Folia Anglistica

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions

PHILOLOGY: SCOPES AND VISIONS Collection of Articles

FESTSCHRIFT: Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions

Table of Contents Vinokur, Gregory Fundamentals of Philology .................................................................................................... 3 Lodge, David Kierkegaard for Special Purposes: the genesis and composition of a novel ............................. 10 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Nobel Lecture in Literature 1970 ............................................................................. 16 Gubbenet, Irina Vertical Context in Retrospect and in Prospect .................................................................... 25 Zadornova, Velta The Philology of Translation............................................................................................... 34 Drabble, Margaret The Oxford Companion to English Literature: Plotting the Past, Predictingthe Future 44 Gvozdetzkaya, Natalia Germanic Philology: Semiotics, Linguistics, Poetics .................................................. 49 Aleksandrova, Olga Philology and Cognitive Linguistics ................................................................................ 56 Nazarova, Tamara Semiotics in an ELT Setting ................................................................................................ 61 Gvishiani Natalia A corpus-based contrastive approach to word-combination ............................................. 79 Baranova, Ludmila The Suprasegmentals of English ........................................................................................ 88 Remneva, Marina Philology at Moscow University (Dean of the Philological faculty) .............................. 115 Konchalovsky, Andrei Human values and the language of cinema ............................................................... 129

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions

Vinokur, Gregory Fundamentals of Philology (An extract from a course of lectures) The question of the range of disciplines to be included within the scope of philology has no ready answer.

Firstly, because the said range is variously defined under different circumstances and, secondly, because the notion of “a philological discipline” itself is not absolutely clear, i.e. there is no clear explanation of the conditions this or that discipline should meet to be included within the scope of the philological course.

As for the range of philological disciplines, it is noteworthy that sometimes it is viewed broadly and sometimes narrowly. The core of the narrow understanding [of philology] is the word, viewed as a product of human culture. In this case the attribute “philological” applies to the disciplines that study the word in its various relations, primarily, though, as a phenomenon and as a tool of literature in the broad sense of the term. It includes, partially or completely, linguistics, stylistics, poetics, rhetoric, the study of poetry, textology, etc.

The broad vision of philology extends far beyond the word to include the expression of human spirit. In this case it embraces the area so wide as to include the entire range of disciplines related to the study of man and society, i.e. not only the history of the language and literature and all related to them questions and issues, but also history of science and philosophy, of art, faith, household, economy, law, state, etc.

There is no doubt however that a solid basis should be provided for including or not including various disciplines within the philological course /…/ irrespective of their scope and limits. What are the parameters that make us treat these disciplines as belonging to one and the same area? The cause for raising this question becomes even more obvious as it grows increasingly clear that with time the relationship between the disciplines included in philology grows weaker. [In fact] this relationship [is now] weakening even between the study of language and literature – the disciplines that since a long time ago have been closely related within the area of human knowledge. With every next generation there are fewer and fewer people who would be simultaneously involved in the study of language and literature, fewer and fewer linguists display interest in the matters of literary criticism, and more and more literary critics lose interest in the facts of language and the skill of analyzing them. Naturally, such [and similar] separation of related disciplines is largely caused by practical differentiation of sciences and their growing specialization, which is the indispensable ground for any scientific progress. Yet, this does not exclude the necessity to obtain the answer to the [aforesaid] question viz. how tangible are the links that predetermine the inclusion of the basically different disciplines into a specific, complete course of philology?

The answer to this and another question – of whether the disciplines of the philological course are one and are united by common ties or whether it is only a seeming unity retained from the times when knowledge was of the general encyclopedic nature – could only be given when we manage to establish what the notion of philology, so variously interpreted, actually implies.

Philology as Text Processing All sciences known to the humanity can be differentiated by whether they study their objects directly i.e. through the organs of perception or [as it were] standing on authority (as they used to say in the past), i.e. by relying on a certain testimony or signs which are perceived not by means of senses but through interpretation or reasoning. The former implies natural sciences, the latter – the area of social studies that rely mostly on the testimony of the written historical documents used by historians (in the broad sense of the term), literary critics, linguists, art critics, ethnographers, economists, historians of science, law and religion – in a word, all those who, one way or another, deal with the past or, very generally, with everything that cannot be directly perceived by human senses.

However, before a literary monument could be used as a source of historical study it should be [analyzed &] processed: the text should be read, translated, dated, and purged from various imperfections, misspellings, insertions. A researcher is expected to restore to the text all the elements that could have been left out or dis3

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions torted in the course of copying (or, as the case may be, multiple rewritings), to understand the content plane and the general character of narration, to explain individual unclear words or expressions, to disclose the meaning of proper names used in the text, etc. Such processing of a literary monument, usually performed within the framework of an academic publication, supplied with facts and details required for its further scholarly investigation, makes the essence of all philological work /…/.

The [above] analysis aiming at making a text suitable for further investigation is often extremely complex and requires [of a researcher] the knowledge of many facts. As time goes by and the monuments are more and more distanced from our [time and] culture, the complexity of such work obviously increases. Texts subject to processing are sometimes written in rare languages and in an illegible handwriting or are, in general, in a very poor condition – to such a degree that a certain part of it must be restored either by relying on other sources or by conjecture. Besides, the content plane of texts may be so complicated or obscure that even a good knowledge of the language and a mastery of deciphering the most intricate script-systems and styles of handwriting will not be sufficient for its adequate reading and understanding. Not infrequently the task of determining the time and place a literary monument’s creation presupposes putting together all sorts of information related to the writing material that had been used, the writing tools, the style of handwriting, illuminations, miniatures, the chronological system, geographical nomenclature and toponymy, facts from the history of language and its dialects, etc. Notwithstanding the complexity of this task, as well as the necessity to have profound knowledge and the various talents for its performance – all this work, from the stated above point of view, will only be of subsidiary, preliminary nature – its sole purpose being to transform a literary monument into a thoroughly analysed source for future scholarly study.

Clearly, in this sense philology can hardly be viewed as a separate scholarly discipline, nor a unity or a system of sciences. In fact, it is a way of using information borrowed from various special fields of learning for a practical task of preparing a certain written document for further scholarly investigation to be handed over in this new form to the learned reader or a researcher. Philology is neither a science nor a scholarly research but a "working tool" as it is sometimes described – a skill, a mastery, a craft (in the positive sense of this word). Occasionally it is viewed as art in the proper sense of the word. As for the sciences that philologists allude to in their work – their scope and number cannot be defined in advance. Here everything depends on the character of the document to be processed – its content plane, language in which it is written, the orthographic system used in the document, the type of the writing material, also whether there are certain elements of artistic graphics and painting in it or not, and many other factors. If such artistic elements are to be found in the document – then the facts from the sphere of the history of arts would be necessary. If the writing material is a parchment or a basil – then the facts from the history and technique of parchment-making are necessary. If it is a treatise on physics – the information on the history of physics would be required, and so on. In this sense, philology has no object of its own: its task is to discover and put together facts and generalisations from other sciences to be used as instruments for further processing of the text by a philologist who would then present it to a learned reader in the panoply of the relevant scholarly facts and tools.

Such interpretation of philology is most widely recognizable and finds absolute support [among the scholars]. Not infrequently, /…/ certain scientists are being described (much in the spirit of aforementioned interpretations) as “experienced” or “knowledgeable philologists” or “well-versed in philological knowledge”, implying their ability to understand complex texts, both form and content, their good knowledge of languages and various orthographic systems, their great erudition /…/. However there is a serious doubt in the [fairness] of the described above approach. It concerns the perception of philology as an indispensable and yet external, preparatory, subsidiary [discipline] to the research work proper and therefore standing separate from scientific analysis and research in the proper sense of these terms.

This separation of a philological research from scientific analysis looks rather illogical. It is wrong to assume that it would be possible to perform a satisfactory philological analysis of a text and then publish it, supplying with relevant [for this science] commentaries, references, critical remarks and a glossary (which is usually the task of a philologist) – without first studying the data (contained in the text) that refer to the disciplines related to this particular written monument. To allow [the possibility of] this approach means adhering to extreme, absolutely groundless formalism /…/.

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Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions It is quite clear that philology could not be of subsidiary or subservient significance for sciences. It is obvious, for example, that a philologist not only assists a historian but also requires a certain help from him. And the matter here is not in the necessity of having two persons [to work on the document]: more often than not “a philologist” and a “historian” co-exist in one face. The crux of the matter is in distinguishing two separate tasks: one is oriented at the text of the monument [the form], while the other – at what is actually said in this monument [the content plane]. And it appears that not only practically but also in the very essence – one task is inseparable from the other, and each of them presupposes preliminary solution of the other one. /…/ There is nothing worse than to think that one can do a research work and arrive at significant generalisations without “digging” into raw material and considering all sorts of “small details” in the text, etc., allowing other specialists – philologists – “to do the chores”. Personal inclinations can certainly vary. But there can hardly exist a “blue-collar worker” in science who would not be able to identify at least problems of general significance. The opposite is also true: there can be no real scientist or scholar who is unable to do the groundwork, who would not feel absolutely free in dealing with the raw material and the so-called scientifically subsidiary matters, and even more, who would not like to peruse texts, who would not think this his own business. By way of giving an example I may recall a famous Moscow scholar Kluchevsky, whose four-volume treatise “A Course of Russian History” contains practically no extracts from [written] monuments and no philological terminology, but who was doubtlessly the best among his contemporaries in the knowledge of data referring to the history of the Moscow State and an outstanding philologist. /…/ General definition of philology It should be postulated once and for all that philology is not a separate science or a scholarly discipline in its own right. To be more precise, there is no such scholarly discipline or a science that, in contrast to other disciplines, could be called “philology”. The empirical content of everything that philology has to deal with is exhaustively covered by the subjects of corresponding disciplines that are studying separate aspects of historical reality. All attempts to associate philology with any specific content along these lines (as we have every right to assert on the basis of a great number of attempts of this kind made since the late 19 th century) have been absolutely fruitless and may hardly yield any positive result.

But reality is given to us as a double-sided entity – as nature and culture. In the first case we perceive it directly – through observation and experiment; in the second case – it is given to us indirectly, in the form of bodily senses, i.e. the kind of matter that, according to Marx, afflicts the mind from the very outset and that in itself is not consciousness per se, but only a shell for senses that realizes and materializes the mind. And in this second case reality is perceived through our interpretation of these sensual indicators, through our understanding of them. These manifestations of senses through which culture is given to us appear to be the third area which lies between science and the studied by it reality.

The heart of the matter is not in the fact that, as it is usually believed, /…/ history deals with the past, i.e. something that cannot be directly observed. Natural sciences also deal with the past – suffice it to mention geology or paleontology. But geology and paleontology restore the past on the basis of the remaining [till our times] material vestiges that are studied and generalized. Meanwhile, cultural studies directed at certain phenomena of modern times do not always deal with the said phenomena directly, i.e. in their direct manifestation but through some mediating sense indicators, through something that in the most general sense could be called their testimonies.

The concept of the testimony should be interpreted very broadly, not merely as a [particular] word or a document, but as a class of objects used daily that “testify” to something, as for example furniture placed not in a bedroom, but in a museum as a sample of a particular artistic style and, thus, being an illustration of a social taste or a vision of the world. If we take [a piece of] this furniture into our hands we will be holding a mere piece of wood and not the style of timbre processing itself, neither its artistic or historical significance. The latter cannot be taken in hands, it can only be perceived, i.e. extracted by making a mental effort from the testimony represented in this case by the processed piece of timbre.

Another example is a piece of painting. A landscape or a portrait – are material objects. However, their existence is not reduced to their material form: canvas, paints, etc. One can imagine a man who is skillful in dis5

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions tinguishing the minute shades or hues of colour and yet who does not see in the picture what there is really present in it, i.e. a particular artistic image. The said image exists in the form of a material object that could be seen, taken in hand etc., but that is perceivable only by the one who can perceive it, i.e. extract it from the mediating matter. In this sense the painting is also a kind of a testimony.

And yet, the most universal, practical and valuable testimony is surely a human language – primarily in its written form. A greater significance of the written word as a testimony as compared to the oral one is reflected in a Latin saying Scripta manent, that corresponds exactly to the Russian saying: what is scribbled in pen cannot be removed with an axe. There is however another Russian proverb that refers to the oral word: “A word is not a sparrow, if it flies out it won’t be caught.” A written word (any text, including oral speech, whose elements are stable and fixed by the tradition, recurrent) – is observable. The oral speech is perceivable dynamically i.e. we perceive it as long as it sounds. When we try to recall something that we heard and that no longer sounds, we thereby perform an act of recording, i.e. create a text that can be reread as many times as necessary and whose content can be [studied and] understood with any degree of depth and precision. This makes a written text an ideal testimony – “alpha and omega of any historical research” as Usener called it.

Obviously, the techniques used in understanding the written word and the testimonies of different sorts differ. However, for the moment we are talking only of general principles /…/ and take the written word as an example of universal testimony for all our future reasoning.

Having assumed that reality is represented by testimonies, in order to make it the object of a scientific or a scholarly research, one should obviously be able to reveal this reality in testimonies – otherwise stated, to be able to see in them the facts they testify to, to be able to read them (as we agreed to view the written word as an example of a testimony). In fact, we do not always fully realize the meaning of reading. At the present high level of society development, reading is viewed as something ordinary, routine – so natural to our daily activities, that the real, highly complicated sense of this superior mental act is specially considered only in exceptional cases. Surely, [the types of testimonies and modes of reading vary], and it is not the same thing to run an absent-minded eye through the sports commentary in a fresh issue of the evening newspaper, to peruse the exiting lines of your favourite poet or to study the faded with time writings of the ancient manuscript in some little known language using the magnifying glass. There is no doubt however that every act of reading, however unsophisticated it might seem for a literate reader, presupposes [the presence of] some degree of learning, skill and in a very general sense – mastery and art.

It appears therefore that reading is an art of extracting meaning from a particular message. The more complex the content plane of a message is the more intricate is the analysis of the means through which the message is expressed which in its turn depends on the character of the material organisation of these means. Thus the substance of a newspaper chronicle or a commercial ad is easier to perceive than a poetic image or a philosophical thought. At the same time it is possible that the essence of a philosophical thought expressed in the reader’s native tongue may appear to him to be more attainable than a commercial ad written in a language whose grammar or graphics are absolutely unfamiliar. There is no doubt therefore that reading is an art that is to be specially mastered, which implies that one may read with different degrees of proficiency and skill. An able reader, versed in techniques applicable to different types of texts in which even the most complicated kinds of message do not escape his mental vision – in a word, a master of reading – is someone who could be called a philologist. While the art of reading itself, in the described meaning, could be adequately called philology.

The term itself is not arbitrary but was predetermined by a historical tradition. In the 18th–19th centuries philology challenged historical studies and some of its branches. In antiquity the skill of extracting facts from literary monuments and the content plane analysis were not separated from each other both forming the essence of literacy, education and general encyclopedic awareness. In our time, the scope of human knowledge extended widely and multifariously and acquired the form of many independent disciplines. But the old philological encyclopedism survived until our time [in human minds] as the ability to recognize, which formerly united various walks of knowledge, and has every right to retain its original name. The question however is not in a name, but in understanding the nature of this activity, which requires additional explanations that follow.

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Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions When we call the skill of reading and extracting meaning – art, it is natural to ask how it will compare with the traditional idea of art, such as music, poetry, painting, etc. Indeed, the activity we imply when we say art usually results in some works of art. Philological art obviously produces no artistic works of the kind and has a different purpose. There is however another type of art that does not create new artistic values, but pursues practical goals through the application of a scope of knowledge or technical skills, creative imaginative thinking and intuition. It appears in practicing a craft under the influence of creative thinking and can be found in technical engineering, surgery, etc. – in all those areas, where under certain conditions (like the presence of talent, etc.) a person’s skill and mastery are displayed to the utmost extent. In our everyday language we call such fulfillment of a task – artistic. The manifestation of skill itself produces an aesthetic impression. Even though it does not produce any aesthetic values, it can be called art, an artistic phenomenon sui generis in the described sense.

Naturally, philology does not reach such perfection in its every act. Generally, it should be viewed as a way to intermediate stages on the ladder that leads from ordinary craft to real art in the specified above sense. At least, this is conceivably the ideal of all philological work that ultimately turns into art.

The ignorant often call philologists pedants or gravediggers and use other similarly unflattering names – sometimes fairly enough. This concerns primarily those to whom a letter is a nothing but a letter. With great diligence and care they rewrite or reproduce in print various manuscripts they have studied, create summaries of other commentaries, sometimes providing clerical assistance to a [proper] scholarly research, but the true message of these manuscripts remains dark to them, completely immersed in the external verbal form. These are not true philologists but apprentices. However the history of philology contains examples of quite a different sort – when the skill of a philologist unravelled the living and vibrant content associated with the world of human thoughts and feelings. Through the masterful application of reading techniques and congenial penetration into the message – the content was taking shape in front of the eyes of the reader as though brought to life by the revived artistic will. Such specific ability to see spirit behind the dead letter is what Boek described as “comprehending the comprehended” – which is, in fact, the ultimate goal of all philology. One of the natural organic aspirations and the incessant desire of every human being at a particular stage of cultural development is to know, to experience, to consider and to feel something that has been known, experienced, considered and felt by other people before him. In this sense nothing can be more apt [in trying to define philology] than Usener’s aphoristic saying: “Philology is as eternal as the interest of a man to a man”.

Philology and History It is known that history became a separate scholarly discipline, in the proper meaning of this term, only in the second half of the 18th century. Earlier it was just a branch of literary art. Naturally the prerequisites for transforming history from a literary narration into a field of research based on a firm ground of logic appeared quite a long time ago. And yet, it turned into a scholarly discipline, i.e. a field of research establishing certain regularities, only when man learned to consider the events of the past and present not merely as a collection of interesting and didactic episodes, facts or a chaotic succession of occasions, but [holistically] as a single dynamic whole. Therefore the appearance of the scholarly definition of history became one of the most significant results of the historical world outlook, of the so-called historical attitude that was one of the most powerful trends in the spiritual life of Europe at the turn of the 18th and the 19th centuries.

The spread of the historical vision of the world was closely connected with the rise of the philosophical idealism of various kinds. The time of Leibniz, Kant and Hegel was associated, among other things, with the formation and the first achievements of the philosophy and methodology of history, that were, at a later stage, drastically reconsidered by dialectic materialism. General movement towards historism also included romantic writers with their interest in national roots and ancient times, with their insightful vision of the peculiarity and uniqueness of various manifestations of national culture. Besides, the same route was followed by some representatives of the general philological knowledge and its branches, as for example Winckelmann, whose treatise “History of Ancient Art” (1764) is usually viewed as the most precise expression of the idea of historical art criticism. Such was the spiritual atmosphere in which [the old] philological tradition was being retransfigured. /…/

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Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions In a long and complex process of history transformation from a literary phenomenon into a systematised scholarly knowledge (in a sense, this process is still under way) – purely historical skills and facts accumulated by the philological tradition should have played a special role. This explains why in multiple works devoted to “the art of writing history”, which precede various attempts to create the methodology of historical discipline and especially in the related works written in the 18 th century so much attention was given to the authenticity of historical sources and the methods of their critical processing, i.e. about the questions so well familiar to the philologists and still preserving their significance for the modern methodology of history. It could be rightly said that before turning into a scholarly discipline, a literary narrative history had to be “impregnated” with the methods of the philological analysis of written monuments. The greatest 19th century historians of antiquity who were studying their subject from the positions of new systematised scholarly history were also true classical philologists. /…/ However, since early historical studies were picking up from philology their strict and exact methods of analyzing the original text – this inevitably led to a growing competition between the two disciplines. A historian naturally could not be satisfied with the perception of a historical fact only as a material for the explanation of the monument – the subject of his research being not the monument itself but a historical reality taken in its systemic development, while the text was merely a vehicle for the acquisition of this subject. Meanwhile, philologists of that period, to the extent they viewed themselves as historians, continued to look at history only as a source of commentaries to the written monument. Such attitude is clearly seen in an incident reported by an outstanding German philologist of the late 19th century Herman Usener: “I still hear the stunning words /…/ pronounced by one of my University teachers when he greeted the new book on the Roman triumph: how can a reasonable person conduct a research on triumph? If he had to explain some place in the book by Livius devoted to it, he could reveal parallel places and explain unclear points. But writing a book [devoted to it]? Who would [think of] asking oneself (von sich aus) about the triumph?” Indeed, philologists of old schools would never raise [such and similar] questions themselves, but would rather consider the questions raised by the text.

Historians would consider this traditional philological approach as a ridiculous old-fashioned pedantry, literalism, while philologists [in their turn] considered these new attempts of historians – as a loud-mouthed dilettantism.

The matter, however, is not just in shifting the focus of attention from the monument to reality, but in recognizing the fact that if the human history is [perceived as] a regular and natural process it should inevitably concern the whole world and all people. This process may variously and with different degree of brightness in its separate stages be reflected in the history of human groups. But it is not any longer the narration of the lives of the chosen few, as they sometimes say, “historical” peoples, and ideally becomes the study of the life of humankind in general. It is clear that this trait of a new historical science which became obvious only with time went counter to the old-established tradition of philological knowledge limited exclusively by the sphere of Greco-Latin antiquity. Today we consider it as an elementary fact that the history of the ancient Greek community is closely connected with the history of human societies and is itself rooted in the culture of more ancient peoples. But some time had to pass before this fact became elementary knowledge for the minds brought up on the basis of the multi-century traditions the range of historical vision of whom was limited by what was written in the works of the ancient poets and prose writers.

One way or another, but in the early 19th century the situation was fraught with the inevitable conflict between philology and history. It appeared that the objects of philological interest of long standing are separated from philological encyclopedic scope – not only through the need of the division of labour but also due to critical reconsideration of the former methods of work. Historical knowledge is emancipated and form a separate area of scholarly knowledge, create a new line of research and academic specialization. Here it is most important that this process of emancipation was typical not only of general history i.e. political, military, the history of states and peoples, but also of all separate branches of historical research in its all-encompassing meaning, which little by little grow into separate scholarly disciplines as the problems became more and more complicated and the amount of materials grew, i.e. the history of literature, the history of the language, the history of art, the history of science, the history of economy, the history of religions, etc. All these separate historical disciplines began to form as separate problems and as separate disciplines separated from philology, which had 8

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions bred and brought them up, in the way the maturing nestlings leave the nest where they grew up. But if philology was thus divided into parts that became to live their separate independent life then philology itself had to cease its existence after becoming subjecteless? It was a form of a conflict between philology and historical disciplines: if history and its separate branches really represent independent disciplines, what would philology have to deal with? But if philology, in spite of this still exists, then how to find compromise between its traditions and those new scholarly needs which are to be covered by history and separate historic disciplines.

No wonder, the beginning of the 19th century became the epoch rich in methodological treatises and corresponding discussions on what philology is and what is its relation to history. The quiet painstaking work on classics and ancient documents yielding plentiful and precious fruits on the soil created by Renaissance first in France (16th–17th centuries the most outstanding figure being Joseph Scaliger), then in Holland and in England (17th–18th century, the most notable figure of the period being Richard Bently), – beginning with the late 18th century began to be accompanied by anxious search of an answer to the general question of the nature of philology and its place in the history of human knowledge and intense elaboration of the questions of philological methodology.

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Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions

Lodge, David Kierkegaard for Special Purposes: the genesis and composition of a novel In 1996 I was invited to address an international conference of Kierkegaard scholars, gathered in Copenhagen to discuss “Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning It.” What follows is a shortened version of what I said on that occasion. I never discovered the meaning of the conference’s title.

This is not an academic paper, but if there were a branch of Kierkegaard studies called (by analogy with linguistics) “Kierkegaard for Special Purposes”, that is where it might belong. In my novel, Therapy, 1 there is a good deal of reference to Kierkegaard, to his writings and to his life-story, and I will try to explain how and why I used him in this way, and what special fictional purposes he served for me.

Readers of novels often assume that the knowledge of a particular subject displayed in their pages must be the visible tip of a submerged iceberg of information, when in fact there is no iceberg – the tip is all there is.

Some years ago I wrote a novel called Nice Work. Much of the story concerns an engineering factory and the professional life of its Managing Director. This was based on a few weeks’ research, visiting factories and “shadowing” a friend who was MD of an engineering company. After the novel was published I received several invitations to address seminars and conferences on business management and industrial relations. In declining these invitations I had to explain that Nice Work contained everything I knew about business management and industrial relations. Of Therapy I might say that it contains more about Kierkegaard than I know, because it contains several passages quoted from his writings, the full meaning of which has certainly eluded me.

If I admit that until I started to write this novel, in the winter of 1992/93, I had never read anything by or about Kierkegaard except Walter Lowrie’s short Life,2 and that in the process of writing it I read only a few of his works, and skimmed through some others, you will not expect any profound or original insights from me into Kierkegaard’s philosophy. But it may be of interest to learn how a novelist could be stimulated and enlightened by even such a hurried and selective encounter with Kierkegaard’s life and work, and how the distinctive fictional and ludic strains in his philosophical writings made them especially suggestive and inspiring to me. If I have any light to shed, it will be on the nature of the creative process, rather than on the “Meaning of Meaning It.” Therapy did not start with my discovery of Kierkegaard, but with a number of loosely linked ideas, situations, and themes, mostly arising out of my own experience. The most important of these elements was depression, and it was the theme of depression which led me to Kierkegaard. As I have grown older I have become more and more vulnerable to bouts of anxiety and depression, though the material circumstances of my life have become steadily more comfortable and secure. This seems to be a fairly common experience. To judge by newspaper reports and magazine articles, there is something of an epidemic of depression in contemporary British society, and in the world generally. Here is a revealing journalistic comment on the phenomenon (published after I had finished my novel) written by Helen Fielding, before she became famous as the creator of Bridget Jones: Next Sunday the Defeat Depression Campaign will be holding a “Fun Run” in Battersea park. Last Tuesday the Samaritans launched a new advertising campaign to encourage despairing people to call them more readily, before they reach the brink. “Ringing the Samaritans should be as commonplace as going to the Post Office,” enthused their communications manager. The Depression Alliance, a self-help group for depressed people, launched two weeks ago, is receiving 250 enquiries every day. This week’s Melody Maker includes a special feature on the extraordinary number of depressive letters the magazine is receiving from young people, and

1 2

Therapy, London, Secker & Warburg, 1995.

Walter Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1970.)

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Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions

how depressing grunge lyrics are…Sometimes it seems that the whole world has just got really fed up…that the globe is being swept by an end-of-millenium fug of existential angst, gloominess and ennui.3 The scale of this spiritual and psychological malaise has provoked a corresponding growth of therapies to cope with it: psychotherapy in all its various forms, pharmaceutical therapy, and numerous alternative and holistic therapies like acupuncture, aromatherapy, yoga, reflexology, and so on. Even shopping is called “retail therapy” these days. If the nineteen-sixties were about politics, the ‘seventies about sex, and the ‘eighties about money, then (it seemed to me) the ‘nineties were about therapy. I decided to write a novel about this general subject – depression, anxiety, loss of self-esteem, and the diverse therapies we use to cope with these things, using one or two narrative ideas I had been turning over in my mind for some time.

I began to develop a character called Lawrence Passmore, known familiarly as “Tubby” because of his portly build, the writer of a successful TV situation comedy, called The People Next Door. He is in his late fifties.

Some of the circumstances of his life correspond to mine; in other respects he is very different from me. He is, for instance, a largely self-educated man, whose formal education ended at sixteen, apart from a spell at drama school.

Tubby is professionally successful, affluent, and in a long-lasting stable marriage to Sally. He has all the material possessions he desires. Yet he suffers from depression, anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks. His only concrete cause for complaint is an intermittent pain in the knee, a mysterious injury which does not respond to surgical treatment. He seeks relief or cure for these afflictions in a variety of therapies.

I have a lot of therapy. On Mondays I see Roland for Physiotherapy, on Tuesdays I see Alexandra for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, and on Fridays I have either aromatherapy or acupuncture. On Wednesdays and Thursdays I’m usually in London, but then I see Amy, which is a kind of therapy too I suppose.

Amy is a female friend in the television business with whom Tubby has a secret but platonic relationship.

What happens to Tubby Passmore in the course of the story is that both his professional and private lives go into a state of crisis soon after the beginning of the novel. First, the producers of his sitcom threaten to hire someone else to write the scripts; then Tubby’s wife stuns him by announcing that she cannot stand living with him any longer and asks for a divorce. These twin disasters jolt Tubby from a state of low-pulsed, nonspecific anxiety and depression into something like a full-blown nervous breakdown. One symptom of his derangement is a series of absurd and unsuccessful attempts to make up for a life-time’s marital fidelity by getting into bed with any woman who has shown the slightest interest in him in the past.

I had two other ideas for this novel at an early stage in its genesis. One was the notion that Tubby would somehow resolve his personal crisis by seeking out his first sweetheart, after an interval of nearly forty years.

And I had long wanted to write a novel in the first-person colloquial style which the Russian Formalist critics called skaz – a type of narrative discourse which is modelled on casual speech rather than writing. I decided that Tubby would tell his story through keeping a journal, but, as he says himself: “I can only write as if I’m speaking to someone…”

So where and how did Kierkegaard come in? As I prepared to start writing, it seemed to me that there was some danger that, if the whole novel were contained within Tubby’s limited perspective and limited language, it might be rather monotonous and ultimately dissatisfying. I felt the need of another discourse, another perspective, another (parallel) story. This is a feature of several of my novels, and something I learned, like many other writers, from James’s Joyce’s use of Homer’s Odyssey in Ulysses, and T.S.Eliot’s allusions to the Grail legend in The Waste Land. Small World, for example, is based on a structural equivalence between the lives of modern academics jetting round the world attending conferences, competing for glory and sometimes love, and the adventures of the knights of chivalric romance. The story of Nice Work recycles, echoes, and inverts the plots of the Victorian industrial novels on which its heroine is an academic expert. For me, conceiving this “structural idea” is usually the most important stage of a novel’s genesis.

When I am preparing to write a novel, I keep a notebook dedicated to that project, in which I write down ideas, observations, character-sketches, provisional synopses, and memos to myself. I wrote in the Therapy 3

Helen Fielding, “Why Are We So Depressed?”, The Independent on Sunday, 2 April 1995. The Samaritans is a voluntary organization in Britain that offers confidential telephone counselling 24 hours a day to people in despair.

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notebook, one day, apropos the restrictiveness of Tubby’s perspective: “Perhaps Tubby should read Kierkegaard.” As noted earlier, all I knew about Kierkegaard at this point was Walter Lowrie’s short biography, which I had read some years before in connection with Paradise News, a novel that deals in part with modern theology (there is just one fleeting reference to Kierkegaard in it.) What I chiefly remembered from Lowrie’s book was that Kierkegaard had been sorely afflicted by depression - or, as he called it, “melancholy” - and that his philosophy and somewhat eccentric life-style were in part driven and shaped by his unceasing struggle with this affliction. I also recalled that he had had a strange, poignant, unhappy, obsessive relationship with a young girl, Regine Olsen, to whom he was engaged for a time. I had a hunch that in Kierkegaard’s depression and lifelong obsession with Regine I would find what I wanted: an intertextual strand for Therapy, a parallel story to Tubby’s, yielding a different perspective on his plight and a different language for talking about it. The fact that I had already decided to write the novel in the form of Tubby’s journal, and that Kierkegaard was one of the great journal writers of literary history, was further encouragement to pursue this notion.

Of course, the idea of a self-educated television comedy scriptwriter reading Kierkegaard – and not only reading him, but becoming obsessed with him to the point of identifying with him, seeing himself as a kind of reincarnation of Kierkegaard, is inherently risible - “absurd” in the ordinary, not the existentialist sense. But that was very much to my purpose. I was determined from the outset to write a novel about depression that would not be depressing, and comedy was the best way to ensure that result. There would be nothing amusing in a novel about an intellectual - a professional philosopher, say - who became obsessed with Kierkegaard. Such structural ideas are like metaphors: there must be difference as well as similarity between the two things compared. There was the additional advantage to me, a complete novice in the work of this difficult writer, that, since the whole novel is narrated by Tubby, it wouldn’t matter if he misunderstood Kierkegaard, as long as he did so in an interesting and instructive way.

Tubby begins his reading in Kierkegaard by choosing, at random, The Concept of Dread, and is put off by its abstract and heavily religious language. But a few days later, he dips into Either/Or, and is hooked. He is particularly struck by the chapter entitled “The Unhappiest Man”: Kierkegaard explains that the unhappy man is never present to himself because he’s always living in the past or the future. He’s always either hoping or remembering. Either he thinks things were better in the past or he hopes they’ll be better in the future, but they’re always bad now. That’s ordinary common-or-gardenunhappiness. But the unhappy man “in a stricter sense” isn’t even present to himself in his remembering or his hoping. Kierkegaard gives the example of a man who looks back wistfully to the joys of childhood which in fact he himself never experienced (perhaps he was thinking of his own case). Likewise the “unhappy hoper” is never present to himself in his hoping, for reasons which were obscure to me until I came to this passage: “Unhappy individuals who hope never have the same pain as those who remember. Hoping individuals always have a more gratifying disappointment.”

I know exactly what he means by “gratifying disappointment.” I worry about making decisions because I’m trying to guard against things turning out badly. I hope they’ll turn out well, but if they do turn out well I hardly notice it because I’ve made myself miserable imagining how they could turn out badly; and if they turn out badly in some unforeseen way (like clause fourteen in the Heartland contract) that only confirms my underlying belief that the worst misfortunes are unexpected. If you’re an unhappy hoper you don’t really believe things will get better in the future (because if you did you wouldn’t be unhappy). Which means that when they don’t get better it proves you were right all along. That’s why your disappointment is gratifying. Neat, eh?

Tubby’s fumbling attempts to understand Kierkegaard reflect my own reading experience, and the things that interest and excite him in Kierkegaard’s writings are those which interested and excited me: the early works rather than the later ones, the secular works rather than the religious ones, the pseudonymous books rather than the ones Kierkegaard published under his own name. In particular I was impressed by Kierkegaard’s insights into the subjectivity of happiness and unhappiness, into the perverse habits of unhappy hoping and unhappy remembering by which we rob ourselves of contentment and fail to enjoy each moment of life for what it is; and I was struck by the paradox that this man could see so clearly into these matters, and yet be so incapable of putting their lessons into practice in his own case.

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The most important act of his life was, arguably, the breaking off of his engagement to Regine, by which he deprived himself of the chance to discover whether he was capable of “ordinary” human happiness in marriage, and was tormented forever afterwards by the awareness of an opportunity foregone. Many of his books, perhaps most of them, can be traced back to this decisive act of indecision, this perverse and self-punishing reversal of a choice (the choice of a spouse) by a philosopher who insisted on the necessity of commitment. What makes Kierkegaard appealing to many nonspecialist readers who have great difficulty in understanding his quarrel with Hegelianism, and find his version of Christianity forbiddingly austere and exclusive, is the man’s own vulnerability, inconsistency, even folly. As Tubby says, contemplating Kierkegaard’s relationship with Regine: “What a fool. But what an endearing, entirely human fool.” Kierkegaard does not lecture us from some pulpit of assumed impartiality, objectivity and omniscience. He speaks to us out of the flux and the fray of human existence. He grounded the perennial problems of philosophy in man’s self-consciousness, which reason alone can never satisfy.

In the course of writing Therapy I discovered many more parallels, or equivalences, between Kierkegaard and Tubby Passmore, than I had anticipated when I first decided that my hero should become interested in the philosopher’s work. This is a common experience in creative writing, and perhaps the most exciting and satisfying aspect of what is for the most part an anxious and labour-intensive vocation. What happens with novels that are structured on some kind of equivalence and contrast between two stories, one original and one received, is that the precursor story begins to influence the composition of one’s own story in unpredictable ways It is as if the two stories, or texts, that have been brought together by the writer, begin to talk to each other, generating ideas and narrative material which would not otherwise have come into existence. The writer happily accepts this unexpected bonus of meaning.

An example: in the latter part of Therapy, Tubby is by chance reminded of his first sweetheart, Maureen Kavanagh, a transparently innocent Catholic girl whom he knew as a teenager in South London in the early 1950s, whose love and devotion he enjoyed for about two years until he pressured her into breaking off the relationship. In the course of writing a memoir of Maureen, Tubby convinces himself that this long-suppressed act of bad faith is the source of his lack of peace of mind and lack of self-esteem. Obviously I intended to draw a parallel between Tubby’s treatment of Maureen and Kierkegaard’s of Regine - and Kierkegaard’s reworking of this experience in the Diary of a Seducer and Repetition. Tubby himself is aware of some of the parallels, and remarks on the resemblance of the two girls’ names: Maureen/Regine. But in the process of composition, a further parallel developed. In the biographies of Kierkegaard I was reading I came across references to Regine’s husband Johan Frederik Schlegel, who had been attracted to her before Kierkegaard won her heart, who successfully urged his suit about a year after Kierkegaard broke off his engagement, and (rather priggishly, it seemed to me) refused to allow Kierkegaard to meet Regine socially or correspond with her in later life. These glimpses of this minor figure in Kierkegaard’s life story suggested to me the character of Bede Harrington, the stiff, pompous rival of Tubby for Maureen’s affections in the Catholic youth club to which they all belong in the 1950s, who eventually marries Maureen and is surprised and not a little suspicious when Tubby turns up forty years later in search of her.

I introduced Kierkegaard into my novel because I felt the need for some other, quite different frame of reference for the investigation of my theme than the character of Tubby Passmore. But merely having Tubby read Kierkegaard, and draw out the parallels between himself and the philosopher, did not seem to expand the horizons of the novel sufficiently. I felt the need for other points of view and other voices. I consequently decided to present Tubby’s manic behaviour after his wife leaves him through the eyes of several other characters, who narrate their stories in the form of dramatic monologues, addressing interlocutors whose responses are implied, not quoted. Tubby’s friend, Amy, describes to her psychoanalyst his belated attempt to turn their platonic relationship into a carnal one, with farcically catastrophic results. Then a female Hollywood film producer, Louise, tells a friend in a telephone conversation how Tubby, whom she met four years previously and tried unsuccessfully to seduce, suddenly reappeared in Los Angeles to invite her out to dinner. His behaviour puzzles Louise until, halfway through the meal:

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I suddenly realised what this date was all about. I realised that it was in this very restaurant that I had tried to seduce him …Yeah! …This whole date was like a reprise of the one all those years ago. The Venice restaurant, the table outside, the Napa Valley Chardonnay…That was why he was so upset that I’d changed my car and the fish restaurant had turned into a Thai restaurant …He was trying to recreate the exact circumstances of that evening four years ago as far as possible in every detail. Every detail except one…Exactly! Now that his wife had walked out on him he wanted to take me up on my offer to fuck him. He’d flown all the way from England specifically for that purpose. It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that my circumstances might have changed, not to mention my mood.

Tubby is seeking a kind of impossible, inauthentic Repetition, like Constantine Constantius in Kierkegaard’s novella of that name, who on his second visit to Berlin tries to repeat exactly the experiences of his first visit, and finds that “The only thing repeated was the impossibility of repetition.” 4 When Louise explains that she has a partner and is pregnant, Tubby is devastated, and quotes Kierkegaard to her “The most dreadful thing that can happen to a man is to become ridiculous in his own eyes in a matter of essential importance.” This remark in the Journals is thought to refer to Kierkegaard’s feelings on discovering that Regine, with whom he still secretly hoped to be reconciled, was engaged to Schlegel.

In another monologue, the producer of Tubby’s sitcom, Ollie Silvers, describes to a drinking companion how the distraught and deranged Tubby proposed in all seriousness to write a television mini-series based on the life of Kierkegaard. Samantha, an ambitious young script editor, relates how Tubby invited her to accompany him to Copenhagen, ostensibly to do research for his Kierkegaard film project, but really, she assumed, to have a sexual fling with her. This was indeed Tubby’s intention, but he is so affected by the poignancy of the relics in the Kierkegaard Room at the Bymuseum, and by the pathos of Kierkegaard’s modest grave in the Assistens cemetery, that he is unable to exploit Samantha’s eagerness to be seduced. As Tubby himself puts it later, in his journal: “Something held me back, and it wasn’t the fear of impotence, or of aggravating my knee injury. Call it conscience. Call it Kierkegaard. They have become one and the same thing. I think Kierkegaard is the thin man inside me who has been struggling to get out, and in Copenhagen he finally did.”

Shortly after I began writing Part Two of the novel, in which the monologues are presented under the names of their respective speakers - “Amy”, Louise”, Ollie”, etc. - I decided that they would in fact be written

by Tubby himself, though this fact would be concealed from the reader until Tubby reveals in Part Three that he wrote them as a kind of therapeutic exercise prescribed by his psychotherapist. What happens therefore is that the reader of the novel assumes the monologues are objective, independent reports of Tubby’s deranged behaviour, but then has to re-evaluate them, as evidence that he is able to recognize his own weakness and folly, and therefore on the way to recovery.

I was surprised that some English reviewers objected strongly to this twist in the novel’s narrative method, as being either incredible in itself, or as retrospectively depriving the monologues of their significance. This seemed to me an illogical response. If I, as author, could create convincing monologues for these fictitious characters, it is surely possible that Tubby, a professional scriptwriter, could do the same for people he knows personally, and plausible that he should develop the exercise suggested by his psychotherapist in this way. I concluded that my reviewers were annoyed at having been “tricked” into thinking the monologues were testimonies independent of Tubby, as if I had broken some fundamental contract between writer and reader. Kierkegaard, of course, irritated and exasperated many of his contemporary readers by the multiplicity and complexity of pseudonymous narrators and embedded narratives in his writings. It occurred to me that I had perhaps written a more Kierkegaardian novel (in a purely generic sense) than I had myself been aware of. Intertextuality is often as much an unconscious as a conscious element of the creative process.

One of the epigraphs to Therapy is taken from Graham Greene’s autobiographical volume, Ways of Escape: “Writing is a form of therapy.” In the original text, the passage continues: “sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is

4

Repetition: an essay in Experimental Psychology, trans. Walter Lowrie (1942) p.70.

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inherent in the human condition.”5 Writing was certainly therapy for Kierkegaard. “Only when I write do I feel well. Then I forget all of life’s vexations, all its sufferings, then I am wrapped in thought and am happy,” he wrote in his journal in 1847 - a passage quoted by Tubby in his own journal. This journal originates in his psychotherapy - he begins it after his therapist asks him to write a description of himself - but it turns into more than an exercise or private confession. As a professional scriptwriter, he has relied upon actors and pictures to flesh out his lines of dialogue. Writing his journal, writing the dramatic monologues, above all writing his memoir of Maureen, he becomes a more selfconscious and literary writer - what he calls in his homely idiom, a “book-writer.” In the process he turns negative, subjective experience into something positive and sharable.

That is what literature does, and it is the great consolation and reward of being a book-writer. Kierkegaard knew it was so; Tubby Passmore discovers it is so; I have certainly found it so. ___________________

5

Graham Greene, Ways of Escape (1980), p.9.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Nobel Lecture in Literature 1970 1 Just as that puzzled savage who has picked up - a strange cast-up from the ocean? - something unearthed from the sands? - or an obscure object fallen down from the sky? - intricate in curves, it gleams first dully and then with a bright thrust of light. Just as he turns it this way and that, turns it over, trying to discover what to do with it, trying to discover some mundane function within his own grasp, never dreaming of its higher function.

So also we, holding Art in our hands, confidently consider ourselves to be its masters; boldly we direct it, we renew, reform and manifest it; we sell it for money, use it to please those in power; turn to it at one moment for amusement - right down to popular songs and night-clubs, and at another - grabbing the nearest weapon, cork or cudgel - for the passing needs of politics and for narrow-minded social ends. But art is not defiled by our efforts, neither does it thereby depart from its true nature, but on each occasion and in each application it gives to us a part of its secret inner light.

But shall we ever grasp the whole of that light? Who will dare to say that he has DEFINED Art, enumerated all its facets? Perhaps once upon a time someone understood and told us, but we could not remain satisfied with that for long; we listened, and neglected, and threw it out there and then, hurrying as always to exchange even the very best - if only for something new! And when we are told again the old truth, we shall not even remember that we once possessed it.

One artist sees himself as the creator of an independent spiritual world; he hoists onto his shoulders the task of creating this world, of peopling it and of bearing the all-embracing responsibility for it; but he crumples beneath it, for a mortal genius is not capable of bearing such a burden. Just as man in general, having declared himself the centre of existence, has not succeeded in creating a balanced spiritual system. And if misfortune overtakes him, he casts the blame upon the age-long disharmony of the world, upon the complexity of today's ruptured soul, or upon the stupidity of the public.

Another artist, recognizing a higher power above, gladly works as a humble apprentice beneath God's heaven; then, however, his responsibility for everything that is written or drawn, for the souls which perceive his work, is more exacting than ever. But, in return, it is not he who has created this world, not he who directs it, there is no doubt as to its foundations; the artist has merely to be more keenly aware than others of the harmony of the world, of the beauty and ugliness of the human contribution to it, and to communicate this acutely to his fellow-men. And in misfortune, and even at the depths of existence - in destitution, in prison, in sickness - his sense of stable harmony never deserts him.

But all the irrationality of art, its dazzling turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its shattering influence on human beings - they are too full of magic to be exhausted by this artist's vision of the world, by his artistic conception or by the work of his unworthy fingers.

Archeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without art. Right back in the early morning twilights of mankind we received it from Hands which we were too slow to discern.

And we were too slow to ask: FOR WHAT PURPOSE have we been given this gift? What are we to do with it?

And they were mistaken, and will always be mistaken, who prophesy that art will disintegrate, that it will outlive its forms and die. It is we who shall die - art will remain. And shall we comprehend, even on the day of our destruction, all its facets and all its possibilities?

Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words. Art inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience. Through art we are sometimes visited - dimly, briefly - by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.

Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales: look into it and you will see - not yourself - but for one second, the Inaccessible, whither no man can ride, no man fly. And only the soul gives a groan...

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Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions 2 One day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark: "Beauty will save the world". What sort of a statement is that? For a long time I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, uplifted, yes - but whom has it saved?

There is, however, a certain peculiarity in the essence of beauty, a peculiarity in the status of art: namely, the convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable and it forces even an opposing heart to surrender. It is possible to compose an outwardly smooth and elegant political speech, a headstrong article, a social program, or a philosophical system on the basis of both a mistake and a lie. What is hidden, what distorted, will not immediately become obvious.

Then a contradictory speech, article, program, a differently constructed philosophy rallies in opposition and all just as elegant and smooth, and once again it works. Which is why such things are both trusted and mistrusted.

In vain to reiterate what does not reach the heart.

But a work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force - they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through - then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfil the work of all three?

In that case Dostoevsky's remark, "Beauty will save the world", was not a careless phrase but a prophecy?

After all HE was granted to see much, a man of fantastic illumination.

And in that case art, literature might really be able to help the world today?

It is the small insight which, over the years, I have succeeded in gaining into this matter that I shall attempt to lay before you here today.

3 In order to mount this platform from which the Nobel lecture is read, a platform offered to far from every writer and only once in a lifetime, I have climbed not three or four makeshift steps, but hundreds and even thousands of them; unyielding, precipitous, frozen steps, leading out of the darkness and cold where it was my fate to survive, while others - perhaps with a greater gift and stronger than I - have perished. Of them, I myself met but a few on the Archipelago of GULAG1, shattered into its fractionary multitude of islands; and beneath the millstone of shadowing and mistrust I did not talk to them all, of some I only heard, of others still I only guessed. Those who fell into that abyss already bearing a literary name are at least known, but how many were never recognized, never once mentioned in public? And virtually no one managed to return. A whole national literature remained there, cast into oblivion not only without a grave, but without even underclothes, naked, with a number tagged on to its toe. Russian literature did not cease for a moment, but from the outside it appeared a wasteland! Where a peaceful forest could have grown, there remained, after all the felling, two or three trees overlooked by chance.

And as I stand here today, accompanied by the shadows of the fallen, with bowed head allowing others who were worthy before to pass ahead of me to this place, as I stand here, how am I to divine and to express what THEY would have wished to say?

This obligation has long weighed upon us, and we have understood it. In the words of Vladimir Solov'ev: Even in chains we ourselves must complete That circle which the gods have mapped out for us.

Frequently, in painful camp seethings, in a column of prisoners, when chains of lanterns pierced the gloom of the evening frosts, there would well up inside us the words that we should like to cry out to the whole world, if the whole world could hear one of us. Then it seemed so clear: what our successful ambassador would 17

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions say, and how the world would immediately respond with its comment. Our horizon embraced quite distinctly both physical things and spiritual movements, and it saw no lop-sidedness in the indivisible world. These ideas did not come from books, neither were they imported for the sake of coherence. They were formed in conversations with people now dead, in prison cells and by forest fires, they were tested against THAT life, they grew out of THAT existence.

When at last the outer pressure grew a little weaker, my and our horizon broadened and gradually, albeit through a minute chink, we saw and knew "the whole world". And to our amazement the whole world was not at all as we had expected, as we had hoped; that is to say a world living "not by that", a world leading "not there", a world which could exclaim at the sight of a muddy swamp, "what a delightful little puddle!", at concrete neck stocks, "what an exquisite necklace!"; but instead a world where some weep inconsolate tears and others dance to a light-hearted musical.

How could this happen? Why the yawning gap? Were we insensitive? Was the world insensitive? Or is it due to language differences? Why is it that people are not able to hear each other's every distinct utterance?

Words cease to sound and run away like water - without taste, colour, smell. Without trace.

As I have come to understand this, so through the years has changed and changed again the structure, content and tone of my potential speech. The speech I give today.

And it has little in common with its original plan, conceived on frosty camp evenings.

