yu.D. Apresyan, modelling is necessary in those fields where the object of research is not directly observable but it is known which input materials the object obtains "at the entry" and which output is produced "at the exit". More than any other research object, a literary text – its essence and author's intent – is similar to a "black box", "at the entry" to which we have only the text as a sequence of words, sentences, paragraphs, but we have to get its verbally unexpressed meaning "at the exit". It is well known that the most important feature of a linguistic model is its ability to be a
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods ISSN: 2251-6204
Vol. 8, Issue 2, February2018
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functional approximation of the object; it is related to its other properties – to be an idealization of the object, to be able to operate constructs as concepts of ideal objects, as well as its formal and explanatory character. Yu.D. Apresyan explains that any model is always a certain idealization of an object, because, in order to understand the complex real phenomena, one should begin with the study of the simplest and common cases, even if they never occur in pure form, and then move from them to more complex and specialized cases (Apresyan, 1996, pp. 78-91). Following this thesis, a study of the process of comprehending author's intent in the text of a German short story may be started from building a model of literary text generation and comprehension.
According to the classical treatment of the category of the text informativity, based on the semantic concept developed by I.P. Galperin, a literary text is a multi-level informative structure, and its understanding by the reader cannot be reduced to the retrieval of the content-factual information but presupposes disclosure of the encoded content-subtextual and content-conceptual information (Galperin, 2006, pp. 39-49). Our study of I.P. Galperin's semantic concept contributed to identification of elements for the model of literary text generation and comprehension and suggested the idea of using the category of informativity as a construct for the model of generation and comprehension of a literary text.
We suppose that a figurative analogy for the model of generation and comprehension of literary texts can be found in the optical model of hologram registration and reconstruction, as these processes are functionally and structurally similar to each other.
We would like to describe briefly the process of hologram registration and reconstruction as a physical phenomenon. The word "hologram" comes from the Greek words holos (whole, entire), and graphos (written, writing). Holography, which emerged as a field of optical science and engineering in the middle of the 20th century, allows creating a complete visual image of a physical object – a hologram, which is widely used in physics and other spheres for pattern recognition and encoding of information. The essence of optical holography can be described as follows: the reference and object beams (waves) interfere with each other, creating a complicated "picture" of multiple fine lines forming intricate patterns on the recording medium. This picture is a recorded hologram storing information about the object; when read, it allows seeing a detailed 3D image – a holographic "blueprint" for the physical object.
The hologram creation process includes two stages: registration (or recording) and reconstruction, schematically presented in Fig. 1 and 2. Let us describe each of these stages – hologram registration and reconstruction – in more detail.
At the stage of registration (Fig. 1), a laser beam is first directed to a beam splitter, as a result of which one part of the beam goes further and another is spread and directed onto the object. The part of the beam that passes the beam-splitting mirror is called the reference beam, and another, which is reflected from the object, – the object beam; they must have both the same frequency. Inference of these two beams produces a resultant wave, in the field of which a photographic plate is placed to record the hologram. At the reconstruction stage (Fig. 2), a photographic plate with the recorded hologram is to be illuminated with a laser reference beam identical to the one used to record the hologram. This produces a beam identical to the object beam originally scattered onto the photographic plate, i.e. the photographic plate with the recorded hologram transforms the reference beam into a facsimile of the object beam. As a result, we can see the light beam that is identical to that reflected from the recorded object, which, in fact, allows observing the "blueprint' of the registered physical object (Pirozhnikov 1983, pp. 102-108)
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods ISSN: 2251-6204
Vol. 8, Issue 2, February2018
Page 146
Fig. 1. Hologram registration – literary text generation
1 – hologram object – content-subtextual information (CSI); 2 – reference beam – linguistic organisation of the text; 3 – beam-splitting mirror – semantic organisation of the text; 4 – object beam – encoding of content-subtextual information (CSI); 5 – interference – content-conceptual information (CCI);
6 – hologram (pattern on a screen) – literary text (CFI, CSI, CCI). Fig. 2. Hologram reconstruction – literary text comprehension
1 – hologram (pattern on a screen) – literary text (CFI, CSI, CCI);
2 – a beam that is similar to the reference one – analysis of the linguistic organisation of the text; 3 – reconstructed object beam – reconstruction of the content-subtextual information (CSI); 4 – reconstructed image of the object – content-subtextual information (CSI)
Like in the process of hologram registration resulting in recording a picture of numerous dots and patterns, any literary work contains a linear pattern recorded in the text. Individual words and their combinations within the text set a unique author's pattern of the text.
At the stage of text generation, corresponding to the stage of hologram registration, components of these two models can be compared as follows:
1) the content-subtextual information corresponds to the object to be registered; 2) linguistic organisation of the text is similar to the reference beam;
3) the role of the beam-splitting mirror is played by semantic organisation of the text, which is some kind of filter dividing explicit and implicit meanings of the text;
4) encoding of the content-subtextual information corresponds to the object beam; 5) interference or the resultant wave can be compared with the content-factual, content- subtextual and content-conceptual information in the text;
6) the text is some kind of hologram.
At the stage of text comprehension, corresponding to the stage of hologram reconstruction: 1) the text is the registered hologram;
2) analysis of the linguistic organisation of the text corresponds to the beam that is similar to the reference one;
3) reconstruction the content-subtextual information corresponds to the reconstructed object beam; 4) the reconstructed content-subtextual information corresponds to the reconstructed image of the registered object.
In our example the key component of the model of literary text generation and comprehension (the object to be registered) is the content-subtextual information that should be "fully retrieved" as a "detailed image" in the process of the text comprehension. The explanatory character of this model is in its ability to reflect not only the comprehension stage but also the text generation stage, thus providing an opportunity to simulate the entire interpretation process from comprehension to generation.
