Verbal art and linguistic science: A second approximation

2007

The book will appeal to the growing number of scholars working in, and students needing to investigate, the field of literary linguistics, or stylistics. Thus it is meant for both specialists and non-specialists. The intended readership more particularly includes: our students of English linguistic stylistics at the University of Bologna’s Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature (in all 3 of our MA programs), for whom it would be required reading with strongly recommended purchase (approximate numbers yearly: 60). Many of the authors also assure me that the volume will be adopted in stylistics courses they periodically teach. The papers in the volume are on a wide variety of aspects of the language-literature connection, and approach it from a variety of perspectives. All include theoretical considerations and practical applications. Indeed, one of the book’s principle aims is to provide a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the linguistic study of literature, all of them firmly rooted in specific contexts of culture. This it does by hosting papers from scholars working within various grammatical and discursive frameworks, including SFL, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, ethnolinguistics, cultural and translation studies. It also aims at providing illustrative instances of the kind of work currently being done by researchers working in various parts of the academic world, (Europe, Australia, and Africa). Inclusion of a wide range of literary genres and world literatures is a further goal. To this end, the papers deal with, for example: Shakespeare’s plays; modern Austrian authors writing in German, such as Thomas Bernhard, Elfriede Jelinek, Marlene Streeruwitz; Perrault’s Histoires et contes du temps passé and their translations by Angela Carter; the Spanish poets of the Generación del ‘50; Malaysian-Singaporean poets in English; Anglo-American Modernist poets (Frost, Stevens, Pound and D.H. Lawrence) and novelists (Woolf and Conrad); contemporary short stories by Marina Warner and Turkish-German narrative by Feridun Zamoğlu; The Gospel of St. John and Harry Potter. The main message of the volume is that, as Hasan has so succinctly put it, […] in verbal art the role of language is central. Here language is not as clothing to the body; it IS the body.” (1985/1989: 91), and that, as a result, any true ‘appraisal’ of the meanings of the literature text must address that language, with reference to the text’s specific ‘context of creation’. A further message is that, though all the contributors to the volume acknowledge this basic premise, there are a variety of linguistic theories and practices at our disposal for probing the language of verbal art. Separate introductions to each of the contributions will seek to guide above all the non-specialist reader by describing, contrasting and comparing the diverse frameworks that the volume comprises. For a similar purpose, a general introduction diachronically traces key moments in the development of the study of the language of literature seen as socio-cultural practice.

SIGNS - International Journal of Semiotics

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to present and describe a new method for studying pre-speech language. The suggested approach allows correlate epistemology of linguistics to the ideological tradition of other scientific disciplines. Method is based on three linguistic categories – nouns, verbs, and interjections in their motor and expressive qualities – and their relation to the three basic forms of art – graphics (visual art), movement (dance), and sound (music). The study considers this correlation as caused by the nature of the human receptor system. This method explains the nature of art and the phenomenon of aesthetics and allows for the chronological arrangement of important cultural processes; it identifies the fundamental unanimity of the semiotic nature of language and art.

The answer to the question of what language is to literature seems important to discuss for it to have sustained and occupied a distinctive ferment in almost every literary cycle beginning from the Socratesian, Platonian, Aristotelian, traditional grammarians, rhetoricians, formalists, structuralists, post-structuralists and modernists and post modernists thinkers. All these viewpoints see every literary work as an encounter with language but differ in the way and manner of handling of their verbal episteme. Literature is contemporary and with the function of language at the given time. An eclectic overview of literature as an act of language and the language of art will lead to a scholarly effort to be able to justify literature as the sole distinctive actuality of language and of nothing else.

2019

Le sujet de cet article est une théorie de l'acte créateur. Un commentaire sur la "Grande Improvisation" ['Wielka Improwizacja'], monologue dramatique tiré des "Aïeux" ['Dziady'] d'Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), fournira un exemple de l'expression de la force créatrice. Ces réflexions serviront à introduire la thèse suivante sur la nature herméneutique de l'acte de création poétique: au moment de la création poétique, la conscience se développe grâce au pouvoir formateur de l'imagination qui permet aux dimensions sémantique et musicale de l'oeuvre de se manifester conjointement. Pour mieux comprendre cette thèse, nous la situerons dans le contexte de la philosophie allemande et polonaise de la langue et de la poésie (Herder, Novalis, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Friedrich Schlegel, Schelling, Libelt). Nous rappellerons quelques concepts clés: la 'Besonnenheit' (circonspection) de Herder, la 'Selbstdurchdringung des Geist...

Stylistics is considered as a branch of applied linguistics. It analyses literary or non-literary text in an objective way. It has got immense vitality in analysing, understanding and comprehending literary work of art. Therefore I have taken this topic for the discussion. This very article will focus on the term stylistics ,it's role and its distinction from literary criticism. Two approaches of stylistics : linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics are discussed in general terms. This study will focus on which approach is better or more apt for the readers understanding of the literary piece. After all literature is created for the readers/audience(drama, one act plays) so, their understanding it is important. This article will also discuss the relationship between linguistics, stylistics and literary criticism.