4 From time immemorial man has been made in such a way that his vision of the world, so long as it has not been instilled under hypnosis, his motivations and scale of values, his actions and intentions are determined by his personal and group experience of life. As the Russian saying goes, "Do not believe your brother, believe your own crooked eye." And that is the most sound basis for an understanding of the world around us and of human conduct in it. And during the long epochs when our world lay spread out in mystery and wilderness, before it became encroached by common lines of communication, before it was transformed into a single, convulsively pulsating lump - men, relying on experience, ruled without mishap within their limited areas, within their communities, within their societies, and finally on their national territories. At that time it was possible for individual human beings to perceive and accept a general scale of values, to distinguish between what is considered normal, what incredible; what is cruel and what lies beyond the boundaries of wickedness; what is honesty, what deceit. And although the scattered peoples led extremely different lives and their social values were often strikingly at odds, just as their systems of weights and measures did not agree, still these discrepancies surprised only occasional travellers, were reported in journals under the name of wonders, and bore no danger to mankind which was not yet one.

But now during the past few decades, imperceptibly, suddenly, mankind has become one - hopefully one and dangerously one - so that the concussions and inflammations of one of its parts are almost instantaneously passed on to others, sometimes lacking in any kind of necessary immunity. Mankind has become one, but not steadfastly one as communities or even nations used to be; not united through years of mutual experience, neither through possession of a single eye, affectionately called crooked, nor yet through a common native language, but, surpassing all barriers, through international broadcasting and print. An avalanche of events descends upon us - in one minute half the world hears of their splash. But the yardstick by which to measure those events and to evaluate them in accordance with the laws of unfamiliar parts of the world - this is not and cannot be conveyed via soundwaves and in newspaper columns. For these yardsticks were matured and assimilated over too many years of too specific conditions in individual countries and societies; they cannot be exchanged in mid-air. In the various parts of the world men apply their own hard-earned values to events, and they judge stubbornly, confidently, only according to their own scales of values and never according to any others.

And if there are not many such different scales of values in the world, there are at least several; one for evaluating events near at hand, another for events far away; aging societies possess one, young societies another; unsuccessful people one, successful people another. The divergent scales of values scream in discordance, they dazzle and daze us, and in order that it might not be painful we steer clear of all other values, as though from 18

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions insanity, as though from illusion, and we confidently judge the whole world according to our own home values.

Which is why we take for the greater, more painful and less bearable disaster not that which is in fact greater, more painful and less bearable, but that which lies closest to us. Everything which is further away, which does not threaten this very day to invade our threshold - with all its groans, its stifled cries, its destroyed lives, even if it involves millions of victims - this we consider on the whole to be perfectly bearable and of tolerable proportions.

In one part of the world, not so long ago, under persecutions not inferior to those of the ancient Romans', hundreds of thousands of silent Christians gave up their lives for their belief in God. In the other hemisphere a certain madman, (and no doubt he is not alone), speeds across the ocean to DELIVER us from religion - with a thrust of steel into the high priest! He has calculated for each and every one of us according to his personal scale of values!

That which from a distance, according to one scale of values, appears as enviable and flourishing freedom, at close quarters, and according to other values, is felt to be infuriating constraint calling for buses to be overthrown. That which in one part of the world might represent a dream of incredible prosperity, in another has the exasperating effect of wild exploitation demanding immediate strike. There are different scales of values for natural catastrophes: a flood craving two hundred thousand lives seems less significant than our local accident.

There are different scales of values for personal insults: sometimes even an ironic smile or a dismissive gesture is humiliating, while for others cruel beatings are forgiven as an unfortunate joke. There are different scales of values for punishment and wickedness: according to one, a month's arrest, banishment to the country, or an isolation-cell where one is fed on white rolls and milk, shatters the imagination and fills the newspaper columns with rage. While according to another, prison sentences of twenty-five years, isolation-cells where the walls are covered with ice and the prisoners stripped to their underclothes, lunatic asylums for the sane, and countless unreasonable people who for some reason will keep running away, shot on the frontiers - all this is common and accepted. While the mind is especially at peace concerning that exotic part of the world about which we know virtually nothing, from which we do not even receive news of events, but only the trivial, outof-date guesses of a few correspondents.

Yet we cannot reproach human vision for this duality, for this dumbfounded incomprehension of another man's distant grief, man is just made that way. But for the whole of mankind, compressed into a single lump, such mutual incomprehension presents the threat of imminent and violent destruction. One world, one mankind cannot exist in the face of six, four or even two scales of values: we shall be torn apart by this disparity of rhythm, this disparity of vibrations.

A man with two hearts is not for this world, neither shall we be able to live side by side on one Earth.

5 But who will co-ordinate these value scales, and how? Who will create for mankind one system of interpretation, valid for good and evil deeds, for the unbearable and the bearable, as they are differentiated today?

Who will make clear to mankind what is really heavy and intolerable and what only grazes the skin locally?

Who will direct the anger to that which is most terrible and not to that which is nearer? Who might succeed in transferring such an understanding beyond the limits of his own human experience? Who might succeed in impressing upon a bigoted, stubborn human creature the distant joy and grief of others, an understanding of dimensions and deceptions which he himself has never experienced? Propaganda, constraint, scientific proof all are useless. But fortunately there does exist such a means in our world! That means is art. That means is literature.

They can perform a miracle: they can overcome man's detrimental peculiarity of learning only from personal experience so that the experience of other people passes him by in vain. From man to man, as he completes his brief spell on Earth, art transfers the whole weight of an unfamiliar, lifelong experience with all its burdens, its colours, its sap of life; it recreates in the flesh an unknown experience and allows us to possess it as our own.

And even more, much more than that; both countries and whole continents repeat each other's mistakes with time lapses which can amount to centuries. Then, one would think, it would all be so obvious! But no; that 19

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions which some nations have already experienced, considered and rejected, is suddenly discovered by others to be the latest word. And here again, the only substitute for an experience we ourselves have never lived through is art, literature. They possess a wonderful ability: beyond distinctions of language, custom, social structure, they can convey the life experience of one whole nation to another. To an inexperienced nation they can convey a harsh national trial lasting many decades, at best sparing an entire nation from a superfluous, or mistaken, or even disastrous course, thereby curtailing the meanderings of human history.

It is this great and noble property of art that I urgently recall to you today from the Nobel tribune.

And literature conveys irrefutable condensed experience in yet another invaluable direction; namely, from generation to generation. Thus it becomes the living memory of the nation. Thus it preserves and kindles within itself the flame of her spent history, in a form which is safe from deformation and slander. In this way literature, together with language, protects the soul of the nation.

(In recent times it has been fashionable to talk of the levelling of nations, of the disappearance of different races in the melting-pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with this opinion, but its discussion remains another question. Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention.)

But woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another. Silent generations grow old and die without ever having talked about themselves, either to each other or to their descendants. When writers such as Achmatova and Zamjatin - interred alive throughout their lives - are condemned to create in silence until they die, never hearing the echo of their written words, then that is not only their personal tragedy, but a sorrow to the whole nation, a danger to the whole nation.

In some cases moreover - when as a result of such a silence the whole of history ceases to be understood in its entirety - it is a danger to the whole of mankind.

6 At various times and in various countries there have arisen heated, angry and exquisite debates as to whether art and the artist should be free to live for themselves, or whether they should be for ever mindful of their duty towards society and serve it albeit in an unprejudiced way. For me there is no dilemma, but I shall refrain from raising once again the train of arguments. One of the most brilliant addresses on this subject was actually Albert Camus' Nobel speech, and I would happily subscribe to his conclusions. Indeed, Russian literature has for several decades manifested an inclination not to become too lost in contemplation of itself, not to flutter about too frivolously. I am not ashamed to continue this tradition to the best of my ability. Russian literature has long been familiar with the notions that a writer can do much within his society, and that it is his duty to do so.

Let us not violate the RIGHT of the artist to express exclusively his own experiences and introspections, disregarding everything that happens in the world beyond. Let us not DEMAND of the artist, but - reproach, beg, urge and entice him - that we may be allowed to do. After all, only in part does he himself develop his talent; the greater part of it is blown into him at birth as a finished product, and the gift of talent imposes responsibility on his free will. Let us assume that the artist does not OWE anybody anything: nevertheless, it is painful to see how, by retiring into his self-made worlds or the spaces of his subjective whims, he CAN surrender the real world into the hands of men who are mercenary, if not worthless, if not insane.

Our Twentieth Century has proved to be more cruel than preceding centuries, and the first fifty years have not erased all its horrors. Our world is rent asunder by those same old cave-age emotions of greed, envy, lack of control, mutual hostility which have picked up in passing respectable pseudonyms like class struggle, racial conflict, struggle of the masses, trade-union disputes. The primeval refusal to accept a compromise has been turned into a theoretical principle and is considered the virtue of orthodoxy. It demands millions of sacrifices in 20

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions ceaseless civil wars, it drums into our souls that there is no such thing as unchanging, universal concepts of goodness and justice, that they are all fluctuating and inconstant. Therefore the rule - always do what's most profitable to your party. Any professional group no sooner sees a convenient opportunity to BREAK OFF A PIECE, even if it be unearned, even if it be superfluous, than it breaks it off there and then and no matter if the whole of society comes tumbling down. As seen from the outside, the amplitude of the tossings of western society is approaching that point beyond which the system becomes metastable and must fall. Violence, less and less embarrassed by the limits imposed by centuries of lawfulness, is brazenly and victoriously striding across the whole world, unconcerned that its infertility has been demonstrated and proved many times in history.

What is more, it is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, justice nothing. Dostoevsky's DEVILS apparently a provincial nightmare fantasy of the last century - are crawling across the whole world in front of our very eyes, infesting countries where they could not have been dreamed of; and by means of the hijackings, kidnappings, explosions and fires of recent years they are announcing their determination to shake and destroy civilization! And they may well succeed. The young, at an age when they have not yet any experience other than sexual, when they do not yet have years of personal suffering and personal understanding behind them, are jubilantly repeating our depraved Russian blunders of the Nineteenth Century, under the impression that they are discovering something new. They acclaim the latest wretched degradation on the part of the Chinese Red Guards as a joyous example. In shallow lack of understanding of the age-old essence of mankind, in the naive confidence of inexperienced hearts they cry: let us drive away THOSE cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones (we!), having laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it! . . . But of those who have lived more and understand, those who could oppose these young - many do not dare oppose, they even suck up, anything not to appear "conservative". Another Russian phenomenon of the Nineteenth Century which Dostoevsky called SLAVERY TO PROGRESSIVE QUIRKS. The spirit of Munich has by no means retreated into the past; it was not merely a brief episode. I even venture to say that the spirit of Munich prevails in the Twentieth Century. The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles. The spirit of Munich is a sickness of the will of successful people, it is the daily condition of those who have given themselves up to the thirst after prosperity at any price, to material well-being as the chief goal of earthly existence. Such people - and there are many in today's world - elect passivity and retreat, just so as their accustomed life might drag on a bit longer, just so as not to step over the threshold of hardship today - and tomorrow, you'll see, it will all be all right. (But it will never be all right! The price of cowardice will only be evil; we shall reap courage and victory only when we dare to make sacrifices.)

And on top of this we are threatened by destruction in the fact that the physically compressed, strained world is not allowed to blend spiritually; the molecules of knowledge and sympathy are not allowed to jump over from one half to the other. This presents a rampant danger: THE SUPPRESSION OF INFORMATION between the parts of the planet. Contemporary science knows that suppression of information leads to entropy and total destruction. Suppression of information renders international signatures and agreements illusory; within a muffled zone it costs nothing to reinterpret any agreement, even simpler - to forget it, as though it had never really existed. (Orwell understood this supremely.) A muffled zone is, as it were, populated not by inhabitants of the Earth, but by an expeditionary corps from Mars; the people know nothing intelligent about the rest of the Earth and are prepared to go and trample it down in the holy conviction that they come as "liberators".

A quarter of a century ago, in the great hopes of mankind, the United Nations Organization was born.

Alas, in an immoral world, this too grew up to be immoral. It is not a United Nations Organization but a United Governments Organization where all governments stand equal; those which are freely elected, those imposed forcibly, and those which have seized power with weapons. Relying on the mercenary partiality of the majority UNO jealously guards the freedom of some nations and neglects the freedom of others. As a result of an obedient vote it declined to undertake the investigation of private appeals - the groans, screams and beseechings of humble individual PLAIN PEOPLE - not large enough a catch for such a great organization. UNO made no effort to make the Declaration of Human Rights, its best document in twenty-five years, into an OBLIGATORY

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Philology: Scopes and Visions condition of membership confronting the governments. Thus it betrayed those humble people into the will of the governments which they had not chosen.

It would seem that the appearance of the contemporary world rests solely in the hands of the scientists; all mankind's technical steps are determined by them. It would seem that it is precisely on the international goodwill of scientists, and not of politicians, that the direction of the world should depend. All the more so since the example of the few shows how much could be achieved were they all to pull together. But no; scientists have not manifested any clear attempt to become an important, independently active force of mankind. They spend entire congresses in renouncing the sufferings of others; better to stay safely within the precincts of science.

That same spirit of Munich has spread above them its enfeebling wings.

What then is the place and role of the writer in this cruel, dynamic, split world on the brink of its ten destructions? After all we have nothing to do with letting off rockets, we do not even push the lowliest of handcarts, we are quite scorned by those who respect only material power. Is it not natural for us too to step back, to lose faith in the steadfastness of goodness, in the indivisibility of truth, and to just impart to the world our bitter, detached observations: how mankind has become hopelessly corrupt, how men have degenerated, and how difficult it is for the few beautiful and refined souls to live amongst them?

But we have not even recourse to this flight. Anyone who has once taken up the WORD can never again evade it; a writer is not the detached judge of his compatriots and contemporaries, he is an accomplice to all the evil committed in his native land or by his countrymen. And if the tanks of his fatherland have flooded the asphalt of a foreign capital with blood, then the brown spots have slapped against the face of the writer forever.

And if one fatal night they suffocated his sleeping, trusting Friend, then the palms of the writer bear the bruises from that rope. And if his young fellow citizens breezily declare the superiority of depravity over honest work, if they give themselves over to drugs or seize hostages, then their stink mingles with the breath of the writer.

Shall we have the temerity to declare that we are not responsible for the sores of the present-day world?

7 However, I am cheered by a vital awareness of WORLD LITERATURE as of a single huge heart, beating out the cares and troubles of our world, albeit presented and perceived differently in each of its corners.

Apart from age-old national literatures there existed, even in past ages, the conception of world literature as an anthology skirting the heights of the national literatures, and as the sum total of mutual literary influences. But there occured a lapse in time: readers and writers became acquainted with writers of other tongues only after a time lapse, sometimes lasting centuries, so that mutual influences were also delayed and the anthology of national literary heights was revealed only in the eyes of descendants, not of contemporaries.

But today, between the writers of one country and the writers and readers of another, there is a reciprocity if not instantaneous then almost so. I experience this with myself. Those of my books which, alas, have not been printed in my own country have soon found a responsive, worldwide audience, despite hurried and often bad translations. Such distinguished western writers as Heinrich Bรถll have undertaken critical analysis of them.

All these last years, when my work and freedom have not come crashing down, when contrary to the laws of gravity they have hung suspended as though on air, as though on NOTHING - on the invisible dumb tension of a sympathetic public membrane; then it was with grateful warmth, and quite unexpectedly for myself, that I learnt of the further support of the international brotherhood of writers. On my fiftieth birthday I was astonished to receive congratulations from well-known western writers. No pressure on me came to pass by unnoticed. During my dangerous weeks of exclusion from the Writers' Union the WALL OF DEFENCE advanced by the world's prominent writers protected me from worse persecutions; and Norwegian writers and artists hospitably prepared a roof for me, in the event of my threatened exile being put into effect. Finally even the advancement of my name for the Nobel Prize was raised not in the country where I live and write, but by Francois Mauriac and his colleagues. And later still entire national writers' unions have expressed their support for me.

Thus I have understood and felt that world literature is no longer an abstract anthology, nor a generalization invented by literary historians; it is rather a certain common body and a common spirit, a living heartfelt unity reflecting the growing unity of mankind. State frontiers still turn crimson, heated by electric wire and 22

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions bursts of machine fire; and various ministries of internal affairs still think that literature too is an "internal affair" falling under their jurisdiction; newspaper headlines still display: "No right to interfere in our internal affairs!" Whereas there are no INTERNAL AFFAIRS left on our crowded Earth! And mankind's sole salvation lies in everyone making everything his business; in the people of the East being vitally concerned with what is thought in the West, the people of the West vitally concerned with what goes on in the East. And literature, as one of the most sensitive, responsive instruments possessed by the human creature, has been one of the first to adopt, to assimilate, to catch hold of this feeling of a growing unity of mankind. And so I turn with confidence to the world literature of today - to hundreds of friends whom I have never met in the flesh and whom I may never see.

Friends! Let us try to help if we are worth anything at all! Who from time immemorial has constituted the uniting, not the dividing, strength in your countries, lacerated by discordant parties, movements, castes and groups? There in its essence is the position of writers: expressers of their native language - the chief binding force of the nation, of the very earth its people occupy, and at best of its national spirit.

I believe that world literature has it in its power to help mankind, in these its troubled hours, to see itself as it really is, notwithstanding the indoctrinations of prejudiced people and parties. World literature has it in its power to convey condensed experience from one land to another so that we might cease to be split and dazzled, that the different scales of values might be made to agree, and one nation learn correctly and concisely the true history of another with such strength of recognition and painful awareness as it had itself experienced the same, and thus might it be spared from repeating the same cruel mistakes. And perhaps under such conditions we artists will be able to cultivate within ourselves a field of vision to embrace the WHOLE WORLD: in the centre observing like any other human being that which lies nearby, at the edges we shall begin to draw in that which is happening in the rest of the world. And we shall correlate, and we shall observe world proportions.

And who, if not writers, are to pass judgement - not only on their unsuccessful governments, (in some states this is the easiest way to earn one's bread, the occupation of any man who is not lazy), but also on the people themselves, in their cowardly humiliation or self-satisfed weakness? Who is to pass judgement on the light-weight sprints of youth, and on the young pirates brandishing their knives?

We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood.

And the simple step of a simple courageous man is not to partake in falsehood, not to support false actions!

Let THAT enter the world, let it even reign in the world - but not with my help. But writers and artists can achieve more: they can CONQUER FALSEHOOD! In the struggle with falsehood art always did win and it always does win! Openly, irrefutably for everyone! Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art.

And no sooner will falsehood be dispersed than the nakedness of violence will be revealed in all its ugliness - and violence, decrepit, will fall.

That is why, my friends, I believe that we are able to help the world in its white-hot hour. Not by making the excuse of possessing no weapons, and not by giving ourselves over to a frivolous life - but by going to war!

Proverbs about truth are well-loved in Russian. They give steady and sometimes striking expression to the not inconsiderable harsh national experience: ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD. And it is here, on an imaginary fantasy, a breach of the principle of the conservation of mass and energy, that I base both my own activity and my appeal to the writers of the whole world.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions *Delivered only to the Swedish Academy and not actually given as a lecture.

1. The Central Administration of Corrective Labour Camps.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1968-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture AllÊn, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993 _______________________

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Gubbenet, Irina Vertical Context in Retrospect and in Prospect Both reading and listening are indisputable parts of all speech events. When something is said it always presupposes a listener, when something is written it always presupposes a reader. In both cases it is required that the recipient of the message (or the addressee) should be able to understand not only every element of the protracted syntagmatic whole but also to get at the information which, although belonging to this whole, is not openly revealed in its linear sequences. In other words, the reader or the listener should understand any speech event not only on its 'horizontal' but also on its 'vertical' axis.

In every literary text there is usually more than meets the eye. It is common knowledge that to understand a text one has to be familiar with the meanings of words and their connotations, with different types of wordcombinations, the stylistic value of certain syntactic constructions, etc. A literary text cannot be understood without its prosody being taken into account. Very serious complications arise when linguopoetic level is reached.

But there is always something in a literary text which is not immediately observable. In other words, there is always 'vertical' context. It does not meet the eye the way 'horizontal' context does, but to a very great extent it forms and conditions our understanding of a work of literary art. The reader who is satisfied with the obvious is confined to only scratching the surface. Complete understanding is based on shared background knowledge of the author and his readers in all imaginary spheres of human life.

Vertical context, in the first place, comprises everything that pertains to language, literature, history and culture in the broadest sense of the word and that is present in the text as an elaborate system of diverse clues.

The philologist should be competent enough to identify those clues, explain their role in the general structure of the given text and form judgments concerning their appropriateness.

We do not need much proof to conclude that language itself, particularly if it is a foreign language, is often a source of ambiguity and confusion. Even when reading a text in our mother tongue or listening to people we are every now and then puzzled and perplexed by an infinite variety of nuances and innuendoes that we find beyond our comprehension. With a foreign language, especially a language like English, the situation is aggravated immeasurably.

Leaving aside a larger problem endemic in English society (that a writer to The Times very appropriately defines as 'the preference for the coded nuance, the cultivated ambiguity which turns every exchange into a cipher') a mere glance at a number of words which all seem to bear on the same general idea reveals the essence of argument. If we take, for example, a group of words denoting a state of confusion, disorder and uncertainty, like puzzle, baffle, confuse, perplex, muddle, bewilder, on the surface there seems to be very little difference between one or any other of them. From careful study of unilingual and bilingual dictionaries it transpired that only confuse appears to leave no or little doubt as to its exact meaning: to make a person so uneasy in his mind that he cannot think clearly or act sensibly. Among the rest only perplex where confusion is (according to the definitions and examples) tinged with worry stands out more or less clearly. All the others are much more difficult to understand, cf. puzzle = to make smb confused; baffle = to be too difficult or strange for smb to understand, solve or explain; bewilder = to confuse smb; muddle = to confuse smb mentally.

The superficial similarity, the semblance of identity is there but the true meaning goes deeper and its unravelling takes a careful examination of innumerable situations and years of experience to learn and appreciate the writer's or the speaker's choice of this or that word, to say nothing of making one's own easily and unhesitatingly. Only by persistent study of slowly and painstakingly garnered information can a foreign student hope to build up reserves of knowledge which would enable him to use each word in accordance with its proper significance, expressiveness and force. Thus one eventually comes to realise that puzzle does not only suggest a feeling of anxiety because a person does not understand something but also that a problem has too many sides or is too involved, e.g. What puzzles me is how the burglar got into the house without setting off the alarm, or The complicated instructions puzzled me. Bewilder emphasised the idea of being troubled with doubt about 25

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions how to decide or to act, e.g. He was bewildered by the city traffic. Baffle implies a stopping of thought process, being without ideas. When someone admits to being baffled, he means that something is beyond thought.

Muddle carries it even further, making a person feel stupid, e.g. You've muddled me up completely.

Another group of synonyms may also be used as an illustration: earnest, frank, sincere. The dictionary definitions again don't seem to help much although one can get from them at least an inkling of the words' proper meanings and use. Thus frank, according to the examples, is not used to describe people (a person is candid or truthful but NOT frank) but rather their actions and views: a frank reply, discussion, exchange of ideas. Expressions like to be (perfectly) frank with, quite frankly lead one to believe that the adverb frankly is used more than the adjective and that the latter implies a degree of plain speaking, not mincing words. Sincere, little used in current English, is a kind of quality: a sincere person is not trying to be anything that he isn't, it is part of hid character. It can be understood to imply a person's attitude to life. An earnest person is very serious and usually believes that what he says is very important; it has a very faint overtone of being slightly boring.

Another group of synonyms - accurate, correct, exact, precise - can be used as one more example illustrating those hidden resources accumulated in the process of our linguistic experience. Again a laborious study of the definitions and examples brings us to the conclusion that the only word a foreign learner can use with a fair degree of certainty is correct, as it adds nothing to the basic meaning of them all: without error or mistake (cf. accurate = correct, free from error; correct = accurate and without mistakes; exact = correct in every detail, accurate, precise; precise = stated clearly and accurately, exact). Exact presupposes the complete agreement in every detail with the facts or model, correct and including all the necessary details, e.g. an exact description of the criminal. Accurate emphasises the careful effort to make something agree exactly with the facts or a model: an accurate account of the accident. An accurate account may not be exact, it is correct as far as it goes, almost exact. Precise refers to expression rather than fact: His directions were precise, but not accurate. Without all this information in the background how can the reader do justice to the following passage:

'Be more precise about the time of call, Mrs Kirby'.

She enjoyed being precise, Wexford could see, and see Howard also saw, that to her precision and accuracy were not the same thing. His eyes flickered doubtfully. She wanted to impress, to earn praise, even if she did so through a precise inaccuracy. (Rendell) The importance of this background information becomes even more conspicuous when we are dealing with set expressions and idioms. As is well-known the latter are hardly ever used in the way they are registered in dictionaries. Native speakers have a particular fondness for playing with their idioms, transforming them in every way, sometimes changing them beyond recognition. In this case, too, what can be seen on the surface is no more than a vague reference, a hint that can only be taken on the basis of previous experience, of some earlier acquired knowledge stored up in the recesses of our memory. For example, Boris tried to keep still, take

deep breaths and make his mind a blank, but the butterflies inside him turned into wild gees flapping around.

This vivid picture of the emotional state of a character is only clear to the reader for whom butterfly is the keyword bringing to the surface the idiom have/ get butterflies in one's stomach/ tummy (to feel nervous, anxious, etc. esp. when waiting for smth). Or another example where the same emotion is rendered in no less picturesque way: My heart clashed against my back teeth. It can only be understood if the reader is familiar with the idiom have one's heart in one's mouth.

The same applies to certain syntactic patterns and grammatical forms. On the horizontal level they seem to mean no more that what they say, so the reader who is unaware of the sociolinguistic implications may easily be baffled by the following example: Mrs Brandon said she wished to hear why no one had taken up any breakfast to Miss Morris.

'I am sure I could hardly say, madam', said the housekeeper.

'Then it is not much use', said Mrs Brandon with icy politeness. 'Miss Brandon's lawyers are going to send out someone to look after the house until suitable arrangements are made. The person who is sent will give you any orders that are necessary. That's all, thank you'.

If Mr Grant could have got under a sofa, he would gladly have done so. The Goddess armed with Jove's thunders was a formidable being who he had never suspected. (Angela Thirkell)

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Philology: Scopes and Visions One might well be surprised by Mr Grant reaction and decide that the young man is obviously overreacting. What is there in those words pronounced 'with icy politeness' that is likely to give him the jitters and make him see in a gentle sweet-tempered woman an infuriated goddess? But the reader whose understanding is based on previous experience will have no difficulty in evaluating such a way of terminating an interview as too curt and bordering on arrogance, indicating to the other person in no uncertain terms not only her subordinate position but also a strong disapproval of her failure to cope with her professional duties.

In some situations, like in the case of place-names, information of sociolinguistic character is so important that without recourse to vertical context the text becomes totally incomprehensible, e.g. Here Captain

Massingham pursued, in a now legendary sort of splendour, a life of hunting, shooting, fishing, cricketing weeks, Epsom, Ascot, Goodwood, Newmarket and Doncaster. (M. Keane) This is not a mere enumeration of places but a life style of an English country gentleman during the period between the two World Wars.

A similar situation can be observed in the following example: ' God, it's great to be back in dear old London

Town! The place where I was born, you know. You might call me a citizen of the world – I've an apartment in Paris and production company in Hollywood, I've been married in Las Vegas and divorced in Mexico, I've my bank account in Switzerland and I pay my taxes in Liechtenstein – but only feel at home here, right here'. (R. Gordon) Again the place-names are particularly significant as they represent a certain life style – this time that of a film-star, a modern globe-trotter and jet-setter who, in his heart of hearts, remains, under all this veneer of sophistication, what he has always been – a Londoner and an Eastender born and bred.

An address is nearly always a clue to the social status, way of life and the very personality of a literary character: Willow Vale, she thought, would be a quiet tree-lined road near Wimbledon Common, number 24

large, Victorian; Mrs Chichester an elderly gentlewoman with rigid notions of behaviour, demanding but just, whose servant was leaving her because she wouldn't, or couldn't afford to pay her adequate wages in these inflationary times. A sombre over-furnished hall, a large and rather chilly drawing-room where an old lady sat listening to classical music or reading In Memoriam column in a quality newspaper. (Rendell) But the clues that always (or nearly always) signal to the reader the presence of vertical context are literary allusions and quotations. These purely philological parameters usually stand out in the text of a literary work.

The reader is either well aware of their presence in the text because he recognizes them for what they are or he can 'feel' them owing to their vocabulary, syntax and rhythmical organization being 'alien' to those of the author's 'own' text.

The use of allusions and quotations in English literature is characterized by a number of peculiarities. Each literary epoch, school or trend, to say nothing of different genres or authors' individual predilections, usually turns to a different set of sources in search of quotable material. There has existed, however, a 'common stock' that the writers of at least the last two centuries appear to have been drawing on more or less regularly. We find this common stock included, to a greater or lesser degree, in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Though towards the end of the 20th century it can no longer be stated with any degree of certainty how common this common stock is. English literature has always been most allusive of all European literatures, but how much of this vast heritage that has been passed from generation to generation over the centuries, mainly through the medium of education, is still shared by the native speakers (and readers) themselves? Scholars have been commenting on this great divide between generations with profound regret and bitterness. The words Nancy Mitford wrote in the early sixties were probably prophetic: Our children never saw that world so they cannot share

our sadness. There is an immense gap between us and them caused by unshared experience. Never in history have the past and present been so different; never have the generations been divided as they are now. This 'unshared experience' is first and foremost cultural experience.

This view is echoed by another author: Two of the most enduring poems in the English language are high-

ly derivative. Gray's elegy is staffed with plunderings from Pindar, Horace, Dante and others; Milton's Lycidas is an amazing miscegenation of Christian and classical imagery (plus a touch of Ancient Brit). So why have they endured? Because they took some of the most powerful ingredients of a commonly understood culture, and ordered them in an evocative manner. Today we can't do it, having lost the common culture and therefore the evocations that go with it/ (D. Pickett, 1986)

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Philology: Scopes and Visions While having to agree with this pessimistic view (an analoguous situation can be observed in Russia) one is nevertheless bound to point out that 'evocations' should not be written off as a total loss. True, the general level of culture has deteriorated but even a superficial study of some column in The Times would reveal a marked tendency on the part of the columnists to go in for quoting on a fairly impressive scale, while a quick look at the letters to the editor would prove how quick the readers are to pick up and cap very recherché quotations, some of them way out of the common run.

So in the hope that the good old Oxford Dictionary of Quotations is not (both literally and metaphorically) a closed book for a modern philologist let us turn to literary allusions and quotations in modern English literature.

Their sources which have been established and described (Гюббенет, 1991) are as follows: 1) Shakespeare; 2) King James's Bible; 3) literature of ancient Rome and Greece and classical mythology; 4) children's literature, including nursery rhymes; 5) classical English and world literature.

Quotations from Shakespeare are very numerous. They take up about one third of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Shakespeare is quoted more often than any other author and these quotations are sometimes quite long and run into lengthy stretches of the text, occasionally being confined to a single phrase, a wordcombination or even a separate word. Though sometimes abridged, they are hardly ever deformed; some slight alterations may only involve a replacement of one word by another without the identity of the quotation being seriously impaired.

The Merchant of Venice at the National. She was playing Jessica, and her father had seen her in the part a month before. Another of those whispers hissed at him from the text – 'But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit'. (R.Rendell) 'I am alone the villain of the earth', he said to the face in the glass, 'and I feel I am so most'. (R. Rendell) 'I could be bounded in a nutshell', he quoted to himself, 'and thick myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams'. (R. Rendell) His eyes had a naked empty look in them, expressing a total failure, an utter poverty, a lack of love, of possession, of imagination. 'Thou art the thing itself', Wexford thought, 'unaccomodated is no more than such a poor, bare animal as thou art'… (R. Rendell) Large and statuesque, she had a face designed, it seemed, to register the noble virtues, courage and fortitude. She was patience on a monument, smiling at grief. (R. Rendell) His face softened and grew sad. 'Why such high cost, he quoted, having so short a lease, dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?' (R. Rendell) The magical light of Suffolk became wan and opalescent, and the sky as the earth turned its farthest from the sun, almost green with a streaking of long butter-coloured clouds. Blood is nipped and ways be foul and hightly sings the staring owl. From cottage chimneys the smoke of log fires rose in long grey plumes. (R. Rendell) 'Her stepfather', he added, 'was a great guy for sound and fury'. (R. Rendell) The Biblical source is of a particular importance as far as English literature is concerned. Quite a few biblical phrases have come into the English language and are registered in dictionaries of idioms. Biblical vertical context is usually presented in the form of allusions when a reference is made to an episode or a character.

Quotations as a rule are not very long:

'Why is he such a long time?' she said to Loring, and Loring who was a romantic young man thought that it was in just such a tone that the Shunamite had said to the watchman: Have you seen him whom my soul loveth? (R. Rendell) 'And that business wasn't all vanity and vexation of spirit', he said. (R. Rendell) Feeling like Ahab in Naboth's vineyard, Wexford addressed the statue aloud. 'Hast thou found me, mine enemy?' (R. Rendell) That kind of indifference to time, that sublime idleness, is very attractive. I often think it was that quality in her, rather than her religious zeal, that made Christ praise Mary and contemn Martha, the bustling busy worker. (R. Rendell)

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Philology: Scopes and Visions She didn't know that demanding money with menace is a popular pastime punishable by the law. But neither, probably, had Cain heard the word murder before he struck his brother down. (R. Rendell) Wexford grinned broadly. 'How beautiful on the mountain are the feet of him who bringeth good tidings!'

(R. Rendell) The literature of ancient Rome and Greece, both in original and in translation, as well as classical mythology used to play an important role in English literature. But the number of classical allusions and quotations has decreased considerably since the beginning of the past century. Due to the decline of classical education lengthy quotations in Latin and Greek have given way to allusions of a very general character while the amount of straightforward quotations has been reduced to a limited number of stock phrases which can be found not only in dictionaries of quotations but also in dictionaries of idioms and, not infrequently, in appendixes to dictionaries of modern English usage, e.g.

Lovat came slowly, and with him his inevitable interpreter, his fidus Achates, Sergeant Hutton. (R. Rendell) 'He wandered for miles and this dog had found him and looked after him like a lost lamb. It reminded me of Romulus and Remus and the wolf'. (R. Rendell) Another light glowed ahead of him, a round red light like a Cycpol's eye. (R. Rendell) Briefly Wexford caught a glimpse of them mirrored darkly in the pool of water, three strange people crossing the Styx into their own underworld. (R. Rendell) You could see that the money he paid at their doors was silver tribute to Aphrodite, to whose worship the Phoenicians of the Californian coast have built more temples than ever the old Phoenicians of Cyprus did; and for a few moments, as he sat in the steep darkened galleries, Turgis would be shaken and intoxicated by the golden presence as she flashed through with her train, Eros and the Hours and the Graces, though of all that retinue only two remained with him to see him home. Pothos and Himeros, shapes of longing and yearning.

(J.B. Priestley) 'I might say I've come from the Inland Revenue…' – 'Facilis descensus Averni'. / Light in the descent to Avernus! (R. Rendell) Children's literature manifests itself mainly in the form of allusions and, to a lesser degree, in the form of quotations from nursery rhymes. This source plays a less prominent part as compared with the others, e.g.

'I'll let you in if you like', said the young man with a lazy indifference of the Frog Footman. (R. Rendell) 'West wasn't born in London, he was born somewhere down your neck of the woods. There'll be those around who'll know him, recognize him'. Baker spoke as if the whole of Sussex were a small rural spot, his last sentence having a Will in the Willows flavour about it as if West had been the Mole and subject to the scrutiny of many bright eyes peering from the boles of trees. (R. Rendell) 'I do know the name of this girl who works for him. I've spoken to her on the phone. It's – well, it's Polly Flinders'. – 'It's what?' – 'I know. Now you can see why it stuck in my mind. Actually, it's Pauline Flinders – Heaven knows what her parents were thinking about.' (R. Rendell) Quotations from classical English literature, particularly from poetry, are numerous in modern English fiction. Poetical sources are very rich and varied. The number of poets whose works are regularly quoted is very great. Side by side with the lines from the great masters' works we may come across bits and pieces from some obscure authors of the past.

Poetical quotations often vary in size, from the complete text of a poem to a stanza, a line, or, very often, a word-combination. They are more often than any others subjected to all kinds of modifications. For example:

'Trouble with us we've not been ambitious. We've been content to sport with Amaryllis in the shade'. (R. Rendell) They entered Hyde Park, a sea of precocious daffodils. Ten thousands saw I at a glance. (R. Rendell) 'A bracelet of bright hair about the bone', Wexford thought shuddering. (R. Rendell) 'I know everybody here', Teal said, 'the oldest inhabitants and the ships that pass in the night'. (R. Rendell) Had either or both of them felt her a hindrance, a shadowy and undesired third? (R. Rendell) 'The paths of glory', said his uncle, 'lead but to the grave'. (R. Rendell)

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Philology: Scopes and Visions English prose is more scantily represented and mainly in the form of allusions, not only to well-known literary works, their titles, characters and episodes but also to various facts of history of literature. For example:

'Come', said Wexford, 'let us shut up the bos and the puppets, for out play is played out'. (R. Rendell) He had finished reading Brideshead Revisited and had begun to wonder whether being a Catholic at Oxford and burning incense on one's staircase might not be better than India. (R. Rendell) A Gothic mansion flat was what he had in mind, in West Kensington, say, a kind of diminutive House of Usher with floors of ebony blackness and feeble gleams of encrimsoned light making their way through the trellised panes. (R. Rendell) The reception clerk in one of them recommended him to Mr Azziz and Alan liked the name, feeling it was right for him. It reminded him of A Passage to India and seemed a good omen. (R. Rendell) Indeed one might say with Wilde that the good ended happily and the bad unhappily, for this is the meaning of fiction. (R. Rendell) It is important to note that the way quotations are used in a literary work often differs widely from the way they had originally been created or registered in the dictionary. Like idioms proper, they undergo a great deal of modifications consisting largely in their being abridged, truncated or, occasionally, changed almost out of recognition on account of replacements in their text.

Some of them, particularly those of aphoristic character, have actually found their way into dictionaries of idioms, which has given some scholars reason to class them as figures of speech. This is undoubtedly true but only with respect to those that have been abused to the point of their allusive character being almost completely obliterated. But even they can acquire new freshness and special appositeness when used by a master of style in an appropriate situation:

In a painfully authentic upper-class accent the Chief Inspector said affectedly, 'May as well get on to the Chief Constable of Mid-Sussex, my dear. We were up at Oxford together, don't you know?' He squeezed his face into a kind of snarling grin. 'All among the bloody dreaming spires', he said. 'I hate that sort of thing'.

'Were they?'

'Were they what?'

'At Oxford together?"

'I don't know. Something like that. It may have been the playing fields of Eton". (R. Rendell) The first quotation is from Matthew Arnold, the second is attributed to the Duke of Wellington. Both, together with the deliberately affected 'don't you know?' serve not only to strengthen the character's strong disapproval of the way he is being approached on a matter of business through his superior but his contempt for the Establishment and old-boy network.

This example is, of course, a far cry from an ordinary matter-of-fact use of a quotation. For all its obvious allusiveness the quotation in the following example is nothing more than a figure of speech though perhaps more rare than a similar-sounding one (cf. the long arm of the law – the long arm of coincidence): 'As I see it,

sir', he said, 'the Geoff Smith business is coincidence. We have to forget him and begin again'. – 'Coincidence!

No, Mike, I won't have that. Its arm isn't that long!' (R. Rendell) A quotation is a very effective stylistic device, though an author who overplays it can easily turn it into a tedious and irritating trick. But when introduced skillfully and in moderation, they add considerably to the charm and fascination of a literary work.

Some remarkable examples of the latter can be found in lighter kinds of modern fiction, more specifically, in the genre of crime fiction of which Ruth Rendell is one of the most outstanding representatives. In her use of allusions and quotations she is both predictable and original. When the title of the book is A Guilty Thing Surprised and the main character is a Wordsworthian scholar it is only natural to find in the text a large number of quotations from Wordsworth. If the title of the novel is Sins of the Fathers and the main character is a clergyman, it is only to be expected that we find in the text a large number of quotations from the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer. But that is where the predictability ends.

The two main characters in Sins of the Fathers, Inspector Wexford and Mr Archery are characterized through the way they quote, although this is not the kind of detective story that can be described as 'an overcivilized joke with some detection taking place on the side' (J. Symons, 1972). Both quote extensively, each for 30

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Philology: Scopes and Visions reasons of their own. Inspector Wexford is a compulsive quoter. He produces with equal ease casual little phrases in a bantering tone of light-hearted conversation and large chunks of text in a heavy moralizing tone of a prophet endowed with superior wisdom, cf.

'I could do with a cup of coffee', he said. – 'Two minds with but a single thought'.

'I saw him', he said. – 'You?' said Charles at last. – 'I', said Wexford, 'with my little eye'. and

Wexford cleared his throat. 'Are you familiar with Henry the Fourth, Part One, sir?'

Slightly puzzled, Archery nodded. Wexford stopped under the arch that led to the coaching yard of The Olive and Dove. 'The quotation I had in mind is Hotspur's reply to Mortimer when he says he can call spirits from the vast deep'. Startled by Wexford's deep voice, a little cloud of pigeons flew out from the beams, fluttering rusty grey wings. 'I've found that reply very useful to me in my work when I've been a bit too optimistic'.

He cleared his throat and quoted, '"and so can I and so can any man. But will they come when you call to them?"'

But the reader also has a feeling that quotation spotting and capping is for Wexford not only a pure source of intellectual enjoyment. It is also a means of self-assertion, of proving to the world at large that he is anybody's equal. Characteristically, he justifies this claim by parading not his considerable professional achievements but his erudition:

…Suddenly, meeting Villiers' arrogant eyes, a couplet came into his head. He quoted it, not only because it was apt but because he felt a pressing unquenchable need to show Villiers that he wasn't a moron, that he wasn't the flat-footed unlettered country policeman the writer thought him. '"So much he soared beyond or sunk beneath The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe"'.

For Henry Archery quoting is part of his education. Far from parading it he is inclined to hide his light under a bushel for fear of embarrassing others or showing his vulnerability, e.g.

'When I get home from work I like to sit by the French windows for ten minutes and look at the garden'.

'To sit in the shade and look upon verdure?'

After his words were out Archery was sorry he had spoken. He didn't want to put this suburban engineer in a false position. or

Wexford said gently, 'There is nothing more I can do'.

Archery shrugged and quoted softly, almost as if he could not stop himself, 'He took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person…"' Then he jumped, his expression suddenly contrite. 'Forgive me, Chief Inspector. That was an appalling thing to say".

He only quotes at the moments of high nervous tension or excitement brought on by deep interior conflicts, like when parting from the woman he got himself emotionally entangled with:

'Jenny kissed me', he said to the vine. Jenny could just be short of Imogen. 'So what?'

It appears worthwhile to adduce here the complete text of the charming Rondeau by James Leigh Hunt that this line comes from:

Jenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in; Time, you thief, who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in: Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.

A particular quotation in R. Rendell's novels may occasionally be loaded with extraordinary significance which makes it a key to the interpretation of the plot and the author's message. In Sins of the Fathers it is an engraving on a gravestone in a village churchyard. The characters fail to identify it admitting though that 'it sounds vaguely familiar': 31

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Go, Shepherd, to your rest; Your tale is told.

The Lamb of God takes Shepherds to his fold'.

This vague familiarity is not at all surprising as the text seems to be composed of well-known words and phrases like shepherd telling his tale, the Lamb of God, go to one's rest, take to his fold , faintly reminiscent of the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer and Milton's poetry. When a women in a souvenir shop tells Mr Archery that these lines belong to their 'local bard', she adds: 'He was just a boy when he died and he is buried

here. Of course a lot of people who come here are under the impression he was a shepherd, you know. I always have to explain that one time shepherd and poet meant the same thing'. This immediately produces a spark of recognition. 'Lycidas', said Archery.

Eventually this mysterious epitaph that keeps recurring throughout the book helps bring to light the circumstances that were to play a decisive role in determining the fortunes of the characters. There is an almost religious sense hidden in this: the hand of 'inglorious Milton' that drew those simple lines hallowed by the great literary tradition proves to be the hand of Providence.

Thus the ideas of linguostylistic analysis and that of vertical context are inextricably intertwined. Linguostylistic analysis can only be successfully carried out on the basis of a thorough understanding of a text at the intersection of its horizontal and vertical levels.

On the whole the idea of vertical context appears to be not very new or original. Nobody could deny the importance of prior knowledge; an 'embedded quotation' or a 'buried reference' is a commonplace in literary criticism. But some additional remarks should be made and a couple of accents shifted to bring the problem into sharper focus of a modern philologist's attention.

Mutual understanding presupposes shared experience in all spheres of human activity. The concept of vertical context is based on understanding a text. Why do people understand or don't understand it? It is an intrinsically philological problem as philology for the most part studies something elusive, intangible, inconspicuous or covert. To understand properly a work of literature we want something that is over and above our linguopoetic education, a kind of sympathetic understanding based not only on our knowledge of the writer's own world but also on that of his readers today and in the bygone days. How can one otherwise be expected to understand and appreciate the following passage:

This year I shall keep a diary. Surely the reflections of a busy G.P. will be as valuable for future scholars as other hand mirrors held to history?

The doctor trespasses into the lives and thoughts of his patients deeper than Parson Woodford into those of his parishioners, Fanny Burney those of the Georgian beau monde or Mr Pooter those of Gowing and Cummings. As Jean-Paul Sartre percieved, doctors know men as thoroughly as if they had made them.

My only problem is a style to dress yesterday's memories roused each morning with the discipline of a bugle-call. Like Pepys, 'up betimes and to the surgeries, dispatched many vexatious patients with sundrie draughts, which methinks doth acte onlie on the minde‌'. Or like Gilbert White, 'The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity; and the parish swarms with children, mostly maladjusted'. Future scholars may find as instructive as Selbourne my Kent market town of Churchford, seen for a quarter of century through the wise and compassionate eyes of a dutiful journeyman doctor. (R. Gordon) To wind up this brief discussion of one of the most intricate and involved but fascinating philological problems it seems appropriate to introduce another piece of writing where an abundance of quotations may prompt an inquisitive reader to try to spot them and relate each other to its source or even to make an inspired guess at the identity of the author:

A great deal has been said on the merits and demerits of speech and silence.

Speech has always been praised as a wonderful gift of men. Its powers are truly unlimited. By word alone you can work miracles, to play on the finest strings of the human heart: to persuade and dissuade, to uplift to the heights of ecstasy and plunge into the depths of misery and gloom, to exalt and to crush into dust. Since time immemorial people have been aware of the magic of speech and used it effectively of which plentiful evidence can be found.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions But poets and philosophers seem to be giving preference to silence either because, as a popular saying goes, speech is silver and silence is golden, or because our earth is too full of dreary noises. Anyway, one can't agree that silence is the virtue of fools. It is very often meaningful: the cruellest lies are often told in silence and silence could also be the perfect herald of joy.

But what makes silence so particularly appealing, especially to an overwrought mind is that it is often associated with calm and quiet, serenity and peace: words divide and rend, silence is most noble till the end. Coriolanus calls his wife 'my gracious silence' – the highest tribute paid to a women. Silence is conducive to pensiveness and gentle mirth, to peaceful repose and to inspiration. It has a music of its own, more musical than any song.

But silence is not always a blessing. Sometimes it can be disquieting, ominous and alarming like it is before an approaching storm, or cold and hopeless like the silence of a tomb, or burningly and desolately hot like the silence of the desert. So one may conclude with Carlyle: speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead. Therefore we must learn both.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Zadornova, Velta The Philology of Translation In the 18th century Europe translation was the domain of writers, thinkers and literary critics, who tried to assess the value of translation, its influence over national literature. At the turn of the 20th century the main trends in translation theory were still rooted in literary and philosophical traditions. The German philosophers F. Schleiermacher and W. von Humboldt “treated translation as a creative force in which specific translation strategies might serve a variety of cultural and social functions, building languages, literatures and nations” 1.

No wonder that in pre-revolutionary Russia when translation theory was only taking its shape it was dominated by a literary-critical (literary-historical) approach, which was started in this country by K. Tchukovsky, who displayed his views on translation in an article published in 1919 2.

Beginning with the 1930-40s translation studies, both in this country and abroad, gradually became linguistics-oriented and followed, at different times, various linguistic trends, such as structuralism, descriptivism, transformational grammar, cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, etc. One of the advantages of the linguistic approach consists in providing translation with a sound linguistic basis. Before trying to transpose a text from one language to another a translator should be aware of similarities and differences between the systems of the languages in question. In this way it is possible to establish objective correspondences between languages and justify all the necessary deviations from the source-text. It can be assumed that structuralism has been most beneficial for translation theory, especially when we think of such outstanding linguists as Roman Jakobson 3 and Jiří Levý4. Transformational generative grammar was of some use for machine translation5. Computer-based corpus linguistics has introduced a new dimension into translation studies making them more up-to-date and objective6. Corpus-based studies have undoubtedly revolutionized the process of compiling dictionaries.

And yet the importance of linguistic theory for translation should not be overestimated especially when what we deal with is verbal art. Some proponents of linguistic approach tend to regard literary translation as part of the general translation theory7. Thus the same methods and techniques are applied mechanically to translation of informative texts and translation of fiction. This is methodologically wrong for, as we know, technical translation (научно-технический перевод) and literary translation (художественный перевод) are basically different processes and require different methods of research. It becomes clear that none of the two approaches (neither literary-critical, nor linguistic), taken as such, can satisfy a modern translator of verbal art.

Only an overall, philological approach enables the translator to produce a version that would approximate the original in all its complex globality. The aim of this paper is to reveal the indissoluble connection between literary translation and philology and to show how translation serves philological purposes.