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods ISSN: 2251-6204
Vol. 8, Issue 2, February2018
Page 147
A formal model, as a rule, can be used to interpret different subject areas. In terminology of Yu.D. Apresyan, the model of literary text generation and comprehension is a "common case" and the first step towards understanding some complex phenomena on the way to considering a "specialized case" of the process of revealing author's intent in a literary text of certain genre – a German short story in our study. The first part of the model of literary text generation and comprehension reflects the process of the text creation by the author, and it is related only to the author. The process of the literary text comprehension by the reader is reflected by the second part of the model. The process of interpreting author's intent involves the analysis of linguistic and semantic organisation of the text and presupposes "decoding" of its deep semantics. Modelling of the process of literary text comprehension involves modelling of means and techniques of analysing its content-factual and content-subtextual information aimed at forming the content-conceptual information.
The clue to retrieving the content-subtextual and content-conceptual information should be searched, first of all, in specific properties of a particular literary genre. A German short story as a genre of fiction has a specific structure of content. Based on analysis of such elements of the content of a German short story as narrative events and actions, characters who are experiencing these events and take these actions, time duration and the temporal sequence of these events and actions, space and place as the world around the characters and an arena for the events and actions (Hermes, 1997, p. 7), we determined that the central decisive element of the content of any German short story is the event, because all the other elements are organized around the event and are determined by the event. In such context, the event is a much wider notion than merely an action – it performs the function of generalization, summarising a series of actions that, as a rule, correlate with one of the elements of the text content. Consideration of actions in chronological order and their generalisation to the level of events allows identifying a so-called sequence of events in the text. In our opinion, the sequence of events is related to the content-factual information. We consider that identification of the "macro-event" – the key event of the text around which the entire sequence of events is organised –can be seen as a technique for "retrieving" the content-subtextual and content-conceptual information of a German short story. The macro-event as a core element of the text passes through all components of the sequence of events and correlates with the content-subtextual information, which is not verbally expressed. The procedure of the macro-event identification consists of two stages: first, we need to build the sequence of events in the text; second – to identify the macro-event. We would like to clarify that, speaking about building of the sequence of events, we mean the following operations: to divide the text into semantically relevant and coherent segments, with the start of each subsequent segment coinciding the change of the scene of action, beginning of a new time period, appearance of new characters or a change of action; to entitle each segment and to present the segment titles consistently in the form of the sequence of events. At the second stage, we need to identify the "macro-event" – the key event of the text around which the entire sequence of events is organised. Analysis of the sequence of events, reflecting the content-factual information, and the macro-event, reflecting the content-subtextual information, allows structuring the process of interpretation, or disclosure of the author's intent.
Let us consider H. Böll's short story entitled "Monolog eines Kellners" (Monologue of a Waiter) as an example of building the sequence of events and identifying the macro-event. Here is a brief plot summary of the short story: the main hero, who works as a waiter, begins his monologue from the description of a Christmas Eve dinner in the restaurant of an expensive hotel. After work he goes to his room and orders his Christmas meal – some pea soup, reminding him of his mother, which is symbolic for the Christmas celebration. Suddenly a boy, looking for a partner for playing marbles, comes to his room. He needs a pit for the play, and the waiter makes one on the floor of the room at boy's request. The boy's mother spends the Christmas night in the bar, leaving her son alone. Coming back early in the morning, she breaks her leg, tripping over the hole in the floor. The main hero is fired.
At the first stage, we built a sequence of events: "1. Dinner – 2. Feierabend – 3. Bengel – 4. Spiel – 5. Kündigung".
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods ISSN: 2251-6204
Vol. 8, Issue 2, February2018
Page 148
At the second stage, we identified the "macro-event", including and summarising the maximum amount of events – "The Christmas Eve" (Der Heilige Abend). It is a wonderful clue for decoding author's intent. The hidden meaning of the text is revealed through the fact that one of the main attributes of Christmas celebrations – Weihnachtsbescherung (giving and receiving presents) – traditionally occurs on the Christmas Eve, therefore the author intentionally selects this period of action, providing all the characters of the story with the presents they deserve. The boy and the waiter become Christmas gifts for each other, since both of them were to spend the Christmas Eve alone. The boy is especially happy because the waiter becomes his playing partner. The boy's mother, who leaves her son alone to spend her time in the bar, also gets the Christmas present she deserves. The macro-event "Der Heilige Abend" reflects multidimensionality of the story narrative space, as it not only expresses temporal meanings but also presupposes certain actions connected with such celebration, which are taken or should be taken by the story characters.
Let us consider another example – "Die Tochter" (The Daughter) by P. Bichsel: in this short story, the scene of action does not change, new characters do not appear, duration of the action is limited to a few evening hours, therefore it cannot be divided into segments – it is some kind of a continuous single piece. Only one component of its content is reflected in the title of the short story, referring to one of its characters.
In order to identify the macro-event in the text that cannot be divided into segments, in our opinion, it is necessary to consistently consider the actions of a constant "set" of characters at a specific location in a fairly limited period of time and to generalize them to the level of the event. Here is a brief plot summary of the short story: every evening the parents are waiting for their grown-up daughter working in the city. For this reason, they take their dinner one hour later. While they are waiting for their daughter, they talk about her, discussing such themes as, for example, her resemblance to husband's sister, her fashionable clothes and her life in the city, and try to predict her near future (she will marry and rent a room in the city). The daughter is present only in phrases and thoughts of her parents but never appears in person. The last sentence of the text tells that her mother hears the sound of the arriving train and sets the table for dinner.
Everything happening can be generalized in one event of "Waiting for the daughter" (Warten auf die Tochter). The event of "Waiting for the daughter" reflects the prolonged waiting as the main action of the