Translation has been a transmitter of culture, a mediator in the process of cultural exchange ever since countries and languages have been in contact with each other. As everybody knows, translation of verbal art is an activity that helps to internationalize human culture; it makes the world literature available to the speakers of an infinite variety of languages. In this way the national heritage becomes the general heritage of mankind.

We can even go so far as to say that there are writers, such as Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, whose work has been translated into so many languages that they have become truly international, have become part of the world literature.

The earliest translations we know of were from Greek into Latin. Having “borrowed” from Greek culture, the Romans benefited greatly from it. Up to the 19th century European culture, in its turn, was influenced by translations of the classical Greek and Latin literature. In Elizabethan England translation was viewed as a means of enriching the English language, since English was considered to be not sufficiently developed in comparison to classical languages and contemporary Italian, French or Spanish8. In England preference was given to Roman authors and Greeks living in the Roman Empire due to the fact that most educated people knew or spoke Latin. Among genres most popular were moral and political philosophy, history and biography. The unsurpassed master here was Plutarch, whose “Parallel Lives of Eminent Greeks and Romans” was regarded as a collection of examples of most virtuous behaviour9. Plutarch was translated into English by Thomas North. One 34

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Philology: Scopes and Visions of the famous readers of his translation was Shakespeare, who was described by Ben Jonson as “having small Latin and less Greek”. Shakespeare, as is well known, used it as a source of his three great Roman plays: “Julius Caesar”, “Antony and Cleopatra” and “Coriolanus”.

Another example of how translation can enrich the target-culture is the English Gothic novel in France.

Despite hostile political relations between France and England at the end of the 18th century literary contacts continued and “there was massive export of the English Gothic novel to the other side of the Channel” 10.

French translations of novels by Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, William Godwin and others became very popular in France and provided a source of inspiration to French novelists like Theophile Gautier and Victor Hugo.

In the 19th century, German and Russian culture was absorbing Shakespeare. The Russian history of Shakespeare started in 1748 when A. Sumarokov published his adaptation of “Hamlet”. Since then “Hamlet” alone has been translated more than 20 times. Most Shakespeare’s plays have as a rule several Russian translations. It is not surprising, therefore, that quite a few lines from Shakespeare have passed into the Russian language and can be said to have become part of Russian linguistic culture 11.

It can be assumed that the Russian people who were born at the turn of the 20th century knew Shakespeare mostly due to N. Polevoy’s and A. Kroneberg’s translations, which were included in “Shakespeare Works”, edited by S. Vengerov and published by “Brockhaus-Ephron”. Even people belonging to younger generations may know the famous lines: «О женщины, ничтожество вам имя» (N. Polevoy), «Распалась связь времен» (A. Kroneberg), «Она меня за муки полюбила, / А я ее за состраданье к ним» (P. Veinberg). These lines have become part and parcel of the Russian philological tradition; we still remember them by heart, although some of them distort the meaning of the original.

The peak of Shakespeare’s popularity in Russia falls on the last third of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century. It is not surprising, therefore, that quotations from Shakespeare often occur in A. Chekhov’s works (e.g. “Seagull”, where Arkadina quotes from Polevoy’s translation of “Hamlet”), whereas I. Turgenev, F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, A. Blok, A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva and others make all kinds of references and allusions to Shakespeare’s plays 12.

The interesting point about the actual use of Shakespearean quotations in the Russian literature (and oral tradition) is that they often acquire ironic or humourous connotations 13. The whole story of “Othello” is often interpreted humourously. Othello’s passionate temperament, the scenes of killing Desdemona and Othello’s suicide are perceived as exaggerated and unnatural by the 20th century readers. Thus, it is not accidental that the line «Молилась ли ты на ночь, Дездемона?», which comes from P. Veinberg’s translation (1864), has been often used as a jocular threat or when talking about a very jealous man. Incidentally, the original line (“Have you pray’d to-night, Desdemona?”) is not even included in “The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations”, which means that it is not recognized as a quotation. Another passage from the same translation – «Она меня за муки полюбила, /А я ее за состраданье к ним» - nowadays is treated mockingly, as a trivial poetic cliché 14.

The line from “King Richard III” «Коня, коня, полцарства за коня» can be used in a modified form when “horse” is replaced with any desired object and “half-kingdom” with another ‘high price’. Thus, e.g., in “Three Sisters” by A. Chekhov Vershinin says: «Чаю хочется. Полжизни за стакан чаю! С утра ничего не ел». The expression «сорок тысяч братьев» («Но я ее любил как сорок тысяч братьев любить не могут» - “I lov’d Ophelia: forty thousand brothers / Could not, with all their quantity of love, / Make up my sum…” (Hamlet V, 1: 291-293) has become a jocular intensifier. It was especially frequently used by A. Chekhov in ‘negative’ contexts: «Отлетаев был глуп, как сорок тысяч братьев, и невежа страшная…» («Двадцать девятое июня»); «Встречал я новый год у одного своего старинного приятеля и нализался, как сорок тысяч братьев» («Ночь на кладбище»).

Speaking of the factors that determined the popularity of Shakespeare’s lines in Russia it should be pointed out that popularity of this or that translation does not depend on its adequacy. There are many examples in the history of translation when incorrect versions became part of the Russian cultural life due to popular theatrical productions or the translator’s outstanding personality.

N. Polevoy’s famous maxim «О женщины, ничтожество вам имя!» is a case in point. Polevoy’s “Hamlet” appeared in 1837 and since then all stage productions had been based on it until 1860. Many of his lines became catch-phrases, even those that were added by Polevoy himself (e.g. «За человека страшно»). «О женщи35

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Philology: Scopes and Visions ны, ничтожество вам имя!») is a would-be equivalent of Shakespeare’s “Frailty, thy name is woman” (I,2): Hamlet, reflecting on his mother’s behaviour, makes a generalization. Replacing “frailty” by «ничтожество» Polevoy gives us a wrong idea of Shakespeare’s attitude to women. Shakespeare had never in his works regarded women as base and petty; even his negative heroines cannot be described in such a way. The translator ought to have preserved the exact meaning of the word: «слабость, хрупкость». Attention should be also drawn to the fact that Polevoy has changed the actual division of the sentence: Shakespeare addresses not a woman, but an abstract concept “frailty”, which makes the whole phrase less categorical (in Polevoy’s interpretation it sounds almost like a verdict). The same line has been variously rendered by means of the Russian language as «Ничтожность, женщина, твое названье!» (A. Kroneberg), «О женщины, вам имя вероломство!» (B.Pasternak), etc. A. Radlova is closer to the source-text in terms of content: “Слабость – имя / Тебе, о женщина», whereas M.Lozinsky preserves its structure («Бренность, ты зовешься женщина!»). But nobody remembers these versions because they do not sound aphoristic enough.

One more example of a quotation that has become a popular expression due to an impressive performance comes from J. Bryansky’s translation (1833) of “King Richard III”: «Коня, коня, полцарства за коня!». The translation is again inadequate – in the original the price is twice as large: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” (Y, 4: 7) Bryansky himself was an actor and he created his version exclusively for stage purposes. What brought the play real success in Russia was a production featuring P. Mochalov as Richard III. In some cases a quotation from Shakespeare became widely known in Russian not through Shakespeare translation but through the Russian translation of some other literary work where this quotation was used. This is what happened to the famous opening line of “Richard III” “The winter of our discontent…”. It is known to the Russian reader as «Зима тревоги нашей» because it was used as the title of the Russian version of John Steinbeck’s novel. Although the opening line of the play has been repeatedly translated as «зима междуусобий наших» (Druzhinin), «злая зима» (Radlova), «зима распрей» (Leitin), it so happened that not a very accurate translation of the line stuck in the memory of Russian readers and became part and parcel of their life (may be due to its iambic rhythmical structure). Similarly, the Russian translator of W. Faulkner’s novel “The Sound and the Fury” (O. Soroka) did not turn to the existing translations of “Macbeth”, where the line has been borrowed from, but rendered it as closely to the global purport of the novel as possible – «Шум и ярость». Although these phrases have definitely become quotations, not all the Russian speakers associate them with Shakespeare’s name. They are linked in most minds with the names of the contemporary American writers.

It is interesting to note that for various reasons a translation can appear to be more quotable than the original. It applies, e.g., to the concluding lines of “Romeo and Juliet” in T. Shchepkina-Kupernik’s translation based on N. Grekov: «Нет повести печальнее на свете, / Чем повесть о Ромео и Джульетте», which are familiar even to a layman. The English original, on the contrary, does not have a status of quotation since it is not registered in “The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations” (“For never was a story of more woe / Than that of Juliet and her Romeo”). It should be admitted that the translation does better than the original as far as the sounding and the rhythmical arrangement of the lines are concerned.

Thus, popularity of this or that Russian translation of Shakespearean quotations depends on various extralinguistic reasons, which are not always easy to discover. One thing is clear: only lines that are rhythmically balanced, sound well and are of aphoristic character become recurrent and find their way into everyday speech.

The content-plane and faithfulness to the original play a subservient role.

Whatever work of literature is translated it should not be dealt with in isolation, but should be viewed against the background of a certain literary tradition. Every society has implicit and explicit beliefs concerning the practice and function of literature, and these should be taken into account by a translator of verbal art.

Some words may evoke literary, or poetic associations due to the way they have been used in poetry and fiction. A translator should be aware of these associations and look for words in the target-language which would produce a comparable effect. Colour terms, for example, may arouse different associations in different literary cultures 15. Thus, it has been noticed that various shades of “red” (especially when referred to “sky”, “moon”, “sun”) have been used in English poetry and fiction to symbolize danger, disaster, death or foreshadow tragic events. This is how the adjective “crimson” is used in the concluding lines of “Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier: 36

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Philology: Scopes and Visions “The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blewtowards us with the salt wind from the sea.

Although the novel ends happily for the main characters, the reader is left with the feeling that the mystery of Rebecca’s death will shadow them for ever.

In Ch. Dickens’s “Great Expectations” “red” and “purple” appear in those chapters where suspense and tension are at their highest, e.g., when Pip meets Magwich for the first time, or when it becomes clear that all attempts to save Magwich are doomed to failure: “…and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed” (Ch. 1); “Beyond the dark line there was a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon” (Ch. 53); “There was the red sun, on the level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into black” (Ch. 54).

The Russian equivalents of the English colour terms used in the translation by M.Lorie are «кровавокрасный», «красный», «лиловый»: «…а в небе длинные кроваво-красные полосы перемежались с густочерными» (гл. 1); «За черной далью болот светила узкая полоска чистого неба, огромная красная луна едва на ней умещалась» (гл. 53); «Вон красное солнце на горизонте опускается в лиловую, быстро чернеющую мглу… (гл. 54). The adjectives «кроваво-красный» and «лиловый» are preferable to «красный», since the latter is associated in Russian with something positive due to its links with the folklore tradition («красный» in «красная девица», «красное солнышко», «красный денек» realizes its etymological meaning “beautiful, fair”).

Colour terms are also skilfully used by John Galsworthy in “The Man of Property” to create the atmosphere of suspense. As the action progresses and the dramatic quality increases various shades of “red” are introduced into the text. These words usually refer to the “sky”. Falling in love with Bosinney and overwhelmed by her feelings Irene exclaims: “There is such a glorious sunset. The sky’s all ruby still – so beautiful!” (Part II, Ch. 2). In spite of the ‘positive’ context “ruby” is suggestive of the approaching tragedy, which the two lovers cannot even suspect at the moment.

The same symbolic significance may be ascribed to “purple” in “purple sky”: New-lighted lamps were gaining mastery, and the faces of the crowd showed pale under that glare while on high the great white clouds slid swiftly, softly over the purple sky” (Part II, Ch. 2).

June is starting to realize what is happening between her fiancée and Irene. The colour of the sky, along with other expressive means, is meant to echo her doubts and fears.

The Russian translator (N. Volzhina) uses the dictionary equivalent of “purple” – «пурпурный»: Недавно зажженные фонари мало-помалу разгоняли сумрак, и человеческие лица казались бледными под их светом, а наверху большие белые облака быстро и легко летели по пурпурному небу.

But judging by the contexts in which «пурпурный» is used in Russian literature it never suggests anything menacing or sinister (e.g. «Небо было такое пурпурное, теплое и ласковое, манившее туда, где оно касалось краем темной зелени лугов», Maxim Gorky). Negative connotations can be rendered by other Russian adjectives denoting shades of red colour, for instance, «багровый» (багровый дым пожара) or «лиловый» (лиловая мгла). The translators who have rendered “red” as «красный» and “purple” as «пурпурный» failed to do justice to the original, for they did not take into account the associative power of words in the two languages.

Modern translators tend to treat a piece of literature as an isolated, autonomous unit. Its links with the literary tradition are often disregarded. It has been observed that quite a number of English classic literary works (novels and plays), which were translated 40-50 years ago by well-known Russian translators (such as K. Tchukovsky, R.Rite-Kovalyova, E.Kalashnikova), have been recently translated again. While the earlier translations seem to neutralize and level out the stylistically expressive elements of the text, the translations of the last decades, on the contrary, display increase in the expressivity of informal character (informal words and phrases turn into substandard ones, ungrammatical and dialect units are often rendered by means of rude and vulgar 37

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Philology: Scopes and Visions words) 16. This tendency can be accounted for by the translators’ natural desire to get closer to the original, which became especially prominent in the last decade.

Here are some examples of Eliza’s speech from Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” with the translations by E.Kalashnikova (1946) and P.Melkova (the 1980s): 1) I wouldn’t have ate any, only I’m too ladylike to take it out of my mouth. Подумаешь, нужна мне ваша конфета! Просто я хорошо воспитана и знаю, что вынимать изо рта некрасиво (Kalashnikova). Сдалась мне ваша конфета! Я бы и не стала ее есть, только я слишком хорошо воспитана, чтобы плюваться (Melkova).

2) I ain’t got no parents. Нет у меня родителей (Kalashnikova). Нет у меня никаких родителев (Melkova).

3) Now you know, don’t you? And to pay for em t-oo: make no mistake. Теперь поняли, наконец? И не беспокойтесь: буду платить, сколько полагается (Kalashnikova). Теперь расчухали? И платить за них собираюсь, не сумлевайтесь!

(Melkova) 4) Here! What are you sniggering at? Чего вы тут нашли смешного? (Kalashnikova) Вы чего ржете? (Melkova) 5) Walk! Not bloody likely! Чего-о? Пешком? К чертовой бабушке! (Kalashnikova) Че-его? Пешком топать? К чертям собачьим! (Melkova) Technically speaking, Melkova’s translation should be regarded as a more faithful one, since it introduces Russian substandard, uneducated speech as an equivalent of English Cockney, a social and regional dialect spoken by London lower classes. But the picture becomes more complex if we regard this translation in a broader philological context. The translator should remember that Eliza Doolittle, in spite of producing ugly and disgusting sounds, was from the very start meant to be attractive. Cockney has become a conventionalized literary dialect with a long-standing tradition, which bears little resemblance to the living dialect with which it was associated. English writers somehow manage to endow their Cockney characters (e.g. Dickens’s Sam Weller in “The Pickwick Papers” or Mrs. Gamp in “Martin Chuzzlewit”) with certain charm. Russian substandard, rude or vulgar speech does not have any charm for the Russian reader, especially if the speaker is a young lady. Kalashnikova’s Eliza is somebody the Russian audience can like and feel sympathy for, whereas Eliza created by Melkova can at best arouse curiosity, at worst – irritation.

It becomes clear that adequate translation includes many more things besides being as close as possible to the source-text, and this is very well demonstrated by the best Russian translations of the world literature.

Translators should be guided in their use of equivalents by the stylistic and aesthetic functions of the given element in the source-text and, above all, by a sense of measure determined by an adequate level of literary culture and acquaintance with literary tradition.

Functional approach appears to be indispensable to literary translation. In fact, the theory of functional correspondence 17 has always been a guiding principle for those translators who approached translation philologically. According to this theory, similar expressive means in different languages can affect the reader of the original and the translation in different ways. Therefore, the translators should concentrate not on the form of this or that element in the source-text, but on its informative, stylistic or aesthetic function, and try to understand what elements of the target-language are able to perform the same (or similar) function in the translation.

All imaginable digressions from the original are relevant not by themselves, but only from the point of view of the function they fulfil in the system of the whole.

This can be illustrated by turning to an extract from Jerome K.Jerome’s “Three Men in a Boat” and its two Russian translations 18. The episode tells us about the narrator leafing through a medical encyclopedia and discovering all possible diseases he might have. The comic effect is based on the accumulation of medical terms in 38

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the text and referring all these words, denoting serious diseases, to an obviously healthy person. The humorous situation reaches its climax when the narrator discovers that the only disease he has not got is “housemaid’s knee”.

The two Russian versions are different in the sense that M. Salye (1994) tends to be formally close to the original while M. Donskoy and E. Linetskaya’s (1979) approach is functional. It can be noticed that the names of the diseases in the English text are arranged in alphabetical order. Salye has translated them literally, without paying attention to the fact that the enumeration has become chaotic: «холера» cannot come in an encyclopedia before «воспаление коленной чашечки» and «подагра». Besides, «oбщая предрасположенность к инфекциям», though rendering the meaning of “zymosis”, is too long and boring. Donskoy and Linetskaya, on the contrary, have used names of diseases that would come in alphabetical order in Russian, thus rendering not the words but the principle according to which they are arranged in the source-text: анемия, Брайтова болезнь, воспаление легких, грудная жаба, тифозная горячка, ящур. «Ящур» fits here perfectly because not only is it the last word in most dictionaries, but it also sounds funny, since it is known as a cattle disease.

The choice of «родильная горячка» for “housemaid’s knee” is a brilliant example of functional approach in action. The translators have found a Russian medical term denoting a distinctly feminine disease. When translated literally by Salye – «воспаление коленной чашечки» - , the joke falls flat, for it is a disease common for both men and women. Salye has been guided not by the functions the words perform in the system of the aesthetic whole, but by the words as such, whereas Donskoy and Linetskaya have proceeded from the global humorous effect produced by the passage.

Translation not only functions as a mediator between literatures and cultures, it also helps to understand literary texts. The comparison of a source-text with all its ‘analogues’ in different languages is one of the most effective ways of appreciating this text in all its complex globality. Different versions of the same source-text can be expected to preserve different aspects, or sides of the original, thus producing a more complete, manysided picture of the whole 19. There is every reason to believe that the greater the number of translations the better understanding of the original can be achieved.

Similar views are expressed by those postmodernist literary critics who regard translation as a key to literary theory. To them translation does not only allow access to a literary work that would otherwise be closed – they use translation as a critical method, both for analyzing literature and teaching it. Thus, M.G.Rose believes that translating helps us get inside literature. Turning to two German translations of Charle Baudelaire’s sonnet “Recueillement” she shows how both the translators “moved inside the subject of the poems, operating as critics via translation” 20. M.G.Rose calls such a comparative analysis “stereoscopic reading, i.e. a reading that moves back and fourth among a source-text and one or more target-texts… This gives us a full, but never complete, enhanced explication of the text” 21. According to the proponents of this view, translation does not need to be seen as loss or sacrifice: literature can only gain in translation. “ No matter how extensively we have studied any great writer, translation will give us new spaces for thinking about them” 22.

My teaching experience has shown that translation into another language or other languages may help to reveal the semantic capacity of a word in the source-text. Comparison gives students a much wider perspective and enables them to go more deeply into the nature of the linguistic phenomenon in question. However hard students may work over a text, however extensive their knowledge may be, they, nevertheless, remain within their own resources. But if one can include completely independent translations of the text, if one can compare one’s own appreciation with that of the translators, then a text is seen in a new light and things that could well pass unnoticed if a text is studied as such may be discovered.

It is well-known that words in literature can be used in such a way as to display more than one meaning or shade of meaning in the same context. Simultaneous realization and interaction of several meanings or shades of meaning of a word in a particular context has been called “lexical polyphony” 23. As a rule, lexical polyphony is realized in a much broader context than one separate meaning of a polysemantic word. Thus, in the opening stanza of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in the Country Churchyard” the polysemantic verb “to wind” realizes its meaning “to follow a course or path that curves or twists a lot” within one particular line: “The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea” 24. The immediate lexical environment of the word is sufficient to reveal its sense. In the case of the noun “darkness” (“And leaves the world to darkness and to me”) the immediate context 39

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Philology: Scopes and Visions points only to its direct meaning: “ time when there is no light”. To be able to appreciate another, metaphoric (or metonymic?) meaning actualized in the same word one should turn to a broader context – that of several stanzas or, probably, the whole poem. Only then it will become clear that in an elegy where the poet meditates among the tombs on the fate of those who are buried in a village churchyard “darkness” is associated not only with “absence of light”, but also with “death”.

It is noteworthy that V. Zhukovsky avoided the translation of the line containing the word “darkness” in the first two Russian versions of the poem, being unable, presumably, to cope with its polyphony. Only in his third version, which is very close to the original and carefully preserves all the words and images in it, he dared to translate the line. The contextual equivalent «молчанье», though not a perfect solution, may be regarded as an attempt to render the global meaning of the word.

It would be wrong to think that lexical polyphony is realized only in a broad context. Outstanding masters of style can make words radiate different meanings simultaneously in an immediate context. In such cases translation can help to gain a deeper insight into the semantic complexity of words in a source-text.

The word “temporal” from Portia’s monologue in “The Merchant of Venice” can serve as an example of polyphony in an immediate context: His scepter shows the force of temporal power 25.

Strictly speaking, the meaning of “temporal” in “temporal power” is phraseologically bound: “relating to ordinary, practical life rather than religious matters; secular”. At the same time it can be assumed that the meaning “temporary, transitory, as opposed to eternal” is not ruled out either because earthly power (that is, the power of monarchs), in contrast to God’s power, can’t last for ever.

The French translators of the play have chosen an equivalent for “temporal” that is etymologically cognate: “temporal, -le” (“le pouvoir temporal” or “la puissance temporelle”). It may be also said to have two meanings: 1) временный, преходящий; 2) светский, мирской. In the German translations the equivalent of “temporal” is only “weltlich” (светский): “Das Zepter zeigt die weltliche Gewalt”. The numerous Russian translations suggest two meanings, but in different versions of the soliloquy: “temporal power” appears either as «временная власть / сила / могущество” or «светская власть».

As is seen from the examples, the complex semantic content of the word “temporal” is distributed in the translations between the two lexical units: «временный» and «светский». Thus translation points to the objective existence of lexical polyphony in the original.

There can be no doubt that translators of verbal art (especially poetry) cannot go very far unless they are endowed with a certain amount of literary talent, something that, in a greater or less degree, makes it possible for translators to regard themselves as rivals of the author of the original. It is not surprising, therefore, that the outcome of this kind of activity is not translations in the proper sense, but more or less successful variations on the same theme. The philologists’ task appears to consist not in trying to arrive at yet another variation on the theme of the original, but in a minute philological investigation and comparison of different attempts to render the original into so many languages. In this way they may arrive at a more or less optimal translation based on the received results.

At a certain stage of cultural development translation can be no longer based on the inspiration of an individual translator. It becomes clear that when a number of translations is already considerable (as is the case with classic poetry) what is really needed is a philologically grounded transposition, which would take into account both positive and negative previous experience. Translation of poets who have been translated dozens of times (like, e.g. Shakespeare or Byron) cannot be successful if the efforts of the previous translators are not taken into account. Now that so many Russian translations of Shakespeare’s works have been made, it would be unthinkable for a new version to be made without considering the previous efforts 26. When translation is approached from the point of view of philological tradition, i.e. taking into account all the existing translations of a given original text, it is easy to arrive not only at a collection of all that has proved best, but also at a plenty of warning, at a wealth of danger signals to keep translators off the traps into which so many have already fallen.

It has been shown in previous publications 27 that, as the number of completely independent translations of the same text increases, it becomes more and more obvious that these accumulated texts gradually reach the status of a philological object in its own right, which deserves attention and study as such. The idea itself was 40

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Philology: Scopes and Visions formulated by Prof. O.Akhmanova three decades ago, when the philological approach was first applied to Russian translations of famous passages from Shakespeare 28 . Since then it has been further developed by applying it to translations of Sergei Esenin’s poetry into various European languages 29, to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and its modern transpositions 30 and translations of the Bible 31. It is a question of forever widening the translators’ philological ‘horizons’ and understanding how an original text is linked with all kinds of its transpositions (translations, adaptations, stylizations, parodies, etc.), what place it holds in a broad philological context.

There can be no doubt that translations enrich literature, both in the target- and the source-language.

They help to maintain continuity of literary tradition and play an important role in establishing contacts between literatures and cultures. Translators of verbal art should be aware not only of an enormous responsibility, but also of greatness of their task, learning to look at every literary text and every element in it from a broad philological standpoint.

NOTES 1

The Translation Studies Reader / Ed. By L. Venuti. - Lnd.-N.-Y., Routledge, 2001, p. 11.

2 Чуковский К.И. Переводы прозаические // Принципы художественного перевода. - М., Всем. литра, 1919.

3 See, for instance, his article: On Linguistic Aspects of Translation // On Translation / Ed. By R. Brower. Cambr., Mass., 1959.

4 His most well-known book on translation is: Levy Jiri. Umeni prekladu. - Praha, 1963.

5 The importance of Chomsky’s ideas for machine-translation is shown in: Ревзин И.И., Розенцвейг В.Ю. Основы общего и машинного перевода. - М., 1964.

6 See, for instance: Baker M. Corpora in Translation Studies: An Overview and Some Suggestions for Future Research. // Target 7:2, 1995; Kenny D. Lexis and Creativity in Translation. A Corpus-based Study.

-Manchester, St. Jerome, 2001; Laviosa S. Core Patterns of Lexical Use in a Comparable Corpus of English Narrative Prose. – Manchester, 1998.

7 Examples of this unifying approach can be found in, e.g.,: Ревзин И.И, Розенцвейг В.Ю. Op. cit.; Попович А. Проблемы художественного перевода. – М., Высшая Школа, 1980.

8 Translators through History / Ed. by J. Delisle, J. Woodsworth. – Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1995, p.

201.

9 Ibid., p. 202.

10 Ibid., p. 211.

11 Shakespearean quotations as part of Russian culture was the subject of the paper delivered at a conference held at St.-Petersburg University in 1997. See: Задорнова В.Я. Шекспировские цитаты как часть русской культуры. // Взаимосвязи и взаимовлияние русской и европейской литератур. – С.Пб., 1999.

12 For example, Н. Лесков «Леди Макбет Мценского уезда» or М. Цветаева «Офелия – в защиту королевы».

13 Humorous interpretation of Shakespearean quotations can be accounted for by Russian mentality. J. Levin in his article “Russian Translations of Shakespeare” is quoting A. Druzhinin, a translator of the mid-XIX century, who believes that Russians have an ironic mind: «…по национальному развитию своему, по своей врожденной зоркости и насмешливости… всякий русский человек есть враг фразы, метафоры, напыщенности и цветистого слова». Левин Ю.Д. Русские переводы Шекспира. // Мастерство перевода. 1966. – М., 1968, с. 15.

14 The following example is borrowed from V. Katayev’s «Winter Wind”, where a toungue-in-cheek attitude to Veinberg’s lines is obvious: «Петя сразу увидел, что это бывший светский лев и бонвиван, покоривший тетю своей великолепной внешностью и, вероятно, еще какими-то красивыми польскими освободительными идеями, а может быть, ‘она его за муки полюбила, а он ее за состраданье к ним’ или что-нибудь подобное» (Катаев В.П. Зимний ветер. // Собрание сочинений в 10 т. – Т. 5 – М., 1984, с.с. 115-116).

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Philology: Scopes and Visions 15

See: Zadornova V. Verbal Creativity and the Problem of Translation. // La Traduzione. Saggi e Documenti (III), № 33. – Roma, 1997.

16 Zadornova V., Natitnik A. Once Again on the So-Called Adequacy of Translation. // Language Learning. Material and Methods. № 5. – M., 2003.

17 The idea of functional correspondence was put forward by the Chech linguist Vilem Mathesius in 1913. It has been developed by members of the Prague Linguistic Circle including Roman Jakobson, as well as J. Levy, O. Fiser, Z. Klemenciewicz and others.

18 Джером К. Д. Трое в одной лодке, не считая собаки. / Пер. М. Донского, Э. Линецкой. – М., 1979. Джером К. Д. Трое в одной лодке, не считая собаки. / Пер. М. Салье. – М., 1994.

19 Федоров А.В. К вопросу о переводимости. // Актуальные проблемы теории художественного перевода. Материалы Всесоюзного симпозиума 25 февр.- 2 марта 1966 г. – М., 1967, т. 1, с. 35.

20 Rose M. G. Translation and Literary Criticism. Translation as Analysis. – Manchester, St. Jerome, 1997, p.p. 49-50.

21 Ibid., p. 54.

22 Ibid., p. 14.

23 The term was first introduced in: Задорнова В.Я. Словесно-художественное произведение на разных языках как предмет лингвопоэтического исследования. / Автореф. дисс. … доктора филол. наук. - М., 1992. See also: Zadornova V. Biblical Words and Their ‘Polyphonic’ Capacity. // Folia Anglistica. Biblical Studies. Vol. 1. - M., 1996.

24 Here is the opening stanza as a whole: The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

25 In her speech Portia appeals to Shylock, who claims Antonio’s pound of flesh, for mercy, regarding it as a supreme virtue a person in power may possess: The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d; It blesses him that gives and him that takes: ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptered sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself, And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When mercy seasons justice.

26 M. Alekseyev, an outstanding Russian scholar, who had contributed greatly to cross-cultural studies, believed that translation theory in Russia owes a lot to an enormous number of Russian translations of Shakespeare, which provided invaluable material for comparative-contrastive studies. (Шекспир и русская культура. / Под ред. М.П.Алексеева. – М.-Л., 1965, с. 536).

27 See, for example: Задорнова В.Я. Восприятие и интерпретация художественного текста. - М., Высшая школа, 1984.

28 See a number of articles written by O. Akhmanova and V. Zadornova in the periodicals: Shakespeare Translation, vol. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9. - Tokyo, 1974-1983 and Shakespeare Worldwide, vol. XI, XII, XIII. – Tokyo, 1986-1991.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions 29

Ахманова О.С., Задорнова В.Я. Сергей Есенин в переводах зарубежных авторов. // Есенин. Проблемы творчества. / Сост. П.Ф.Юшин. – М., Современник, 1978.

30 Akhmanova O., Zadornova V. Ou en est la linguopoetique? // Estudios ofrecidos a Emilio Alarcos Llorach. – Vol. 1. – Oviedo, 1977.

31 Zadornova V., 1996. Op. cit.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Drabble, Margaret The Oxford Companion to English Literature: Plotting the Past, Predictingthe Future The Oxford Companion to English Literature, edited by Sir Paul Harvey, was first published in 1932. It was the first of the large and still growing family of Oxford Companions. It remains a much-loved volume, as popular with readers at home as it is with students, teachers, journalists and biographers. It is a treasure house of useful and useless information. It has proved very profitable, over the years, both for the Oxford University Press that publishes it, and for the university itself, to which the press, as a registered charity, gives charitable support. There are now Oxford Companions to Chess, Film, Food, Gardens, Jazz, Medicine, Music, and many other subjects: there is even an Oxford Companion to the Wines of North America. But Harvey’s volume was the parent of them all.

The Oxford University Press is famous round the world for its authoritative works of reference, of which The Oxford English Dictionary is perhaps the best known. But the original Oxford Companion to English Literature was a very different kind of work from the famous dictionary. It was quirky, personal, and idiosyncratic, reflecting the personality of its editor and compiler, Sir Paul Harvey. Harvey was not a professor of literature: he was a professional diplomat. He was, in the best sense of the word, an amateur, and he put into his volume anything that took his fancy. While he was compiling it, the study of English Literature as a university subject was still new and not yet quite respectable. It was neither a science nor an art, and had not developed its own academic language. Those who studied the Classics considered it an upstart. It had no rules, and Harvey felt free to include in his companionable Companion not only Shakespeare, Spenser, Sir Walter Scott, Milton and Dickens, but also entries on Greek and Roman and Hindu mythology, on ‘Dogs, famous in History, Myth and Fiction’, on Tutankhamen (sic) and the Ides of March.

The 1932 volume is a ragbag of miscellaneous bits and pieces, ideal for browsing and for finding clues for crossword puzzles. It bears some resemblance to another popular and useful volume, Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, first published in 1870 and still in print. But Harvey’s volume was much more literary than Brewer’s. It had a serious commitment to literature, and it also contained some masterly plot summaries of plays and novels both major and minor, all compiled by Harvey himself, many of which have stood the test of time.

He must have been an extraordinarily fast yet careful reader. He claimed that he could summarise the plot of three five act plays in a day, though he admitted that, not surprisingly, he ‘found this a burden.’ Occasionally a reader writes in with some small query on a Hardy précis, but such corrections are very rare.

Harvey himself supervised the publication of two new editions, and after his death in 1948 the work was maintained and revised in Oxford by Dorothy Eagle, who was in charge of the considerable (and often perplexing, not to say infuriating) amount of correspondence and comment that the book generated. It was in 1979 that the OUP decided that it was time for a more thorough overhaul, and it was at this point that my name was suggested as a candidate for this daunting honour. The reasons for this remain a mystery to me. In many ways I seemed a most unsuitable contestant- I was not myself an academic, having no higher qualifications other than my original Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature, taken at the age of 21 in 1960. My degree was from Cambridge, not from Oxford, and the Oxford and Cambridge schools of teaching English were very differentOxford had always laid more emphasis on bibliography and footnotes and Anglo Saxon, whereas Cambridge was famous for the literary heritage of critics like I.A.Richards and F.R.Leavis, who endorsed firsthand, individual opinion and close textual reading. Moreover, I was known as a writer of fiction, and what the volume needed was not fiction but fact. And I was a woman, and in those days Oxford was still very much a maledominated society. So I think there was much sheer chance at work.

At first I was not at all sure that I wanted to wed myself for so many years to this great task, and I think that some of the members of the Board of Delegates had serious reservations about my suitability. But the work 44

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions presented a challenge, and I like to rise to a challenge. It would have been cowardly to refuse. And so, in 1979, I embarked on what has proved a very long, rewarding and engrossing relationship with this celebrated reference book. I have seen it through two new editions, the Fifth and the Sixth, both of which bear my name in the place of Harvey’s, and I still feel a deep responsibility for its well being.

The first revision took five years, during which I wrote no fiction at all, for the work required intense concentration and seemed, at times, as though it would be never-ending. The first decisions, on policy and method, required much boldness. Harvey had been much loved, and it seemed important not to lose his loyal constituency and his wide range, though it was clear from the outset that a more orthodox volume would now be required. English studies were now a much more serious subject.

My team of contributors and I knew we had to save space for new entries by cutting much of the original text, and we decided to remove most of the mythological and ‘General Knowledge’ entries to make space for new authors and entries on critical theory. (Harvey had had little patience with critical theory, and paid it few concessions. He preferred literary dogs, cats and horses to literary terms and movements.) We argued that many dictionaries of classical mythology and of other mythologies were now available, and that the ‘General Knowledge’ likely to be required by a reader of English literature is so vast and amorphous as to be limitlessreaders would have to resort to prefaces, foot notes, and other specialist reference works. Thus we were able to save much new space. This decision was relatively painless, though there were many borderline entries that hovered for years on the brink between survival and deletion. The story of the entry on The Wise Men of Gotham is a long one, and too complicated to tell here- it is enough to say that we foolishly deleted these wise men in 1985, and wisely put them back in 2000.

It was suggested that we should limit entries to writers writing in the English language- was our title not The Oxford Companion to English Literature? This would certainly have made our life simpler, but from the start we resisted this approach. I say ‘we’, diplomatically, but I think this was very much my personal decision: I was very resistant to the notion of artificially severing English writers from their roots and influences, as I have never seen literature as primarily a nationalistic or patriotic enterprise. Also, the exclusion of foreign authors writing in foreign languages would have created further difficult choices about the nature and limits of Englishness- what about Welsh, Scottish and Irish authors, what about the Africans and the Indians, what about the emergent concept of Commonwealth and Post-Colonial Writing, and what about the Americans? Although not nationalists, we did not welcome the prospect of a volume in which American authors would outnumber the British.

So we decided to retain most of Harvey’s foreign authors, who ranged from Aristotle to Ariosto, from Robert Frost to Flaubert, from Goethe to Gogol, from Tolstoy to Turgenev. Would not our literature have been radically different without these writers? Indeed, we decided to add many new more recent names from abroad, and many new literary movements. Our chief criterion- and one that was applied in a characteristically British, pragmatic, rule-of-thumb way- was that of connection. Authors who had contributed to the mainstream of literature in the English language were given larger entries than those who had had a smaller impact, and no foreign authors were given entries based wholly on their reputations in their own countries.

At least, that was our intention, though I suspect that a few passionate advocates of their own territory sneaked in their own favourites without the strictest regard to relevance and connection. Our Russian entries, in the Fifth Edition, were so extensive that some nicknamed the volume The Oxford Companion to Russian Literature- but as there was no such volume (though one has been long pending) we were willing to allow for some perhaps disproportionately long and enthusiastic descriptions of the work, for example, of Andrei Bely and Mayakovsky. They had found a good home with us. As a general principle, however, length was dictated in part by language and nationality- the fact that Doris Lessing, writing in English (though born of English parentage in Persia and brought up in Africa) received more space than her namesake Gotthold Lessing did not imply a value judgement of the work of either. We also tried to trace the history of influence through accessibility and translation: nobody would claim now that Constance Garnett is the greatest or most accurate translator of the works of Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, but she was certainly one of the first, and the one whose work made an immense impression on a whole generation of British writers. Similarly, efforts to render

45

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the genius of Goethe into English constitute a subject in their own right. His lyrics have been well served by poets, but his Faust has proved more obdurate.

I now realise that our approach to entry-length, during the five-year period of gestation and preparation of the Fifth Edition of 1985, was primitive in the extreme. We worked it out as we went along. This was because we did not have a word processor and therefore were not obsessed by the concept of the mechanical word count. The whole of the Fifth Edition, every single entry and page of its 1000-plus pages, was typed out and triple filed by Jenny Stringer (who went on to become the editor of The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Literature in English, 1996). We had none of the electronic devices that effortlessly produce lists and columns, and we had none of the irritation of having to make our minds up in advance about whether or not George Eliot deserved a bigger entry than T.S.Eliot. In many ways, this was an enormous advantage. We had great flexibility, and were able to adjust and shuffle space as we went along.

This is not how reference books are produced these days. By the time we came to the Sixth Edition of 2000, everything had changed, and in my view, in many ways, for the worse. The new technology, far from making decisions simpler and easier, demanded them prematurely and therefore made them more risky and uncertain. We were supposed to be able to say we would commission ‘150 words precisely’ on such-and-such an emergent young poet two years before our estimated date of publication- and who knows what masterpiece that emergent young poet might produce during those two years? Or how, more sadly, how gravely that poet’s reputation might decline? The word processor, the personal computer, and the possibility of on-line up-to-date and ever renewable information have permanently altered the nature of works of reference. The role of the editor has changed. The editor now has to receive information so fast now that he or she cannot wholly control it or interpret it. It arrives too raw. Its mistakes perpetuate themselves instantly and effortlessly, like a virus.

Mistakes are copied from reference book to reference book, unchecked by lazy editors, and many of them now originate in material from the internet. There is no substitute for reading the text. Harvey read the text, not the dust jackets of and advertisements for the books he condensed, and we have done the same.

The Oxford Companion to English Literature was never intended to be a work of literary criticism. Nor was it, as various journalists and critics have suggested, an attempt to establish a canon. It is a source of primary information, not of personal opinion, and it includes the unfashionable as well as the main stream. Contributors were encouraged to be as objective and impartial as possible about their subjects, and to avoid praise or blame.

This restraint proved deeply annoying to some, who were keen to praise their own authors in superlatives, to crown them as unique, to offer provocative comparisons with their rivals or contemporaries. But reference books should not be partisan in tone, even if they are obliged to be so in terms of selection of content.

My long association with the world of reference has made me perhaps over-suspicious of anything too closely resembling a grudge or an indulgence. The art of neutral description is a high art, and hard to achieve.

Anyone can have strong views, anyone can have wrong views- the true skill lies in value-free, accurate, firsthand, informative description. Sir Paul Harvey, although highly opinionated about dogs, vintage wines, and the gloominess of Realism, was brilliant when it came to disentangling and delineating the complex action of an Elizabethan comedy or a Jacobean tragedy. Writing a plot summary is not easy: mistakes from careless reading creep in to the work of the most expert scholars. I note with embarrassment that a schoolboy in Fife wrote to us to point out a mistake in the new plot summary of Macbeth, and we have several times altered the number of the people who saw Hamlet’s father’s ghost. These things seem easy, but they are not.

I had and have my own problems with objectivity, as well as with the objectivity of others. For some reason, I seem to have been obsessed with one of E.M.Forster’s lesser known novels, The Longest Journey, and in 1985 I gave it far too much space. My summary is masterly, but far too long. I think I knew it was too long, but simply could not bring myself to cut it. (It is now much reduced in the 2000 version: common sense finally prevailed.) Similarly, I really dislike having to take out real authors, however minor, however dead. I happily excised Arethusa and the Augean Stables, but agonised over forgotten Victorian poets and obscure writers of tracts and sermons. Where were they to go, what refuge could they find if we deleted them? I feel a personal sorrow for these vanishing ones. And how can one ever be certain when to forget? Reluctantly, I decided in 2000 to remove the brief entry on historian and biographer Philip Guedalla (1889-1994), only to find his name cropping up over dinner only a few weeks after the Delete Button had done its worst: who, somebody wanted 46

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions to know, was that chap whose foreign-sounding name began with a G, and who wrote on Palmerston and Wellington? Could anybody remember? Well, I could, for I was the guilty party who had hustled him into the underworld. I blushed.

Of course, as we buried some, we disinterred others. One of the pleasures of compilation was the discovery- or rediscovery- of authors who had once been well known, who had once been famous, notorious, or admired, but who had dropped from general recognition. In an earlier generation, the Metaphysical poets (Donne, Marvell, Vaughan, Herbert) provided the most striking example of a class of such authors: they were very little regarded in 1932 in Harvey’s generation, but the rescue operation mounted by T.S.Eliot re-instated them in the pantheon, where they still glow, and in The Oxford Companion to English Literature, where they now rightly fill up much space. In my generation, probably the most important revaluation has been of the work of women writers. Some have always been revered- Jane Austen and George Eliot have always been with us, and Virginia Woolf made her way into later editions of Harvey- but others re-appeared for the first time to greet the millennium in 2000. Feminist criticism and scholarship, and the work of feminist publishing houses, have altered the map of the past.

I was very fortunate in my adviser on the forgotten women of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By chance, in 1998, I was sent by The Women’s Press the typescript of a forthcoming work by historian and novelist Dr Stevie Davies, Unbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution 1640-1660. In this she resurrected some of the female writers- impassioned, fanatical, visionary, millenarian, and occasionally mad- who produced a mass of almost completely unremembered literature during the Civil War in Britain. I was gripped by her narrative, which I saw as a response to Professor Christopher Hill’s celebrated work The World Turned Upside Down, (1972) which (to quote my own OCEL entry on Hill) ‘provides a lively introduction to the prose of many of the lesser known and radical writers of the period, including Clarkson, Coppe, Walwyn, Winstanley’ etc. Stevie Davies had decided, with Hill’s encouragement, to look for the women writers that he had overlooked- and she found them. I was so taken with her account that I immediately contacted her, asking her if she would be willing to contribute some new entries on ‘new’ women authors, and also to examine the existing John Milton entries (for she is also a Milton scholar) and to suggest additions and improvements. This she did, to very great effect, and the balance of the volume has been much improved by her additions, and by her alternative tone.

Thus, slowly, we readjust and rediscover and make new connections between past and present. Everything joins up, everything connects. There is a great satisfaction, for an editor, in finding unlikely links and crossreferences. I often think of the process as a kind of stitching or weaving: with every entry, a fuller and richer pattern emerges, in a more durable fabric.

It was not difficult to decide on the addition of new women writers, and the correcting of balance in the entries on the old. The growth of feminist and women’s studies, as well as natural justice, demanded such improvements, and there were many scholars eager to help. Similarly, the great expansion of interest in postcolonial writing, and the search for the earliest black writers in English, provided us with a clear call for more coverage in these areas. Other literary territories proved much more controversial. What were we to do about what we now call ‘genre’ writing? How seriously should we take the romantic novel, the historical novel, the detective novel, the spy thriller? Which children’s writers could rightly claim adult attention? There are many academics now devoted to genre writing, and the distinction between ‘highbrow’, ‘middlebrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ has been blurred- as have the distinctions between literary criticism and sociology. Should the OCEL try to maintain a purist position, and concentrate on work with serious literary intentions- and how on earth does one define a serious literary intention?

This disputed terrain gave rise to lively discussion and sleepless nights. Some strange and possibly mistaken decisions were inevitably taken- for example, the edition of 2000 was published as Harry Potter fever was swelling, and my invaluable young assistant Daniel Hahn was critical of me for not including the name of J.K.Rowling in our list of late twentieth century children’s authors. This omission, predictably, gave rise to more comment from journalists than any other. I defended my position by saying haughtily that the OCEL was not a Best Seller List, and who knew how long Harry Potter would survive- but the truth is that I had not reckoned with the continuing snowball effect of global publicity. It is my contention that Harry Potter’s success has 47

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions more to do with the history of marketing than with the quality of the books in which he appears, but nevertheless, maybe I was taking too purist, too Leavisite a line. Dr Leavis, one of the most severe critics of the twentieth century, dismissed the poet Edith Sitwell and her brothers by saying that their reputation belonged more to the history of publicity than to the history of poetry- but the Sitwells have survived his scorn, as Rowling may survive my neglect.

It has been fascinating to watch the rise and fall of genres across the literary spectrum. Gothic has become fashionable and respectable, and Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, has never been as highly regarded as she is now, but Horror, a popular offshoot of the Gothic, remains resolutely plebeian. Science Fiction is now practised right across the spectrum, and scholars and collectors eagerly examine its origins in early comic strips.

(We now have a very neat and carefully researched little reference to the hero Batman, in the entry for Gotham, but it is so well hidden that I doubt if anyone finds it.) The historical novel, which fifty years ago seemed dated and dusty, has seen a remarkable renaissance in the hands of serious writers. The sensational novel of Wilkie Collins, once dismissed as mere popular fiction, is now much studied. The use of faction, or the mingling of fact and fiction, which at one time seemed like a passing American fad or fancy, has now invaded so many literary areas that we no longer call it by that name. Biography, or the art of life writing, has in the last decade been embraced by the universities of the world, from America to China- though some of the departments that study or teach it are more closely allied to sociology than to literature.

Why knows what new forms will arise in the next decade? A reference book can only indicate shifts of emphasis and new areas of growth. It cannot guess what the future will bring.

I often think of a letter I received from Dr Bolgar in Cambridge, who was revising Harvey’s classical entries long ago in 1979. What would happen, he wondered, in the next 2000 years, to the Greek and Latin writers who had been his life work? Would his authors live on, having endured so far against the odds, or would they die away and be buried at last? (He was surprised that some of them had lasted so long.) What would a book look like in 2000 years time, he wondered? Would there still be books, and would there still be readers?

There are no answers to these questions. Nor is there an answer to the simpler question of whether or not the one-volume work of reference, as a genre, will survive the next ten years. Maybe this is the end of a genre, and from now on all reference works will be published and updated electronically. But for more than twenty years, the Companion has been a good companion to me. It has kept me awake at nights, but it has also taught me a great deal. Increasingly, I shall forget what it taught me- but I shall always know where to look up all the names and titles I have forgotten. That is what reference books are for.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Gvozdetzkaya, Natalia Germanic Philology: Semiotics, Linguistics, Poetics (historical review and perspectives) Germanic philology appeared in the late middle ages together with an emerging interest to the origin of Germanic languages and cultures in the epoch of building of Germanic nations. «Love to the word» (which is a literal meaning of the term “philology”) was interpreted at that time as love to the verbal expression of national spirit (or, mentality) and was reflected in the interest to Old Germanic written documents. XVI-XVΙII centuries are a time of collection, interpretation and publication of Old Germanic texts which reflected both the pagan past of Germanic tribes and the epoch of christening of Germanic peoples, when their statehood and written language were formed. In the XIX century the knowledge of the early state of Germanic languages and literature was enriched by the folklore data, the information about living dialect forms of the popular language and folk beliefs. It is noticeable that one of the founders of Germanic philology, a German scholar Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) was a collector of German folk fairy tales and at the same time the author of such fundamental works on the history of the language and mentality of his nation as «German Grammar» and «German Mythology». J.Grimm’s works laid the basis for a further comparative-historical study of Germanic languages and cultures.

The starting point of analysis for all specialists in Germanic philology has always been a text as a spontaneous product of language (linguistic ability), speech (specific historic verbal act) and cultural traditions of the given nation in all their numerous manifestations; that is why Germanic philology in its origin is closely related to a whole range of sciences that study old Germanic texts, including paleography, textual study, historical linguistics, stylistics, poetics, history of verbal art, artistic mind, literary genres, etc. Old Germanic texts are written in runic script, which emerged on the basis of one of the North –Italic alphabets (adopted by the migrated Germanic tribes in the first centuries AD) and was used for short inscriptions of sacral (magic, for the most part) nature on the objects of cult (decorations, weapons, vessels, tombstones, etc.).

Decoding and interpretation of runic inscriptions (the object of runology) allowed to restore old Germanic forms of language and speech, and functions of the written language in the epoch of religious and tribal alliances (the epoch, reflected in the works of ancient historians - Pliny the Elder, Tacitus, etc.). Local modifications,which occured in runic script in England and Scandinavia in the period of transition from paganism to christianity (VII-XI centuries), demonstrate not only phonological changes (reflected in the changed number of letters), but first of all its adaptation to the changed social needs. Anglo-Saxon documents registered sporadic attempts to adapt runic script to the new culture, which is proved by the extracts from the poem „The Dream of the Rood“ written in runic script on the stone Ruthwell cross (VII cent.) or the use of runes by the poet Kuenewulf (the early ΙΧ cent.) with an aim to intertwine his name into the lyrical-dydactiс ending of christian poems. On the contrary, in Scandinavia the stable preservation of pagan cults and beliefs connected with the epoch of vikings (IX-XIcent.) led to the flowering of runic art on memorial stones –stellas, with their typical snake-like ornament and formulaic (stereotypical) messages, which glorified the heroes killed in the battle and maintained old heroic ideals.

After the adoption of christianity in barbaric countries, founded on the territory of the Roman empire, runes were ousted everywhere by a new script, formed on the basis of the Greek or Latin alphabets (depending on the place from which the christian mission arrived – be it Constantinopole, as it happened with Goths, or from Rome, as it was with North-Western peoples). Historic circumstances of christening largely predetermined the character and content of written documents of particular Germanic peoples.

Bishop Wulfila (311-383) was the first to make a translation of The New Testament from Greek into Gothic. In spite of the fact that in the reign of the Gothic king Theodorich (493-526) in Ravenna written language and learning flourished (the most important manuscript of the Gothic Bible is the Silver Codex made in V-VI cent. in Italy), the Gothic language did not give a rise to a developed literary tradition and remained almost exclusively the language of the church. The reason for that was not only assimilation of Goths by the local Ro49

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions man population after the fall of Gothic kingdoms in Italy (VI cent.) and Spain (VIII cent.), but also the confrontation of the Gothic Arian church (Goths were baptized in the time of supremacy of Arian heresy in Constantinople) with local Catholic communities of the West.

The process of shaping of the aboriginal literature among Germanic peoples of Western and Northern Europe was different. Christening of salic Franks in the reign of Chlodwig in 498 took place on the conquered territory of Gallia in the catholic form and in the Latin-speaking milieu, and had a political meaning in the eyes of the Frankish elite, contributing to the recognition of its leadership by the conquered Roman population. “Lex Salica”, which contained the Frankish legal traditions of the Merowing epoch, was written in Latin and was aimed at creating a civilized image for the conquerors. Christian enlightenment of Franks as well as the development of monastery learning (not without an influence of Anglo-Saxon missionaries) started later, in the Caroling epoch, and the greatest contribution into the development of the aboriginal literature was made by Charles the Great, one of the most learned monarchs of his time. Old High German script, originated in the VIII-IX cent., was oriented towards translation of theological works and Holy Writ (Der althochdeutsche Isidor, Tatian’s Evangelienharmonie, etc.), and was not suitable for recording oral- epic works of art, which is rooted in the epoch of the great migration of peoples (with an exception of the extract from the poem «The Song about Hildebrandt», that demonstrates Low German influence). It is notable that a well-known story of Walter, a hostage of Huns, depicted in one of the Anglo-Saxon poems (Waldere), was written in the X cent. by a monk of Saint-Gallen monastery in Latin hexameter (Waltarius manu fortis).

The relationships between the original Germanic verbal art and Latin learning in the Old English and Old Scandinavian milieu were different. In spite of the fact that Old English prose appeared in the late Caroling epoch with the translations made by the learned elite of King Alfred (871-899) and the flourishing of literary activity in monasteries after the Benedict reform (the second half of the X cent.), the first usage of the Latin alphabet for recording an Old English text was registered in England right after the christening of 597 (the laws of the Kentish King Ethelbert, preserved in the collection of laws of Alfred). And the first attempts to translate prayers and the Gospel were supposedly made by the Venerable Bead (673-735). Early transmission of AngloSaxon speech in the foreign script supposedly caused early recording of Anglo-Saxon oral-poetic art on the parchment and peculiar penetration of pagan and Christian themes and images in Old English literature.

In his “Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum” Bead tells a legend about an illiterate pastor Cadmon, who, in a mysterious way acquired a gift of versification, and was the first to glorify God with the help of Germanic alliteration verse and laid the foundation for Old English poetic narration of Biblical events in the terms of Germanic heroic history (“Genesis”, “Exodus”, etc.). Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry (preserved in manuscripts that were created not long before the Norman Conquest of England, the most significant of them is the manuscript of “Beowulf”, the early ΧΙ cent.), reflecting the common Germanic epical motives and stylistic devices, demonstrates that its anonymous authors knew the works of ancient Greek and Roman and Christian writers.

However, the late christening of Scandinavia and remoteness of its centers of writing from West-European centers of Latin learning contributed to the longer preservation of folk poetic legends about pagan gods and heroes (“The Elder Edda”) and to the new renaissance of alliteration verse (in the form of skaldic poetry) and prosaic narration embodied in the genre of saga (“saga about Icelanders, “saga about old times”, etc.) in the epoch of Vikings. That rich oral tradition acquired a written form in the epoch of “the learned Renaissance” (XII cent.), its greatest representative was an Old Icelandic politician Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241), a supposed author of “The Younger Edda” (a manual of skaldic art) and “Heimskringla” (a collection of sagas about Norwegian kings).

For the researchers of the XIX cent. old Germanic manuscripts were first of all a vivid evidence of the original unity of Germanic peoples, with their common fund of mythological and heroic legends, in which they saw an embodiment of “Germanic spirit”. An important role in these considerations was played by a philosophic concept of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), who defined language as «a spirit of nation». It is not surprising that it was the linguistic aspect of comparative-historical studies that was in the center of attention of specialists in Germanic philology, whose efforts led to the restoration of the common Germanic language-basis and to its singling out in the Indo-European linguistic family. The description and explanation of material resemblance of numerous living and dead dialects in terms of their genetic relationship based on the reconstruc50

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions tion of this “pre-Germanic” ancestor (the object of comparative-historical Germanic linguistics) is a core of such disciplines as historical grammar and lexicology of Germanic languages and enriches our knowledge in the field of etymology and semantics.

The methodological basis of the reconstruction was provided by regular sound-letter correspondences in the related words, systematized by Rasmus Rask and interpreted by J.Grimm in terms of “phonetic laws” (these laws are based on the discovery of regular development of sounds made by means of comparison of spelling of the same words in manuscripts that belonged to uninterrupted written tradition). The most important of these laws, that marks the shaping of common Germanic in the Indo-European linguistic family (the so-called ‘Grimm’s law’), registers consistent changes in the manner of articulation of Indo-European noise consonants in common Germanic while the place of articulation remains the same (p,t,k>f,þ,h; bh,dh,gh>b,d,g; b,d,g>p,t,k).

The principle of phonetic development, underlying the Grimm’s Law, allowed to explain the radical change of common Germanic noise consonants in Old High German; and the new (root) nature of the Germanic stress can help to explain a consecutive reduction of unstressed affixes and assimilative changes of root vowels, caused by it and reflected in such grammatical alternations as Eng. man-men, full-fill; German Mann-Männer, vollfüllen, etc.

Even now phonetic peculiarities, that are the result of these processes, distinguish Indo-European words in Germanic languages; compare, for instance, English and German terms of kinship and their old etymological parallels (outside the Germanic group) from the point of view of the composition of consonants: brother, Bruder – bhrata(r) (Sanskrit); father, Vater – πατηρ (Greek); mother, Mutter – mater (Latin), etc. The knowledge of regular phonetic correspondences between related words allows to differentiate real etymologies from false ones: e.g., Eng. cow and German Kuh are related to the Russian root in the word “говядина” (Old Russian говядо “cow”), and not to the word “корова”, because the common Germanic consonant “k”, according to Grimm’s Law, regularly develops from the Indo-European “g” (a simple coincidence of sounds can be accidental, which is clear from the conventional nature of the link between the signifier and the signified of the linguistic sign). The formulation of “phonetic laws” paved the way to the verified modeling of the pre-written history of Germanic languages.

The discovery of common Germanic phonetic peculiarities as well as grammatical innovations (e.g. those verbal and adjectival forms, that are younger than Indo-European ones, and that is why viewed as “weak” in the romantic terminology of the first specialists in comparative linguistic studies) allowed to clearly outline the group of Germanic languages within the Indo-European linguistic family and at the same time prepared the ground for their further typological description, based not on material, but on the strictly systemic coincidences of linguistic elements. The study of structural and functional aspects of linguistic development constituted the object of historic phonology and historic-typological grammar, which tried to single out the intra-lingual factors of linguistic changes. Thus, from the phonological point of view, the emergence of such specific vowels in Old English as the long and the short ‘æ’ was prepared by the merging of the common Germanic diphthong ‘ai’ and the long ‘a’ of the North-Western dialects, and by the transformation of the latter into the long ‘æ’, because it was necessary to fulfill phonematic (differentiating) function, which in its respect contributed to the development of the palatal variant of the short ‘a’ according to the law of symmetry of short and long vowels.

Due to the exact description of «linguistic laws», each of Old Germanic languages was represented as a result of the differently directed, but consecutive transformations of the common Germanic «parent language».

However the idea of the consecutive “splitting” of the common Germanic language-basis into dialectal areas required extra(socio)linguistic basis, i.e. taking into consideration specific circumstances of the historic life of Germanic tribes. Sociolinguistic approach to geographical linguistics allowed to single out not only divergences, but also convergences of dialects in the development of common Germanic: thus, Low German was represented as a language of Ingveon (Anglo-Saxon) subgroup, which became closer to Eastveon (High German) dialects in the process of inclusion of Saxes into the Frankish empire of Charles the Great. Geographical linguistics gave significant results in systematization of not only grammatical but also lexical divergences and contributed to the development of historic lexicology of Germanic languages. The improvement of the comparative-historical method was also reached through the study of living speech – it is not accidental that a remarkable English phi-

51

Folia Anglistica 2005 Festschrift. Moscow University's 250th Anniversary

Philology: Scopes and Visions lologist Henry Sweet, who published a lot of historical manuscripts, was also a founder of experimental phonetics (he was a prototype of professor Higgins in the B.Shaw’s play “Pygmalion”).

Thus, by the beginning of the last century Germanic philology had at its disposal – as it seemed -an exhaustive information on the origin and historic development of Germanic languages. However the emphasis on the linguistic side of old texts contributed little to their perception and evaluation as an expression of national mentality and participants in the dialogue of cultures. Thus, “Beowulf” has for a long time been a “hunting ground” for various kinds of “collectors of antiquities” (historians, archeologists, linguists) and not immediately started to be considered as an integral work of art (a well-known contribution to the rehabilitation of “Beowulf” as a literary document was made by J.Tolkien 6). Moreover, in search of the exact description of linguistic changes and functioning of “linguistic mechanism”, the very idea of language as a reflection of “national spirit” and its role in the unity of Germanic nations was partly lost. The seeming simplicity of linguistic system, which could have been disassembled and assembled as a puzzle, did not correspond to the philosophical depths of the theory of W.von Humboldt. The similar view on language could have suited the aims of “universal grammar”, but contradicted the very essence of philology.

However, the idea of “Germanic unity”, having left the unclear spheres of “the parent language”, found a fruitful application in the study of the early (supradialectal) forms of Germanic literary languages of the prenational period. In the sphere of original (untranslated) texts the first instance of these was provided by the language of runic inscriptions, the second (and the more important because of the more diversified and vaster material) instance was the language of Germanic alliteration poetry.

Already in the ΧΙΧ cent. there was made a comparison of metric varieties of Germanic alliteration verse (represented by the vast Eddic and skaldic poetry in Scandinavia, Anglo-Saxon poems consisting of more than 30 thousand lines, separate Old High German and Old Saxon manuscripts), and also the description of their lexical-phraseological fund, developed later in the works of Andreas Heusler, who, together with the development of the seemingly particular problems of prosody and stylistics, seeked to restore the unity of Germanic philology3.

This unity, which was based on the need to study elements of the linguistic system in their close connection with the speech context, found its visible realization in that inseparability of poetic language and poetic speech, which can be illustrated by Germanic alliteration verse. The prototype of alliteration line can already be found in old runic inscriptions (see for instance the well-known inscription on the golden horn from Hallehus “I, Hlegvast from Holt, made the horn” - the first consonants repeat in the first three nominal parts of the utterance). It can also serve as a model for all forms of Old Germanic solemn speech (one of its later illustrations is alliteration prose of the Anglo-Saxon monk Aelfric). The poetic canon proper, as a range of rhythmical preferences and instructions, is formed, however, within the framework of oral-epic art (the primary form of historic and artistic consciousness) together with the shaping of the reproduced (formula) phraseological fund and a peculiar accentual structure of the word in different dialect areas. This is the reason why separate geographical varieties of Germanic alliteration verse, however their diversified they may be, demonstrate subtle resemblance of vocabulary and syntax, which distinguishes it from the forms of everyday speech.

These differences are difficult to formulate in stylistic terms, because “style” presupposes a (more or less) conscious choice of the author, i.e. such kind of linguistic activity that was impossible neither in oral-epic works, nor in the epoch of its initial recording on the parchment. They can be better defined in the terms of historic poetics: canonization of metrics proceeds as systemic reorganization of everyday language, carried out in the process of composition (of poetic speech), and predetermines the emergence of a specific poetic language.

A similar approach to poetic language requires historical study of the forms of literary consciousness. In the middle of the last century certain researchers (F.Magoun etc.) tried to connect the formulaic character of alliteration poetry solely with its oral improvisation 4 (following the views of M.Parry-B.Lord). However, their 6

Tolkien J.R.R. Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics // Proceedings of the British Academy. V. XXII. 1936. P. 245-295.

Meyer R.M. Die altgermanische Poesie nach ihren formelhaften Elementen beschrieben. Berlin, 1889; Sievers E. Altgermanische Metrik. Halle, 1893.

3 Heusler A. Die altgermanische Dichtung / 2. Aufl. Darmstadt, 1957.

4 Magoun F.P. The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry // Speculum. V. XXVIII. 1953. P. 446-467.

5 Steblin-Kamenskiy M.I. The World of Saga. Leningrad, 1971.

2

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Philology: Scopes and Visions hypothesis did not withstand criticism, because the totally formulaic nature is characteristic also for later works, revealing that their authors knew Latin learning (the poems of Kuenewulf or Alfred’s “Metres of Boetius”). The evolution-typological theory of M.I.Steblin-Kamensky5 appeared to be more important for the explanation of the peculiarities of the Old Germanic poetic language. This theory links the formulaic nature of the Old Germanic poetic speech with “unconscious authorship” as a type of the early medieval consciousness, which is reflected in the specific attitude of the poet to his material.

The attempt to correlate peculiarities of poetic language and the nature of early medieval verbal art (started in the Russian philology by the works of M.I.Steblin-Kamensky and O.A.Smirnitskaya6) had double consequences. On the one hand, it helped to explain the “hypertrophied” characteristics of the language of skalds with its abundance of metaphoric synonyms and complicated syntax as a step forward in the development of “conscious authorship”, which in skaldic poetry spread only on the form of the poem and did not refer to its content. On the other hand, the most characteristic devices of Old Germanic epics (developed synonymy, polysemantics, epic variation, etc.) ceased to be interpreted as purely formal traits or as simple relics of the archaic thinking, and started to be studied as systemic characteristics of a special type of literary language in all the richness of their semantic functions in the text. Thus, developed synonymy, placed in connection with the distribution of synonyms according to the accentual peaks of the poetic line, started to be interpreted as a means of expression of a specific “aesthetic information” about its referents, which is possessed by them as by the units of poetic language.

A turn towards the study of literary reproduction of reality by means of Old Germanic poetic language yielded fruitful results in the field of historic semasiology and semantic interpretation of Old Germanic vocabulary. The preserved texts ceased to be perceived as “remains of a dinosaur”, that are important only for the study of the evolution of separate elements of the linguistic mechanism, and started to be considered as participants in “the dialogue of cultures” in their full right, which enables one to realize the uniqueness and value of the previous linguistic epochs. The renewal of the aesthetic contact of the contemporary audience with Old Germanic written manuscripts thanks to translation into modern languages implies special requirements to their interpretation, which makes it necessary to evaluate the results and perspectives of the semantic analysis of Old Germanic poetry.

Originally semantic description of Old Germanic poetic vocabulary was limited mainly to the selection of metalinguistic equivalents in glossaries and commentaries, and also to the comparison of meanings of words within the arbitrarily selected groups of names (e.g. colour terms). Besides, semantic analysis was aimed at the reconstruction of the old etymological meaning, and the sense of the word usage registered in the manuscript seemed more or less clear from the nearest context and was viewed rather as a means, and not the aim of reconstruction. The fact of the visible presence of the word in the “decoded” (readable) text, as well as its etymological parallels in many related languages created an illusion of its “understandability”.

A more or less systemic description of the semantic peculiarities of Old Germanic poetic vocabulary started in the last century when there appeared a systemic view on language in general and on lexical level of language in particular. The emergence of onomasiology as a specific branch of semantic research, which is opposed to traditional semasiology, contributed to the semantic development of separate sections of poetic thesaurus.

However, the methodology of onomasiologic research, which is aimed first and foremost at reconstruction of specific realia, can be of little help for the study of abstract lexis.

The sections of Old Germanic vocabulary which reflect the spiritual world of the man started to attract greater attention of researchers from the time of Jost Trier’s works 7, one of them was devoted to the reconstruction of the conceptual “field of reason” in the history of the German language. The comparison of the lexical group with a mosaic field, the separate pieces of which specify in the consciousness the sense of the whole (linguistic concept), appeared to be fruitful - in spite of the posterior criticism - for the reconstruction of semantic 6

Steblin-Kamenskiy M.I. Historical Poetics. Leningrad, 1978; Smirnitzkaya O.A.Verse and Language of Old Germanic Poetry. Vol. 1-2. М., 1994

7

Trier J. Der deutsche Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes. Die Geschichte eines sprachlichen Feldes, I: von den Anfangen bis zum Beginn des 13. Jahrhunderts. Heidelberg, 1931.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions borders between words with close meanings that denote abstract notions and for singling out nominal characteristics that are meaningful for the division of the Old Germanic spiritual universe.

Both onomasiologic and semasiologic description of Old Germanic poetic vocabulary gave birth a vast number of good dissertations and monographs, providing a new systematization and a new interpretation of the large material. However, their aim and methods imposed certain restrictions which were not always realized by their authors and narrowed the horizon of research: the deepening of the semantic analysis was often understood as the increase of semantic characteristics that are important only for the researcher, without sufficient examination of their relevancy for a particular manuscript and for the medieval consciousness.

Meanwhile early medieval linguistic concepts could divide the physical and spiritual universe in a different way, than modern linguistic concepts. Thus, “emotion” (joy, grief, anger, etc.) in Old Germanic epics is not separated from deeds and events connected with it. Such Old English words as ‘hete’ and ‘sorg’, which later turned into the denotations for hate and sorrow, are oriented in “Beowulf” at denotations of struggle, hostility, war and trouble, and the accompanying feelings only make for the possible implications of meaning. In “The Elder Edda” epithet reiðr means not on only “angry”, but also “belligerent” and even “sad”. Hatred was perceived as an interiorized “war”, and “sadness” – as “trouble” or “insult”. It is important that similar relics of archaic conciousness were maintained by narrative strategies of epics, which concentrated more on social events, than on description of individual psychology.

The issue of a deeper semantic interpretation of words in the remained texts was on the background also due to the exclusively diachronic orientation of historic-semasiological research: the emphasis was rather placed on the types and factors of semantic changes, than on the semantic description and analysis of the compared facts in synchrony. The creation of a global picture of the semantic development of lexical systems seemed more attractive than interpretation of manuscripts, which, as it seemed, had been already interpreted.

The specific character of semantics of the Old Germanic poetic word was fully analyzed in the works of those scholars who tried to solve cultural problems through the study of linguistic semantics, i.e. to consider the Old Germanic mentality as a specific structure of consciousness, which is based on a completely different model of the world8. Already L.Schueking’s9 works demonstrated fruitfulness of a deeper contextual analysis of the lexical meaning and the insufficiency of “approximate” definitions through the use of etymologically related parallels from modern languages, for it caused modernization of meaning. Later Hans Schabram 10 strongly opposed the unjustified, from his point of view, attempts to ascribe the meanings of the old and remotest etymological parallels (e.g. Sanskrit ones) to Old Germanic words. His famous article “Etymology and Contextual Analysis in Old English Semantics” outlined a conflict between the supporters of traditional semasiological analysis (who relied in their definitions first and foremost on the nearest context of the word in the manuscript) and those who tried to reinterpret the known word usage on the basis of complicated etymological constructions.

The conflict proper, however, was solved not in the best way: the refusal to use etymological data (and in general, comparative-historical perspective of the word) deprived semasiological description of “the dynamics of synchrony”, and a narrowly understood contextual analysis united the meaning reconstructed in the manuscript.

The resolution of this conflict is possible only when you have a correct understanding of the role of “etymology” and “contextology” in the semantic analysis of the old word. Etymological analysis of the word does not distract the researcher from the manuscript, but only broadens hypothetical considerations on the possible meaning of the word in this or that context of its usage. To deny this possibility means to impoverish the building of the hypothesis. Etymological parallels define semantic potential of the word, whose importance for the manuscript should be proved with the help of the contextual method. However we should have a broader understanding of this method, than just the nearest surrounding of the word in the text, the situation depicted in

8

Leisi E. Aufschlüssreiche altenglische Wortinhalte // Sprache – Schlüssel zur Welt. Düsseldorf, 1959. S. 309–318.

Schücking L. Untersuchungen zur Bedeutungslehre des Angelsächsischen Dichtersprache. Heidelberg, 191510 Schabram H. Etymologie und Kontextanalyse in der altenglischen Semantik // Zeitschrift für vergleichende Forschungen der indogermanischen Sprachen. Bd. 84. N 2. 1970. S. 233–253.

9

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the manuscript or even the cultural-historical context of the epoch. All categories of the poetic text that can be decisive for singling out lexical-semantic identical and different features, are important.

Thus, the conservation of older meanings in the Old English poetic word is a real thing. For instance, in order to understand the noun ‘hruse’ in “Beowulf”, it is important to take into account its etymological parallels: Greek. kryos “cold”, krystallos “ice”, Latin crusta “crust”, Russian корка, крошить, Islandic hrjósa “tremble”, Old English hreosan “fall”. According to the observations of О.А.Smirnitzkaya, the connection between crust, cold, fall and and collapse, obscured in the related language, can be well observed in the last part of “Beowulf”: here ‘hruse’ means “land” where heroes and their treasures depart. The indicated meanings are naturally brought together in the realm of poetic language within the associative field of “hruse” and are distinctly expressed in a stable chain of alliterations: hord (hoard) – hreosan (fall, die) – hlæw (hall, grave) – heoldan (hold, keep). Etymological bonds of words are continuously restored in the poetic text thanks to the special mechanisms of alliteration verse; and etymological approach to the semantics of the Old English poetic word helps us to hear the echo of old meanings, contained in it and often lost in the popular language.

True, the intrusion of a semasiologist into the zone reserved for “literary criticism” gave rise to opposite views: thus, F.Robinson11 was against the merger of roles of the interpreter of the word and the interpreter of the text. In reality our aim should be a higher quality of the approach of semasiologists to the interpretation of the text, and not the denial of that. The creation of the text-centered semasiology, which would take into account all genre and poetological peculiarities of the manuscript and would be able to create an apparatus of a deeper semantic analysis of Old Germanic lexis, is high on the agenda.

Literature 1.

2.

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4.

5.

6.

7.

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11.

12.

13.

11

Smirnitzkaya О.А. Verse and Language of Old Germanic Poetry. Vol. 1–2. М., 1994.

Steblin-Каmenskiy М.I. The World of Saga. Leningrad, 1971.

Steblin-Kamenskiy М.I. Historical Poetics. Leningrad, 1978.

Heusler A. Die altgermanische Dichtung / 2. Aufl. Darmstadt, 1957.

Leisi E. Aufschlüssreiche altenglische Wortinhalte // Sprache – Schlüssel zur Welt. Düsseldorf, 1959. S. 309–318.

Magoun F.P. The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry // Speculum. V. XXVIII. 1953. P. 446–467.

Meyer R.M. Die altgermanische Poesie nach ihren formelhaften Elementen beschrieben. Berlin, 1889.

Robinson F. Lexicography and Literary Criticism: A Caveat // Philological Essays in Honor of H. D. Meritt. The Hague, 1970. P. 99–110.

Schabram H. Etymologie und Kontextanalyse in der altenglischen Semantik // Zeitschrift für vergleichende Forschungen der indogermanischen Sprachen. Bd 84, N 2. 1970. S. 233–253.

Schücking L. Untersuchungen zur Bedeutungslehre des Angelsächsischen Dichtersprache. Heidelberg, 1915.

Sievers E. Altgermanische Metrik. Halle, 1893.

Tolkien J.R.R. Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics // Proceedings of the British Academy. V. XXII. 1936. P. 245-295.

Trier J. Der deutsche Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes. Die Geschichte eines sprachlichen Feldes, I: von den Anfangen bis zum Beginn des. 13.Jahrhunderts. Heidelberg, 1931.

Robinson F. Lexicography and Literary Criticism: a Caveat // Philological Essays in Honor of H/D/ Meritt. The Hague, 1970. P. 99– 110.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Aleksandrova, Olga Philology and Cognitive Linguistics In the Dictionary of Literary Terms philology is defined as the combination of humanities – linguistics, literary criticism, history etc., which study the history and essence of the spiritual culture of the mankind through the linguistic and stylistic analyses of the written text [4, p.467]. As can be seen from this definition, initially philology is based on the cooperation of different branches of human knowledge. In the English speaking tradition philology is connected mainly with literary studies and also historical studies of the language. In our country linguistics has always been an indispensable part of philology, which has long-standing fundamental traditions. Tradition has always been very important for philology, but nowadays it becomes more and more democratic and it is possible to speak about some certain philological traditions, which are continued in some schools, but also some new tendencies, which are based on the scope of the already existing knowledge.

Analysing the main tendencies in the development of linguistics in the end of the 20 th Century, E.S. Kubriakova mentions the following four: functionalism, explanatory character, anthropocentrism, cognitivism.[3] Obviously, all these trends are closely connected.

Functionalism is one of the main characteristic features of linguistics on the brink of the 21 st Century. This tendency predetermined the study of the language not only as a system, but also as the really functioning mental phenomenon, together with linguistic consciousness, which helps a human being to categorize and perceive the outer world, understand his place inside it. Functionalism has not been clearly defined yet, it has many different trends inside itself, but the majority of scholars emphasize its importance for modern linguistics. Functionalism develops in different directions and, as the theoretical preconception, is treated differently by different scientific schools. This may be explained by the fact that among different functions of the language one or many are announced to be the leading one – communicative or cognitive, or both of them, together with expressive emotional or poetic. Functional approach shows the leading role of the category of meaning in linguistics. Semantically and pragmatically oriented investigations are directly connected with functionalism as the central principle in the linguistic research. Not everybody recognizes its legitimate use – in grammar, for example, the systemic character of which is regarded to be a priority by many scholars. In many ways this is connected with the already established postulates in the linguistic study, when the grammatical system is regarded to be more or less stable part of the language, it changes more slowly than any other part, and has many similar features in different languages.

In spite of the conservative character of grammar functional approach becomes there more and more active. Already in the middle of the last century grammarians started to try to widen the limits of separate sentences, there appeared such notions as functional perspective, non-smooth speech, phrasing and parcellation etc. The traditional division of syntax, according to the structural and semantic principles, goes back to the philosophy of language. According to M. Halliday, grammar is formed by syntax, vocabulary and morphology. [6] In order to show, that syntax and vocabulary belong to the same level Halliday suggests a special term – lexicogrammar. The functional background of grammar is revealed in the language use – any utterance, any text is connected with the context in which they are used. Language serves human needs and the way, it is organized, should obey those needs. Functional grammar is the natural grammar, all of its phenomena may be explained by the language use. The system of a language serves two purposes: a) to understand the outer world and b) for the communication of people; here the “textual” component is very important, because it makes the use of language a living phenomenon.

Functionalism is more actively discussed in the field of lexicology, this is connected with the problem of a word and its meaning, the use of words in different languages and their notional background, the volume of knowledge, represented by the word, which leads to the cognitive approach to the linguistic study.

Functional approach to the study of language gave birth to the new trend in linguistics – cognitive linguistics, which in its turn became a part of cognitive science. Cognitive science started to be developed in the 56

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Philology: Scopes and Visions American linguistics in the 60s of the 20th century. It is a well-known fact, that it was also the time, when generative grammar was developing very actively. In very many respects these two trends were parallel, and, of course, they influenced each other greatly. Two names are usually mentioned in connection with cognitive science – Miller and Chomsky, the first one was a psychologist, the second one – a linguist. Of course, psychology and linguistics had a lot of common points of study before, but the connections has become really obvious and important since the 60s.

Cognitive science started to develop when more and more attention was given to the inner organization of the human consciousness. Cognitive psychology has drastically changed the approach to the human being, who from this point of view should be studied as the system of adaptation of information, which comes to him.

A very important role in the study of human mind belongs to the language, but linguistics may deal only with those spheres of human mind, which are connected with the speaking ability of a human being, the possibility to speak and to understand what is being said and also with the other spheres of cognitive abilities of a human being.

Of course, the unity of linguistics and psychology is not enough to lay foundation to the science about a human being, data from other scientific branches are necessary here – the theory of information, modeling of the artificial intellect,, computer science etc. All this makes cognitive science interdisciplinary.

Initially the term “cognitive” meant perceiving, something that belonged to perception, now it acquires the meaning of “internal”, “mental”, “interior”, connected with cognition. The term “cognitive” is the key one for cognitive science and cognitive linguistics as its branch. This term is not new, that is why some linguists think that there is nothing new in its content plane, but new terminology, which comes together with it, like “frame”, “scenario”, “inference” etc., - just new terms for the already existing units. Nobody denies the fact the a human being has been the subject of attention of many scientific branches for a very long time, but now the time has come, when representatives of very different branches try to join their efforts to penetrate into the essence of the problem. Thus a new paradigm in the human knowledge has been formed.

A new paradigm usually emerges, when a considerable knowledge about some phenomenon, which forms a certain approach to its study, has already been acquired by different schools of thinking. A paradigm cannot appear from nowhere, it is never an absolutely new, unknown, unfamiliar approach. A paradigm is based upon the previous experience and data of previous research.

The emergence of cognitive science has become a very important event in the 20 th century linguistics, it gives the possibility to treat linguistic phenomena from the cognitive point of view. As E.S, Kubriakova writes, cognitive science is not just an interdisciplinary branch, it unites or tries to unite some long existing, traditional fundamental sciences: mathematics, philosophy, linguistics and psychology on the one hand, and new and parallel developing branches, such as the theory of information, different methods of mathematical modeling, computer science, neurology. Thus, it may be concluded that linguistics is a branch of natural sciences.[2] Cognitivism is a part of functionalism, cognitive function is one of the anthropocentric functions, in which language plays a very important role. The study of language inside itself and for itself is being substituted by the study of language for a human being. The main problem of cognitive approach to the study of the language is the functioning of language and what the shared knowledge of the speakers should be to be able to understand the language. The internal possibilities of the speaker, the ability to speak and to understand what is said – that is the most important aspect of the current linguistic research. A human being is in the center of any fundamental science, but cognitive approach makes linguistics the leading one, which characterizes human intellective abilities. All the cognitive activities of a human being are integrated by the language. Within the scope of cognitive linguistics language is treated as a means of realization of the work of human mind, it reveals the processes which are going on there.

Nowadays there is a lot of proponents of cognitive approach to the study of language, at the same time there is a lot of those, who think that there is nothing new there: we have psycholinguistics, which goes back to Vigotsky’s ‘Language and Thinking”, we have sociolinguistics, which studies social processes, reflected in the language, and so on. The problem is that all the previous investigation was directed outwardly – language is the window to the outer world. Cognitive approach helps to penetrate inside the human mind.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Cognitive science denotes the basics of human behavior, which may be explained by the human experience and knowledge, which are represented in the human mind. Cognitive linguistics concentrates on the representation of this knowledge and experience in the human mind.

Cognitive science has developed in very many respects under the influence of the linguistic research. The traditional point of view is: as the science it appeared in the 80s of the 20 th Century as the result of the conference in Germany, where the Cognitive Linguistic Association was organized.

Cognitive linguistics is closely connected with cognitive science as its part. The task of the cognitive science is to study all the possibilities of human mind, the task of cognitive linguistics is first to define what is meant by the linguistic ability of a human being and what its place is among other human abilities. It is important to show the correlations between these abilities and the language. For example, we construct sentences according to some rules of grammar, but in their construction we try to present the communicative value of the utterance, thus the already mentioned thematic\rhematic relationship is singled out because of our deliberate placement of words, and of course our interlocutor – reader or hearer - must possess some shared background knowledge to be able to decode the information adequately.

Cognitive science studies the imagery potentials of the language, the emotional world of a human being, this means that cognitive linguistics must study and describe the linguistic representations of these emotions, their description in the language. Cognitive science deals with the conceptualization and the categorization of the world by a human being, this means, that cognitive linguistics should investigate these processes in the language. Cognitive science deals with mental representations and language formats and mental representations are semiotic entities, cognitive linguistics must define the specific features of the linguistic conventional sign in respect to the non-conventional and subjective representations of the world, which exist in our head. Cognitive science studies the way from information to knowledge and meaning – the sphere, where linguistics has always been very important. Cognitive science was established to unite the data and efforts of different branches of knowledge, which are dealing with similar problems, connected with the design, organization and the activity of human mind. Is this interdisciplinary approach justified in linguistics, to what extent may linguists operate not only linguistic information, but also data from other spheres of human knowledge?

In the English speaking linguistics cognitive approach presupposes some neurological studies. But linguistics is not a branch of biology. Neurolinguistics can exist, but as only a limited area of interdisciplinary study.

Linguists must rely on such areas as philological hermeneutics, vertical context, literary studies. The information is transmitted in the course of the discourse activity of the human being. Speech activity or discourse activity forms the foundation for any new paradigm, without its study it is impossible to understand how language really functions.

It is necessary to say some words in connection with discourse and discourse studies. This term appeared in the middle of the 50s of the 20th century. Initially it was connected with the oral speech, but later it started to be used very widely in different branches of human knowledge – philosophy, sociology, politology and ideology, literary studies etc. Due to this fact the attitude of many scholars to this term is very cautious. But discourse is a very important notion for cognitive linguistics, here it is very voluminous and primarily it gives the possibility to treat human language on the broad dynamic basis, which includes all kinds of contextual variations. It also includes into the process of study the human being itself with all his objective and subjective data.

There is a lot of difference between cognitive linguistic study in our country and abroad. If we turned to the then Soviet linguistic school, it would be possible to see that at that time there existed fully established linguistic schools where language was treated from the point of view of its functions, in connection with processes of thinking, philological hermeneutics, vertical context, philological topology, linguistic semiotics. Russian scholars dealt with these problems long before the emergence of cognitivism.

One article is not enough to concentrate on the work of different linguistic schools in our country, but it is necessary to say a few words about those aspects of linguistic research, which were characteristic of the Department of English of the Faculty of Philology in the Moscow State Lomonosov University. The history of the Department is not so long as compared, probably, with other departments of the Moscow University, the oldest University in Russia, which was founded in 1755 and headed by Michail Lomonosov – the great Russian scientist, who, as we know, was also a philologist. The Department exists for about 50 years, for more than thirty 58

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Philology: Scopes and Visions years it was headed by professor O.S. Akhmanova, who was the initiator of many new linguistic approaches to the study of the language. Akhmanova’s linguistic school continues to develop very productively nowadays, though its founder is not with us. This shows the novelty of the ideas and approaches of O.S. Akhmanova to the study of the language. Her own works and the works of her disciples show, that even such ultimate units of language as words and word combinations (collocations) cannot be understood adequately without a context.

Functional sentence perspective, the communicative value of utterances may be understood only on the level of longer stretches of speech, it is impossible to see thematic or rhematic progression without taking into consideration the whole text.

Ideas, connected with the communicative value of speech, were first discussed in A.I.Smirnitsky’s book “Syntax of Modern English Language”, published in 1957.[5] Professor Smirnitsky could predict further developments in linguistics. This has happened in the fifties of the 20 th Century, when the Soviet Union was separated from the outer world by the Iron Curtain. Of course, it is possible to think, that there were some ways of professional communication between scholars in the different countries at that time. One thing is clear: even at that time scholars have been able to foresee further development of the science on the background of the existing knowledge, the new level of the linguistic research, which presupposed contextual approach to the linguistic facts.

In the beginning of the present article we adduced the definition of philology, where the study of the written texts was the core problem. I think, many philologists, those who are dealing with the study of the real life of the language in speech: oral and written – will agree, that modern philology deals with speech in all of its realizations: oral and written. Language exists in and through speech, this statement which has been repeated in many different manuals, published by the representatives of the English Department school of linguistics, is well known, as well, as the statement of the unity of colligation and collocation – terms, which were introduced by J.R. Firth, the founder of the London Linguistic school, and further developed by the school of anglistics in the Moscow State University.

It is a well-known fact that language develops under the influence of speech. Something, that was impossible in language some time ago, becomes the norm later (take elliptical constructions or nominative sentences in English, for example). The study of speech, which has a long history, shows the importance of going beyond the limits of the sentence. The investigation of speech requires the use of many spheres of human knowledge, it is impossible to do without the communicative-pragmatic approach.

Problems, connected with language and thinking, different functions of the language, the role of a human being in the language and the role of the language for him, were always in the center of attention in our linguistic schools. Starting with the 90s cognitive terminology was already used in the works of our scholars.

To conclude, cognitive approach presupposes the cooperation of different branches of human knowledge, only this may permit to penetrate into the processes of cognition. There is no contradiction in that to the general definition of philology, given in the very beginning of the present article. At the same time, there exists some danger: the borderlines between linguistics and other disciplines may be blurred out, linguistics may loose its contours. Also some traditional areas of linguistic studies may loose the linguistic interest. The empiric data about languages must continue to be central for the linguistic studies.

The cognitive-discourse paradigm comprises some cognitive postulates on the one hand, and their correction by the postulates of the communicative paradigm, on the other. In fact, two functions are the leading ones here – cognitive and communicative. Any study of the linguistic data must take into consideration the contentplane and the form. Cognitive linguistics permits not only to correlate the linguistic form and its cognitive analogy, cognitive and conceptual structures and also the reasons for the choice of a particular form for a particular content.

To really understand the aims of cognitive linguistics, it is necessary to see the differences of this trend from other linguistic trends, to penetrate into its theoretical significance, its terminological system and methods of the cognitive analyses of the linguistic facts. The tasks of this linguistic trend were formulated in the journal Problems of Cognitive Linguistics in the following way: the investigation of the language as a means of organization, processing and transmission of the information. [1]

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Cognitive linguistics presupposes the so-called experientional approach to the language, which is based on the experience of collaboration with the outer world. There exist some common, objective features of this knowledge, which are universal, but there also exists some subjective, personal experience, the way a human being perceives the outer world and communicates with it.

The correlation of language and thinking is treated by cognitive linguistics in contrast with the previous studies in this field, not as the notional sphere, but in connection with complex processes which are going on in the human mind, which are closely connected with the speaking activity of a human being. The aim of cognitive linguistics is to penetrate into different structures of knowledge in order to describe their interdependence with the language.

Literature 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Болдырев Н.Н. Концептуальное пространство когнитивной лингвистики. В: Вопросы когнитивной лингвистики, №1, 2004 Кубрякова Е.С. Об установках когнитивной науки и актуальных проблемах когнитивной лингвистики. В: Вопросы когнитивной лингвистики, №1, 2004 Кубрякова Е.С. Эволюция лингвистических идей во второй половине 20 века (опыт парадигматического анализа). В сб.: Язык и наука конца 20 века. М., 1995 Литературный энциклопедический словарь. Советская энциклопедия, 1987 Смирницкий А.И. Синтаксис английского языка. М., 1957 Halliday M.A.K. Functional Grammar. Edward Arnold, 1985

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Nazarova, Tamara Semiotics in an ELT Setting ABSTRACT: The concepts and categories of semiotics can, and should, be used in English language teaching (ELT) to improve the foreign learner’s knowledge of the underlying emic system, his awareness of language in functional use, and his feel of the foreign language he is after. Semiotics, then, is not to be viewed as detached theorizing for the select few; it is a method and, more widely, a methodology that paves the way for one’s philological understanding of language, literature, communication and culture. … the entire universe … is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.

Charles Sanders Peirce “Signs are never innocent. Semiotics “Semi-what?”

“Semiotics. The study of signs.”

David Lodge. Nice Work, p. 155.

teaches us that.”

1. What is Semiotics?

Semiotics is the general theory of signs and sign systems. The term itself has been in use for a long time, and numerous publications — monographs, articles, abstracts, reports and reviews — have invariably included it into the wording of their titles. By the turn of the millennium, the science of signs and sign systems has reached an unprecedented level of anthropological generalization: it is not uncommon to find authors who look at Man as a Sign; nothing is too unusual about books that study Signs of Humanity, offer a Semiotic Approach to Human Relations and inquire into Semiotics, Self and Society. The boundaries of semiotics have gradually been extended to cover as much as possible of both the humanities ( The Semiotic Boundaries of Politics, for example) and the sciences (Biosemiotics, Semiotic Perspectives of Clinical Theory and Practice, etc.)

Semiotics is also an increasingly internationalized domain of research and inquiry: congresses and conferences are held under the auspices of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS) founded in 1969; there are active Semiotic Societies in different countries, for example, The Semiotic Society of America (SSA), The Semiotic Society of Finland, Association Canadienne de Sémiotique; newsletters and journals — Newsletter of the International Association for Semiotic Studies , The American Journal of Semiotics and many others — facilitate networking, both professionally and interculturally.

2. The Inevitable Downside: Identity Crisis. downside the disadvantage or negative aspect of something Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 418. identity crisis not being certain about your identity Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 710.

The unprecedented spread of semiotic studies across disciplines and geographical borders has not failed to reveal an intrinsic downside which becomes obvious when one reviews two of the more prominent publications in the field. One collection of articles called “On Signs” (1991) was put together by Marshall Blonsky (Editor), the New School for Social Research in New York. The other selection “Hi-Fives. A Trip to Semiotics” by Roberta Kevelson (Editor), Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emerita and Executive Director of the Center for Semiotic Research, came out of print in 1998.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Both authoritative books have covered and explored thoroughly a lot of semiotic terrain. The 46 essays in the “On Signs” volume looked at subjects as diverse as El Salvador’s death squads, Castro’s beard, the windows of Tiffany, fashion, food, film, jokes, psychoanalysis, and history. The contributions — among them the ones authored by eminent semioticians like Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Julia Kristeva and Thomas Sebeok — have clearly demonstrated “the broad and sweeping nature of semiotic concern”. In much the same vein, various branches of semiotics, referred to as “the human sciences”, have been represented and reflected in Roberta Kevelson’s “Hi-Fives. A Trip to Semiotics”: linguistics, psychology, anthropology, religion, law, music, theatre, graphics, poetics, media and architecture. “… semiotics refuses nothing. It sifts everything…,” observed Marshall Blonsky in his Introduction (1991, p. XV). “Semiotics cuts across the boundaries of cultures, of disciplines, of languages,” remarked Roberta Kevelson, the renowned editor, in her introductory article (1998, p. 1).

The increasingly diverse range of the areas included and the subjects covered in both substantive publications point to the identity crisis semiotics as a science is currently going through. At times, it is rather difficult, if not impossible, to find a common — semiotic — thread that would connect and hold together the numerous specimens of analyses, approaches and views assembled by the authors and editors. The much-desired and most sought-after unifying methodology appears to be non-existent. Of late, analytical work in the field of semiotics has deteriorated into abstract theorizing (“clean theory” — Blonsky 1991, р. VIII) or down-to-earth descriptivism (“turbulent application” — Blonsky 1991, р. VIII). The failure of theory, as brilliantly summed up by Marshall Blonsky, is “a language with little responsibility towards the real” (Blonsky 1991, р. XV).

Generalizations to the effect that semiotics “sees the world as an immense message, replete with signs” (Blonsky, p. VII) or “semiotics is a maker of relationships” (Kevelson, p. 1) hardly ever improve one’s understanding of what semiotics as a science is about and how it differs from other sciences. “Grasping this core aspect about semiotics is the really tough part.” (Kevelson, p. 1)

3. The Core of Semiotics. core the most important or the most basic part of something Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 310.

One of the most unsettling and disquieting results of the crisis of semiotics (“agony of semiotics” — Blonsky 1991) is that the centrepiece of semiotic theory — the sign itself — has been dissolved, displaced or deconstructed in different ways: deducing a convincing explanation of what a sign is from the multitude of sources and citations available in this country and abroad is an increasingly daunting task to perform. Signs are unfailingly taken for granted. The key concept of semiotics is left largely unexplained, and yet signs are described, classified and compartmentalized into icons, indices, symptoms, symbols, names, etc.; macrosigns are kept distinct from microsigns; language is seen as a primary sign system; literature is perceived as a secondary sign system; culture is considered as a complex sign system, and so on and so forth. At best, authors of books, articles and reviews resort to the classical definition given by Charles Sanders Peirce as far back as 1897: “A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.”1

4. What is a Sign?

It should be stated clearly that a sign is a bilateral entity — “something that stands for something” (Charles Sanders Peirce). Not every bilateral entity, however, will be a sign. For a unity (единство) to aspire to the status of the sign (знак), a specific kind of relationship between its two functives — the functive of expression and the functive of content — should be discovered and proved to exist. The substance, or the functive, of expression should be shown to have a one-to-one correspondence with the substance, or the functive, of content. A sign becomes “an ontological reality” (Akhmanova, Idzelis 1979: 13) only when the relationship between the two functives is shown to be disembodied («отвлеченный»)2, arbitrary («произвольный»)3 and singular («единичный»)4.

5. Linguistics and Semiotics.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions The relationship between semiotics as the general theory of sign systems (“the doctrine of the essential nature and fundamental varieties of possible semiosis” — Charles Sanders Peirce) and linguistics as the study of natural human languages («наука, изучающая язык в его реальном существовании, во всем многообразии его функций и проявлений» — О.С. Ахманова) has been seen differently by different scholars. Some have taken to the classical Saussurean notion of linguistics as part of the general science called “semiology” — a psychological discipline studying the life of signs against a background of social life. Others have invariably sided with those who reversed the hierarchy and regarded semiotics as part of linguistics (“more precisely the part concerned with big meaning units” — Roland Barthes).

At the turn of the millennium, with a wealth of intellectual insights into the nature of both sciences made available through a variety of the print, electronic and integrated media, there is increasingly less room for the structure-oriented equations of the above type. In fact, the situation is seen as sufficiently well clarified and can be coherently summed up in the following way: (1) linguistics and semiotics are different sciences with different objects, conceptual frameworks, and methodologies; (2) they should not be confused with one another; (3) the relationship between them is not hierarchical; (4) the relationship between them should not be viewed as semi-exclusive either; linguistics and semiotics can reinforce each other: the breakthroughs in the former can foster analytical work and practical methodologies in the latter (and vice versa); (5) natural languages, along with other systems, can, and should, be studied by semioticians; (6) signs and sign systems can, and should, be discovered in natural languages — semasiological systems of human communication in speech and writing.

6. Linguistic Semiotics: What Is It All About?

The term linguistic semiotics, or linguosemiotics, was introduced and convincingly accounted for by an outstanding Russian philologist — Professor Olga Sergeyevna Akhmanova. The key question — Are all units of language signs? — was formulated and consistently answered by Professor Akhmanova in her succinct book “Linguistics and Semiotics” co-authored by Rolandas F. Idzelis (Moscow University Press, 1979). Professor Akhmanova looked at the levels of language study and, as the result of empirical observations, singled out within Modern English those linguistic units that qualified as signs (знаки) and sign systems (знаковые системы).

At the same time, she pointed out: “There is also “gradience” — not “yes” or “no”, “signs” or “non-signs”, but “signs” to a greater or lesser degree” (p. 100).

Phonemes, for example, are signs: they signal “otherness” («отсутствие тождества»). Morphemes can also be viewed semiotically because, on the one hand, there are grammatical morphemes that signal “otherness” («отсутствие тождества»), whereas, on the other hand, there are lexical morphemes that signify “identity” («тождество»). Written discourse relies on the system of punctuation marks that are disembodied and arbitrary: they signal a particular way of segmenting and stratifying a text. A full stop, for instance, is used whenever the finality of an utterance needs to be conveyed unambiguously in writing. In spoken discourse, finality is signalled by a pause of the optimal length (shorter than the pause between paragraphs and longer than the one within the sentence). Pauses can signal, through regular variations of length, different kinds of syntactic content: the meaningful division within a sentence, the border between sentences, the transition to a new paragraph, etc. Absence of pause, coupled with increased tempo and decreased loudness, points to “interrupted speech” («неплавная речь») — a bracketed parenthetical insertion. In other words, the less important pieces of information are downplayed and therefore given in brackets. The more important types of information can be intensified and are, as a rule, given in double dashes that in spoken discourse require a pause before and after, increased loudness and decreased tempo.

Another sign system in a natural human language is constituted by articles. The fixed uses («связанные» употребления артиклей)5 have to be consistently distinguished from those that allow categorial variation (категориальное варьирование): in many situations, the choice of this or that article (the deictic orientation of the speech event — дейктическая ориентация высказывания) will depend on the speaker or writer6. In ac63

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Philology: Scopes and Visions cordance with the purport he or she wants to convey (=signal), one of the three articles — the zero article, the definite article and the indefinite article — will be given preference. Generalizing is signalled by the zero article; classifying is signified by the indefinite article; the definite article will signal identity, i.e. unfailingly point to the person or thing meant by the language user.

In the 70s and 80s of the XXth century, Professor Olga Akhmanova and her numerous disciples discovered and described the various signs and sign systems emically — as part of the language system. While supervising all the research work in the field of linguistic semiotics, Professor Akhmanova had at the same time encouraged some of the scholars to continue the study of signs outside the emic system, in speech and writing, when native and non-native speakers use English as a means of communication for a wide range of purposes — interpersonally and interculturally, in spoken and written discourse, for information and impact, for business, science and technology. Gradually, a new direction of semiotic studies — philological semiotics (филологическая семиотика) — evolved at the English Department of Moscow State University7.

7. Philological Semiotics: Articulating the Principles.

Philological semiotics (филологическая семиотика) takes into account all the achievements of linguistic semiotics (лингвистическая семиотика), but it does not confine itself to the emic level (уровень языковой системы) where the signs and sign systems of a natural human language are inventorized and kept distinct from non-signs. Philological semiotics is speech- and communication-oriented; it is, first and foremost, language in use that philological semiotics concerns itself with. In the speech-centred methodology, the two concepts — communication (общение) and understanding (понимание) — come to the fore8. Philological semiotics shows that semiotics in a natural language is more than a mere listing of signs; philological semiotics identifies and accounts for the semiotic ontology of meaning (семиотическая онтология значения) and carries out an ongoing search for different ontologies of meaning as part of written and spoken communication. The semiotic ontology of meaning is viewed by philological semiotics along, and side by side with, the two other ontologies of meaning — semantics (семантика), on the one hand, and metasemiotics (метасемиотика), on the other hand. Understanding as the ultimate goal of human communication depends on the coexistence and continuous interaction of these three ontologies of meaning.

Semantics, semiotics and metasemiotics are the “avenues of meaning” (Roland Barthes). Semantics is the meanings of words, complex word-equivalents and utterances. The relationship of form and content in lexical semantics is indissoluble: “meaning is a fact of language because of a constant and firmly established association between a given segment of conceptual material and a given piece of linguistic expression” 9. Semiotics looks at purports signalled by different sound envelopes; the relationship between expression (план выражения) and content (план содержания) is disembodied, arbitrary and singular. Metasemiotics presupposes that the expression plane and the content plane of a linguistic unit act in combination as an expression for a new content.

The three ontologies of meaning are not semi-exclusive; they operate in combination and conjunction with one another. The deeper one’s understanding of a speech event, the wider the range of meanings deduced and perceived by the “situated agent” — the reader/listener/addressee/interlocutor, etc. Some of the units in an utterance name things, objects, processes, etc. and, thus, provide lexical meanings which form the core of semantics. Some other units convey emotional-evaluative-expressive overtones and therefore belong to metasemiotics. Different parts of an utterance can signal some invariant purports (обобщённые содержания) that will function beyond semantics and metasemiotics, in the domain of semiotics. What philological semiotics looks for and shows clearly is the continuous mix of these three ontologies when it comes to one’s understanding of speech and writing. Philological semiotics also demonstrates that these diverse ontologies of meaning offer a “reversible hierarchy”10.

8. The Interface of Semantics, Semiotics and Metasemiotics in Action — I. interface (formal) a place where people or things meet each other Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 750. triad 64

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Philology: Scopes and Visions a group of three people or things that are related or similar to each other Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 1543.

Any aspect of language study can be scanned in speech through the prism of the core triad detailed above — semantics (семантика), semiotics (семиотика) and metasemiotics (метасемиотика). Phonemes, for example, do not have lexical meanings and therefore do not belong to semantics. They signal “otherness” («отсутствие тождества»), and in speech this intrinsic semiotic property is realized to the full: signalling “otherness” serves the purposes of ongoing human communication; people exchange written and spoken utterances, conveying different pieces of information and content to each other. In artistically organized utterances, phonemes are used metasemiotically. The following extract from a work of fiction exploits the hidden potentials of the units of the diacritical level: “otherness” signalled by phonemes subsides under pressure from individual creativity and intentional expressivity. In other words, it is metasemiotics that comes to the fore: For a few minutes there was silence as they all read their letters. Harry’s told him to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King’s Cross station on September first. There was also a list of the new books he’d need for the coming year.

SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS WILL REQUIRE: The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart Wandering with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart Year with Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart (Harry Potter. The Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, p. 43 – 44) In speech, morphemes can also testify to the interface of semiotics, semantics and metasemiotics. De-, for instance, is a lexical morpheme and has got a certain meaning; in fact, several meanings: 1. in some verbs and nouns, shows an opposite; 2. in some verbs, means to remove something or remove things from something; 3. in some verbs, means to make some things less; reduce. In the extracts from Harry Potter given below, the second meaning of de- and its semiotic property of signalling “identity” («тождество») operate on the metasemiotic level: “You’re going to de-gnome the garden for me; they’re getting completely out of hand again ...” (p. 35) “I’ve never seen a de-gnoming ...” (p. 35) “Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden ...” (p. 35) “The moment they know the de-gnoming’s going on …” (p. 37) The air was soon thick with flying gnomes. (p. 37) The interface of semantics, metasemiotics and semiotics can be seen even more clearly in one’s study of words, word-equivalents and their meanings. The text given below is an advertisement: A mouthful of habañero peppers. And then some.

Looking for an intense experience? Then meet the all new Saab 9–3 Sport Sedan. With a startling blend of turbo power and responsive handling, this is about as far away from a bland drive as you can get. Now take that rush, add the superior safety and design of a Saab, and you’re going to need one very cold glass of water.

Blend and bland in the Saab advertisement exemplify clearly the interplay of semantics, semiotics and metasemiotics. As these are words — lexical items, it is semantics that needs to be examined first and foremost.

Blend (n) means a mixture of different qualities, characteristics, people, etc. that combine together well (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 124), for example, an excellent team, with a nice blend of experience and youthful enthusiasm. Bland (adj) means without any excitement, strong opinions or special character (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 122). One can say something like a few bland comments or … pleasant enough, but a little bland.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Within the system, semantics goes hand in hand with semiotics: blend and bland are minimal pairs signalling “the extreme scarcity of the physical (or actual material) means a human language has at its disposal” 11. The consumer-oriented advertisement under consideration makes an impact by intensifying the advantages of the product in question: a startling blend of turbo power and responsive handling, the superior safety and design of a Saab. The metasemiotic contrast is between a startling blend of turbo power and responsive handling and as

far away from a bland drive as you can get.

In the case with blend and bland one deals with partial phonetic similarity (частичное совпадение звучания); the minimal semiologically relevant distinction is based on the opposition of short vowels [e] and [æ]. In a natural human language, there are numerous instances of complete absence of differentiation on the diacritical level (полное отсутствие дифференциации на диакритическом уровне). For example, trial in the meaning of the process of examining a case in a court of law and deciding whether someone is guilty or innocent and trial in the meaning of a painful or difficult experience share the same orthographic and phonetic shape. In fact, the same expression plane covers not only these two meanings but several other meanings as well (see, for example: Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 1535). In a situation like this what one deals with is polysemy (полисемия/многозначность). It is a typical example of how “the law of the sign” («закон знака») is violated in natural semasiological systems. In fiction, different meanings are brought together metasemiotically and made to serve an aesthetic function. In The Trials of Finch by Zadie Smith (The New Yorker. — December 23 & 30, 2002. — P. 116 – 123), the meanings, kept distinct within the dictionary entry, converge not only within the narrative itself but also in the title of the work of verbal art. Before explaining why it happens, it seems appropriate to quote the opening paragraph of the story: SAY HELLO TO FINCH inch had three friends: Claire, Karen, and Jemima. These were tall, lucky, professional Englishwomen in their early forties who had been ever so kind to Finch, and who felt, with some reason, that they had saved her.

Ten years ago, when Finch first entered their circle, these three women were married, they had families and intricate lives, and Finch had no one and nothing. It was a friendship so unlikely it had the color of charity. By befriending her, they plucked poor Finch from the very edge of something. Stopped her from slipping down a notch to join the lonely mad, who were visible everywhere in Hampstead, with their sticks and props and wigs, spitting, effortful, bent. Because of her friends, Finch was not one of these people. She had a job and did not fear the London Underground or any of its African employees with their blue caps and bloodshot eyes. She had been persuaded (after a battle!) to give up long, bright socks and men’s suspenders. She no longer kept food loose in her pockets. It turned out that Finch wasn’t mad at all — she was only an eccentric.

It should be mentioned that Finch is not the real name of the character: “Her name, her real name was Rosalind Jane Gordon.” (p. 119) The new name was an attempt on her part to distance herself from a crime she had committed as an eleven-year-old girl: “With my hands I pushed them off the edge, I killed them.” (p. 119) For a long time Finch had lived with the terrible burden: she spent ten years in a low-security children’s care facility, then moved to an adult-care facility.

“Finch stopped being able to look people in their eyes.” (p. 120) “Finch began to understand the enormity of the thing she had done.” (p. 119) “There was never any trial for Finch, and no prison, and the curiosity of her case, from the therapeutic point of view, was how much her late teens came to be filled with a longing for a jury and for punishment. She fell in love with the idea of a judge the way other girls envision their princes. Finch wanted to feel the law.” (p.

120) One day, through “an administrative oversight”, Finch, although not eligible, is chosen for jury duty: “Tomorrow Finch would attend somebody else’s trial. Whose? What had they done? Why?” (p. 119) Someone else’s trial triggers off her own soul-searching and urges her to come forward with the truth about her own life: “Here, in the house of Truth, everything could be seen!” (p. 118) In the narrative, one comes across trial as a legal process in which a court of law examines a case to decide whether someone is guilty of a crime. There is also trial in the meaning of a painful or difficult experience as in “These things,” said Karen, kindly, “can be quite a trial — excuse the pun …” (p.121). In another passage, the difficulties and troubles Finch had been through are narrated. The intentional build-up of the unset-

F

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Philology: Scopes and Visions tling circumstances and disquieting facts in the life of the character makes the reader recall and bring in the phrase trials and tribulations.

By the end of the story, Finch takes on “the dimensions of a character” (p. 123). She comes forward with the truth in a long letter to the jury: “she made a full account of herself, her personal experience” (p. 122). As the plot is rounded off, the reader is justified in bringing up another meaning of trials (BrE, in sports) as testing someone’s (a player’s) ability (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 1543).

All these meanings, explicit and implicit, converge in the title — “The Trials of Finch” — through polyphony (полифония). Lexical semantics is thus made to serve the metasemiotic purposes of the work of verbal art. This combined use of different lexical meanings becomes possible due to the intrinsic propensity of the words of a natural human language to violate “the law of the sign”. Polysemy signals there being no one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning in natural semasiological systems. In artistically organized utterances, it is polyphony that takes the lead12.

9. The Interface of Semantics, Semiotics and Metasemiotics in Action — II. Words are lexical items (лексические единицы); they have lexical meanings (лексические значения), and, as shown convincingly in the Russian philological tradition, there can be different types of lexical meaning — the nominative, the nominative-derivative, the collocationally conditioned, the colligationally conditioned, the phraseologically bound and the expressive-synonymic meanings. Reviewing numerous uses and presenting, through abstraction and generalization, sets (or clusters) of invariant meanings in the dictionary is the task of lexicology and lexicography. In modern corpora-based dictionaries, meanings are deduced from a multitude of real specimens of language in current use. In some dictionaries, the more frequently used meanings are given at the top of the entry; these are followed by less frequently cited meanings and uses of the word in question.

In a natural human language, there are different kinds of words. Some are categorematic words (полнозначные слова) like trial, class, picture, bare, manuscript, etc.; others are syncategorematic words (служебные слова): prepositions, conjunctions, etc. There are different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. Along with these, there is one lexical area that is of utmost interest for philological semiotics. The area in question is constituted by names (имена собственные).

For Modern English, the situation with names and specifically personal names is rather complicated. On the one hand, personal names are not ordinary words, even if some of them have originated from nouns with their inherent lexical meanings like Felicity or combinations like Snow White. Personal names identify people, and in that they are identifiers or signs of one’s identity. Personal names in English-speaking cultures include first name, middle name and last name. The use of the full middle name is recognizably British, and the use of a middle initial is American.

The same person can be referred to by at least two or three variants of the name. Fiction unfailingly supplies convincing examples. In Agatha Christie’s “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?”, Frances Derwent from an aristocratic family goes mostly by Frankie. Robert Jones is Bobbie; he is of inferior social standing and this is unambiguously conveyed by his last name. Not only do names allow stylistic variation (the full name as distinct from a less formal short name), they allow variant pronunciations: Salman Rushdie, for instance, pronounces his last name with short [u] in the first syllable as in put and hood; however, a different variant with short [Λ] (as in hut, money, etc.) is also possible. The name of another famous writer, John le Carré, has also got two phonetic variants: as far as the place of the stress is concerned, the choice is between the second and the third syllables; the vowel in the second syllable can change from short [æ] to long [a:].

Names can signal national identity: Irish names like McCourt, McCann, etc., are easy to recognize and place. Some names are unmistakably American, for example, Henry T. Nicholas III, Senator H. John Heinz III. These are also names that signal an affinity with big business and politics.

It follows, then, that names can be viewed as sign situations (знаковые ситуации). In this sense, the full name John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the initials JFK provide instant identification. One of the senators of the US Senate John Forbes Kerry is currently in a predicament because as a contender for the democratic ticket in the forthcoming presidential race he finds it difficult to disguise the invidious J.F.K. comparisons. As mentioned in a quality magazine, “he had even excised the “F.” from his bumper stickers.” His middle name Forbes is being 67

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Philology: Scopes and Visions dropped for another reason as well: it is a big-business name, and, as a genuinely democratic leader, John Kerry would probably do better without this blatantly obvious (and distinctly conservative) association.

Fiction writers and film-makers are fully aware of the semiotic (i.e. signalling) propensities of names. As one of the reviewers in a quality magazine remarked, Harry in the famous Harry Potter series, is a suitable name for an orphan wizard boy; Percy, on the contrary, would be inappropriate. It was also pointed out that James was the best choice for the principal character in the famous 007 films as the name has got a kingly ring to it (consonant with the former British imperial impulses). 13

10. Philological Semiotics in an ELT Setting — I: Teaching General English. full-scale complete or not limited in any way Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 573.

Linguistic semiotics (лингвистическая семиотика) and philological semiotics (филологическая семиотика) move from the particulars (конкретные единицы) as observed on the empirical level to the purports (обобщенные значения) generalized and abstracted on the gnoseological level. This is the underlying cognitive (in the meaning of «познавательный») mechanism that allows one to arrive at the semiotic status, or semiotic standing, of a given unit or class of units. Step by step one is supplied with a full-scale representation of the intrinsic semiotic characteristics of a natural human language as a means of written and spoken communication, at the crossroads of language and thinking, language and culture, language and literature.

There can also be a different kind of movement — from the purports (обобщенные значения) to the particulars (конкретные единицы). This aspect of philological semiotics needs to be discussed in detail. Language teaching and language learning are those spheres where the transition from the generalized purports to the particulars is of great significance. One should be reminded in this connection that learning a foreign language is an act of impersonation: the learner is a signmaker who purposefully assumes and continuously cultivates a certain kind of linguistic identity14. In other words, a foreign learner is expected to become proficient in sending out signs (or signals) of a particular linguistic identity. Different linguistic identities signal different kinds of sociolinguistic associations and implications15. Once again, fiction and quality press provide convincing illustrations:

“Orwell was a brilliant and cultured man, with an Eton accent.”

(The New Yorker. – January 27, 2003. – P. 87) or “His voice was gentle, with a soft Southern lilt.”

(Op. cit., p. 61) With so many Englishes around him, the linguistically minded foreign student should choose the kind of English that would identify him in the most favourable way. What are the options available to a literate foreign student when it comes to selecting a suitable linguistic identity? They are not numerous. In fact, they can all be rolled into one — an educated non-native user of Modern English. In this respect, Standard English is the optimal choice for it provides maximum intelligibility worldwide, is sanctioned for institutional use, is spoken by the educated minority, is the basis of formal training in educational establishments and carries a certain amount of social prestige (Crystal 1995: 110 – 111).

The affinity with Standard English (by way of orthography, grammar and the vocabulary) tops the list of the purports that a foreign student is supposed to learn to signal. The next kind of linguistic identity the foreign learner needs to assume and convey clearly is the affinity with one of the more widely used regional dialects — British English (британский английский) or American English (американский английский). At the English Department, Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University, students are consistently trained to signal their identity as speakers of British English. The orthography, the grammar and the vocabulary they acquire and use are British English-based as distinct from their American English-based counterparts. As to the uses typically associated with American English, they should not be discarded: learners should be taught to recognize and place them accordingly, identifying American spelling, grammatical constructions and lexical choices. Conscious, step-by-step differentiation between the two — British English, on the one hand, and American Eng68

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Philology: Scopes and Visions lish, on the other hand, — is a useful identity vs otherness exercise in applied semiotics that improves one’s production and reception skills.

As emphasized by experts in phonetics and phonology, a regional dialect functions in conjunction with a purposefully selected regional accent, for example: British English and Received Pronunciation (RP); American English and General American (GA). Received Pronunciation (RP) identifies foreign learners as educated users of Standard British English. Producing No 5 [a:] in words like past, fast, last, etc. is RP. Stressing the second syllable in address, research, laboratory, inquiry, etc. is RP. However, their counterparts with [æ] in the first line of examples and the stress on the first syllable in the second line of examples point to (i.e. identify) another regional accent — General American (GA). As far as production (peчeпроизводство) is concerned, foreign students should be taught to be conservative “signmakers”, assiduously reproducing the RP model. As far as reception (listening comprehension — восприятие, аудирование) is concerned, the non-native students at the intermediate and advanced levels should be trained to “switch codes” — identify, recognize and place increasingly more of the existing regional dialects and regional accents.

11. Varying Degrees of Wrongness and the Virtues of Constant Gardening.

Learning a foreign language is a long and painstaking process. Generally speaking, beginner and intermediate students are guided by the teacher who selects things for them to learn and, as expected, shapes their knowledge of the language. In other words, the teacher is in charge: the final decision as to what is put in and what is kept out rests with him (or her). In an ideal ELT setting, the informed teacher will strive to balance accuracy (точность) and fluency (беглость). In accuracy-centred exercises, the emphasis is on form and therefore all the wrong uses — phonetic, grammatical, lexical, syntactic and stylistic — are spotted and corrected by the teacher. In fluency-centred activities (practising conversational patterns, for example), the teacher will be less exacting and more tolerant because the emphasis is on the flow of the utterances exchanged (Maley 1992: 67-77).

With time, however, outside the immediate ELT environment, the foreign learner will almost certainly find himself on his own. He will have to fend for himself, as it were: the decision as to what’s in and what’s out will, and should, be taken by him. He will have to learn to deal with varying degrees of wrongness, putting up resistance to his English “being pulled”(Crystal 1998:92) in the direction of his Russian-language patterns. Here are some of the difficulties that most advanced foreign learners of English have to cope with: mispronounced vowels, consonants and clusters; wrong stress patterns; strong forms used instead of weak forms; a slower rate of speech and clearer patterns of articulation; Russian intonation contours; an increasingly syllable-timed rhythm instead of the genuinely English stress-timed rhythm; poor grammar and simplified syntax; “unbalanced vocabulary” and un-English discourse patterns; avoidance of common idioms, etc.

The much-needed command of the English language will not materialize of its own accord; neither will it happen overnight. Metaphorically speaking, advanced non-native users of English should get used to the idea of constant gardening16: continuous selection, cultivation and nurturing will be needed on an ongoing basis to instil a true culture of quality in the foreign learner’s values; weeding out (i.e. removing) the things that are not suitable, or good enough, and rooting out (i.e. getting rid of) the Russian-based patterns of language and thought will have to be done carefully, consciously and consistently.

12. English as English.

With the advances in corpora-based lexicography, accessing authentic specimens of written and spoken discourse is becoming increasingly easier. Learners no longer find themselves at the mercy of native and nonnative textbook writers who engineer teaching materials on their own, unfailingly treating foreign learners to the kind of English that does not allow them to express their “ideas cogently in idiomatic English” (Runcie 2002). Nowadays, foreign students gain confidence from the corpora-based dictionaries and self-study books that provide first-rate information on frequency of occurrence, patterns of morphosyntactic and lexicalphraseological combinability, written and spoken varieties of Modern English, difference between British English and American English, pragmatic implications, and register-based variation (conversation, academic writ-

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Philology: Scopes and Visions ing, fiction, news)17. The corpora-based resources encourage foreign learners to acquire and use idiomatic (i.e. natural-sounding, real, authentic) English — English as English18.

13. Philological Semiotics in an ELT Setting — II: Teaching Business English.

Choosing, and maintaining, a particular linguistic identity is of importance outside General English settings as well. One other area where the questions of What identity to assume? and What purports to signal? arise right from the start is Business English (английский язык делового общения)19. Business English is the language used for business purposes. In the most general sense, the overall task of the teacher of Business English consists in transforming his reasonably literate General English students into reasonably literate Business English users. As far as linguistic identity (or affinity) is concerned, several options are available: Standard English, Basic English, Survival English, Restricted English.

In an educational environment where English is the core of one’s formal training, an affinity with Standard English as a means of communication in business settings is about the only worthwhile long-term alternative for a non-native learner. Basic English and Survival English are too limited in scope and use, whereas Restricted English comes complete with what was so aptly described by a British ELT trainer as “social baggage” (i.e. negative implications).

14. Signalling an Affinity with the World of Business.

A properly conveyed affinity with Standard English — in terms of orthography, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation — will identify advanced students of Business English as educated non-native learners and provide a solid foundation for further, and more specialized, language acquisition. It is more specialized in the sense that, although still within the boundaries of Standard English, it will have to take advanced foreign students beyond General English. Semiotically speaking, learners should be taught to convey, clearly and unambiguously, an immediate connection, or affinity, with the world of business. This semiotic (i.e. signalling) function is best carried out by key business terminology (General Business English terminology – общеупотребительная терминология английского языка делового общения) and therefore needs to be introduced to the advanced learners from the very beginning, with lots of key business terms explained and exemplified for ongoing acquisition and active use.

Business terms denote key concepts of business. Knowledge of terms like assets, liabilities, diversification, brand, trademark, franchise and many others improves one’s understanding of the world of business: assets something belonging to an individual or a business that has value or the power to earn money liabilities the amount of money owed by a business considered together diversification increasing the range of goods or services produced brand a name given to a product by a company so that the product can easily be recognized by its name and its design trademark a name or symbol that is used on the products of a particular company franchise an arrangement in which a company gives a business the right to sell its goods or services in return for a fee or a share of the profits The conceptual aspect should be supported, and supplied, with a wealth of recurrent word-combinations and collocations that show (i.e. demonstrate, exemplify) how advanced students of Business English should use key business terms in speech and writing, for example: trademark a registered trademark; well-known trademarks franchise a franchise agreement; under a franchise; the franchise industry 70

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Philology: Scopes and Visions 15. Consolidating the Affinity with Standard English.

At the advanced level of language acquisition, key business terms should not be isolated from the rest of the Standard English lexicon and should therefore be traced back to their General English counterparts. This “back-to-General-English” stage is meant to consolidate the affinity between Business English and Standard English. For example, the term trademark, adduced earlier, has got a General English counterpart meaning a particular way of behaving, dressing, etc. by which someone or something can be easily recognized (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 1534): The striped T-shirt became the comedian’s trademark.

This kind of resolution (at the end of the novel — T.N.), too, is something of a Crichton trademark.

But it’s also his trademark to (do sth) …

It was not the first time that Johnny Apple had lost his trademark enthusiasm for the task at hand. …dressed in one of her trademark black suits…

General English and Business English collocations improve one’s command of morphosyntactic and lexical-phraseological combinability. Along with collocations, students should be advised to use macro patterns that govern written and spoken discourse — the construction of sentences and utterances. Instead of saying What’s your company? What’s your education? students should be encouraged to use typically English ways of framing questions: What kind of company do you work for? Where did you study? Where did you get your

MBA? How long have you been with your present company?

Questions should be supplied with answers: a) single-statement answers, b) multiple statement answers, c) answer + comment or d) answer + follow-up question. Russian students of Modern English should also be taught to react and show interest, make suggestions, agree and disagree, interrupt politely, criticize, summarise, etc. Internalizing patterns of discourse should eventually lead to better communication skills needed for effective written and spoken interaction in business settings.

16. Signalling an Affinity with a Particular Professional Area or Professional Function.

Signalling an affinity with the world of business operates in conjunction with another no less important semiotic function. It should be specified at this point that people in business settings are “situated agents”: they belong to particular professional areas (or industries) and act in particular professional functions (or capacities).

This professional and functional affinity is signalled by different kinds of specialized terminology (специализированная терминология), for example: Finance account(s), accounts payable/creditors, accounts receivable/debtors, consolidated accounts, accrued interest, compound interest, acid ratio, annual return Information Technology computer, quantifying information, processors, memory, peripherals, software, operating system, application, bugs, viruses, hackers, networks, artificial intelligence, virtual reality When do advanced Business English students turn to the Specialized terminologies exemplified above?

When they go beyond General Business English (деловой английский наиболее общего предназначения) and focus on Business English for Special (or Specific) Purposes (деловой английский для специальных целей)20.

17. Business English and Regional Variation: Signalling an Affinity with British English or American English.

An advanced Business English student should also be taught to select a particular linguistic identity with regards to the regional, or diatopic, variation of Modern English. The semiotic implications of this selection are as follows: by intentionally choosing a linguistic unit, item or set of items, he (or she) signals a particular dialectal affiliation. The key distinction is shown to be between British English business terms (and, more widely, usage) and their American English counterparts, for example: to issue shares — to issue stock, shareholder — stockholder, company — corporation, registered — incorporated, controlling interest — majority stake, recruitement agency — search firm, etc. In the increasingly internationalized world of business, advanced learn71

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Philology: Scopes and Visions ers will almost certainly need both. “Code-switching” («переключение кодов») will be an essential skill in one’s vocabulary acquisition and use.

Code-switching is not confined to the lexical and, more specifically, terminological level. It is a useful exercise in applied semiotics and should be allotted more time in the study of the registers (i.e. functional uses) within Business English as well. In business correspondence (деловая переписка), Yours sincerely is British English, whereas Sincerely yours is American English; the use of a comma after the salutation is British English, whereas in American English they use a colon; in British English block style layout all paragraphs start at the margin, whereas in American English the paragraphs are indented; writing the date as 15 January 2003 is British English, whereas the American English counterpart is January 15, 2003.

18. Signalling One’s Affinity with a Given Corporate Culture.

As mentioned earlier, business people are “situated agents”: they act in particular business settings for particular purposes. The latter — the settings and the purposes — are influenced and, more often than not, determined (not to say dictated) by a given corporate culture. The term corporate culture has several acceptations.

On the one hand, it means the way things are done in the world of business. On the other hand, corporate culture means the way things are done in a given company (“the way we do things here” — Mascull 2002). This second, narrow, sense of the concept in question is also covered by another term — house style (“a way of formatting business documents and business correspondence adopted by a company and adhered to by its employees” — Dictionary of General Business English Terminology, p. 58 – 59)21.

Following house style is the sign of one’s occupational and organizational affiliation. House style applies to: the format and layout of business documents (business letters, faxes, reports, contracts); the company logo and letterhead; the selected meeting format; the preferred negotiating strategy; the in-company dress code, etc. It can also be extended to include some, seemingly insignificant, details like the preferred brand of zerox paper and the choice of Christmas cards.

19. Signalling Professionalism, Confidence and Enthusiasm: Verbal Communication vs Non-verbal Communication.

Within a Business English course, applied semiotics trains advanced foreign students to acquire and reproduce patterns of standard business discourse. They are particularly important in written communication for one needs to format texts clearly and coherently. In putting together a formal business letter, for example, one should follow a particular layout. In block style layout (цельноблочный стиль), learners carefully arrange the different parts of the letter on the page: using a letterhead (официальный бланк) is a must; placing the addressee’s name and address on the left is essential; the date should be on the right (unless positioned on the left as required by house style); the salutation is on the left; all the paragraphs start at the margin and there are line spaces between them; there are at least three paragraphs (a short introduction followed by the main message and rounded off by a concluding phrase of politeness); the close should be coordinated with the salutation, etc.

What does this block style layout convey or, in semiotic terms, signal? It signals one’s professionalism, and it does this with the help of both verbal and non-verbal elements (вербальные и невербальные составляющие процесса общения).

Along with the signs of his professionalism, a learner of Business English should become proficient in sending out some other signals (or messages). Not only is a situated agent expected to be professional in a business setting, he is required to be a confident and enthusiastic communicator as well. How does one signal confidence and enthusiasm? What are the verbal and non-verbal devices at work?

Confidence and enthusiasm are top priorities in spoken business discourse. As shown in a number of publications (Powell 1996, Nazarova 2003), there are numerous ways for one to signal (i.e. convey) his or her confidence and enthusiasm: talking to an audience rather than giving a presentation “scripted to the last breath”, offering an appropriate introduction tailored to the audience; signposting one’s presentation; involving the audience; stressing the more important concepts by bringing them out in the flow of speech; repeating the key words; offering meaningful contrasts and juxtapositions to emphasize something; asking rhetorical questions and using a variety of patterns to do this; when appropriate, referring to visuals; resorting to quotations, idioms, wordplay and other means of expressivity.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Verbal communication (вербальное общение) operates in conjunction with non-verbal communication (невербальное общение). Experts in the field point to the role of dress standards (“dressing for success”, “dressing appropriately”, “creating the right appearance”, “Dressing well does help advance careers.”), colour choice (“Navy blue is the first color choice, but conservative colors such as gray and tan and conservative styles are also appropriate in most offices.” — Adler 1992: 78), facial expression (“… a person’s face communicates emotions clearly.” — Addler 1992:79; “read the face”, “unpack the face”), eye contact (“The eyes themselves communicate a great deal.” — Addler 1992: 79); voice quality (“voice power”, “Make sure your voice is one that people want to listen to ...”, “Executives need a voice that commands respect and projects authority.” “Your voice needs to convey the sense of being in control.” — Grant-Williams 2002), body movement and gestures (“The way you sit at your desk when you’re working can express something about your attitude toward your job or how hard you’re working to anyone who cares to look.” — Addler 1992: 80), personal space and distance (“The distance we put between ourselves and others also reflects feelings and attitudes, and it affects communication.” — Addler 1992: 81), time management (“The way we use time provides a number of silent messages.” — Addler 1992: 83).

20. Detecting the Signs of the Times: Business English Students as Semiotically Literate Readers of Reality. a sign of the times used about a thing or situation that you think is typical of the present state of society, especially one that shows how bad it has become Longman Idioms Dictionary, p. 310.

It was explained above (in section 14) that key business terminology points to, or signals an affinity with, the world of business. In other words, key business terms perform a sign function. In this respect, terms like Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Investment Officer (CIO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), the Board of Directors, consultant, accounting, corporate and many others share signalling (i.e. semiotic) propensities.

At the same time, every business term has a meaning (or meanings) of its own. The semantics of Chief Executive Officer, for example, is the highest official of a business organization responsible for running it properly and profitably (Dictionary of General Business Terminology, p. 27). The standard high-frequency collocations, word-combinations and syntactic patterns are as follows: Chief Executive Officer — (add the name); Chairman, CEO and President, — (add the name of the company); the founder and CEO; Chairman and CEO, — (add the name of the company); succeed someone as CEO; the new CEO of — (name the company) As CEO of — (name the company), ...

He had a busy year as President and CEO. In November he landed a job as Chairman and CEO of — (name the company).

Since becoming CEO three years ago, …

He took over as President and Chief Executive Officer of — (name the company) in 1999.

In the print media of the turn of the millennium one can also find word-combinations with expressiveevaluative-emotional (usually pejorative) overtones, for example:

celebrity CEOs greedy CEOs the entrepreneurial CEO with a thespian bent corporate malfeasance corporate evildoers a compelling collection of fallen leaders tales of tragic mistakes, convoluted fraud and outright greed corporate shenanigans the accounting shenanigans the shady accounting practices

73

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Philology: Scopes and Visions In a business cartoon, the Board of Directors becomes the Board of Cronies. Crony — a friend or supporter, especially of someone powerful. This word shows that you dislike the person and their friends (Macmillan English Dictionary, p. 331). One of the cartoons in a quality magazine shows an elderly businessman socializing at a reception; the caption reads as follows: “Yes, I am a CEO, but not in the pejorative sense.” Another business cartoon supplies the following caption: “Sorry, sir — we seem to have lost five million dollars in the fog of accounting.”

The playful (i.e. metasemiotic) phrasing of the collocations and utterances given above will be fully appreciated by advanced Business English students if they know that in the late 90s some of the world’s largest companies — Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, ImClone, Tyco, Martha Stewart, Arthur Anderson — slipped “deeper and deeper into trouble due to the misdeeds of CEOs who lacked obstacles to keep them from plummeting into the quagmire of fraud and desperation as they tried to make good on impossible promises”(Surowiecki 2002). As stated by a leading business columnist, “…executive greed, investment banker corruption and accounting shenanigans are the visible signs of a system that needs a tune up”22.

Philological semiotics encourages the advanced learner of Business English to uncover in key business terminology the symbiosis (i.e. interdependence) of the three ontologies of meaning — semiotics, semantics and metasemiotics: key business terms point to the world of business; they all have meanings; they can be played upon by users who coin expressive and evaluative collocations that, more often than not, display pejorative overtones. The latter — the metasemiotic uses — should not be confined to linguostylistics which views them against the neutral backdrop of a host of standard collocations. They should be treated semiotically, i.e. detected and interpreted as the signs of the times (“the visible signs of a system that needs a tune up” — Surowiecki 2002).

The above three-dimensional view of key business terminology transforms advanced Business English learners into “semiotically literate readers of reality” (Libertin 1998). It also exemplifies the “reversible hierarchy of diverse function” (Roman Jakobson) in a natural language as the basic means of written and spoken human communication: various ontologies of meaning — semantics, semiotics and metasemiotics — coexist, interact and come up in different sequences and combinations.

21. Learner Autonomy: A Semiotic Perspective.

ELT professionals proceed from the assumption that the ultimate goal of long-term language teaching is learner autonomy. In other words, the final (and somewhat idealized) product is an autonomous learner. Autonomous (formal) — having the ability to work and make decisions by yourself without any help from anyone else (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 73); autonomy — the ability to make your own decisions without being influenced by anyone else (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, p. 73).

So far autonomous language learners have been described as “our best students … who can stand on their own two feet” and “develop their study skills and their independent learning strategies” 23. Can philological semiotics provide new information that would help one understand better the much needed, though rather complicated, notion of learner autonomy? To paraphrase: Can philological semiotics throw some light on the concept in question?

In terms of production (speaking and writing), an autonomous learner is expected to develop a faculty for drawing a line between ‘sounding right’ and ‘sounding wrong’. Every utterance an autonomous learner produces should be viewed and reviewed by him (or her) semiotically — as sending out various signals: right/wrong, same/different, appropriate/inappropriate, acceptable/unacceptable, idiomatic/non-idiomatic, less idiomatic/more idiomatic, British English/American English, etc. 24 To sum up: The article has aimed to dispel the pervasive myth that semiotics is the preserve of a select panel of experts. It has also purposefully minimized the amount of abstract theorizing offered to non-native learners of Modern English who would like to know the language, use the language and acquire the feel of the language as a means of ongoing written and spoken communication in professional, interpersonal and intercultural settings.

Sections 1 – 4 reviewed the current situation in general semiotics and looked at some of the key notions like semiotics (семиотика) and sign (знак). Section 5 briefly touched upon the relationship between linguistics (языкознание, лингвистика, наука о языке) and semiotics (общая теория знаковых систем) and formulated 74

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the six principles that define the connection between the two sciences. Section 6 explained the concept of linguistic semiotics (лингвистическая семиотика) and the linguosemiotic methodology elaborated by the late Professor O.S. Akhmanova. Section 7 articulated the principles of philological semiotics (филологическая семиотика). Sections 8 and 9 demonstrated the cognitive («познавательный») mechanism activated by philological semiotics and centred on the three ontologies of meaning — semantics (семантика), metasemiotics (метасемиотика) and semiotics (семиотика). Sections 10 – 12 justified the relevance of philological semiotics to the teaching of General English (общий язык). Sections 13 – 20 dwelt on the use of the concepts and categories of philological semiotics in the teaching of Business English (английский язык делового общения) to advanced foreign language learners. Section 21 offered a semiotic interpretation of learner autonomy and autonomous learner.

NOTES Quoted from: The American Journal of SEMIOTICS. A Quarterly Research Publication of the Semiotic Society of America. — Volume 11, Numbers 3 and 4, Spring 1994 [1998]. — P. 10.

“The “disembodiment” of signs requires that there should be no individual reference.” Akhmanova, Idzelis 1979: 25.

3. In other words, “signalling this or that and not something else.” Akhmanova, Idzelis 1979: 26.

4. “… signs do not normally occur together with other signs of the same order.” Akhmanova, Idzelis 1979: 27.

5. For example: take sb to court, take sb hostage/prisoner, take actions/steps/measures take sb by the arm/hand/shoulders take a picture/photograph/photo.

6. For example: “To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. … there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.” From: A Scandal in Bohemia // The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. — Barnes & Noble Books New York, 1974. — P. 15.

7. See: Т.Б. Назарова. Современный английский язык и методы его изучения: филология, семиотика и ЭВМ. — Дис. …докт. филол. наук. — М., 1990; Т.Б. Назарова. Филология и семиотика. Современный английский язык. — М.: Высшая школа, 1994; Т.Б. Назарова. Филология и семиотика. Современный английский язык. — 2-е изд. — М.: Высшая школа, 2003.

8. Cf.: “The Discipline of SEMIOTICS studies signs and sign systems in order to describe, analyze, and interpret the full range of communication and culture experienced as discourse codes, events, messages, practices, and texts expressed and perceived as cultural, social, and natural subjects and objects.” The American Journal of SEMIOTICS. — Volume 11, Numbers 3 and 4. Spring 1994 [1998].

“A philologist, then, must be able to understand every variety of text in the chosen language and be able to place it within the overall thesaurus of existing proizvedenija reči.” Olga Akhmanova, Rolandas F. Idzelis. What is the English We Use? A Course in Practical Stylistics. — Moscow University Press, 1978. — P. 8.

9. Olga Akhmanova. Semantics // Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Linguists, August 29 – September 4, 1982, Tokyo. — Tokyo, 1983 — P. 116.

“Meaning as the content of words (and word-like nominative phrases or “monèmes”) … becomes a fact of language only when a constant and indissoluble connection is established between the reverberation (in the human consciousness of phenomena, relationships, qualities and processes of reality — T.N.) and a certain sound-complex or (phonetic-orthographic) “caul” or “envelope”. The latter is indispensable not only because it is the physical expression of the content and the vehicle for communicating it to other people, but also because without it the particular meaning could not come into being, exist and develop.” Op. cit., p. 116.

10. “This theory of communication allows Jakobson to make a short list of the unique features of human speech that is the foundation of a postmodern view of communicology. As Jakobson demonstrates: The uniqueness of human speech lies in (1) its creativity (in animal languages the entire corpus of messages is tantamount to their code); (2) its ability to handle abstractions, fictions, or, generally speaking, that which is not present in 75

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the situation of the speaker; (3) its hierarchical structure of constitutive elements as in the dichotomy of distinctive and significative units and the division of the grammatical system in words and sentences or coded units and codes matrices; (4) its use of propositions (affirmations and negations); and (5) its reversible hierarchy of diverse function.” Quoted from: Richard L. Lanigan. The Postmodern Ground of Communicology // The American Journal of SEMIOTICS.— Volume 11, Numbers 3 and 4. Spring 1994 [1998]. — P. 19.

11. Akhmanova, Idzelis 1979: 27.

“As we turn to the semantic level we find that language, as far as the expression plane, the material realization, is concerned, has to make do with very subtle distinctions within much the same physical facts. But the human ear is so trained that even the subtlest distinctions are usually apprehended and thus made to serve their semiological purposes.” Op. cit., p. 27 – 28.

12. For a philologically minded student of Modern English several stories could be recommended additionally for linguostylistic and linguopoetic analysis: “Class Picture” by Tobias Wolff ( The New Yorker. — January 6, 2003. — P. 70 – 79) and “The Bare Manuscript” by Arthur Miller (The New Yorker. — December 16, 2002.

— P. 82 – 93).

13. To get a better understanding of how names function in fiction one could read the following stories: “Gogol” by Jhumpa Lahiri (The New Yorker. — June 16 & 23, 2003. — P. 170 – 187) and “The Walk with Elizanne” by John Updike (The New Yorker. — July 7, 2003. — P. 66 – 71).

14. Cf: “… he (the philologist — T.N.) must have a very clear idea of the k i n d of English he has decided to use in his own speech and writing. In other words, the philologist must know exactly what it is he is expected to imitate, what kind or variety of the language he should endeavour to produce when “performing” orally or in writing.” Olga Akhmanova, Rolandas F. Idzelis. What is the English We Use? — Moscow University Press, 1978. — P. 9.

15. “… there is every reason to generalize and to state that linguistic variation in general has got a specifically semiotic character, because more often than not the choice of this or that variant is socially conditioned, and, therefore, may be regarded as a s i g n of the speaker’s social status.” Olga Akhmanova, Rolandas F. Idzelis.

Linguistics and Semiotics. — Moscow University Press, 1979. — P. 25.

16. The metaphor has been borrowed from the title of the novel The Constant Gardener by John Le Carré.

17. See, for example: Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. — Pearson Education Limited, 1999; English Usage. — Collins COBUILD, 1992; Collins COBUILD English Dictionary. — HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1995; Macmillan English Dictionary. — Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2002; Macmillan Essential Dictionary. — Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2003.

18. “Perhaps I’m changing more than my job. EFL, by the way. Nobody sees the joke. English as a Foreign Language. No? Let me put it into a sentence: ‘I’m teaching English as a Foreign Language.’ Look, the point is, if that’s how it’s being taught, it’s not surprising that most of our alumni can’t buy a bus-ticket to Bayswater. Why don’t they teach English as English, that’s what I want to know.” Julian Barnes. Talking it Over. — Vintage International, 1991. — P. 124.

19. See in this connection: T.B. Nazarova. Business English. An Introductory Course for Advanced Students. — Moscow, 1997; T.B. Nazarova. Business English. An Introductory Course for Advanced Students of Language and Literature. — Moscow, 2000; T.B. Nazarova. Business English. A Course of Lectures and Practical Assignments. — Moscow: AST/Astrel, 2003. (in print) 20. This distinction was introduced and explained in: Nazarova 1997, 2000.

21. «принятые требования» (требования компании к стилю и оформлению) определенные образцы оформления деловой документации и корреспонденции, которые приняты компанией и которым следуют ее сотрудники follow house style; required by house style; part of house style; (have) a house style for business reporting Dictionary of General Business English Terminology, p.59.

22. See: Best Business Crime Writing of the Year. Edited by The New Yorker’s business columnist James Surowiecki. — Random House, 2002.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Factual accounts and reviews of the type provided in the volume edited by James Surowiecki are followed by fictional references to the misdeeds in the corporate suite. Here comes an extract from Harvey’s Dream by Stephen King (The New Yorker. — June 30, 2003. — P. 82 — 86): … They decided to unlist their number two years ago because reporters kept calling Harvey about the Enron mess. Usually at dinnertime. Not because he’d had anything to do with Enron per se but because those big energy companies were sort of a specialty of his. He’d even served on a Presidential commission a few years earlier, when Clinton had been the big kahuna and the world had been (in her humble opinion, at least) a slightly better, slightly safer place. And while there were a lot of things about Harvey she no longer liked, one thing she knew perfectly well was that he had more integrity in his little finger than all those Enron sleazebags put together. She might sometimes be bored by integrity, but she knows what it is.

23. Quoted from Introduction to Oxford University Press English Language Dictionaries and Grammar Books Catalogue by N. Whitney, Joint Chief Inspector, the British Council’s Scheme for the accreditation of English language schools in the UK, coursebook and materials writer, formerly editor of the ELT Journal.

The semiotic (i.e. signalling) mechanism at work is not unlike the conventional system of traffic lights where different colours send out different messages: red means stop, yellow means wait, and green means go.

LITERATURE

Adler R.B. Communicating at Work. Principles and Practices for Business and Professions. — Fourth edition. — McGraw-Hill, 1992.

Olga Akhmanova. Semantics // Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Linguists, August 29 – Septeber 4, 1982, Tokyo. — Tokyo, 1983. — P. 116 – 121.

Olga Akhmanova, Rolandas F. Idzelis. Linguistics and Semiotics. — Moscow University Press, 1979.

Olga Akhmanova, Rolandas F. Idzelis. What is the English We Use? A Course in Practical Stylistics. — Moscow University Press, 1978.

Olga Akhmanova, Tamara Nazarova. Learning a Foreign Language: the ‘Cognitive’ Approach // Essays in English as a Foreign or Second Language. Homage to W.R. Lee. Arthur van Essen and Edward I. Burkart (eds).

— Berlin, New York: Foris Publications, 1992. — P. 113 – 116.

Marshall Blonsky (ed.). On Signs. — Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. — Volumes 1–6. — C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (eds). — Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931 – 35.

Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. — Volumes 7–8. — A. Burks (ed.). — Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.

David Crystal. Moving Towards an English Family of Languages // Folia Anglistica. World Englishes. — Moscow, 1998. — P. 84 – 95.

David Crystal. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. — Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Renee Grant-Williams. Voice Power. Using Your Voice to Captivate, Persuade and Command Attention.

— New York: AMACOM, 2002.

Roberta Kevelson (ed.). Hi-Fives. A Trip to Semiotics. — New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1998.

Richard L. Lanigan. The Postmodern Ground of Communicology: Subverting the Forgetfulness of Rationality in Language // The American Journal of SEMIOTICS. — Volume 11, Numbers 3 and 4. — Spring 1994 [1998]. — P. 5 – 21.

Mary Libertin. Peirce’s Musement in Joyce’s Ulysses // The American Journal of SEMIOTICS. — Volume 11, Numbers 3 and 4. — Spring 1994 [1998]. — P. 61 – 85.

Alan Maley. The Theologian and the Tightrope Walker // Essays in English as a Foreign or Second Language. Homage to W.R. Lee. Arthur van Essen and Edward I. Burkart (eds). — Berlin, New York: Foris Publications, 1992. — P. 67 – 77.

T.B. Nazarova. Business English. An Introductory Course for Advanced Students. — Moscow, 1997.

T.B. Nazarova. Business English. An Introductory Course for Advanced Students of Language and Literature. — Moscow, 2000.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions T.B. Nazarova. Business English. A Course of Lectures and Practical Assignments. — Moscow: AST/Astrel, 2003. (in print) T.B. Nazarova. Linguistic and Literary Semiotics // Applied Semiotics. — University of Toronto, 1996. — No. 1. — P. 5 – 12.

T.B. Nazarova. The Fundamentals of Applied Semiotics: Language, Literature and Culture // Folia Anglistica, 1998. — No. 1. — P. 75 – 89.

T.B. Nazarova. Vocabulary Acquisition as Ongoing Improvement. — Moscow: Vysshaya Shkola, 2000.

Mark Powell. Presenting in English. — Language Teaching Publications, 1996.

Moira Runcie. Preface to Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English. — Oxford University Press, 2002.

James Surowiecki (ed.). Best Business Crime Writing of the Year. — Random House, 2002.

The American Journal of SEMIOTICS. A Quarterly Research Publication of the Semiotic Society of America. — Volume 11, Numbers 3 and 4. — Spring 1994 [1998].

The American Journal of SEMIOTICS. A Quarterly Research Publication of the Semiotic Society of America. — Volume 14, Numbers 1 to 4. — Winter 1997 [1998].

Henry G. Widdowson. Language Study and Language Learning // Essays in English as a Foreign or Second Language. Homage to W. R. Lee. Arthur van Essen and Edward I. Burkart (eds). — Berlin, New York: Foris Publications, 1992. — P. 103 – 110. Т.Б. Назарова. Современный английский язык и методы его изучения: филология, семиотика и ЭВМ.

— Дис. …докт. филол. наук. — Москва, 1990. Т.Б. Назарова. Филология и семиотика. Современный английский язык. — Москва: Высшая школа, 1994. Т.Б. Назарова. Филология и семиотика. Современный английский язык. — 2-е издание. — Москва: Высшая школа, 2003.

Collins COBUILD English Dictionary. — HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1995.

English Usage. — Collins COBUILD, 1992.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. — Pearson Education Ltd, 1995.

Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. — Pearson Education Ltd, 1999.

Longman Idioms Dictionary. — Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1998.

Macmillan English Dictionary. — Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2002.

T.B. Nazarova. Dictionary of General Business English Terminology. — Moscow: AST/Astrel, 2002.

Julian Barnes. Talking it Over. — Vintage International, 1991.

Stephen King. Harvey’s Dream// The New Yorker. — June 30, 2003. — P. 82 – 86.

David Lodge. Nice Work. — Penguin Books, 1990.

Zadie Smith. The Trials of Finch// The New Yorker. — December 23 & 30, 2002. — P. 116–123.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Gvishiani Natalia A corpus-based contrastive approach to word-combination Abstract The present study focuses on a semi-automated contrastive analysis of a variety of word-combinations coming from the Russian learners' component of ICLE (The International Corpus of Learner English) and a comparable Native speakers' corpus represented by the British and American components of LOCNESS (Louvain Corpus of Native Speaker English). Native and non-native word-combinations are contrasted for the purpose of establishing differences and similarities in their functioning and frequency of occurrence in respective corpora. To cope with a large number and great diversity of wordcombinations the following lexical-phraseological categories are introduced: connotativeness, clichĂŠ-ed expression, idiomaticity, conceptual integrity, thematic determination. These criteria set up a theoretical framework for contrastive analysis of the data. The investigated material serves as an empirical basis for the study of both idiomatic and non-idiomatic phraseology covering the transitional stages and degrees of gradation between them. A contrastive corpus-based analysis of complex lexical items is aimed at assessing the potentialities of this approach in ELT as well as in theoretical description of as complicated a phenomenon as word-combination. It also considers the prospects of further automation of this kind of study by exploring the correlation between the semantic types of word-combinations and the established frequency bands.

1. Introduction.

The problem of idiomaticity has been traditionally perceived as one of the greatest challenges in the field of linguistics and foreign language teaching. This is particularly true of analytical languages like English which tends to 'isolate' its units not only structurally but also semantically. Detailed descriptions of idiomatic phraseology have shown how unpredictable the development of lexical rules can be, how diffuse the rule boundaries are creating the diversified phenomenon of idiomaticity. Complex lexical units tend to form a heterogeneous scale. One end of the scale is constituted by transparent, fully motivated items which preserve their motivated character vividly demonstrating their resistance to semantic transposition and the importance of motivation in language use. The other extreme of the scale is represented by structurally complex expressions the complete idiomatisation of which have turned them into simplexes as listed in the lexicon of the language (Charitonchik, 1992: 204-205).

In spite of a wide range of construction types of idioms represented in the English language, the term 'idiom' has been largely applied without distinction to pattern. It is mostly viewed as a semantic matter manifested in much the same way in expressions of different structural types. Problems of semantic reading are mainly posed by idiomatic expressions whose semantic globality is difficult to interpret in terms of meanings of the constituent parts. Idioms vary from opaque to relatively transparent, they are not divided as a small water-tight category being related to non-idioms along a scale or continuum (Cowie, 1981:223-235).

1.1. Idiomatic vs. Non-Idiomatic Phraseology.

The view taken in the present paper is that in text reality we are faced with a rich diversity of established phrases which present both lexical and syntactic units. They fall under the notion of phraseology because "one is first struck by the fixity and regularity of phrases, then by their flexibility and variability" (Sinclair, 1991: 104). Some of such phrases or word-combinations are characteristic not so much of the system of language (lexical units) but of speech tendencies accounting for the 'naturalness', recurrency, and utility of particular items (syntactic units).

Phraseology covers both idiomatic units proper and those which without being truly global semantically still remain 'fixed', 'set' or recurrent reflecting the typical lexical and syntactic choices. When we concern ourselves with lexical-phraseological relationships between words, the way they are brought together in utterances, it is always part of phraseology. If we say that in English some word-combinations seem to be quite acceptable without being idiomatic, while others sound strange or very much like translations from another language, this means that we set out to reveal certain collocational peculiarities proper to the language. It follows that a 79

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Philology: Scopes and Visions more general interpretation of phraseology should be adopted to include every aspect of collocation. In this capacity phraseology aims at perceiving the general idea of collocation which differs in different languages.

2. Categories of Word-combination.

Among the modern approaches to the study of word-combination is the elaboration of categories which together form the methodological basis of linguistic research in the field. The work has been carried out at the English Department of the Faculty of Philology at Moscow State University proceeding from the previous tradition in the field generated by Russian linguists (Vinogradov, 1954, Smirnitskij,1957, Akhmanova, 1974, Gvishiani, 1979, Ter-Minasova, 1987). The need for the categorial approach to the problem of 'choice and arrangement of words' was born out by the shortcomings of most previous theories which consisted in classifying the language data into groups, compartments or pigeon-holes. The richness and diversity of all possible types of word-combinations in real language almost never allow for such a treatment.

Categories as distinct from classes (or groups) are formed by oppositions of their positive and negative realisations which makes it possible to apply the principle of gradation while studying speech events in all their complexity. Some units may fully manifest certain qualities, thus presenting typical instances of a given category (its marked members), while others are only partially endowed with these features and display them to a limited extent or not at all (unmarked members). Hence the importance of 'a chain-like' approach.

In this light idiomaticity emerges as a dynamic change revealing gradual movement from 'phraseologically bound' to 'free' word-combinations. The relationship between the marked and unmarked members of the category of idiomaticity is observable as gradation in degree of idiomaticity: every time we concern ourselves with a particular sequence of words it is never a static assignment of this or that phrase to either part of the above dichotomy but a dynamic unity of phraseology and syntax. Thus, for instance, the word-combinations 'a determined character' and 'sweeping measures' although often provided with explanatory paraphrases are more predictable than the phraseological unit 'as a matter of fact' because the connection between the global content they express and the primary meanings of their constituent elements is not fully submerged.

To cope with a large number and great diversity of word-combinations the following semantic criteria (categories) have been elaborated (Gvishiani,1979): (1) connotativeness - non-connotativeness - accounting for the word-combinations performing the emotive function as distinct from the referential one. Word-combinations on the semantic level convey intellective messages (fluent speech, urgent need, serious illness) thus presenting the unmarked member of the category. Contrasted with these are clearly metasemiotic word-combinations (the marked member) which express all kinds of stylistic overtones over and above their main semantic content: "They'll put some awful creature into your room either one of the old hot water brigade or some devastatingly bright young person from a lounge set"; (2) clichĂŠ-ed expression - revealing the opposition of set expressions and those created anew for a particular situation.

For example, 'awfully sorry', 'terribly unpleasant' or 'jolly good', although they consist of more than one word, enter the flow of speech as prefabricated wholes. The unmarked realisations of this category present metasemiotic groups of words expressing an original emotional - evaluative idea thus overlapping with the marked member of the category of connotativeness; (3) idiomaticity - showing a chain-like gradation in degree of 'opaqueness' from idioms to non-idioms: 'once in a blue moon' (the marked member) ' 'handsomely paid', 'perishingly cold', 'deathly white', 'extremely attractive' (the unmarked member); (4) conceptual integrity - considering the referential basis of word-combinations. Combinations of words reproduce combinations of concepts in extralinguistic reality. Conceptually integral groups of words reflect the speaker's life-experience: 'blue sky', 'green vegetables', 'red rose' (the marked member). The opposite case may be presented by idiomatic word-combinations, such as 'blue stocking', 'green years', 'red tape' obviously violating the natural combinability of things-meant (the unmarked member). Zero conceptuality is thus associated with the idiomatic character of word-combinations; (5) thematic and sociolinguistic determination - addressing the extralinguistic or cognitive nature of linguistic items.

Word-combinations can be subject-oriented or culture-bound depending on how far they reflect the peculiari-

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Philology: Scopes and Visions ties of social life of a given speech community, its culture and traditions. If the expression 'fresh air' is perfectly clear to everyone, the word-combinations 'green revolution', 'viking-coloured eyes', 'dismally mid-Victorian' (the marked member) will require more explanation being firmly rooted in the context of social reality and projecting a particular kind of background knowledge.

As can be seen the above categories are interconnected and sometimes merge into one another. They provide for various factors relevant to the study of word-combination - both intra- and extralinguistic ones - to be taken into account.

2.1. A Sample of Analysis.

A word-combination studied in terms of the categorial approach is viewed as 'a bunch' of categories (or categorial features) which are interdependent, interconnected and manifested in various degrees. For example, 'mortally dull', 'beastly rude' and 'uproariously drunk' being screened through the prism of established categories can be presented in the following way: Table 1. The interaction of categories.

Wordcombination

Conceptual

ClichĂŠ-ed

integrity

expression

Idiomaticity

Thematic

Connotativeness

determination

++

mortally dull

-

+

+

+?

+

beastly rude

-

+

+

+

+

uproariously drunk

+

-

-

+?

+

The schematic presentation of categorial properties of word-combinations may not always be sufficient to include all the nuances of their functioning. Thus, to establish the degree of thematic (sociolinguistic or cultural) determination of 'mortally dull' and 'uproariously drunk' we really need to know whether they belong to the system of conventional notions or refer to commonly recognisable phenomena. In other words, we need to get an idea of their salience in the language and their frequency of occurrence.

3. Where Theory-Driven and Corpus-Driven Approaches Meet.

The aim of the present study is to try and approach the problem of word-combination in a broad context of typical phraseological choices made by Russian learners of English as compared with those of native speakers. A contrastive analysis of idiomatic / non-idiomatic phraseology was carried out on the basis of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE): the Russian component (228 846 words) and the LOCNESS corpus: the British (95 695 words) and the American (153 348 words) components. The analysis focused on the Adjective + Noun pattern - a prototypical instance of word-combination which displays the basic properties of the given category to the full.

From the chosen corpora the following number of word-combinations was automatically retrieved: Table 2. The total number of word-combinations in each of the three corpora.

Total number of Adj + N Component of ICLE & LOCNESS

word-combinations

British

4170

American

7381

Russian

9204

In all probability the numbers obtained reflect the difference in the size of contrasted corpora.

3.1. The Data: Contrastive Analysis.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions The categories of word-combination as outlined above are distributed across the three corpora as follows : 100%

99% 100% 80% 60%

80% 100%

68%

99%

79%

55%

99%

60% 80% 37% 40% 15% 52% 20% 60% 5% 10% 20% 0% 40% 0% Conceptually Cliche-ed Idiomatic Thematically Connotative 0% integral integral 7% 17% Conceptually Cliche-ed Idiomatic Thematically Connotative 20% integral integral Figure 0% 0% Conceptually Cliche-ed Idiomatic Thematically Connotative integral integral component.

40%

1. The British component.

Figure 2. The American

Figure 3. The Russian component.

The first observation that should be made is that the data manifest some uniform features as regards conceptually integral word-combinations. 99 % of all units in the three corpora under investigation proved to be conceptually integral, i.e., reflecting the natural compatibility of respective concepts and phenomena in extralinguistic reality. We may also note that the above number (99 %) applies to word-combinations as produced by native and non-native speakers alike. It can therefore be assumed that the natural combinability of 'things' or 'objects' in the outer world is the most rigid constraint imposed on word-combination in general. It emerges as a universal feature in phraseology that words are brought together in speech because they denote things naturally thought of together by speakers of a given language. This is further illustrated by examples from the corpora: The Category of Conceptual Integrity

Conceptually integral wordcombinations (the marked member):

human life, an easy way, natural order, cold climate, young people, fresh water, everyday life, central sity, last year, etc.

Idiomatic wordcombination (the unmarked member): wild card 'The wild card teams were also very competitive this year' (American component, 31 occurrences); in the long run 'In the long run, capital punishment really does not reduce the crime rate' (American component, 9 occurrences); bad faith 'To Sartre this is bad faith: refusal to admit your own freedom' (British component, 54 occurrences).

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Most word-combinations sharing the traits of other categories are characterised by conceptual integrity except the highly idiomatic ones where the natural basis of bringing words (or things) together is weakened or totally ignored.

Next in order of frequency come cliché-ed word-combinations which belong to generally accepted usage.

They reveal some traits of idiomaticity in the sense that they manifest the specific and peculiar collocational features proper to the English language. They come under the heading of non-idiomatic phraseology bringing together 'natural-sounding' lexical items in common use.

The data have shown a much stronger tendency of native speakers to use idiomatic and cliché-ed wordcombinations as compared with the Russian students of English: Table 3. Phraseological expressions in contrast.

Component of ICLE & LOCNESS British American Russian

Idiomatic expressions (% of occurrences) 15% 10% 7%

Cliché-ed expressions (% of occurrences) 68% 79% 52%

Connotativeness +

-

-

-

-

-

+

-

+

thoughtless optimism (Br): "Pangloss is merely a literary device designed to convey Candide's criticism of thoughtless optimism". absurd nature (Br): "Recognising in his lucidity the absurd nature of the world, Don Juan lives his life quantitatively": emotional make up (Am): "The emotional make up of a woman is quite different from a man's".

Idiomaticity

Word-combination

Cliché-ed expression

The idiomatic units (e.g., a great deal, to a certain extent, in the long term, good will, common sense, in the positive light, etc.) are represented only by 7% of word-combinations in the Russian Learner corpus. The cliché-ed expressions (e.g., hard work, moral values, a perfect example, a large number, true love, the sole purpose, etc.) also show a higher percentage for the British and American components. This goes to confirm the view that difficulties in the area of phraseology arise as a direct result of the speakers' natural tendency to follow collocational patterns of their mother tongue and combine words without due respect to idiomatic principles of speech production in a foreign language.

The British, American and Russian corpora data include a certain amount of word-combinations which cannot be characterised either as idiomatic or cliché-ed. The difference between the Native and Non-native speaker corpora in this case lies in the semantic and functional properties of word-combinations under consideration. In the British and American corpora expressions with zero idiomaticity and reproducibility (or clichéedness) reflect occasional and / or context-bound uses of words thus representing the category of connotativeness: Table 4. The Native speaker word-combination unmarked for idiomaticity and cliché-ed expression (the British and American components).

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Philology: Scopes and Visions +

girly things (Am): "their role in the house is not doing 'girly' things".

-

-

usual house

Idiomaticity

ness

ClichĂŠ-ed pression

Word-combination

Connotative-

ex-

Most such units are occasional context-bound individual expressions used in the function of impact. A complicated message they convey often brings about violation of the 'natural' compatibility of words / things (or concepts) resulting in a creative word-combination aimed at novelty and originality.

By contrast, in the Russian learner corpus expressions unmarked for either idiomaticity or clichĂŠ-ed expression present a different case. Although conceptually integral and understandable, they are not found in common use and can therefore be described as collocational errors or literal translations from the learners' mother-tongue.

Table 5. The Russian learner word-combinations unmarked for idiomaticity and clichĂŠ-ed expression (the Russian component of ICLE).

-

-

-

-

-

-

sufficiently paid jobs

-

-

-

to receive success

-

-

-

-

-

-

people with high education

to watch TV without any limitations

'Usage' errors are also manifested in the overuse of some items which become rather too frequent in the learner writing revealing deficiency in the use of precise lexical items and paucity of vocabulary. We may have a look at the word-combinations with the adjective 'bad' in the three corpora.

Table 6. Word-combinations with 'bad': contrastive analysis.

The British component in a bad light bad morals bad motive bad party mem-

The American component bad consequences bad court decisions bad guys bad effects

The Russian component bad behaviour bad cheap materials bad conditions bad food

bers bad policy bad teachers bad thing

bad enough bad investment bad luck bad marriages bad medium

bad idea bad job bad leadership bad marriages bad mood 84

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Philology: Scopes and Visions bad message bad mistakes

bad nerves bad days bad emotions bad experience bad features bad thoughts bad feelings bad news bad picture bad quality bad reflection bad reputation bad schooling bad side / sides bad will bad work bad way bad thing / things

The Russian learner corpus includes almost twice as many combinations with 'bad' as the American component (43 as against 22 units). As compared with the British component the proportion is even higher: there are only 9 word-combinations with the adjective 'bad' in it, except 53 occurrences of 'bad faith' which presents a special case of a thematically determined idiomatic word-combination.

3.2. The Category of Thematic Determination: Contrastive Analysis.

Thematically determined word-combinations represent not only the subject matter of each corpus but also the cultural and sociolinguistic features characteristic of a given speech community. The top frequency items in each component can be shown as follows (the frequency of occurrence of lexical items is indicated in brackets): The American component: the USA (111), ethnic American (76), american literature (63), public schools (57), capital punishment (50), nuclear power (37), affirmative action (25), biological parents (24), adoptive parents (20), adolescent suicide (20), black students (17), national championship (17), white students (15).

The British component: Prime minister (53), bad faith (53), single Europe (44), European community (35), philosophical optimism (31), single market (29), political violence (13), industrial relations (12), United Kingdom (11), European Court (9).

The Russian component: military service (80), modern world (55), professional soldiers (36), capital punishment (35), civilised society (23), equal rights (21), mass media (21), natural resources (14), higher education (11), feminist movement (8), global warming (8).

Thematic clichĂŠs of this kind give us a clue to the topics of the learners' essays and written papers included in the investigated corpora. Those were mostly subjects of general interest widely covered in the international press among other issues being the order of the day. Such word-combinations function as key-words in the texts they come from and relate to the 'texts-aboutness' (Scott, 2000: 51). This accounts for their repetitions in subject-oriented passages resulting in high frequency figures.

At the same time thematic key-words are interesting to have a look at from the point of view of cultural stereotypes and those fields of discussion which 'ring the bell', that is to say are familiar to particular groups of learners. Considering the present-day situation in Russia it looks perfectly natural that students are ready to discuss 'capital punishment', 'military service', 'feminist movement' and even 'global warming' in English. Other subjects (for example, 'biological parents' or 'adolescent suicide') may still be 'on the waiting list', i.e., on the periphery of public concern.

3.3. Towards Further Automation of Contrastive Analysis.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Connotativeness

Thematic determination

Idiomaticity

Cliche-ed expresion

Conceptual frequency integrity

Low

High frequency

As the result of the present study a correlation was established between the outlined types of wordcombinations and the frequency bands in which they are to be found within the corpus. Thus, conceptual integrity goes together with the cliché-ed character of word-combinations. Such units constitute the bulk of word-combinations occurring thoughout the whole list of investigated items and cutting across all frequency bands.

Idiomatic combinations are characterised by high frequency of occurrence being essential elements in constructing speech. Thematically oriented items also belong to recurrent regular combinations within a given subject area found in the high frequency band.

Connotative expressions by contrast are in the lowest part of the spectrum: being a context-bound creative variety most of them occur only once to suite the requirements of a given speech event.

These observations can be outlined as follows: Table 7.Categories of word-combination across frequency bands.

Such findings are meant to facilitate further automation in the analysis of idiomatic and non-idiomatic phraseology as part of word-combination.

4. Conclusion.

As can be seen word combination presents a vast area of enquiry where regular and irregular features go together. The range of factors to be taken into account in this kind of research is truly overwhelming, and the opportunities for a rigorous treatment of the data in terms of fully automated analysis seem to be seriously impaired. However the given corpus-based approach to word-combination proved to be helpful in a number of ways and provided the findings that would have been difficult to obtain otherwise.

In the first place, the data have shown that the problem of word-combination is not confined to phraseology. There are numerous instances of word-combinations revealing the individual choice of the speaker (connotative units), culturally and pragmatically determined choices (thematically-determined expressions) which relate to social conventions and extralinguistic aspects of speech interaction rather than to purely intralinguistic factors. In this light word-combination emerges as a sociolinguistic phenomenon bringing together names and referents, lexicon and syntax.

The data were also suggestive of the fact that the non-idiomatic part of phraseology (the category of clichéed expression) is larger than its idiomatic part. This clearly demonstrates the significance of the concept of degrees of idiomaticity. There is always a scale of gradation between fully non-motivated units and those which remain 'fixed' only on account of their frequency and reproducibility in speech. Such items present habitual collocations and often function as clichés helping the speaker to process multiple situations in speech interaction.

The analysis enabled us to identify a special type of word-combinations in the Russian learner corpus which being unmarked for the categories of idiomaticity, cliché-ed expression and connotativeness, present instances of 'non-nativeness' or violation of established collocational patterns. The outlined semantic criteria of

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Philology: Scopes and Visions word-combination together with the analysis of the data may help the teacher to focus on various facets of complex lexical items and possibly to pin down the nature of mistakes in phraseological usage.

There is all the evidence that we can judge of the prospects of research along these lines already now although the analysis has just begun. The corpus-based approach to word-combination is aimed at establishing tendencies and regularities of usage which characterise language items quantitavely, in terms of frequency and reproducibility. From this point of view further insights into functional and textual peculiarities of various semantic types of word-combinations will be required to throw some new light on the nature of the investigated phenomenon.

References Akhmanova, O. (1974), Word-combination: theory and method. Moscow: Moscow University Publishers.

Cahill, A. (1989), 'Word-frequency dictionaries of Russian: the user perspective', in: R.R.K. Hartmann and G. James (eds.) Lexicographers and their work. Vol 14, Exeter linguistic studies, University of Exeter: 18-29.

3. Charitonchik, Z. (1992), English lexicology. Minsk: Higher School Publishers.

4. Cowie, A.P. (1981), 'The treatment of collocations and idioms in learners' dictionaries', Applied linguistics, vol.2, No. 3: 223-235.

5. Gvishiani, N. (1979), 'Lexical-phraseological categories as applied to the study of word-combination', CIEFL Bulletin Hyderabad, No. 2: 69-73.

6. Gvishiani, N. (1980), Multifunctional items in language and speech. Moscow: Higher School Publishers.

7. Gvishiani, N., O. Gerwe (2001), 'From non-idiomatic to idiomatic phraseology: a contrastive analysis of learner and native speaker corpora', in: S. De Cock, G. Gilquin, S. Granger, S. Petch-Tyson (eds.), Future challenges for corpus linguistcs. Proceedings of the 22nd ICAME Conference. Lovain-la-Neuve, 35.

8. Scott, M., (2000), 'Reverberations of an echo', in: B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and J. Melia (eds.), PALC'99: Practical applications in language corpora , Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang: 49-69.

9. Sinclair, J. (1991), Corpus concordance collocation. Oxford University Press.

10. Smirnitskij, A. (1957), English syntax. Moscow: Moscow University Press.

11. Ter-Minasova, S. (1987), 'Minor syntax', in: O. Alexandrova, S. Ter-Minasova (eds.) English syntax (collocation, colligation and discourse). Moscow: Moscow University Publishers, 19-84.

12. Vinogradov, V. (1954), 'Problems in the study of word-combinations', Issues in linguistics, 3: 29-41.

1.

2.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Baranova, Ludmila The Suprasegmentals of English Vertical Segmentation of English Speech The main principle of English punctuation. Over-stopping and under-stopping Our basic premise in trying to understand the nature of English punctuation is the dialectical unity of the oral and written forms of English. In what follows we are going to try as best we can to show (using concrete material) that there is a constant interaction between these two forms of English speech. Here we should also bear in mind “inner speech”, because it has been shown by numerous experiments that there is a constant feedback between our “inner” and “outer” speech. In other words, whenever we say or read something, we invariably have a constant interaction between "inner"”speech and "outer” speech, or enunciation.

It is a well-known fact that punctuation marks are a fundamental semiological system on which the whole suprasegmental aspect of the feature level is based. The whole of written English, for example, can be passed on only if we have become experts in the reading and use of punctuation marks. Otherwise stated, however imperfect the English orthography may be, we cannot begin reading English written texts (be it fiction, or scientific literature, or newspapers) unless we are in full command of the rules of reading punctuation marks.

It is extremely important to remember in this connection that punctuation marks are a double-edged weapon, so to speak. They are always objectively there, both in oral speech and in writing. For example, this is what we can read in one of the authoritative books on the subject1: “Not everyone can spell, but everyone can punctuate – and does. If you read those ten words aloud, you can hear that the stops tell us how to say them. After “spell” there is a slight pause, shown by a comma. After “punctuate” the speaker breaks off abruptly to emphasize “and does”, and a dash indicates the break. “Does” is the end of what the speaker has to say, so there is a full stop. If that “does” is very emphatically spoken, an exclamation mark (!) could replace the full stop.

People who cannot write use punctuation every time they speak; they time their words and put in pauses, so that the hearer can take in the meaning in units of a convenient size. In the same way a writer punctuates to help the reader to understand, using a code of signs”.

It goes without saying that the segmental and the suprasegmental aspects of English have got very much in common. On the segmental level we have letters and their combinations, on the one hand, and sounds, on the other. And there are also numberless crutches in the form of transcriptions that people have devised 2. This has been done very often to the detriment of the objectively existing pronunciation and orthography, to the real thing, as it were.

To learn the rules of reading for orthography is extremely difficult, because their number is enormous, and the system is very complex. Besides, there are a number of historically conditioned phenomena which make it what it is. For punctuation marks the general picture is much easier to follow, for the simple reason that the number of items (punctuation marks) is incomparably smaller. Here, as well as on the segmental level, we observe a certain opposition, a certain gap between speech and writing.

In different languages this opposition is resolved in different ways.The great L.V.Scerba pointed out the following two main types pf punctuation – French (English, Italian, etc.) and German (Czech, Polish, Russian, etc.). Languages, belonging to the first type, use the dash less frequently, employ fewer commas and strive to

1 2

See D.Thompson. Spelling and Punctuating. Oxford University Press, 1984, p.67.

See L.L.Baranova. The Fundamental Features of Modern English. Moscow, MPI, 1991, p.p.31-33; 39-40; Л.Л.Баранова. Онтология английской письменной речи. М., Диалог-МГУ, 1998, с.с.64-69; 80-87.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions express semantic nuances with their help. Languages, belonging to the German type, tend to abuse the dash and commas, introducing them according to more or less formal principles3.

In other words, Russian punctuation is viewed through the prism of formal rules. In English, however, the principle is different. It is semantic-stylistic, and at the same time declamational-psychological: the way this or that author uses punctuation marks depends almost entirely on his/her intention. All this does not mean to say that in English there are no rules to guide the use of punctuation marks. There are certain rules, of course.It is well-known that punctuation is not only a system of graphical signs, used in writing to indicate its phrasing, i.e. those peculiarities of its syntactic-semantic division which cannot be expressed by morphological means and word-order, but also a set of certain rules of introducing stops4. The problem with English is, that there are many more “negative” rules(i.e. rules telling one when not to introduce this or that stop) than positive recommendations. According to the famous English philologist Sir Ernest Gowers, for English “taste and common sense are more important than any rules; you introduce stops in order to help your reader understand you, and not to please the grammarians”5.

But what should be understood by personal “taste” and “common sense”? In our opinion, a very convincing answer to this question has been given by Professor O.V.Alexandrova, who writes that what is meant here is the expressive (rhetorical) function of stops, and it is realized in a text as complete freedom, absence of any regulation in introducing punctuation marks6. The famous H.W. and F.G.Fowler pointed out in “The King’s English”, that in order to punctuate an English text correctly, one should first write it down without any stops.

Then one should read the text, introducing stops only when they help to reflect the author’s intention. If the resulting punctuation does not correspond to the author’s intention, the text should be re-written with appropriate changes in punctuation.

This idea is the cornerstone of the main principle of English punctuation, which has been already described above as semantic-stylistic, or declamational-psychological. It is this very principle that allows the two main tendencies in English punctuation to exist – i.e. over-stopping, or the excessive use of stops, and understopping, i.e. the use of very few stops in a text. It is usually believed that over-stopping is characteristic of texts, belonging to XVII – XIX centuries, for example: In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten, that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.

Dr.Samuel Johnson. Introduction to “The English Dictionary”, 1755

In this text the relationship between the prosodic expression of syntactic bonds and their reflection in writing with the help of stops is transparent and clear. The text is easily read and perceived. Its precise rhythmic organization is brought out by means of a whole set of adverbial modifiers having the similar rhythmic structure. with little assistance of the learned; without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement; or under the shelter of academic bowers; but amidst inconvenience and distraction; in sickness and in sorrow It goes without saying that over-stopping is a very effective means used to convey the rhetorical orientation of the utterance. Nevertheless, the above-adduced text would be considered to be “overloaded” with punc-

3

See Л.В.Щерба. Языковая система и речевая деятельность. Л., 1974, с.243.

See О.С.Ахманова. Словарь лингвистических терминов. М., 1968, с.с.374,159.

5 See Sir Ernest Gowers. The Complete Plain Words. Penguin, 1969, p.236.

6 See О.В.Александрова. Проблемы экспрессивного синтаксиса. М., 1984, с.86.

4

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Philology: Scopes and Visions tuation marks, primarily because there are much too many commas, and especially commas preceding “that”, which are hardly ever used in modern English. For example: The new Globe project has up to now been ruled by that irritable reaching after fact and reason which according to Keats is so unshakespearean. Getting the actual design right was helped massively by the archaeological discoveries in 1989.The survival of two angles to the original polygon, and the remains of two bays which conform remarkably in dimensions to those found at the Rose and those specified in the Fortune contract, was a material reassurance.

Getting a good sense of the Globe's groundplan (...) led us to work out some hard material details that never raised themselves as questions until the actual design work was started7 .

The fact that in the XXth century the tendency towards under-stopping was gradually ousting overstopping has been pointed out by a number of scholars8. At the same time, the use of very few stops makes it rather difficult to perceive the purport of the text, as can be seen from the text above.

So, at first sight it may seem that over-stopping has been replaced by under-stopping in modern English.

However, we should not forget that alongside with punctuation the text has been changing as well. Thus, in XVII – XIX centuries texts were predominantly rhetorically oriented. By the middle of the XXth century there had appeared more and more texts meant for silent reading, not for declamation. This brought about the strengthening of the “under-stopping” tendency, which was very clearly manifested in the 1950-ies and in the 1960-ies. However, when scholars began to be interested in the prosody of the utterance, in neomacrophonetics9, the attitude to punctuation changed as well, and the general opinion at present is that stops should be perceived not by sight only, but should necessarily be reflected in the reader’s inner speech.

It follows that at present the two tendencies co-exist in English, and their use (especially in a work of verbal art) becomes an extremely effective stylistic device. For example, if we turn to Evelyn Waugh’s prose, we can find the following over-stopped passage: In the middle of March 1603 it was clear to everyone that Queen Elizabeth was dying; her doctors were unable to diagnose the illness; she had little fever, but was constantly thirsty, restless and morose; she refused to take medicine, refused to eat, refused to go to bed. She sat on the floor, propped up with cushions, sleepless and silent, her eyes constantly open, fixed on the ground, oblivious to the coming and going of her councillors and attendants. She had done nothing to recognize her successor; she had made no provision for the disposal of her property, of the vast, heterogeneous accumulation of a lifetime, in which presents had come to her daily from all parts of the world; closets and cupboards stacked high with jewellery, coin, bric-a-brac; the wardrobe of two thousand outmoded dresses. There was always company in the little withdrawing room waiting for her to speak, but she sighed and sipped and kept her silence.

The excessive and ‘oversaturated’ punctuation in the above extract is, undoubtedly, a powerful stylistic device which helps to convey to the reader the author’s phrasing, prosody and rhythmic organization of the text.

Thus, it is interesting to note that the author uses not only the comma, but also a very “strong” stop – the semicolon - when enumerating the symptoms of the Queen’s illness and her possessions. This makes the reader stop, pause after each semi-colon and appreciate the significance of the part of the utterance coming before this stop.

Here punctuation (together with other linguistic means) enables Evelyn Waugh to get across to his readers the ultimate, tragic loneliness of the dying Queen, the perishable and useless nature of all her accumulated wealth.

Under-stopping and even total absence of punctuation has also got a considerable expressive force. Thus, in Ernest Hemingway’s “long short story” “The Old Man and the Sea” we can come across the following extract: That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beercans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbour.

7

See “the European English Messenger”. Vol.IV, 1, Spring 1995, p.9.

See, for example, G.V.Carey. Mind the Stop. Cambridge, 1980; E.Partridge. You Have a Point There. London, 1977.

9 See Masao Onishi. Introduction to Speechology. The Phonetic Society of Japan, 1977.

8

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Philology: Scopes and Visions The above paragraph consists of one longish sentence without any stops but the full stop at the end of it.

Such punctuation fully corresponds to the writer’s intention to present the passage as a global, indivisible whole, to show the dynamic and swift movement of the giant fish. The prosody of the paragraph-sentence is well in keeping with its punctuation: it should be read with level tones, without any noticeable pauses.

The semiotics of punctuation marks in English Stops for vertical segmentation of speech It has already been said that in our discussion of English punctuation we proceed from the premise that spoken and written English are very closely connected and interrelated and can be viewed as recto and verso of the same page, so to speak. It is vital to understand in this connection that we deal not with two isolated, separate entities, but rather with two aspects of one indivisible whole, united by inner speech. Inner speech does not have any “material” manifestation, but only its equivalent: it is a corresponding “speech image” which may be associated either with a certain sound, or motion, or picture, or a combination of the three 10.

When we read a text, we perceive it not only at sight, but also pronounce it in our inner speech (which has been borne out by numerous experiments). It follows that we can use written English as an effective means of communication only if we learn to read punctuation marks. Special research has shown that although English punctuation is a rather complicated and involved subject, it becomes clearer and more understandable if we approach it from the point of view of linguistic semiotics 11. This presupposes that stops in modern English are viewed as a semiotic system, reflecting the author’s phrasing in writing. Each stop, as a unit of this semiotic system, can be described with the help of the three basic categories of linguistic semiotics: disembodiment, arbitrariness and singularity.

Stops are disembodied in the sense that they have no individual reference to any object or phenomenon of the outside world. They are arbitrary, because they can be arbitrarily used by whoever in speaking and writing, and one is free, for example, to use long or short sentences. And, finally, stops are singular. They are used one by one and do not normally occur together with other signs of the same order.

It is also important to remember that if we assume that punctuation marks in English constitute a semiotic system, then every bit of their expression-plane must be indissolubly connected with the corresponding bit on the content-plane. Otherwise they will cease to be signs.

In what follows we are going to concentrate on English stops by studying them attentively one by one, each as the indissoluble unity of expression and content. For practical purposes it is vital to distinguish the two basic groups of stops: those for vertical segmentation of speech (full stop, exclamation mark, question mark, comma, semi-colon, colon, dash and the indented line) and those for horizontal stratification of speech (double commas, brackets, double dash, double quotes and scare quotes, as well as such typographical devices as spacing, italics and capitalization).

Stops for vertical segmentation divide speech into units of convenient length vertically (parts of the sentence, sentences, paragraphs), whereas stops for horizontal stratification divide the flow of speech into layers, representing, for example, the author’s own speech, various parenthetical insertions, quotations, and so on (they are going to be considered in greater detail later).

The Full Stop Let us take the full stop first. Whenever we finish a sentence, the last stressed word in it is pronounced normally with a low falling tone and a two-unit pause. A definite graphical sign – the full stop – corresponds to this prosodic complex in writing. This is the expression-plane of the full stop which signals the end of the sentence, the formal completion of a given stretch of speech, as in the following example:

10 11

See О.В.Александрова. Проблемы экспрессивного синтаксиса. М., 1984, с.5-6.

See О.В.Долгова (Александрова). Семиотика неплавной речи. М., 1978; O.Akhmanova, R.Idzelis. Linguistics and semiotics. M., 1979; Л.У.Арапиева. Теория и практика системы знаков препинания в современном английском языке. М., 1985; Т.Б.Назарова. Филология и семиотика. Современный английский язык. М., 1994.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

Ch.Dickens. Bleak House.

The full stop is particularly important because it marks the lowest part of the diapason and the end of the Glide Down. Nothing can be more difficult than reading the full stop, and the reason for it is obvious. The fact is that the full stop, as a rule, marks the lowest section of the diapason and the end of a particular Glide Down.

It is particularly difficult to master the reading of this stop, because it signals the end of the Descending Scale in two completely different ways: the low fall and the high fall, for example: - I wonder whether we shall ever know the real answer to the question why the dinosaurs died \out.

- We have to, I think, face the fact that we are seeing what amounts to a new industrial revo\lution.

- But new attitudes are beginning to e\merge.

-There is no such thing as effortless pros\perity.

In this connection the following extremely deplorable fact should be pointed out: the majority of Russian learners of English do not know and do not understand when to use a low fall and when to use a high fall at the end of the sentence. Unfortunately, there is a general tendency to invariably use high falling tones, without taking into account the general context of the utterance. However, communication in English for Russian learners (let alone philologists-anglicists) could become much more effective if they were not only able to produce the low fall and the high fall off the cuff, but were also fully in command of the rhetoric of this opposition. For instance: 1. My dear young friends! For quite a number of years I have had the pleasure of trying to explain to you 'very 'many \things.

2. My dear young friends! I am so pleased to see you again.For so many years I have been trying to teach you something, but, unfortunately, most unsuc\cessfully.

If we look closely at these two examples, we shall see that to use a low fall in the second case would produce a very strange effect (although in the first, more neutral context it is quite natural). A low falling tone in the second context would impart the meaning of drama, even tragedy to it. And in the situation like this one, when a lecturer addresses his/her students, it would be simply absurd.

At the same time, any text consisting of simple, straightforward statements is, of course, read as a succession of low falls and as such it is heard in our inner speech. Thus, for example: There are very few rules in \punctuating. All intelligible writing needs \full stops.They are the basic and most important part of the \code. A full stop is required when a speaker pauses for \breath.

This example shows us that a low fall is, as a rule, used in a statement that is not contradictory or arguable, which is presented as a fact. It would certainly be very convenient if we had a low fall for a full stop and a high fall for an exclamation mark. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case. There is no direct correspondence between high fall and low fall on the one hand, and full stop and exclamation mark, on the other. If we turn to A.C.Gimson, we can find that exclamations could be pronounced with a low fall 12: \Tragic! (according to A.C.Gimson, this utterance is quietly sympathetic; or distant and unmoved, especially if the fall does not reach the lowest level). \Morning! (pronounced with a low fall, sounds perfunctory).

It goes without saying that it is extremely difficult to read these examples because they are very short sentences (consisting of one word), taken out of context. Nevertheless, there is a possibility of pronouncing exclamations with a low falling tone.

12

See A.C.Gimson. An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. London, 1980, p.p.275-277.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions It follows from what has been said above that instead of a dichotomy (full stop – low fall; exclamation mark – high fall) we have a trichotomy: statements with low falls, statements with high falls pronounced only in certain situations, and exclamations. There are very few examples on statements with high fall in academic writing, and quite a number of low falls and exclamation marks, for example: High Fall 1. The situation is simply ap\palling.

2. From the very beginning of our philological careers we must reconcile ourselves to the English we speak with forever remaining less interesting or idiomatic than the excellent varieties of the English we speak a\bout.

Low Fall 1. Many compound and some complex sentences require nothing but a \full stop.

2. The next word after a full stop must start with a capital \letter.

3. One of the generally recognized masters of English style is 'Jane \Austen.

Exclamation Mark 1. "Memory chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened"(!).

"Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us"(?). A playfully paradoxical and distorted view of things and their actual relations! Everything is pure imagination, nothing people think or say has got anything to do with facts!

Remember the difference between the English we speak with and the English we speak about!

As far as the exclamation mark is concerned, it becomes quite clear that this stop is used at the end of emotionally coloured sentences, and also to draw the attention of the reader to a particular idea, expressed in a statement13.

If we turn to the question mark as one of the variants of marking off the end of a sentence, we can observe that it can be used not only after interrogative sentences proper, but also after statements (being one of the most expressive stops): I wonder if Margaret has remembered that we're going there tonight?

A few additional remarks should be made about the possible prosodic variants corresponding to the question mark. First, general questions (i.e. requiring a “yes” or “no” answer) are, as a rule, supplied with a rising tone, because the speaker is asking for information. With special, or “wh” questions, there may be two possible prosodies: either a low fall (when a question is a neutral inquiry) or a low rise (when the speaker wishes to show his/her personal interest in the person he/she addresses): Do you /know him?

How do you think we ought to \start?

Where are you /going?

Speaking about the exclamation and the question mark it should be emphasized that quite often they enable the author to convey his/her attitude to what is being written in the most expressive way (sometimes even without words): We might go in your umbrella", said Pooh. "?"

"We might go in your umbrella", said Pooh. "??"

"We might go in your umbrella", said Pooh. "!!!!!!"

For suddenly Christopher Robin saw that they might. ( A.A.Milne ).

13

See М.Н. Тевдорадзе. Английская пунктуация в функциональном аспекте. М., МГУ, 1991.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Rounding off our discussion of stops used at the end of the sentence, we would like to reiterate that the most important point to be remembered in connection with the full stop is this: one should learn to produce low falling tones and not yield to the temptation of using high falling ones when they are out of place. If we want to make a statement which is not arguable or contradictory, it is invariably pronounced with a low fall.

However, if our aim consists in establishing close contact with our audience, in making parts of our address lively, expressive and emotional, a high falling tone becomes more appropriate 14.

We should constantly bear in mind what the intention of the author (speaker or writer) is, what he/she wants to achieve, because everything depends on what the purport of the author is. Furthermore, as we have already expounded above, besides signalling the end of the sentence, the full stop has got a certain expressionplane – either a high falling tone or a low falling tone. Which one to use in which situation? The reader decides this on the declamational-psychological basis, always remembering that there are two prosodies per one stop (the full stop). And there is also the exclamation mark which can be read both with a high fall and a low fall, and question mark, marking off different types of questions.

The Comma Comma – the least of the marks of punctuation, and therefore a type of something small and insignificant.

Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755).

With all our due respect for Dr.Johnson we cannot possibly agree to his definition of the comma. In the long run, the two main tendencies of English punctuation – over-stopping and under-stopping – are based, by and large, on the excessive or sparing use of commas in a text. Much has already been written about the ability of a single comma to change completely the purport of the utterance 15. Nevertheless, it would not be totally out of place to adduce a few examples which have actually taken place.

The first instance comes from the book "The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English" (ed. by Ian Ousby, Cambridge,1988). Here a single comma before "who" completely changes the plot of Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice”: The Bennet family is visited by William Collins, a rector under the patronage of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who will inherit Mr.Bennet's entailed property on his death.

In this case the comma before "who" indicates that it was Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and not William Collins, as Jane Austen wrote about it in her novel) who would inherit Mr.Bennet’s property. In order to escape ambiguity, double commas should be substituted by brackets or double dash.

One more example is borrowed from Robert Burchfield’s article in “The Sunday Times” (5 March, 1989, p.G.14): Buckingham Palace said that 22-year-old Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth and a Navy helicopter pilot, would sail with the Invincible.

The author of this sentence, a journalist of “The Daily Telegraph”, did not put the comma before "and a Navy helicopter pilot", thus introducing Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, as a son of Queen Elizabeth II and a helicopter pilot. What he wanted to say, certainly, was that Prince Andrew himself was a pilot in the Navy.

One comma before "and" could have helped the author to make this sentence less ambiguous.

The next episode took place in one of the oldest British universities. Before general elections to the House of Commons one of the candidates (incidentally, a university teacher) was advertising himself in the following way, having written on the poster: Don't vote for me because I am a Conservative!

14

There are, certainly, other possible variants of prosody at the end of the sentence. For details see L.L.Baranova. Changes in Pronunciation: Implications for ELT. In: New Developments in Modern Anglistics. Proceedings of the 5 th LATEUM Conference. M., 2001, p.p. 77-80.

15 See Sir Ernest Gowers. The Complete Plain Words (ed. by S.Greenbaum and J.Whitcut). London, 1987; G.V.Carey. Mind the Stop.

Cambridge, 1980; E.Partridge. You Have a Point There. London, 1977.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions The purport of this statement, clearly, was: vote for me not only because I’m a Conservative, but for other obvious reasons as well ( I’m a good teacher, a friendly and reliable colleague, etc.). However, one of the “naughty” students, on seeing the poster, came up to it and put a comma before "because", thus completely changing the purport of the whole utterance: Don't vote for me, because I am a Conservative! ( i.е. asking the constituents not to vote for himself and giving a reason for this).

It is obvious that prosodicallly both variants are quite different, too: in the first case the sentence is pronounced as a Descending Scale with no noticeable pauses within the utterance, and in the second case there is a falling tone on the word "vote" and a short pause before "because".

The last instance, rounding off, as it were, this series of examples, and illustrating the indissoluble connection of not only the comma, but also of all stops with prosody in English, takes us two centuries back in history, to the beginning of the XIXth century, to the Chamber of the House of Commons in the British Parliament.

R.B.Sheridan, a famous playwright, was also a member of Parliament. During one of the sittings in the House of Commons, carried away by a heated discussion, he accused his opponent of lying. The Speaker of the House of Commons immediately intervened, demanding that Sheridan should apologise. To which the witty playwright replied: "Mr. Speaker, I said the honourable member is a liar and I am sorry for that".

Naturally, the prosodic organisation of the utterance fully corresponded to the above adduced punctuation: with the exception of the form of address, the whole sentence was pronounced with a level tone, with no noticeable pauses, and only at the word "sorry" the voice was lowered. It goes without saying that Sheridan’s opponent was not satisfied with this form of apology. The Speaker turned to the playwright once again, asking him to say that he was sorry in such a way, that it was clear he was apologising and not repeating that his opponent was a liar. However, Sheridan refused point-blank to apologise for the second time, saying: "Mr. Speaker, I have already apologized, and the honourable member may introduce punctuation marks wherever he likes".

When we turn to the semiotics of the comma, we should bear in mind the three basic prosodies: First, we should learn to pronounce a sentence of any length without commas. We should learn to produce the proper Glide Down. Sometimes this is a very strenuous task for a Russian learner of English who is not accustomed to the declamational-psychological segmentation of the text, although there may be quite a few “that”, “because”, “but” and so on in the sentence. For example: 1. Our analysis of extracts from Lord Chesterfield's "Letters" has shown that this genre is much nearer to the one we would recommend for the foreign anglicists’ "active" than fiction, however good.

2. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the style of some modern literary critics who so often forget about "plain words" and do not heed the advice of so many Masters concerning what Hazlitt called "an unvarnished medium to convey ideas".

3. This brings us back to what has already been said about certain typical word-combinations which have always been regarded as a kind of linguistic "no man's land".

The second variant of the prosody is called for when we have a comma for co-ordination. According to the rules, the prosody here is the following: a pause, which is the shortest of all the pauses accompanying the rest of punctuation marks, and a mid-falling tone.

The third case is a comma for subordination. In this instance, besides having the already mentioned pause, we have a low-rising tone. For example: Co-ordination

1. We are more sparing of commas nowa\days, and this practice has gone out of fashion.

2. Not only does conventional practice vary from period to \period, but good writers of the same period differ among themselves.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Subordination 1. However widely /spread, RE (Restricted English) is certainly not acceptable as far as the anglicist is concerned.

Before we go any /further, we must explain why we excerpted Jane Austen in preference to one of the modern writers of fiction.

In connection with the prosodic expression for the comma quite a number of different questions are bound to arise. First, what is a mid-falling tone and how do we actually realise it in our speech? Is not the term “a lowfalling tone of non-final variety” more helpful? What is the difference between a high-rising tone and a lowrising one?

Let us begin with the last question, because it seems to be a less complicated one. A low-rising tone, according to A.C.Gimson, is associated with non-finality and is quite often used in statements to express it16.

With high rise, however, things are completely different. To quote A.C.Gimson, “it is essentially associated with questions”17. So, as far as rising tones are concerned, everything is more or less clear: we should choose a low rise to express subordination within the sentence.

With falling tones the situation is much more difficult. Here we have not a dichotomy, but a trichotomy: a low falling tone, a mid-falling tone and a high-falling tone: highFalling tones mid low If we consider a high falling tone and a low falling tone, the difference between them is quite obvious. If it is a low fall, we begin pronouncing the first stressed syllable of a word on a slightly lower note that the preceding syllable and then fall to the bottom of the diapason. If it is a high fall, then it begins above the middle section of the diapason, but it never starts at the very top. Here the difference in the interval is more important, and it is quite sufficient to keep these two tones distinctly apart.

Moreover, there is another complication. There is a slight difference in loudness. In the case of a low fall it would be diminished, and in the case of a high fall it would be slightly increased. So there is a clear-cut opposition of the two main falling tones and it is very clearly expressed prosodically. Theoretically speaking, there may be mid-falling tones, but it can be argued that they could really be functionally loaded in the same way as low falls and high falls.

It follows that when we use the term “a low falling tone of non-final variety”, it is more suitable and more helpful in our case. It means that it is the same low fall (in principle), but with certain modifications. First of all, it begins on the same note (not lower) than the preceding syllables. Second, the loudness will not be as abruptly diminished as in the case of the low fall of non-final variety. And last, resonants and fricatives at the end of the word immediately preceding the comma of co-ordination, are protracted, prolonged, for instance: 1. Without this his (a philologist's) knowledge of the language will always be super\ficial, he will never be able to appreciate what he is reading or listening to.

2. He (a philologist) will know nothing about the proper choice of \words, he will never acquire the ability to find the right word and use it to the best advantage.

Thus, in co-ordination, it is a question of a new relationship between prosody and pronunciation on the level of segmental phonetics. In other words, here we observe the dialectics of the segmental and suprasegmental levels.

The Semicolon The parts of the sentence linked by a semicolon are not as fully independent as in the case of a full stop.

The non-finality of parts separated by a semicolon is reflected in the length of pause, on the one hand, and the 16 17

See A.C.Gimson. Op.cit., p.p.277-278.

See A.C.Gimson. Op.cit., p.p.277-278.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions choice of pitch-levels to be used for the words it brings together, on the other. The difference between a full stop and a semicolon in terms of pitch-movement is as follows: a low-falling tone of final variety for the full stop; a non-terminal falling tone for a semicolon. For example: But towns were \rare; they passed not more than one in every four-and-twenty hours.

Truth is, indeed, not often welcome for its own \sake; it is generally unpleasing because contrary to our wishes and opposite to our \practice; and as our attention naturally follows our interest, we hear unwillingly what we are afraid to know...

S.Johnson. The Rambler (1751) Weary learners learn \little; weary teachers teach little.

A semicolon, then, symbolizes a pause (cessation of phonation) accompanied by a non-terminal falling tone. In the above-adduced examples we can see that a semicolon is used when there are two (or more) distinct parts in the sentence. Although they may not be semantically connected, the speaker is bent on joining them together, if he/she does not want to get the degree of separation expressed by a full stop.

The semicolon in English (as well as in Russian) divides more than unites. Nevertheless, quite often this stop may unite two or more semantically close sentences into a global whole, into one sentence. Thus, parts of the sentence, marked off by semicolons, are made to stand out to a greater extent than in the case of a comma, and at the same time they are not as fully independent as in the case of a full stop 18.

To sum up: A semicolon points to a pause which is longer than the one required in the case of a comma; Before a semicolon a non-terminal falling tone is used; The first stressed word after the semicolon is never pronounced on a high level, usually on a mid-level or low-level note; As for its content-plane, a semicolon may be described as a link between two (sometimes different) ideas within one sentence. A full stop divides what precedes it from what follows it; in the case of the semicolon it is the connection with what follows that matters.

The Сolon In modern English the colon has a corresponding graphical form (:), is read with a pause which is longer than in the case of the comma, but shorter than the pause for the full stop, and with a high falling tone on the last stressed syllable before the colon. This stop tells us that the part of the sentence that follows is the explanation, enumeration of what came before. This is the semiotics of the colon. Let us turn to the actual material: - For the linguist, language is both the end and means of his investi\gation: he has to analyse language, using language.

-The past is a foreign \country: they do things differently there.

-So I tried to get the best of both \worlds: I hinted at the possession of hidden treasure, but I did not say what it was.

- What I really wished to say to you \was: I have spoken to the unhappy young woman my daughter...

(E.Waugh. Decline and Fall).

With the colon it is the pronunciation of the immediately following word which is important, for we begin it on a higher level, as if it were the beginning of a new sentence – hence the similarity with the full stop.

The difference between the two (the colon and the full stop) is in length of pause and nature of pitchmovement. In the case of the full stop the pause is much longer than in the case of the colon. Is there any difference between a semicolon and a colon as far as length of pauses is concerned? Probably not. Anyway, it is too subtle to be noticed. Pauses for the colon and the semicolon are both not as long as the pause for the full stop; neither are they as short as the one for the comma.

So much, then, for pausation and pitch-movement. There are two more parameters which distinguish the colon from the semicolon. They are: the high falling tone accompanying the pronunciation of the last stressed 18

See М.Н. Тевдорадзе. Цит. произв.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions syllable before the colon and slowed down tempo, characterizing the part of the sentence following the colon.

In the case of the semicolon the parts before and after it are, usually, read with one and the same tempo. The part of the sentence which follows the colon is read more slowly and carefully. When we use a colon we mean that what comes after it is the explanation or elaboration of what came before. It can be assumed that the prosody of the colon – in spite of inevitable contextual variations – always remains semiologically the same and fully corresponds to its content-plane.

What is, then, the difference between the colon, the semicolon, and the comma? Briefly it can be summed up in the following way: the colon enumerates and repeats, the comma indicates the nature of the grammatical relationship between parts of the sentence, the semicolon says something that is different from what came before, but somehow relevant to it. The difference between the colon and the semicolon is predominantly semantic. When we choose the one or the other, it depends on what we want to say.

The Dash As a rule, the expression-plane of this stop (besides its graphical form) – is a rather lengthy emphatic (not syntactic) pause. As for the content-plane, a few issues should be pointed out: The dash is used to introduce a rephrasing or summary, for example: The political reform required a great deal of boldness, and courage, and \vision - all of which were forthcoming from Mr.Gorbachev.

By materials we mean textbooks, readers' workbooks, flashcards, recordings, games, songs, reference /books - all the vast range of pedagogical tools that teachers and learners make use of.

Poor spelling, a cavalier attitude to punctuation, and no sense of vocabulary or \sentence structure - parents might well feel a sense of despair at the education their children receive.

Besides a rather lengthy pause all the above-adduced examples are characterized by an abrupt rising of tone at the first stressed word after the dash.

The dash is used in complex and compound sentences to introduce an explanation or correction of what came before, , for example: For a linguist, then, considering two alternative usages,one is not 'right' and the other 'wrong' - the two are merely different.

The dash is used to add an afterthought: The report revealed that large numbers of young people could not identify the United Kingdom on a map of the world - a sorry reflection on our education system.

The dash is employed to indicate that the sentence is unfinished, or to show a sudden break in the line of the sentence, for example: A. As I was saying B. Never mind what you were saying. Just do it.

The Indented Line “The content plane of this sign is globality vs. division, that is, presenting something as one whole and establishing a very close connection between its parts or vice versa – breaking it up into parts to make them more prominent and independent”19. As any sign, this stop possesses a certain expression plane both in speech and writing. Obviously, the first and the most important parameter to be used when we read a piece of printed text divided into paragraphs is, of course, pausation. So far we have spoken about pauses for the full stop, the comma, the semicolon, the colon, the dash, because all punctuation marks for vertical segmentation of speech are first and foremost expressed by means of pauses. Now what happens in the case of the indented line?

As compared with all other pauses, the pause for the indented line is perceptibly longer than the one for the full stop; in fact it is the longest of all. But how do we learn to make it perceptibly longer? We know from 19

See O.S.Akhmanova, R.Idzelis. What is the English We Use? M., MSU, 1978, p.87.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions bitter experience how difficult it is for a beginner to pause in the right places and in the right way. A very useful piece of practical advice is silently to count to three when we have reached the end of a paragraph. This roughly corresponds to the main, basic measurement of the length of pauses which phonetically is measured in moras (a mora being the average length of one short vowel sound).

As a rule, in addition to perceptibly longer pauses, on the boundary between two paragraphs we observe the modifications of such prosodic parameters as tempo, loudness, and range, as well as lowering the pitch-level at the end of the paragraph. But, of course, tempo and loudness come first. There is a considerable slowing down of tempo by the end of the preceding paragraph; the tempo of the new paragraph is generally assumed to increase slightly at the beginning. Loudness (which is very closely connected with tempo) ‘trails down’ by the end of the preceding paragraph, and at the beginning of the next paragraph the process is reversed. One should be very careful not to confound the decrease of loudness with the typical Russian ‘fading’: The question used as the title of the present book quickly, loudly has been discussed time and again, by leading linguists,but, unfortunately, at long intervals, and apparently without much influence on the actual learning of languages, or linguistic thinking of modern scholars.¦¦¦ --slowly, softly How is this unfavourable state of affairs to be accounted quickly, loudly for - seeing that the general idea was clearly and conclusively formulated so long ago?" slowly, softly It goes without saying that modifications of tempo and loudness at the end of the paragraph are accompanied by lowering the general pitch-level.

As far as academic writing is concerned, it is recommendable that the length of the paragraph should not exceed seven or eight lines. For example: "The inconsistency and subjective character of various lexicographic treatments of a word has caused, first of all, the absence of a generally recognized, absolulely sound, faultless methodology of semantic research. Unfortunately there have been too many attempts to solve the problem by mathematical-logical and philosophical methods, which too often proved futile in so far as actual lexicography is concerned.

It would have been so much better if the work of the classics of Russian linguistics had been more universally accepted and really understood. Then the practical results of this research would have gone much further and we would have been on the verge of actually arriving at a certain working solution".

It should be pointed out in this connection that although there exist a number of books and theses devoted to the division of speech into paragraphs, or supraphrasal unities, the underlying principle of this division is still not quite clear. Many scholars believe that the division of speech into paragraphs is closely connected with the cognitive, thinking processes, and is, in fact, a reflexion of these processes.

Besides, very much depends on the genre of this or that speech event and its belonging to a certain functional style, or register. It is clear that our recommendation concerning the optimal length of paragraph refers only to those texts, in which the communicative function predominates. However, even in such texts the length of paragraph may vary to a considerable degree: compare, for instance, the corresponding length of paragraph in a manual and in a scholarly article.

If we turn to fiction, we may find a completely different approach to the division of speech into paragraphs. It will be directly and indissolubly connected with the writer’s wish to affect his/her readers aesthetically and emotionally, to produce an artistic impact on them.

So far we have mainly concerned ourselves with punctuation marks for the so-called “vertical segmentation” of speech: full stop, exclamation mark, question mark, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, the indented line.

All these stops have one thing in common: they ‘segment’ the flow of speech vertically, as it were, separating different parts of the sentence or parts of the text.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Having considered these stops from the semiotic point of view, we can conclude that in this case semiotics is at the service of semantics in the broadest sense of the term. The thing is that stops are important not only by themselves (as a highly abstract semiotic system), but as a very significant means of adequately organising our speech, both written and oral, aimed at conveying different purports in diverse situations of communication.

Therefore, the semiotic system in this case is indissolubly connected with the semantic level of the language.

Prosodic Equivalents of Punctuation Marks and Their Realization in Speech In the previous part of the manual the semiotic approach to the study of punctuation marks in English has been already described as an extremely fruitful and rewarding one. This approach enables us to establish the correspondence between the expression plane and the content plane of this or that stop, to adequately reflect the purport of the text in our inner and ‘outer’ speech.

However, so far the material has been mainly represented by written texts, and we have been concerned with ‘transposing’ them from the written to the oral form, as it were. In the present part of the manual a completely different type of material is adduced. It consists of a number of video and audio recordings which were originally spoken, and for which no written transcript was available (e.g. press-conferences, interviews, TV programmes). While working with the recordings, we transcribed them, trying to adequately reflect in writing the prosody of the speaker and the rhetoric of this or that speech event, using various stops. In other words, what we were after were the so-called prosodic equivalents of punctuation marks (discussed in detail in the previous part of the manual), which are indispensable in making one’s speech intelligible, easy to understand and rhetorically oriented. Let us now turn to the actual material: Let me say this to you: anything bold and purposeful will slow have difficulties to it. You must never allow yourself to be ovecome by the difficulties, when the scope for opportunity is so infinitely greater.

It goes without saying that the above-adduced text may be pronounced and written down in quite a number of different variants. Nevertheless, in order to faithfully reproduce in writing what we have heard and seen on the video tape (Margaret Thatcher’s press-conference), we should proceed from the actual prosody of the speaker. In this case, the word “this” was accompanied by a high falling tone, there was a pause after “you”, and the second part of the sentence "anything bold and purposeful will have difficulties to it" was pronounced very slowly and carefully.

The prosody of the utterance, therefore, corresponds to the expression plane of the colon, and only this stop would adequately reflect in writing the purport of the speaker. In the second sentence of the extract a perceptible pause may be heard after the word "difficulties". The word itself is pronounced with a mid-falling tone, and the whole prosodic complex (a pause plus a definite pitch-movement) signals that here we have the comma for co-ordination.

In the next extract the prosodic equivalent of the colon is used: I believe that perestroika will succeed: that is the economic reform, following the political reform. I think it is perhaps easier for governments to bring about political reform, than it is to bring about economic reform.

As in the first extract, analysed above, the very prosody of the utterance demands that there should be only a colon after "succeed". It is quite natural that the prosody in this case is very closely connected with the purport of the extract, in which the speaker clarifies, explains the essence of restructuring, consisting of two stages, as it were: first – reforming the society politically, and then – economically.

In the following instance let us consider the prosodic equivalent of a different stop, and namely, the semicolon: This was another milestone in a continuing series of discussions we've had since nineteen eighty four; during that period, enormous changes have taken place in the country. They brought about greater political liberty, and the pro-

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Philology: Scopes and Visions spect of real prosperity for ordinary people, as well as much better relations between East and West. All in all, I'm greatly encouraged.

As it has already been stated above, there may be numerous variants of enunciating this text, but the prosody of the speaker (Margaret Thatcher) directly and unequivocally indicates the stops that should be used in the transcript in order to faithfully reproduce the orator's intention. Thus, in the first sentence there is a rather lengthy pause after "four", the word itself being pronounced with a mid-falling tone. The word "during" is accompanied by a low level tone. The whole complex of prosodic parameters signals that here the only possible stop is a semicolon, uniting two semantically close sentences into one. A perceptibly shorter pause after "period" and a low rising tone accompanying the pronunciation of this word show that a comma of subordination is used.

In the second sentence of the analysed extract pauses after the words "liberty" and "people", as well as the accompanying mid-falling tones, signal commas for co-ordination. In the last sentence a pause after the word "all" and a low rising tone mark the comma for subordination.

As far as full stops in the text under consideration are concerned, here invariably a low falling tone is used, characterising uncontradictory, straightforward statements, which are adduced as objectively existing facts. Let us now turn to one more example: I don't think that perestroika can succeed with\out women. \No country can succeed without \women, and I think it enlarges the opportunities open to /them, as \well.

Women \always have a great influence in \every country; and I think that they, \too, will be pleased with the results of perestroika. They will certainly con\tribute towards bringing it a\bout.

You won't wake up one day and it's suddenly \happened: you have to \work for it. There is \no such thing as effortless pros\perity.

The above-adduced example is interesting, first and foremost, because here we can observe not only a number of prosodic equivalents of different stops, but also a rather emotional and expressive organization of the extract as a whole. This is manifested in the presence of a large number of high falling tones, which are realized within widened diapason (\No country can succeed without \women...; Women \always have a great influence...; I think that they, \too, will be pleased...; They will certainly con\tribute towards...; There is \no such thing as...). The prosody of the full stop in this case is markedly different from all the instances, analysed so far.

If in the previous examples the low falling tone was predominantly used, here the tables are completely turned – the end of sentences is invariably marked off by means of a high falling tone.

It is a well-known fact that Margaret Thatcher knew to her cost (especially in the very beginning of her political career) how condescending men can be towards women who take an active part in the political life of the country. Therefore, it is quite natural that when one of the journalists asked her a question about the role of women in perestroika, she could not but answer it with all the fervour and emotion she used to be so famous for. And, as we have already stated earlier, the high falling tone at the end of the sentence is a very powerful means of showing that one is not indifferent to what is being said: I don't think that perestroika can succeed without women. ... it enlarges the opportunities open to them, as well.

They will certainly contribute towards bringing it about. ... you have to work for it.

It goes without saying that when students set about this kind of work, which is extremely important for the development of such linguistic skills as listening comprehension and the ability to adequately reflect in writing the prosody of the utterance, the first step consists in acquiring and fully understanding the semiotic system of English stops.

However, here learning the rules by rote and mechanically applying them to a recorded text is out of the question. The method that we have expounded above is the only one, enabling the learner to understand the cognitive nature of punctuation, to comprehend what the speaker wanted to pass on to his/her listeners, how he/she was saying it.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions We would like to reiterate again and again that it would be a great mistake to believe that punctuation belongs to writing only. Listening to spoken English (especially the kind of English produced by the best speakers), a philologist-anglicist cannot but realise that there do exist prosodic equivalents of punctuation marks which make speech intelligible and help us to adequately perceive the purport of the utterance.

Our approach to the study of punctuation should be cognitive. Only in this case it is of interest for philological research, especially if we take into consideration the fact that the English system of stops is based on the semantic-stylistic, and not on the formal-grammatical, principle.

In a way it was easy to analyse Margaret Thatcher’s speech, because she is a brilliant orator. Even when she was giving completely spontaneous answers to journalists’ questions, her speech was perfectly well-organised and there was no problem whatsoever in transcribing it. Maybe if we turned to some other material, the picture would be completely different? Let us check it out and turn to some videomaterial, representing the spontaneous speech of the so-called “native speakers”. It should be pointed out here that all of them use the standard, literary, educated form of English speech. The material adduced below is widely used in the first year of the Romance-Germanic department, Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University, when teaching the students to acquire the English articulation basis.

The first text belongs to a highly qualified and experienced teacher of a drama school, who has educated and instructed quite a number of famous actors, including Richard Burton. Although the teacher’s speech is spontaneous, it is so well-organised that there is no difficulty in reproducing it in writing. The indissoluble connection between spoken and written English is reflected here in the direct and simple relationship between certain prosodic equivalents of punctuation marks and the corresponding stops: As soon as I saw him on the /stage, I knew he had that incredible stage \presence, which you either /have, or \don't have.It doesn't matter how clever you are if you don't \have it: you can't hold the \audience.

-- slow The great test of that, I re/member, was in an Old Vic production of "King \John", where he played the \Bastard. And the director had the idea (since the Bastard is a commentator on the action very often) to put him on the side of the stage, and let him watch the action, and then get in when his part came. They did it for about two or three performances, and then they had to take him \off! He wasn't doing \anything! He was just \there! But everybody's eyes were on \him, not on the \action.

He had in\credible stage \presence. I always taught him that a great actor has to \'be', not \'do'. The doing should come out of \being.

It is evident from the above-adduced example that when we deal with a well-organised, distinct and easily perceivable speech, the prosodic equivalents of punctuation marks prompt us how to ‘transpose’ a given spoken text into its written form. If we try to reconstruct the spoken form of the text, the stops help us to do it without recourse to tonetic transcriptions which very often “disguise” the actual prosody of the utterance 20.

One more example: I wonder whether we shall \ever know the \real answer to the question why the dinosaurs died \out. And could it be that the \birds that we see around us every /day are the distant de\scendants of these a\mazing creatures? I \wonder.

Why don't you see whether you can find out \more about the dinosaurs? You could be \lucky. You could live in a part of the country where the \rocks were formed during the age of the \dinosaurs. Who knows what you'll be able to \find if you really put your mind to it. But let me leave you with a final \thought. The dinosaurs lived on earth for a hundred and \forty million \years; man has been here for just \two million years. We've got along, long way to go before we can \match the record of the /dinosaurs, or sur\vive.

The text is a part of a TV programme, presented by a well-known TV personality. The aim of the speaker here consists in establishing a direct contact with his audience, in making the subject attractive to them. This is 20

See, for example, O. Akhmanova, L. Minajeva. The Babel of Prosodic Representation. In: Proceedings of the 3d World Congress of Phoneticians. Tokyo, 1976; Л.Л. Баранова. Онтология английской письменной речи. М., Диалог-МГУ, 1998б с.с.88-96.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions manifested not only in rather frequently occurring rhetorical questions addressed to the viewers (And could it be that the birds that we see around us every day are the distant descendants of these amazing creatures?; Why don't you see whether you can find out more about the dinosaurs?), but also in the use of predominantly high falling tones at the end of sentences: - I wonder whether we shall ever know the real answer to the question why the dinosaurs died \out.

- I \wonder.

- Why don't you see whether you can find out \more about the dinosaurs?

- You could be \lucky.

-... before we can match the record the dinosaurs, or sur\vive.

It can also be noted that in the above-adduced text there are perceptibly fewer commas, than, for example, in the previous extract. But the thing is that there are no prosodic equivalents of commas in the recorded text, as well. The presenter uses a very fast tempo, practically without any pauses within the sentences. And in order to adequately reflect the intention of the speaker, his purport in writing, no stops should be used either. This is taken for granted if what we are after is cognitive punctuation. However, if we approached punctuating a text mechanically, there would be certainly commas before "that" in the sentence: "And could it be that the birds that we see around us every day...", before "whether" in "Why don't you see whether you can find out more about the dinosaurs?"; before "where" in "You could live in a part of the country where the rocks were formed..."; before "if" in "Who knows what you'll be able to find if you really put your mind to it"; and preceding "before" in the last sentence. But actually the speaker pronounces all these sentences in one breath, as it were, producing particularly lengthy variants of the Descending Scale. Thus, in the first sentence the Descending Scale consists of 11 (!) feet, in the second – of 14, in the fourth – of 10, and so on.

Special research has shown that considerably long variants of the Descending Scale are of paramount importance from the point of view of pragmalinguistics 21. They are especially significant in those cases when it is necessary to explain this essential underlying characteristic of English prosody to Russian learners, who are used to frequent abrupt changes in the prosodic contour of the utterance.

As we have shown in the commentary to the text, in writing this prosodic peculiarity of English is reflected in the absence of stops (especially commas) within the sentence. Rounding off the discussion of the extract, it would not be totally out of place to note a very interesting case of a semicolon in the last but one sentence: The dinosaurs lived on earth for a hundred and forty million years; man has been here for just two million years.

A lengthy pause after the word "years", which is pronounced with a mid-falling tone, a low level tone accompanying the word “man” – all these prosodic parameters point to the use of a semicolon in this particular sentence. Recent research has proved that a semicolon separating parts of a compound sentence containing contrasted pairs of words (dinosaurs - man) contributes to a clear and distinct opposition of their purport, functioning as an equivalent of the conjunction "but"22.

Let us consider one more example: We \have to, I /think, face the fact that we are seeing what amounts to a new industrial revo\lution. Then I suspect that during the \first industrial revolution (which Britain was either fortunate enough, or perhaps unfortunate enough to be involved/in) that it was a very painful experience for an awful lot of \people. And I think this is the great difficulty that this country faces \now: it is a painful period of \change. But new attitudes are beginning to e\merge. I do very much admire all those people who are prepared to set up and start out on their own in these small \enterprises. I think to \think about doing so is \one thing, but to actually get up and \do it is another matter alto\gether. And I find going round these agencies that I leave encouraged beyond description by the people I meet and by the enthusiasm that I en\counter.

21

See И.М. Магидова. Теория и практика прагмалингвистического регистра ԰нглийской речи. Дисс…докт. филол. наук. М., 1989, с.с. 85, 177.

22 See И.М. Подгайская. Функционально-прагматический аспект построения деловой речи на английском языке (на материале обзорных статей журнала “The Economist”). Дисс…канд. филол. наук. М., 1994, с.43.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions The speaker is Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, commenting on the rapid growth of small enterprises (characteristic of the British economy in the 1980s) and comparing it with the new industrial revolution. The recorded text is one more example of a spontaneous speech which is, nevertheless, very well organised and easily transposable into its written form.

The first two sentences are interesting from two points of view: first, in both parenthetical insertions are used; and, second, both of them end in a high falling tone, signalling an emotional and interested attitude of Prince Charles to the subject matter.

Parenthetical insertions are considered in great detail later, but it should be noted here that "I think" in this particular case should be marked off by double commas from the rest of the sentence, as the change in the prosodic contour is evident. The word "think" is pronounced with a low rising tone, and this requires indicating the parenthesis to adequately reproduce in writing the prosody of the recorded text. The parenthetical insertion (which Britain was either fortunate enough, or perhaps unfortunate enough to be involved in) – is a classical case of brackets: it is pronounced in the lower register of the diapason, with increased tempo and diminished loudness. Such a prosodic organization of the utterance signals that this is not a very important remark for the speaker, but only some additional information which is not significant.

The following sentence is a very clear and unambiguous example of the prosodic equivalent for a colon, which has already been described above: And I think this is the great difficulty that this country faces \now: it is a painful period of change.

--slow

A high falling tone accompanying the word “now”, a lengthy pause after it and a slow, distinct, unhurried pronunciation of the second part of the sentence – all these prosodic parameters indicate that in this case only a colon can be used. It should be mentioned here that in the sentence under discussion the words "I think" are uttered with a level tone and, consequently, there is no need to mark them off from the rest of the sentence in writing.

The following two sentences can be described as two instances of a classical Descending Scale, the only difference between them being that in the sentence "But new attitudes are beginning to emerge" the contour consists of four feet, and in the sentence "I do very much admire all those people who are prepared to set up and start out on their own in these small enterprises" – of seventeen feet. The last sentence is almost as long (thirteen feet): And I find going round these agencies that I leave encouraged beyond description by the people I meet and by the enthusiasm that I encounter.

Only in the last but one sentence the Descending Scale is interrupted by means of a falling tone in the middle and a pause after the word "thing", signalling the prosodic equivalent of a comma.

Summing up the present part of the manual it should be specially emphasized that turning to originally spoken texts has been as important as the analysis of the written material. This approach has proved to be extremely useful when teaching English punctuation to Russian learners, because it enables them to better understand the cognitive nature of stops, to comprehend the main principle of English punctuation, to learn to punctuate not only their writing, but also their speech in accordance with the prosodic and punctuation peculiarities of the English language.

The Horizontal Stratification of English Speech The Prosody and Punctuation of Parenthetical Insertions.

General Remarks In the part of the manual devoted to the vertical segmentation of speech it has already been shown that the full stop, the exclamation and the question mark, the comma, the colon, the semicolon, the dash and the indented line divide (or segment) the flow of speech vertically, separating different parts of the sentence or parts of the text.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions It has been conclusively shown that alongside with the already mentioned vertical segmentation, the flow of speech may be divided “horizontally” into different layers: one layer being the author’s own speech, for example, another one – various quotations or parenthetical insertions that enable the author to either bring out a certain part of the utterance, or, on the contrary, “damp it down”, as it were, presenting a given part of the sentence as something secondary and not very important23.

Stops for horizontal stratification help to single out the main and the subservient parts of the sentence, the author’s words and the characters’ speech, and even to convey certain oppositions and connotations (as will be shown later).

Stops for vertical segmentation and horizontal stratification of speech differ not only semantically, but also prosodically. Thus, the former are characterized mainly by a certain type of pitch-movement and pausation, whereas the latter mark off a given part of the utterance by means of modifications of tempo and loudness. * Let us, first and foremost, consider stops used to mark off various parenthetical insertions: brackets, double commas and double dash. The category of parenthetical insertions has been studied in great detail by Professor O.V. Alexandrova, who has proved that different types of parenthesis are not uniform from the point of view of their structure, modality, predication, the role they perform within a sentence and a text, and their ability to function expressively24. Special research has shown that parenthetical insertions, marked off by means of double commas and brackets, usually convey additional, not very important information. Parenthesis marked off by double dash, on the other hand, is of a completely different nature which is manifested not only in its content plane, but also in its expression plane.

As it has already been said, brackets very often contain additional information, a reference to a comparatively unimportant afterthought, or some ‘throw-away’ material, so to speak. The prosody of brackets is based on their content plane, which is naturally expressed by lowered pitch-level, decreased loudness, and increased tempo, for example: 1)At this time of the year I always make a resolution and it always fails: to give to a library a few hundred books and dump in the dust-bin outside my kitchen-door such useless relics that clutter up my rooms, my life, as old music (what we used to call ¦"gramophonerecords") and files and cassettes of these talks recorded while they were being put over to London.

(Alistair Cooke. A Letter from America).

2)And the director had the idea (since the Bastard is a commentator on the action very often) to put him on the side of the stage and let him watch the action and then get in when his part came.

The student of English (especially the not very advanced one) will have to concern himself with the important question of acceptability of certain forms from the point of view of the modern reader or speaker.

4)The second question is whether punctuation marks (including question and exclamation mark) should come before or after the inverted commas that close a quotation.

5)You will notice that all the three answers to the question explain (on different levels of abstraction) how an unknown word or thing fits into the general context of known words or things.

Early English grammars (the first appeared in 1586) had been written either to help foreigners learn English or to prepare English students for the study of Latin grammar.

23

See L. Arapieva. The Theory and Practice of English Punctuation. Grozny, 1985, p.p.46-48; О.С. Миндрул. Фонетика английского языка. М., МГУ, 1986.

24 See О.В. Долгова (Александрова). Семиотика неплавной речи. М., 1978, с.150; О.В. Долгова (Александрова). Синтаксис как наука о построении речи. М., 1980; О.В. Александрова. Проблемы экспрессивного синтаксиса. М., 1984.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions It can be noted that the functioning of brackets in the intellective register is governed by well-defined semiotic regularities. In all the above-adduced instances we can observe the unity of a certain expression plane (the use of the lower section of the diapason, increased tempo and diminished loudness) and a certain content plane (the secondary character and relative unimportance of the information in brackets).

However, if we turn to fiction, or verbal art, the cases of individual, 'author's' use of brackets are immediately observable25. Here are some of such cases borrowed from Lewis Carroll's «Alice in Wonderland»: "Come, there's no use in crying like that!" said Alice to herself, rather sharply; "I advise you to leave off this minute!" She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes, and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.

This extract was read by two philologists (native speakers of English) and one professional actor (also a native speaker). In the first case there were practically no changes in the prosody of brackets as compared with the rest of the text. In the actor’s reading, however, a whole range of prosodic features characteristic of ironical timbre could be heard: the loudness was diminished, the diapason narrowed, the tempo slowed down. A specific kind of voice quality – nasalization – was noted. Special research has shown that to use a regular prosody for brackets here would have been a mistake, because words in brackets do not communicate any factual information, but, on the contrary, are a kind of humorous rebuke,. addressed not so much to Alice, as to the girls, who listened to Charles L. Dodgson’s story.

More examples: 1)As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, "and in that case I can go back by railway", she said to herself. (Alice had been at the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station). However she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high.

2) For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood (she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a fish) and rapped loudly at the door with his knuckles.

3) Here one of the guinea pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea pig, head first, and then sat upon it).

In these three extracts all the readers pronounced the parts in brackets not only with diminished loudness, but in a ‘breathy’ voice as well. The tempo was slowed down (in contrast to the regular prosody of brackets). In the actor’s reading these prosodic parameters were more clearly manifested, i.e. the tempo was considerably more slowed down, accompanied by increased breathiness.

Such a uniformity in the prosodic organisation of brackets in the three examples can be explained by the content plane of the author’s remarks, which call for expressive prosody. In the first extract breathiness signals that the author refers us to Alice’s past experience, and in the next two cases this voice quality helps to create the ‘fairy-tale’ atmosphere, so to speak. In the very last instance the author’s remark in brackets brings out the comical ambiguity in the text (playing upon the two meanings of the word “to suppress”), which may not have been appreciated by Lewis Carroll’s readers had it not been for this special type of emphasis.

Therefore, we can conclude that Lewis Carroll uses brackets mainly not to communicate some additional, not very important information, but, on the contrary, to draw the attention of his readers to the part of the text marked off by brackets.

It should be added that even a cursory glance at the texts of verbal art shows that they abound in parenthetical insertions in brackets.This can be accounted for by the fact that fiction is characterized by all kinds of di25

See, for example, М.В. Давыдов, В.Е. Михайлов. К вопросу о горизонтальной стратификации текста. М., 1989. Рукопись депонирована в ИНИОН РАН. № 41315.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions gressions, deviations from the main plot26. These may be detailed descriptions of a character, his/her behaviour, emotional experience connected with the depicted events, references to the past, and so on. The significance of such digressions and deviations for a given work of verbal art cannot be overestimated. Quite often it may be even greater than the main plot itself for developing the work’s imagery.

Not infrequently parenthetical insertions in brackets have their own predication, and are expressively and emotionally not neutral. Special research has proved that there is a very close connection and interrelationship between the use of brackets and the complexity of the syntactic structure of this or that parenthetical insertion.

As a rule, lengthy syntactic formations are marked off by brackets. Thus they are isolated from the rest of the utterance (or a larger chunk of text) and acquire a relative independence. In this way the content plane of such parentheses becomes even more significant.

In contrast to these, short one- or two-word syntactic structures are usually perceived (pronounced/read) as something that is not essential, something said in passing. They lose their expressive and informative significance and are, as a rule, marked off by double commas.The nature of double commas is best understood if we remember A.M. Peshkovsky’s definition of them as “weak brackets”. Double commas are used mainly to mark off shorter or clicheed insertions such as "therefore", "however", "also", "then", "in other words" and so on: 1)We did not, in fact, discuss, as I have indicated, the Middle East at these talks.

2)The economic reforms, as I have indicated, will take a little bit longer to show through in their entirety, but the economic prospects are there.

3)The great test of that, I remember, was in an "Old Vic" production of "King John", where he played the Bastard.

4)You have spoken, Mr. President, of a common European home. We both need to feel safe in that home.

So, above all, our vision is of a Europe, in which no one feels threatened, in which the goals of our various nations, though different, are fundamentally compatible, in which we achieve our political aims not at the expense of one another, but in cooperation with each other.

According to the rules of Russian punctuation, every insertion (however short it may be) is marked off by commas. But in English this is not at all a general rule. In English we mark these insertions off by commas (or we do not mark them off by commas) at will. The choice of the one or the other will also depend on the overall context of the utterance and its prosodic organisation. Thus, if we hear a level tone, we do not bring out the insertions by means of commas: What then happens to these words when the analysis is raised to the metasemiotic level?

However, if the author wants us to read this or that insertion in such a way as to bring it out, then the insertion will be marked off by commas. In this case very much depends on the intention of the author. For instance: 1) We, \too, prefer to settle the world's problems by negotiations, and not by force, or violence. We, \too, want to work together on the great global problems which affect all of us.

2) I want to consider the idea that the subject-matter of Ethics is, so to speak, inherently shifting and unstable because of the phenomenon of social and historical change.

3) You may not, at first, believe this - but punctuation is far more important than spelling.

4) Before security is assured, however, important questions must be answered.

5)The modern poet, for example, may be perfectly justified in using large numbers of unusual words in unusual combinations.

The situation with double dash is quite different, both from the point of view of the expression plane and the content plane. First of all, before reading the part marked off by dashes we require a pause, the length of the pause being conditioned by the necessity of drawing the listeners’ attention to what will follow. The second very important point as far as the prosody of dashes is concerned is that there is no increase of tempo or decrease of loudness as in the case of brackets. On the contrary, the part brought out by means of dashes is read in such a way as to indicate prosodically the importance of the information contained therein, i.e with slowed down tempo and increased loudness. For example:

26

See О.В. Александрова. Проблемы экспрессивного синтаксиса. М., 1984, с.с.87-88.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions 1) I can't remember a time this century, when the world's leading power – today the only superpower – was more in need of the knowledge and guidance of a President with a foreign policy gift, that was a mix between decisiveness and restraint.

2)Now a month or less after the great failed coup – that was at the beginning of September – they again took a poll on the popular feeling about George Bush.

3)Punctuation resembles not a hat which you will – or will not – wear, but a pair of trousers (or an equivalent), which you must wear.

4)The recognition of the undisputed superiority of so many great writers – classics and classical literature – is one of the most general and most firmly established facts.

5) Words and phrases in apposition are usually – where any punctuation exists – separated by commas.

The illustrative material shows that double dash, as well as other stops for horizontal stratification single out a certain part of the utterance from the flow of speech. We may conclude by saying that in contrast to double commas, double dash and brackets single out: 1) more lengthy insertions and 2) if insertions are rather short, connotative ones (not simple or clicheed). In this case the very use of insertions and, accordingly, their punctuation quite often present a metasemiotic problem. To understand this phenomenon better we should study the metasemiotic intention of the speaker/writer more deeply27.

Semiotics and Metasemiotics of Quotation Marks in Modern English The sholars of the English Department, Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University clearly distinguish between such semiotically significant units as single and double quotes. However regrettable it may be, we must admit that even the most authoritative publishing houses use these stops indiscriminately, impoverishing the possibility of rendering in writing the complex and multifarious content of this or that speech event. What is, then, the difference between double ans single quotes? Double quotes are used in English to introduce somebody’s words, the title of a work of verbal art, an article, a radio or TV programme, and so on. For example: 1) The world closed to all outsiders. For ten days correspondent Peter Arnette was the lone reporter in war-torn Baghdad,earning him the title "the quintessential war-correspondent" from the "New York Times".

2) The title on the cassette said: "The InvincibleBush".

3) George Bush spends all his time and energy watching out for East Germans, and Czechs, and the European Prime-ministers, while America cries: "Help!"

4)A full stop "should be used at the end of sentence", according to Sir Ernest Gowers.

5) He quotes G.M.Young who spoke not of the choice and arrangement, but of the "choice and disposition of words".

It is obvious from the above-adduced material that double quotes help to express the author’s ‘alienation’, so to speak. The words marked off by double quotes are perceived by the reader as something ‘alien’, as something not belonging to the author. The prosodic parameters accompanying the reading of this stop fully correspond to its content plane: a two-unit pause is used before and after double quotes, together with increased loudness and slowed down tempo. It should be reiterated that there is an essential, fundamental difference between double and single quotes. The British scholars have even accepted a separate term for single quotes – “scare quotes” (alongside with “single quotes”). The verb “to scare” means not only “to frighten”, but also “to alert”, “to warn”. It can be said, and with very good reason, that scare quotes are “warning”, “alerting” quotes, marking off something that is not generally recognized, or accepted. This stop is a kind of ‘red light’, danger signal, showing that we are dealing with a word (or a word-combination) or a term which: 1) occurs not in its usual, ordinary meaning, 2) has been coined and introduced by the author himself/herself and is not part and parcel of general English, 3) shows that the author perceives and understands the already existing word in a special way. For instance: 1) G.W.Turner holds that such a thing as 'pure writing' does not exist.

2)Sophisticated, vivacious, even a little daring in their 'tomorrowness',

27

See О.В. Долгова (Александрова). Семиотика неплавной речи. М., 1978, с.152.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions these shoes for autumn owe much of their distinction to the court of Empress Josephine.

3) There was still a strong tradition of 'stylishness' in public speaking and rhetorical flourishes and rotund oratory were much admired.

Even a cursory glance at the examples suffices to understand that the semiotics of scare quotes is drastically different from the semiotics of double quotes.

Scare quotes usually mark off the part of a text containing some not generally accepted opinion or point of view. They single out a word (word-combination) or a term which is questionable or ambiguous, or used by the author provisionally, as it were. In French there is a very good formula for scare quotes: “Comme qui dirait”. ( “As we might say” could be a possible rendering into English; “comme” meaning “as”, “qui” standing for “who”, “dirait” – for “would say” ). In this case the so-called “alienation” of the author which we have mentioned in connection with double quotes, is out of the question. Scare quotes signal that the author is not detached or alienated from a given part of the utterance, or, anyway, joins his/her voice to the connotation of this or that figure of speech.

The fact that here we deal with a phenomenon that cannot be considered to be a mere quotation is borne out by a peculiar timbre of a word ( word-combination ) marked off by scare quotes. There is no noticeable pause, loudness is diminished, tempo is slowed down, and a lower part of the diapason is used. The part of the utterance in scare quotes is pronounced as one indivisible whole. The main characteristic prosodic feature here is that separate words, constituting a longer stretch of speech marked off by scare quotes, are not brought out or emphasized. Summing up all these parameters we can conclude that this particular stop is read with the socalled “unsaturated timbre”.

Let us now turn to actual material and analyse the use of scare quotes in works of verbal art. The first example is borrowed from Anita Brookner’s novel "The Misalliance": She saw suddenly and precisely something that had previously appeared to her in a vague and nebulous light: a great chasm dividing the whole of womanhood. On the one side, Barbara, with her bridge evening and her gouty husband, Mrs.Duff with her girlish respectability, and her own awkward self, and on the other Mousie and her kind and Sally Beamish, movers and shakers, careless and lawless, dressed in temporary and impractical garments, and in their train men who would subvert their families, abandon their wives and children, for their unsettling companionship. On the one side the evangelical situation – and Miss Elphinstone too came into it at this point – and on the other the pagan world.

For ‘good' women, Blanche thought, men would present their 'better' selves, saving their primitive and half-conscious energies for the others. And she herself, she further thought, had made the mistake of trying to fashion herself for the better half, assuming the uncomplaining and compliant posture of the Biblical wife when all the time the answer was to be found in the scornful and anarchic posture of the ideal mistress.

We have adduced this lengthy extract from the novel on purpose, in order to show how closely the problem of horizontal stratification of speech is connected with a more general problem of comprehending written speech, with philological hermeneutics.

It is generally assumed that in the intellective text stops can give one a very clear idea of its content plane; in a work of verbal art, however, it is extremely difficult (if not downright impossible) to express by means of punctuation marks all the numerous layers of meaning one usually finds in fiction. Yet in the extract under consideration Anita Brookner quite artfully uses scare quotes to single out the words ‘good' and ‘better' , achieving a peculiar stylistic effect. The novelist purposefully diminishes the expressivity of the passage, using unsaturated timbre, showing her character’s bitter ironical attitude to faithful and obedient wives. Although here we deal with the inner monologue of the main character, Blanche (whose husband left her for a younger and frivolous woman), it is obvious that the writer shares her opinion.

It should be added that in this case scare quotes are appropriate not only because of the general timbre of the passage, but also because of a rather unusual meaning attached to the words 'good' and 'better'. The thing is that in modern English the word 'good' is so polysemantic that it has practically lost any concrete meaning. If we turn to any reliable, authoritative unilingual dictionary, we shall find the following meanings of the word: "cheerful, pleasant, kind, suitable, favourable, well-behaved, having the right qualities". In this particular pas109

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Philology: Scopes and Visions sage, however, the word is used in a completely different sense. It is, as it were, provisionally employed by the novelist to refer to virtuous, morally good women, who, in her opinion, belong to the Christian world and are opposed to the pagan world of “ideal mistresses”.

If we omitted scare quotes here or substituted double quotes for them, the whole complex purport of the passage, its overall stylistic effect would be completely lost for the reader.

The next instance is borrowed from the novel “Less than Angels” by another famous modern British novelist Barbara Pym: Catherine wondered again as she so often did why it was that the so-called 'well-bred' people had such very penetrating voices. It could not be thought, in these days, that they were accustomed to giving orders to servants. Miss Lydgate could be heard all over the room.

In the given extract the word ‘well-bred' is also used by the author not in its usual meaning and is purposefully marked off from the rest of the utterance by means of single quotes. In "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English" it is defined as "well-behaved or polite, probably as the result of one's being well brought up".

Yet the overall context makes it quite clear that the author uses the word not to refer to “well brought up” or “polite” people, but to those belonging to a particular social layer of modern British society, i.e. to the upper classes. In the very next sentence the novelist clarifies this meaning: "It could not be thought, in these days, that they were accustomed to giving orders to servants".

In other words, at present the owner of the penetrating voice is considered to be an anachronism, as well as huge mansions with numerous servants, who are given orders in a stentorian voice. Again, in the extract under discussion we observe the ironical attitude of the main character to such people (undoubtedly shared by Barbara Pym). All these shades and nuances of meaning would cease to exist if there were no single quotes.

One more extract from the same novel: Esther Clovis had formerly been secretary of a Learned Society, which post she had recently left because of some 'disagreement' with the President.

It is often supposed that those who live and work in academic or intellectual circles are above the petty disputes that vex the rest of us, but it does sometimes seem as if the exalted nature of their work makes it necessary for them to descend occasionally and to refresh themselves, as it were, by squabbling about trivialities. The subject of Miss Clovis's quarrel with the President was known only to a privileged few and even those knew no more than that it had something to do with the making of tea. Not that the making of tea can ever really be regarded as a petty or trivial matter and Miss Clovis did seem to be seriously at fault. Hot water from the tap had been used, the kettle had not been quite boiling, the teapot had not been warmed... Whatever the details, there had been words, during the course of which other things had come out, things of a darker nature. Voices had been raised and in the end Miss Clovis had felt bound to hand in her resignation. She had been very lucky to be appointed as a kind of caretaker in the new research centre, for it happened that Professor Mainwaring, in whose hands the appointment lay, disliked the President of the Learned Society. Esther Clovis might not be much of a tea-maker but she had considerable organizing ability and knew how to act in a crisis.

Here the word in scare quotes,'disagreement', occurs in the very first sentence of a lengthy extract. Yet it functions as a certain key-word, sets the tone of narration in the paragraph under discussion. The fact that the novelist does not split up this paragraph into parts and presents it as a global whole is not accidental. All the subsequent commentaries and explanations are indissolubly connected with the word in scare quotes: they clarify it, tell the reader what was meant by this ‘disagreement’, or difference in opinions.

It would be certainly logical to assume that in a Learned Society the disagreement would have something to do with scholarly and elevated issues. However, the whole passage acquires an unexpected humorous colouring when the reader finds out that it was caused by the wrong way of tea-making. Reading between the lines we can feel the ironical attitude of Barbara Pym to the almost religious significance that the British attach to the process of making and drinking tea (“Not that the making of tea can ever really be regarded as a petty or trivial matter…”), come across the comical clashing of styles – highly formal and official in "...Miss Clovis did seem to have been seriously at fault" and the same one in describing such a mundane and trivial procedure as 110

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the making of tea in "Hot water from the tap had been used, the kettle had not been quite boiling, the teapot had not been warmed..."

At first sight it may seem that there was no need for bringing out the word “disagreement” by means of scare quotes, because it is used in the text in full accordance with its main nominative meaning ("the fact or case of disagreeing, having different opinions, quarrelling slightly"). Yet in this particular instance scare quotes signal how many layers of sense are attached to the word by the novelist, who makes it function as a key-word for the understanding of the whole passage.

The following group of examples is in a class by itself. It stands out, because here scare quotes are used in a very specific way. In all the extracts adduced below scare quotes help the author to bring out words which at first sight belong to general vocabulary, but are, in actual fact, terms belonging to a definite sphere of knowledge – anthropology: 1)Сatherine had always imagined that her husband would be a strong character who would rule her life, but Tom, at twenty-nine, was two years younger than she was and it was always she who made the decisions and even mended the fuses. It did not seem to occur to Tom that they might get married. Catherine often wondered whether anthropologists became so absorbed in studying the ways of strange societies that they forgot what was the usual thing in their own. Yet some of them, she had observed, were so highly respectable and conventional, that it seemed to work the other way, too, as if they realized the importance of conforming to the ‘norm', or whatever they would have called it in their jargon.

2)Fairfax and Vere, trudging along on the opposite side of the street, were talking loudly as they approached the house. Each had a penetrating voice - William Vere because, as a refugee, he had been forced to build a new life in a strange country and make his impression in a foreign language, and Gervase Fairfax because he was the youngest of a large family and had always had to assert himself. Now they were discussing their students, by no means unkindly, for there was a friendly rivalry between them in getting the young people fixed up with research grants which would take them into the 'field' - Africa, Malaya, Borneo or any remote island where there remained a tribe still to bestudied.

The words marked off by scare quotes in the above-adduced examples are 'norm' и 'field'. In Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English the word 'norm' is defined in the following way: 1. [often pl.] a standard of proper behaviour or principle of right and wrong; rule. 2. a usual or expected number, amount, pattern of action or behaviour, etc. However, in the given extract the word 'norm' is used by the author as an anthropological term having the following meaning: "a way of behaving that is considered normal and usual and that people expect from you in a given society".

The world 'field' in the second instance is used and perceived, as a rule, in its main nominative meaning:"an area of land on which a crop is grown or an area of rough grass, especially one where animals such as cows, sheep, or horses are kept". In the extract under consideration it is used in a specific ‘scientific’ sense of: "the place where practical operations happen, as compared to places where they are planned or studied, such as offices and universities; research or testing that is done in a real, natural environment rather than in a theoretical way or in controlled conditions". It goes without saying that this calls for the use of scare quotes to alert the reader, to signal that the word is employed as a term, and not as a word of general English.

Thus, we may conclude that in both examples scare quotes tell us that the author uses the words in an unusual way, as terms, allowing the reader to have a glimpse of the original and interesting world of anthropologists which is depicted by Barbara Pym sometimes with mild humour, and sometimes with irony.

The last example from the novel "Less than Angels" is related to the previous two in the sense that here the word-combination in scare quotes is originally transferred from the field of politics, economics and business into that of scholarly publications: These single articles, detached from the learned journals in which they have appeared, have a peculiar significance in the academic world. Indeed, the giving and receiving of an offprint can often bring about a special relationship between the parties concerned in the transaction. The young author, bewildered and delighted at being presented with perhaps twenty-five copies of his articles, may at first waste them on his aunts and girlfriends, but when he is older and wiser he realizes that a more carefully planned distribution may bring him definite advantages. It was thought by many to be 'good policy' to send an offprint to Esther Clovis, though it 111

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Philology: Scopes and Visions was not always known exactly why this should be. In most cases she had done nothing more than express a polite interest in the author's work, but in others the gift was prompted by a sort of undefined fear, as a primitive tribesman might leave propitiatory gifts of food before a deity or ancestral shrine in the hope of receiving some benefit.

COBUILD English Language Dictionary adduces the following two meanings of the word ''policy'': 1) a general set of ideas or plans that has been officially agreed on by people in authority and which is used as a basis for making decisions, especially in politics, economics, or business. 2) a document which shows the agreement that you have made with an insurance company.

However, it is quite obvious from the given extract that here the word acquires a completely new meaning:"sensible behaviour that is to one's own advantage".

The material has conclusively shown that scare quotes are a separate, independent punctuation mark in modern English, and should be considered as such if what we are after is the problem of philological hermeneutics, of thoroughly understanding English written speech. It is a well-known fact that written speech has a great significance for languages with long cultural traditions. The larger part of information in these languages is perceived in the written form and through writing. One should have a very clear idea of what the content plane and the prosodic equivalent of this or that stop is, because stops in English represent the author’s voice and the author’s intention.

It has been pointed out already that, unfortunately, in practice scare quotes and double quotes are often not differentiated, are used indiscriminately: scare quotes marking off, for example, somebody else’s speech, where double quotes would be more naturally used. It is obvious that in such cases we deal with orthographic inconsistency and inaccuracy, the sign (i.e. the given punctuation mark) having lost its semiotic function.

At the same time even a cursory glance at the above-adduced material shows that there exists a considerable number of instances when novelists consciously employ scare quotes in accordance with their content plane, and the difference between scare quotes and double quotes is borne out by the difference in their prosodic organisation and by the contrast in the purport they are called upon to convey.

We have already stated that in accordance with the semiotic approach to the study of punctuation marks in English each stop (or typographical device) should be viewed as an item of a certain semiotic system, and should be characterized by possessing the following three properties: disembodiment, singularity and arbitrariness. If a sign loses these properties, it stops being a sign, and accordingly, stops being used as the means of establishing a one-to-one correspondence between a certain expression plane and a certain content plane. Thus, the very polysemantic functioning of scare quotes that can be observed at present in some publications is contrary to the essence of this sign as an indispensable element of the semiotic system of punctuation marks in English.

In the ideal all stops should be used in strict accordance with the purport that a speaker or a writer wishes to convey to his/her audience. The function of stops reflecting the horizontal stratification of speech should be clearly defined; each of them should have its own sphere of use. Only in this way is it possible to perceive various shades of meaning, semantic nuances which the author wishes to convey to his readers, but which very often remain beyond their understanding.

We are convinced that the actual unity of speech and writing are possible only if the writer 1) is in full command of spoken English, i.e. is capable of passing on by means of his/her voice the finest nuances of thoughts and emotions and 2) is perfectly well acquainted with a very specific semiotic system of modern English punctuation.

The Use of Capitalization, Italics and Spacing Besides the already analysed punctuation marks, horizontal stratification of English speech includes such typographical devices (or graphical sets) as capitalization, spacing and italics.

Capital letters are used not only to denote the beginning of the sentence and proper names, but also help to pass on finer shades of meaning, for example: 1) And this is where Punctuation comes in.

2)This is Life.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions 3) Usually Spring is perceived as a renewal.

As far as italics are concerned, they may both signal emotional colouring of words and word-combinations and bring out foreign words and expressions, for instance: 1) It is possible to make out a prima facie against this policy, but it would be a mistake to reject it in toto.

2) Reading the great masters of English literature is a conditio sine qua non.

3) "You really are lucky not to have a mother", said Bridget, rather breathlessly as she took her friend into her bedroom and shut the door firmly. "I mean, Mummy's quite a pet and all that, but the questions she asks!

Morning, noon and night. Where are you going, and who have you met? And are they cousins of somebody else of the same name in Yorkshire? I mean the futility of it all".

(A. Christie. At Bertram's Hotel).

4) "Glorious, stirring sight!" murmured Toad, never offering to move. "The poetry of motion! The real way to travel. The only way to travel! Here today - in next week to-morrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped - always somebody else's horizon!"

(K. Grahame. The Wind in the Willows).

Spacing, as well as capital letters and italics, signals emphasis, the only difference among these devices being that spacing denotes the highest degree of emphasis. This particular graphical set occurs quite often in a printed text: 1) "... In other words, where do we - f o r e i g n a n g l i c i s t s - go, or what do we turn to, if we are setting out to write and speak English on our subject, that is to use English for our special professional purposes.

Surely not to the many instances of 'bad English' collected in most manuals on the subject. We may sound too categorical, but so far no practical solution has been offered, no way out actually shown".

"These examples of English we shall regard as, in a sense, i m p e r s o n a l."

3) "It follows that Literature (with a capital letter) can help us solve our problem only i n d i r e c t l y".

The prosody of capitalization, italics and spacing may vary, but, by and large, we can state that it is characterized by increased loudness, slowed down tempo and the use of a higher section of the diapason.

It is obvious from the above-adduced examples that these graphical sets (i.e. italics, capital letters and spacing) form an indispensable part of the horizontal stratification of English writing. A good writer can and should use all the possibilities of each stop and graphical set. A convincing example of such use can be found in the book by Sir Alan Gardiner "The Theory of Speech and Language": The ambiguity of the word "meaning''. Those who define the sentence as a word or set of words revealing a complete meaning – and note that the Swedish term for sentence is mening – are etymologically nearer the mark than they themselves may be aware. For in its original sense, "to mean"(Anglo-Saxon maenan, modern German meinen) signifies "to purpose", at the outset an exclusively human action. To this day, German draws a distinction between meinen said of persons, e.g. Er meint wohl etwas anderes, and bedeuten said of things, e.g. Dieser Satz bedeutet wohl etwas anderes. In English the verb "to mean" signifies either to intend an act (e.g.

I MEAN to go) or to intend a reference (e.g. When I say a spade, I MEAN a spade).

The short extract shows how artfully the author employs various stops and graphical sets (mainly belonging to the horizontal stratification of speech) for a clearer, fuller and more expressive description of the etymology and different semantic nuances of the word "meaning". Thus, all the words and sentences, borrowed from other languages, are consistently italisized: mening, meinen, Er meint wohl etwas anderes, bedeuten, Dieser Satz bedeutet wohl etwas anderes. The word under discussion, "mean", or "meaning", is printed in capitals when actual contexts in which it can occur in English are adduced. This device makes the reader slow down the tempo, increase the loudness, and bring out the word by means of a high falling tone.

To sum up: the present part of the manual has been devoted to stops for horizontal stratification of English speech. These punctuation marks, in contrast to stops for vertical segmentation, bring out this or that part of the utterance by means of different modifications of tempo and loudness. These two types of graphical organization of written speech differ not only prosodically, but also semantically. Stops for horizontal stratification of speech ‘slice up’ the text into several layers: one is represented by the author’s speech, another – by various parenthetical insertions, yet another – by quotations, and so on.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Special attention should be paid to the semiotics and metasemiotics of quotation marks in modern English.

Double quotes and scare quotes should be clearly differentiated as two separate stops, two independent items of a global semiotic system. If we use them indiscriminately, we lose a very effective means of passing on in writing the complex and multiform units of content.

The study of punctuation marks in general, and of stops for horizontal stratification of speech, in particular, is inseparably connected with the problem of understanding in the broader sense of the word, with philological hermeneutics. We have tried to show (using extensive authentic material) that the knowledge and proper use of stops for vertical segmentation and for horizontal stratification of speech is an indispensable prerequisite for philological literacy.

References:

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Remneva, Marina Philology at Moscow University (Dean of the Philological faculty) The past and present of Moscow University being so great and so eventful, the field of philological inquiries so measureless and manifold, in what follows we attempt to set the most important landmarks in the history of philology at the faculty. The garland of names and the network of theories represented here is but a thin slace of 250 year development in linguistics. This brief overview is the humble homage we pay to the genius of those who did a lot to foster and cultivate the best literary and humanistic traditions in Russia, to those who were able to tap a well of nationally cherished beliefs and wisdom. * th th th On April, 26 (May, 26 – new style) 1755 in a 17 century three-storey building, a former Pharmacy near Kuretniye or Voskresenskiye gates with a turret on the Red Square” (Sheviryov: 17), Moscow University was inaugurated. ‘St-Petersburg Izvestiya’s detailed description of the event allows us to scrutinize the audience which came to solemnize the occasion: “On the appointed day at eight o’clock in the morning teachers and students gathered together at the University. The nobility was admitted by special invitations, while foreign and honorable merchants were allowed to attend the ceremony at their request. Then the students were streamed into classes and proceeded to the Church of the Kazan Virgin where in the presence of the headmaster the cathedral worship was performed… They would return in the same order as they had come to the church, thereafter the speeches were delivered: in the Russian language – by the Master of Arts Anton Barsov, in Latin – by the Master of Arts and the conrector Nikolai Popovsky, in French – by a teacher of the high French class La Bomme, in German – by a teacher of the high German class Litken. About six o’clock in the evening … a lot of people came to the University to witness the spectacular display of fireworks meant to allegorize the Parnassus mount and Minerva erecting an obelisk in honour of Her Imperial Majesty… The adjoining streets had been crowded the whole day till small hours…” (Moscow University … : 36-37).

Following Her High Empress’ Edict, Moscow University (and two gymnasia according to the royally initiated project in supplement to the Edict) with three faculties – Medical, Philosophical and the Faculty of Law – and ten departments was established.

The plan for the University, drawn up by Mikhailo Lomonosov, was based on democratic and patriotic ideas and set two basic goals: providing general education (“let it be excellent in men who would penetrate into the unfathomable mysteries of nature”), and solving practical tasks (“to bring up people capable of serving the country”). More than any other scholar of his age, M.V.Lomonosov may be said to have presided over the transformation of Russian science and culture and at the same time to have laid the foundation for their further development. Appointed a councillor by the Academy in 1757, M.V.Lomonosov undertook reforms to make the University an intellectual centre closely linked with the life of the country. His main motto was: “a student would be deemed more honorable the more he studies and it doesn’t matter whose son he is”. For this reasonuniversity education was available to people from different social backgrounds, even to young men of humble origin, and even to liberated peasants 9. To that end Lomonosov obtained grants for 30 students and 100 gymnasia pupils, and maintained that education at the University and its Gymnasia should be free of charge.

Consequently, the first enrollment of students was very patchy. M.V. Lomonosov’s activities, however, contributed to the emergence of so many celebrated scholars in Russia.

Moscow University was the only one in Europe without a theological faculty (which ensured the University press certain freedom from ecclesiastical censorship.

As early as the 18th century there was no yet a separate department of Philology in the University. Nevertheless, the teaching of the Humanities in the modern sense of the word was concentrated at the faculties of Law and Philosophy: a Professor of Philosophy would deliver lectures on “logic, metaphysics and moral code 9

Пояснение крепостничества

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Philology: Scopes and Visions admonition”, a professor of oratory taught “oratory and versification”, a professor of history inculcated young men with a respect for “world and Russian history, the antiquity and heraldry” (Moscow University …, 32-33).

Besides that, much importance was accorded to practice of foreign languages.

Characteristically enough, from the very outset great attention was paid to the Russian language, while Latin remained an official language of science even in Europe. Some of the contemporaries complained that “many students are more fluent in Latin than in Russian and, while perfectly understanding a Latin author, still fail to render the force of his argument and expressivity of his style into their mother tongue”. One of the popular misconceptions of that time was that “there is no need to teach Russian rhetoric or eloquence, because a man who knows the essence of Latin eloquence may transform its rules into other languages and there is no need to spend time studying useless sciences” (Penchko: 45-46). Though the Russian language received official recognition as the language of science only three years after Lomonosov’s death (when “Moscow vedomosti” informed on January, 15 1768 that, at Behest of Catherine II the Great, “for better dissemination of sciences in Russia lectures at all three faculties should be read by native Russians in the Russian language”), actually Russian had begun to sound at the University from the very first day of its opening. The first speech delivered by A.A. Barsov was in Russian [2], and professor of oratory Nikolay Nikitich Popovsky after delivering his solemn speech in Latin switched in his course of lectures to Russian and devoted his first talk to the value of his native language. Developing Lomonosov’s ideas of its grandeur N.N.Popovsky said: “There is no idea which can’t be expressed in the Russian language”.

During the early history of Moscow University its reputation owed much to its Publishing House and Library. I.I. Shuvalov, the first university curator, took great pains to set up University press and a bookshop “with a view to spreading knowledge for the common good”. Starting with March 1756, its success was immediate: the very first year of the existence of this publishing house yielded 14 books, with the first volume of Lomonosov’s scholarly works on top of it. The latter contained, among other things, “Preface on use of ecclesiastical books” – a programme work by way of developing the Russian language. At that printing-house the first Moscow paper “Moscovskiye vedomosty” was being published, its first issue saw the light on the 26 th of April, 1756.

On the 3d of July, 1756 the University library was opened and became public from the very first day of its foundation. By 1812 it possessed 20 thousand volumes. Private donations played a great role in its formation.

When it suffered great losses from the fire of 1812, “Moscovskiye vedomosty” in its issue of July, 12 1813 appealed for help to “those grateful for the enlightment and especially its (University – M.R., A.S.) foster-children to endow it with books and other educational supplies” (Sheviryov: 422), and as a result more than 5000 volumes were gathered. Charity in favour of the University was always vast: among the benefactors were E.R.Dashkova, E.F.Muravyova, S.M.Tretyakov, the owner of mining factories Demidov, professors Fischer von Waldheim and W.M. Richter and many others.

The University administration accorded much attention to developing secondary, pre-university education and first of all to the University Gymnasia: one for the noblemen and another for broader sections of people (from different social strata). M.V.Lomonosov confessed in a letter to I.I.Sdhuvalov that University without Gymnasium was like fertile soil without seeds. A gymnasium set up in Kazan in 1757 was incorporated into University administrative system and later on became its affiliate. In his “History of the Imperial Moscow University” S.P.Sheviryov noted that “Kazan gymnasium was the first step in implementing the grandiose and complicated plan which Shuvalov’s zeal spread to the whole country” (Sheviryov: 54). Shuvalov fervently believed that Gymnasia should be founded “in all big cities where European languages and the basics of sciences are to be taught” (Sheviryov: 54).

That period saw a constellation of talented and most illustrious philologists. The fact that besides M.V.Lomonosov other respected men of letters stood near the cradle of Moscow University testifies to the great role of the Humanities there. N.N.Popovsky, at once a poet and a translator, an outstanding philosopher and an eminent citizen, considered the aim of a university education to be not so much the training of specialists in any field of research, as the development of a versatile personality, a human being with human interests. The name of Mikhail Ivanovich Veryovkin, another learned and lettered man, is associated with the Kazan gymnasium (founded in 1757 and later transformed into Kazan University). Deputy headmaster of Moscow Universi116

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Philology: Scopes and Visions ty, a likely organizer of the university theatre (opened in 1756), he was also a poet and a playwright. He was reputed to have composed several comedies, which parodied plays of Catherine II the Great. Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov was no inconsiderable figure in the history of Moscow University, whose professional affinities included publishing, editing, running the University public theatre, while his main energies were devoted to writing his own prose and poems. A pundit and a patron of poetry, he encouraged the works of other young authors of that time. In 1760 Kherskov organized a literary society and initiated publishing the magazine “Poleznoye uveseleniye” (“Useful amusement”) in which students of literature were actively involved. [3] In 1763-1770 M.M.Kheraskov was the headmaster of the University and since 1778 he became its curator. In 1779, due to his strenuous efforts, the Free Noble Boarding School (since 1830 – Gymnasium for noblemen) was opened and it has given rise to many of the greatest names in Russian history and culture.

Another figure of fame and popularity, a philanthropist and educationalist, Nikolay Ivanovich Novikov never failed to believe in the power of Enlightment. Novikov converted his famous magazines “Truten” (“Drone”) and “Zhivopisecz” (“An artist”) and his ambitious publishing enterprise into vehicle of freethinking and even became an implacable opponent of Catherine II the Great. He headed the University press from 1779 to 1789. At that period its role was especially great: the works by Fonvizin, Sumarokov, Kheraskov, Voltaire, Lessing, Schiller, and Beaumarchais came out. The fact that Novikov published the works of the French Encyclopaedists - Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau - shows that his activities were intended to raise the educational and the cultural level of the Russin people.

A great interest in European culture, literature and philosophy distinguished Russian philology since the times of its origination. The 18th century students of philosophy, who studied modern languages (German, French, English, and Italian), got special samples of literary texts to translate, analyze and assimilate (learn by heart). The archive materials prove that in late 1750s a French lecturer N.Bilon studied compositions by Fontanel and Fenelon in his classroom. In 1780s professor C.A.Vate examined satires and epistles by Boileau, an Englishman D.Belly analyzed Milton’s poems and selected episodes from the Shakespeare’s plays. By the end of the 18th century the university scholars tried to compile a systematic course of European literature. To engraft the latter to the Russian soil, professor I. Schwartz, a specialist in German philology, “amplifying the volume of his course, in 1782/1783 lectured on aesthetics and ethics of most eminent German authors, analyzing the style and content of their compositions”. Interestingly enough, the announcements of those lectures had it that “they were devoted not only to German writers but also to ancient, Greek and Latin authors; and modern compositions… works of art, such as sculpture, painting and ancient architecture would be compared with workings of mind, and connection between them would be drawn” (Sheviryov: 350). Sketchy evidence indicates that this course, as well designed and inspiring, was a celebratory phenomenon for that period of time. Unfortunately, there was no immediate successor of I. Schwarz and after him the teaching of German philology degenerated into what it had been before him. A department of the world literature was founded much later – in 1863.

Though foreign languages had been taught at the University since the first years of its existence, as professor M.V.Sergiyevsky fairly mentioned, there were no Germanic, Romanic or Slavonic linguistics in late 18 th – early 19th centuries [4]. The main reason was that foreign languages served as a means of teaching, they were reduced to the ancillary position of a vehicle, which provided a student with an ability to understand the material under investigation. Lectures were being read predominantly in Latin, German and French until 1768 so as to familiarize the students with culture, history and literature of other countries.

However, the necessities of time, cultural needs of society aroused the interest in the history of the world culture while stimulating untrammelled growth of translators’ activity. In 1782 a University Translator Seminary was founded (Moscovsliye vedomosty, 12 June, 1782). With N.I.Novikov being an editor-in-chief of University press, Russian translations of Swift, Sheridan, Smollett, Rousseau, Lessing, Corneille, Racine, Moliere and others came out.

1773 is considered to be a year of the official recognition of the Russian philology as a separate discipline.

In 1776 Khariton Andreyevich Chebotaryov (1746-1819) (later the first rector of the University, a President of the “highly appointed at Moscow University” (Sheviryov: 350) in May 1804 A Russian Society of history and antiquities) was appointed an extraordinary professor of the department of the Russian philology. But the first years of teaching Russian literature at Moscow University were just a pre-history of literary criticism as a sci117

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Philology: Scopes and Visions ence. Modern historiography prefers to consider 1847 to be the landmark in the scientific development of the history of the Russian literature. That was the year when K.Aksakov defended his magistrate thesis on “The role of Lomonosov in the history of Russian language and literature.”

Throughout the 18th century such outstanding minds as M.V. Lomonosov and A.A.Barsov dominated the field of linguistic research. With them the interest in language studies was a genuine one. Thus, M.V.Lomonosov was the first to define grammatical, orthographical, orthoepical and lexical-stylistic norms of the Russian language. His seminal work “Russian grammar” (“Rossiiskaya grammatica”) appeared, by his own confession, due to the practical need in a good guidance in the use of words and forms, as well as to the necessity to view the Russian literary language systematically. Many of his terms and categories, such as the distinction between the written, oral and dialectal variations of speech, his doctrine of functional styles and language means to support them, have now become part and parcel (commonplace) of linguistics.

Anton Alexeyevich Barsov was a scientist whose knowledge had encyclopaedic dimension: he started his career as a professor of mathematics at the Academy of Sciences in St-Petersburg, but later turned to oratory and started his lifelong relations with Moscow university. That his departure from St-Petersburg was taken as an irreplaceable loss shows how gifted and talented he was. On the other hand, he profited much by the education he got at Slavonic-Greek-Latin academy. His main ideas are set out in his fundamental treatise – “Russian grammar” which, unfortunately, was not published during his lifetime and appeared only nowadays. One can recognize the seeds of Lomonosov’s scientific method in this work; but following in the footsteps of his great predecessor, Barsov went farther than his teacher in analyzing the peculiarities of the Russian language norms and their difference from Church-Slavonic and Old Russian. Apart from being a teacher, a professor of the department of oratory, he was also a gymnasial inspector, an editor of “Moscow news”. He was indefatigable in the course of his duties as the head of the “Free Russian Convention”, a scientific society, which was primarily concerned with finding and publishing Old Russian written documents in order to enrich the Russian language.

Members of the society were gleaning materials for compiling a dictionary. They made up and published “A Church dictionary, or the illustration, clarification of Slavonic, ancient and foreign words and phrases given without translation in the Holy Scripture and other ecclesiastical books”. Allegedly, A.Barsov was also an anonymous author of “Ecclesiastical and civil ABC with commentaries on orthography” published in 1768. The scope of his interests stretching to folklore, his name figured on the edition of a big collection of Russian proverbs (1770). The book enjoyed such a great popularity that it was reprinted the same year.

The turn of the century may be called a threshold of new era for philology in Russia. Before that time, as is clear from the above overview, philological disciplines bore an applied character, there was no systematical university curriculum, the very concept of “philology” didn’t exist. Philology as a science owes a great deal to the creative geniuses of the 18th century, geniuses whose precept and practice were subsequently used as the basis for a more elaborate theory. The period of Enlightment in Russia was coming to a close; the time has come for philological disciplines and the Humanities to develop and blossom. The awareness of new social changes was reflected in new administrative reforms of Moscow University.

The Statute of 1804 changed the administrative system of the University: instead of three faculties four departments with 28 sub-departments were set up. The disciplines taught were as follows: “Oratory, Versification and the Russian language; the Greek language and the Greek literature; Antiquities and Latin; the World History; Statistics and Geography of the Russian State; the Oriental languages; Theory of Fine Arts and Archeology.

Each of these disciplines was studied at separate sub-departments”. Three lecturers were appointed for three new languages: French, German and English” (Sheviryov: 357). In 1811 the teaching of Slavonic philology has begun. There were no departments in the proper sense of the word: the word ‘(sub)department’ meant a subject or a group of subjects taught by a professor.

The first Statute gave certain autonomy to the University, the post of the curator of H.I.M. was eliminated, and the warden headed the University. The first university warden was Mikhail Nikitich Muravyov. A poet, an admirer of the Enlightment philosophy of the 18 th century, he was also an important state official as a deputy Minister of Education. His links with German University made it possible to invite guest lecturers to Moscow and to give talented students an opportunity to study abroad.

118

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Thus, in 1806 A.V.Boldiryev was sent to Göttingen, and after his return in 1811 he headed the department of Oriental languages, having paved the way to the studies of the Arabic language in Russia.

“On July, 26 1835 His Majesty the Emperor ordered to establish the Common Statute of Imperial Russian Universities” (Sheviryov: 487). In keeping with the Statute two departments – physical-mathematical and historical-philological – were established at the philosophical faculty, and the department of Russian oratory gained a new name – Russian philology and history of Russian literature. Besides, the number of academic disciplines increased considerably: philosophy, the Greek and Latin languages and literature, history and literature of Slavonic languages, world history, Russian history, (political?) world economy and statistics, theory of Fine Arts and oriental philology. “Three former lecturers were invited by the Lecturer of the Italian language” (Sheviryov: 488). In 1851 the pedagogical department appeared, and in 1852 the department of the oriental languages (Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic and Persian) was organized. Moreover, “for Dogmatic and Moral Theology, Ecclesiastical history and Church Law a new department belonging to none of the Faculties (yet shared by all of them) was established” (Sheviryov: 488). According to the Statute of 1835 there were three faculties in the University – philosophical, medical and the faculty of Law, which comprised 33 departments.

Throughout the 19th century the development of historical studies of Russian literature was gaining its force. During the quarter of the century (1804 – 1830) the course of literature and the theory of poetics was read by Alexey Fyodorovich Merzlyakov (1778 – 1830). His course of lectures gave the analysis of works by Russian writers of the 18th century against the backdrop of the compositions of antique and European authors.

A penetrating critic and an eloquent orator, he was in the habit of extemporizing during his lectures. V. G. Belinsky wrote: “…one can view Merzliakov as a leading exponent of key literary concepts of the whole century. Time is to blame for his faults, his merits belong entirely to him”. [5] About the same time, in 1830s, Nikolay Ivanovich Nadezhdin (1804 – 1856) had been reading a course of lectures on “ The theory of fine arts”, drawing his material from the history of poetry, architecture and fine arts.

Among his most able students were N. V. Stankevich, N. P. Ogaryov, I. A. Goncharov. One of the contemporary specialists in history and theory of literature G. N. Pospelov asserts in his critical essays that Nadezhdin’s conception of the history of world literature and art have held the field of literary criticism for decades, being the crowning point in the study of Russian literature in the 19 th century.

From the mid-1830s for nearly a quarter of a century Stephan Petrovich Sheviryov (1806 – 1864) had worked at the department of Russian literature. The scope of his scientific research was very large: “The history of Russian literature, old and modern”, “The history of the Russian language and style of ancient documents”, “General rhetoric”, “The history of world poetry” – these are few of his courses of lectures. Besides that, he ran classes for students of law which he devoted to the analysis of “Russkaya Pravda”’s style, and he also had to teach Russian to Polish students. His lectures on the history of literature of European nations have firmly put the way of teaching foreign literature on a solid historical foundation. Later on I. A. Goncharov recollected: “How thankful we were to him for that unending pile of… of ancient and contemporary writings that he showed to us… with his penetrative and subtle analysis!” (Moscow University …: 161). However, these were only first steps on the way to the conception of history of west-European literatures.

The historians of Russian literature attach great significance to the special university course on the history of Old Russian literature that generated a new discipline based on the work with manuscripts. Later, namely at the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century, the work with literary monuments of the past would develop. The source of such an interest, however, is to be found in the lectures of S. P. Shevirev and the activities of N. S. Tikhonravov and F. I. Buslaev. At the end of the 19 th century and at the beginning of the 20th century many theorists worked on the subject: Mikhail Nesterovich Speransky (1836 – 1938), Vasiliy Mihailovich Istrin (1865 – 1937), Sergey Konstantinovich Shambinago (1871 – 1948), Alexandr Sergeyevich Orlov (1871 – 1947), Sergey Fedorovich Eleonskii (1891 – 1960), V’acheslav Fedorovich Pzhiga (1883 – 1960), Sergey Alexeyevich Boguslavsky (1888 – 1946) and others, whose studies occupied a prominent place in the Russian theory of literature of the time.

The beginning of the 19th century was the golden age of culture and the revival (flourishing) of classical education. New higher schools were opened, there appeared the first translations of the antique texts into the Russian language: A. F. Merzlyakov prepared the collection of poems entitled “Imitations and translations of 119

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Greek and Latin poets” (“Подражания и переводы из греческих и латинских стихотворцев” (M., 1825 – 1826). V. A. Zhukovskiy translated Homer’s “Odyssey”, and Gnedich had worked on the Russian translation of “Iliad”. In the 19th century the history of Moscow University was enriched with the names of M. S. Kutorgy (1809 – 1886), famous for his numerous works on the history of Greece, and P. M. Leont’yev (1822 – 1875) who was the first to read the course on comparative grammar of classical languages and pursued the archeological research on the northern coast of the Black Sea. The first decades of the 19th century were characterized by the national movement for freedom of foreign Slavs and their cultural growth. It was also a period of romanticism in Europe with its focus on national values – history, ethnography, folklore, national languages. The interest in western and eastern Slavs was excessive and genuine. From our point of vantage of two hundred and fifty years on, this interest was spurred by the need to trace correspondences between the Russian language and the Church Slavonic, on the one hand, and cognate Slavonic languages, on the other. In 1810 professor M. G. Gavrilov was charged with teaching Church Slavonic “ to describe its origin and its relation to Russian” (Moscow gazette. September 9, 1810). In 1811 the department of Slavonic literature, headed by M. G. Gavrilov, was established.

By the University Statute of 1835 the department of history and literature of Slavonic dialects was set up in many Russian universities, including Moscow University. Consequently, Moscow university established the position of a professor of Slavs’ history and literature. According to M. T. Kachenovsky, this department, later known as the department of Slavonic philology, abounded in outstanding scholars: O. M. Bod’ansky, A. L. Duvernua, R. F. Brandt, V. N. Schepkin and A. M. Selischev.

The second half of the 19th century brought new structural changes to the university administrative system: in 1850 the historical-philological department of philosophical faculty was gradually transformed into the historical-philosophical faculty, the latter incorporating the already existing departments of comparative grammar of Indo-European languages, the history of the world literature and Ecclesiastical history. All in all there were eleven departments at the faculty. A new form of teaching, practical seminars, was becoming increasingly popular at that time. Thus, professor N.S.Tikhonravov and his fourth year students were thoroughly analyzing the Lavrentyevskaya annal texts on the lithographic edition of archeographic commission.

“On November, 5 1850 the order was issued that a new Pedagogical department modeled on the existing Principal Pedagogical Institute should be founded to prepare students to a teacher’s status both in theory and practice. This department came into being on 10 January 1851” (Sheviryov: 502).

The ministerial decree of 16 January 1852, “permitted to open the department of Oriental languages: the Sanskrit language, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian – which becomes a part of Historico-philological faculty of Moscow University for those who want to study the languages” (Sheviryov: 502).

The Charter of 1863 confirmed the status of a new faculty with the above-named departments included.

The department of history and theory of arts completed the list of academic disciplines. The gradual expansion of the departments and the professional staff clearly manifested the growing awareness of the complex nature of philological education. By that time University had numbered four faculties: historico-philological, physicomathematical, medical and the department of law (all in all 53 departments).

The Statute of 1884 singled out three branches of philological studies: ancient classical philology, Slavonic and Russian philology and historical sciences – and incorporated such departments as: philosophical, classical philology, comparative linguistics and Sanskrit, Russian language and literature, Slavonic philology, geography and ethnography, general history, Russian history, history of west-european literatures, history of the church, theory and history of arts. In 1900 the department of Georgian language and history was established (Moscow gazette. 1900. 1 September). On the whole, Moscow University consisted of four faculties: historicophilological, physico-mathematical, department of law and medical faculty. The faculties of the University united 56 departments.

The 19th century was not merely an important landmark in the history of the university - it was an era of formation and development of philological disciplines, a period when our great precursors created what now we call philology.

A well-grounded scientific study of the literary Russian language, of the Old Slav language and history is linked with the name of an outstanding Russian linguist A. H. Vostokov (1781 – 1864). He was the first in the 120

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Philology: Scopes and Visions history of linguistics to apply comparative and historical method to the investigation of Slavonic languages, he was the first to distinguish between the Old Slavonic and the Church Slavonic language, to draw attention to the existence of local regional variations of the Church Slavonic language.

Prof. M. P. Pogodin (1800 – 1875) entered the history of Moscow University as the collector of the “ancient repository”, archive materials and manuscripts on the history of Russian culture.

Fyodor Ivanovich Buslayev (1818 – 1897), who had been a lecturer at the department of the Russian literature, originated the comparative studies of folklore. In 1847 he defended his doctoral thesis “On influence of Christianity upon the Slavonic language: an outline of the history of the language through Ostromir Gospel” (“О влиянии христианства на славянский язык: Опыт истории языка по Остромирову евангелию”). His book “An Outline of Historical grammar” (Опыт исторической грамматики русского языка”) being repeatedly republished under the title “Историческая грамматика русского языка” laid the basis for a new stage in the study and teaching of history of the Russian language. In 1861 he publishes a two-volume work – “Исторические очерки русской народной словесности и искусства” (An Outline of the History of the Russian Folklore). His works amazed the readers by richness of facts, novelty of material, depth and scrupulousness of analysis, ingenious application of the comparative method to literary styles and fine arts. Buslayev did much for the comprehensive study of Old Russian literary documents. “A Reader in Old Slavonic and Old Russin languages” “Историческая хрестоматия церковнославянского и древнерусского языков” (1861), compiled by him, was an important contribution to Russian science, being the achievement of his laborious research into the ancient manuscripts. Characteristically enough, 69 out of 135 writings the 11-17th centuries included into the reading-book were for the first time published according to the manuscripts. The contemporaries were dazed and dazzled by the value and volume of this collection. The paramount importance of Buslayev’s historical and linguistic commentary on them is beyond any dispute: he offered a thorough and penetrating analysis of the documents, placing them in a wider historical context of the Russian culture. Thanks to this work the reader got a complete and detailed picture of the development of the Russian literature, of the origin of the Church Slavonic and the Old Russian languages. His lectures and publications covered a wide range of topics: from medieval literature to the role of translation in the development of the national Russian literature, from the impact of folklore on literature to the problem of affinities between the Old Russian literature and other national literatures. He also emphasized the need to distinguish between the Old Russian literature and the bulk of monuments, which referred to the history of the Church and Christian enlightment.

During the second half of the century, the name of Buslayev was inevitably associated with that of Nikolay Savvich Tikhonravov (1832 – 1893), another outstanding scientist of Moscow University. He started his research work in Moscow University in 1857. The chronological span and scope of his interests was quite wide: from annalistic legends to the literature of 1840s. Long before his university career he started the publication of “The Chronicles of Russian literature and antiquities” (“Летописи русской литературы и древностей”). In early 1860s he became engrossed in the so-called palinodes, or “literature of renunciation”, apocryphal hagiographies, in which Christian dogmas were curiously blended with pagan beliefs. In 1863 Tikhonravov published two volumes of “ Monuments of the Old Russian Literature of Renunciation” (“Памятники отреченной русской литературы”); in 1866 he prepared an annotated edition of “The Song of Igor’s Campaign” (also translated as “ The Lay of Igor’s Campaign”) -“Solve o Polku Igorevye”. In the 1860s he started his research on the history of Russian dramatic art of the second half of the 17 th – first third of the 18th centuries making ample use of manuscripts kept in private collections. His scrupulous work, dedicated to the bicentenary of the Russian Theatre resulted in two-volume selection of “The Russian Drama of 1672-1725” (“Русские драматические произведения 1672 – 1725гг.”

In the precise sense of the hackneyed phrase, F. I. Buslayev and N. S. Tikhonravov had paved the way for the basic trends in the development of Russian linguistics and literary criticism for many decades ahead.

Philip Fyodorovich Fortunatov (1848 – 1914) was among other noted scholars of that time. He had been working at the department of comparative-historic linguistics in Moscow University since 1876. Thanks to his efforts Moscow linguistic school came into being. Its main terms and concepts exercised a particularly significant influence upon the comparative philology, the general theory of the language, and on the development of Russian and foreign linguistics in general. This fact clearly demonstrates what a gifted and hardworking man 121

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Philology: Scopes and Visions Fortunatov was. His exceptional intelligence was the permanent source of wonder for many of his contemporaries: he was a specialist in Indo-European, comparative, Slavonic, Indian history and philology; he knew many languages and was the leading specialist in the fields of paleology, dialectology, orthography and theoretical grammar. His ingenious ideas and scientific theories left an imprint on the mental powers of his contemporaries, inaugurating the teaching of the German philology at Moscow University. Fortunatov was the first to include practical studies of the Gothic language and read the course of lectures on this subject. He was an excellent lecturer and his students couldn’t help being infected with and inspired by their teacher’s enthusiasm.

Among Fortunatov’s best disciples were the leading linguists of the 20th century: A. A. Shakhmatov, D. N. Ushakov, N. N. Durnovo, A. M. Peshkovskyi, V. N. Schepkin, S. M. Kulbakin, A. Belich, A. Van Veik and others.

Alexey Alexandrovich Shakhmatov (1864 – 1970) was one of the greatest Russian linguists, historians and teachers. The prime of his scientific career coincided with the turn of the century. He was a man of great erudition, and some of his brilliant hypotheses display to the full his exceptional creative insight into, and meticulous attention to most complex linguistic phenomena. He researched into such fields as phonetics, dialectology, lexicography, Modern Russian language and its history, history of the eastern Slavs and Old Russian literature, Slavonic accent logy. Throughout his scientific career he was keenly interested in the history of Russia, prehistorical period in the life of eastern tribes, he drew the map of the Slav’s movement and tried to trace the origin and development of the Russian nation. His ideas of the language as affecting and reflecting the history of the nation occupied prominent place in Russian linguistics. Out of this blend of literature, ethnography and history matured a kind of textual criticism in which the significance of a work of literature is measured against the backdrop of the national literature. Together with Fortunatov he did a lot for orthographic reform which was on the way in Russia.

Many outstanding theorists of the second half of the 19th century devoted themselves to the study and teaching of classical philology. These were, to name but a few – F. E. Korsh (1843 – 1915) who left rich literary heritage not only in the field of classical philology, but also in oriental studies, linguistics and Slavonic studies; I. V. Tsvetaev (1847 – 1913) who studied Old Italic languages and epigraphy. The latter published the collection of Italic dialectal inscriptions (for witch he was awarded the Golden Medal of the Academy of Science) and, apart from that, contributed a lot to the organization of the Moscow museum of Fine arts. Ya.A.Denisov (1862 – 1917) was one of the few of number specialists in antique metrics (his works “Prolegomena of metrics of Ancient Greece and Rome” (“Основания метрики у древних греков и римлян”), “Дохмий: Глава из греческой метрики”, “Дохмий у Эсхила” have lost none of their scientific value).

M. M. Pokrovsky’s (1869 – 1942) and S. I. Sobolevsky’s (1864 – 1963) studies may be viewed as bridging the gap between the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary periods in the history of development of classical philology.

The second century of the existence of Moscow University brought many changes to the process of teaching foreign languages. By that time Russia already possessed a developed system of high classical schools which equipped their graduates with good practical knowledge of two modern foreign languages. That is why the demand for practical teaching of foreign languages had been gradually reduced, thereby teaching should have changed its character. As a result new goals has arisen before the theorists who had to meet the necessities of the time. Discussing the Romance philology as one of the linguistic branches of the 19 th and the 20th centuries M. V. Sergievsky wrote: “…one could yet not speak about romance linguistics as of a separate field of Russian language studies. University teaching of romance philology was oriented mainly on learning the language of romance literary monuments (Old French, Old Italian, Provence). It was one of the powerful means to study the history of west-european literatures. Separate works on romance linguistics were written not by linguists, but by historians of romance literatures. There was great interest not in linguistic, but in historical and literary problems. There were no special Romance-Germanic departments of philology in Universities…” The Romance-Germanic department owes much for its foundation to M. N. Rozanov (1858 – 1936). By the year 1910 the historico-philological faculty had already included the Romance-Germanic department with two sections – Romance and German.

The new department of World history of Moscow University is much indebted to N.I. Storozhenko, whose works in the field of English literature were highly estimated both by Russian and foreign specialists. Practical122

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Philology: Scopes and Visions ly at the same time he was elected Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of science and Vice President of London New Shakespeare Society. None of his works on the Renaissance period have lost their scientific value and original freshness. Far from being a narrow specialist, he worked in the field of modern European literature and even American literature, which was not sufficiently researched at that time. The second part of the 19th century was prolific in talented professors of the history of world literature: A. I. Kirpichnikov (1845 – 1903), Alexei N. Veselovsky (1843 – 1918), A. A. Shahov (1850 – 1877) and M. N. Rozanov, the immediate successor of N. I. Storozhenko.

In the 20th century the number of faculties, the university enrolment and its professional staff were greatly enlarged and expanded. The university curriculum was modernized; the system of undergraduate studies was becoming more and more complicated. To substantiating this point one may turn to the curricula of 1906 – 1907 which comprised such forms of education as lectures, preparatory and extracurricular courses, seminars, a series of propaedeutical studies. By the beginning of the 1910s five branches had been distinguished at the faculty: Classical, Slavonic, Romano-Germanic (with Romance and German sections), historical, philosophical.

At the dawn of the October Revolution in 1917 Moscow University had four faculties: physicomathematical, historico-philological, the departments of law and medicine. Besides, it included 60 teaching and educational institutions, laboratories, the Museum of Fine Arts, Zoological Museum, astronomical and meteorological observatories, botanical gardens, clinical hospital with bacteriological institute.

The October Revolution brought about fundamental reforms of Moscow University. The new government set itself the goal to produce school and science of a new type, proclaiming a radical revision of educational system at all levels. Old horizons seemed inadequate, thousands of new problems came crowding in. Former principles of higher education were challenged and rejected. The final aim was to turn the Soviet higher school into “the weapon of proletarian dictatorship”. “Politicization” of the students’ contingent and drastic changes of the educational system were under way. However, due to painstaking efforts of prominent scholars the repository of 200-year-old educational experience was saved and secured.

The decree of the SSC Russian Federation “On new rules of enrolment in Higher Institutions of the Russian Federation” (“О правилах приема в высшие учебные заведения РСФСР”) and the resolution “On advantages given to workers and poor peasants on enrolment to Higher Institutions” (“О преимущественном приеме в высшие учебные заведения представителей пролетариата и беднейшего крестьянства”) affected the academic circles, the historico-philological faculty being no exception. According to the resolution every Soviet citizen above the age of 16 could become a listener of a Higher Institution.

To help the majority of peasants, workers and soldiers who were illiterate but desired to obtain higher education, the system of preparatory courses (the so called "workers’ faculties") was launched at many Higher Institutions in 1919. It had to equip those entering the university with a firm knowledge of the basic academic subjects. The official opening of the workers’ faculty of Moscow University was held in October 1919. In a year, on September,17, 1920 the Soviet of people's commissars of the RSFSR issued a decree "On workers’ faculties", which defined the rules of admission to the faculty through sending workers and peasants by party and trade union organizations. According to this decree the doctor's and master's degrees as well as the rank of postgraduate student of a military college were annulated. In September 1922 the first admission to all the faculties of the university was held as a result of government's decision to increase the number of proletarian students.

The graduates from workers’ faculty, sent by the party, trade unions and Komsomol organizations were admitted without entrance examinations.

The curricula of the faculties were changing: unlike the old ones dominated by the courses of lectures, the new curriculum included numerous practical lessons, seminars and special courses. They formed the basis of the academic process. It was (to simplify a very complicated question) the expression of the need to come to grips with new reality.

This transformation was especially painful at the faculties of the Humanities. Thus by the resolution of the People's Education Committee of the RSFSR of 23 December the faculties of law were abolished by the decision of the government "because the curricula were completely obsolete ...and they didn’t meet the requirements of scientific methodology".

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Philology: Scopes and Visions In view of the fact that the teaching staff remained the same, the new authorities demanded that the ideological principles of teaching the humanities should be changed. Therefore in 1921 the faculties of Humanities were purged of professors, antipathic to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Many scholars who were critical of the new regime were dismissed.

The process of reorganizing the faculties was gaining momentum. In November 1918 the faculties of social sciences (the FSS) were formed on the basis of the faculties of law for the development of a new intelligencia.

At Moscow university such faculty was opened in May 1919 (the decree of Education Committee of the RSFSR of 12 May 1919) and included three departments: those of economy, politics and Jurisprudence and history.

In 1921 sweeping reforms concerned the faculty of philology: the departments of literature, ethnology and linguistics were opened at the faculty of social sciences, and in February 1924 the department of Slavonic philology was organized (the head was Prof A.M. Selishchev). The FSS did not exist for long, it was abolished in April 1925 by the Decree of the Soviet of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of 9 July 1924. As a result there emerged two faculties - one of Soviet law and another of ethnology, comprising departments of history and archeology, ethnography, literature and fine arts.

After the reforms in 1920-ies and 1930-ies the university had the following faculties: those of physics, mechanics and mathematics, biologicy, of Soviet building and law, and two more faculties on the basis of former ethnological one- of history and philosophy (with historical and philological departments) and the faculty of literature and arts. The latter included departments of history of Russian literature and western literature, linguistics, pedagogy, Russian art, oriental art, western art, artistic industry, theatre and cinema studies, bibliology and editing, literary criticism and publicist writing, methodology and literature, economic studies, history, historical and dialectical materialism. In January 1931 the departments of literature and the faculty of Arts were removed from the university to other institutions. Some time later, in April, the faculty of Soviet building and law was separated from the university, whereas universities as such were responsible for training in natural sciences and mathematics, directly for the needs of production, according to the directive of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist party "On the tasks and aims of universities".

In the 1930s the ideas of the so-called progressive education were dismissed and older Russian traditions began to be cultivated. In July 1931 the faculties of history, philosophy and literature merged together to serve as the basis for the Chernishevsky Moscow Institute of philosophy, literature and history (MIFLI). This institute which existed for ten years can pride itself on being the ancestor predecessor of the contemporary philological faculty of Moscow State University (comprising the faculties of history, philosophy, philology and economics). "...It was called a "communist lyceum". Like its famous forerunner, it prepared specialists for the state career, for service to motherland... Some graduates from this institute have become statesmen... Others have become scholars, school and university teachers, librarians". [6] The faculty of literature had departments of the Russian language and literature, the western and Classical philology (ancient languages and classical literature), and also two independent departments with their own curricula on art and theatre studies. The central idea of the programme being the strengthening of ties between theory and practice, many outstanding Russian writers, critics, translators and actors were hosting seminars and lectures on history and literary criticism. In addition to it was a wide system of general courses in history of Russian and world culture. To raise the educational and cultural level of students the attendance at the lectures on history of Fine Arts (these were conducted the Fine Arts Museum) and on the history of music (assisted by Moscow conservatory) was free.

This institute, among other Moscow universities, has been associated with many of the greatest names in linguistics and literary criticism. Among those who didn’t suffer the trauma of exile (or succeeded in coming back by that time) were noted scholars N.K. Gudziy, A.Jivelegov, A.M.Selishchev, D.D.Blagoy, D.N.Ushakov, M.V.Sergievskiy, S.I.Sobolevskiy, U.M.Sokolov.

In September 1934 the faculty of history was reestablished. This event marked a new tendency - the humanities were restored in their rights. In 1933 teaching the Russian language as an optional subject began, and in 1937 the department of the Russian language (headed by Reader S.A. Zeltser) and the department of foreign languages (headed by Prof K.A.Ganshina) resumed their work at the university. The examination in foreign

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Philology: Scopes and Visions language for those entering the university was introduced in 1940 by a directive of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist party and of the Soviet of People's Commissars of the USSR. The years of World War II were full of hardships and heroism. On the 22 nd of June, 1941, the day the war broke out, hundreds of students, post-graduates and teachers went to the front as volunteers. The university joined defense in the rear. Groups of students were sent to defense lines, building sites, joining air-defense brigades. As the front line was approaching, the university was to be evacuated to Ashkhabad (in October, 14).

There it merged with MIFLI (which was also sent to Ashkhabad). Its faculties (philological, economic, philosophic) were reunited became the part of Moscow university according to the decision of the Committee of Higher Education and People's Education Committee of RSFSR of 4 December 1941. Thus philological faculty has revived its university tradition. Professor N.K.Gudziy was its first dean (1941-1948). [7] In summer 1942 the university moved to Sverdlovsk and in spring 1943 another general evacuation took place. Meanwhile a group of teachers who did not leave Moscow started working with students already since winter 1941-1942. This group joined philological faculty after its return.

By the time of return to Moscow the university comprised 11 faculties (130 departments), the philological faculty including the departments of the Russian language, general and comparative linguistics, Slavonic philology, Romance and Germanic philology, the French language, the English language (for philologists), the English language for other faculties, the German language, Classical philology, Turkish philology, Arabic philology, Iranian philology, the history of the Russian literature, the history of world literature, the history of Soviet literature, folklore, Russian art studies and world art studies. In 1943 the Oriental department, headed by the famous orientalist N.K. Dmitriev, was opened. He was the head of Turkic philology department at the same time.

The Oriental department included the department of Iranian philology (headed by B.V.Miller) and the department of Arabic philology founded in 1944 and supervised by B.M.Grande. In 1953 the department of Chinese philology was opened. The basic task of the department lay in training orientalists with a broad philological scope.

In 1956 the Oriental department was transformed to the Institute of Oriental languages, and later on it became the Institute of Asian and African countries.

Developing the ideas of MIFLI, the department of Art studies continued its work at the philological faculty until 1950. It was divided into two departments: of Russian art (headed by M.V.Alpatov, then by I.E.Grabar and since 1948 by A.A.Fedorov-Davidov) and of World art (headed by B.R.Vipper). In 1950 the department of Art studies was transferred to the historical faculty.

The year 1947 faced the appearance of the department of journalism. As it gained more experience, drew up its own curricula and provided the budding journalists with rich historical and philological background, it started to be autonomous (since 1948).

In 1953 the department of Romano-Germanic philology split up into affiliated departments of English, French and German Linguistics.

The English department (now known as the department of English Linguistics) is much indebted to a distinguished scholar professor Alexander Ivanovich Smirnitsky who headed the department from 1942 to 1946.

He started as a talented theorist in comparative studies, doing his research in Old English and Scandinavian languages, thus taking over F. F. Fortunatov’s and F.I.Buslayev’s tradition. Later on he turned to the problem areas of English syntax and vocabulary (in his monumental monographs “English syntax” and “English Lexicology”), discussing with gripping ingenuity the involved issues of unstable compounds, the opposition of words and their forms (lexeme/slovoform), partial and complete synonymy. His feeling for words being unerring, he had been carrying out stupendous lexicographic work. A revered founder of Russian-English lexicography, he compiled and edited the Russian-English dictionary, which was and still is an impressive and significant achievement of scrupulous and competent inquiry. The wealth of information it offered remained unrivalled and unparalleled until the present. His lectures on English grammar and the history of the language were published posthumously by his followers.

The closest student and collaborator of A.I.Smirnitsky, Olga Sergeyevna Akhmanova was one of the most influential scholars of the XXth century whose influence has extended far beyond the Russian linguistics. No difficulties were insurmountable to her; her inquiring mind could “work the topics of utmost importance” 125

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Philology: Scopes and Visions (M.Konurbayev [8] practically in every sphere of linguistics. In a long series of publications she developed a theory of word and word-combination (including her much anthologized article “Semantics”, her manuals “Lexicology: Theory and Method”, “Syntax: Theory and Method”, “Word-Combination: Theory and Method”, “The Morphology of the English Verb: Tense, Aspect and Taxis”) which permeated linguistics for decades ahead. She was a pioneer in the phonetic method of linguistic research (“An Outline of English Phonetics”, “The Prosody of Speech”, “Register and Rhythm”) and was equally proficient at linguistic terminology (“Linguistic Terminology”, “Terminology: Theory and Method”). Her epoch-making course book “What is the English We Use?” (co-author R.F.Idzelis) opened up new vista of practical stylistics, its pivotal idea of Language for Special Purposes stood the test of time, being very stimulating and relevant to foreign language teaching. “An inveterate perfectionist”, she blazed the trail for linguopoetic studies of literary texts (in “The Principles and Methods of Linguostylistics”). The head of the department from 1946 to 1983, she has given to several generations of students so much, that hardly there could have been an educated anglicist at the department who have not owed something to her lively intelligence. Her disciples remember her as a very energetic enthusiast, who had a single gift of a genius – “the incessant quest for meaning” in whatever task she would turn to.

At present the department of English linguistics is headed by professor Olga Alexandria, a highly competent specialist, keenly sensitive to the new tendencies of philological inquiry, whose professional concerns stretch from pragmatics and the history of English philology to the work of linguistic association of teachers of English at Moscow University (LATEUM) As the century drew on, the philological faculty was expanding, while giving rise to new faculties, institutes and departments. The academic process and research work became more efficient due to the laboratory of oral speech, the first head of which was an outstanding linguist, professor A.A.Reformatskiy. In 1962 the department of structural and applied linguistics was established (the present department of theoretical and applied linguistics). This department owes much for its foundation to V.A.Zvegintsev (today the department is supervised by professor A.E.Kibrik). As the time went by, there emerged the departments of Romance linguistics (headed by R.A.Budagov, now by M.A.Kosarik), of German linguistics (headed by Prof N.S.Chemodanov, then

by Prof N.I.Filicheva, and now by E.M.Chekalina), General and Comparative linguistics (headed by Prof I.S.Stepanov, I.V.Rozhdestvenskii, S.N.Kuznetsov), Iberian and Romance linguistics (headed by V.S.Vinogradov, at present by O.M.Mungalova), Finno-Ugric philology (headed by A.I.Kuznetsova). Consequently, the students were offered a wide range of the so-called rare languages to master: Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Catalonian, Portuguese and others.

In literary studies much importance was accorded to the department of theory of literature, founded and headed for many years by G.N.Pospelov.

In the early 1960-ies on the initiative of academician I. G. Petrovsky and professor N. M. Shansky, with an active assistance of academician V.V Vinogradov, a group of researches started to compile the fundamental “Etymological dictionary of the Russian language”. The group of dictionary compilers was later transformed into the laboratory of etymological studies. For many years the group worked under the supervision of professor N.M. Shansky who was followed by Prof G.A.Haburgayev and academician N.I.Tolstoy. At the moment the head of the laboratory is A.F.Zhuravlev (since 1993). At different periods of time the editorial board of the dictionary included such eminent Russian linguists as V. V. Vinogradov, O. S. Akhmanova, r. A. Budagov, N. S. Chemodanov and others. Apart from preparing dictionary volumes, the laboratory issues collections of articles on "Etymological research", dictionaries of foreign words and so on.

In 1963 the laboratory of phonetics and speech communication was set up. It was headed by Prof.

L.V.Zlatoustova. The main activities of the laboratory were: automated speech processing and synthesis, creating linguistic data bases, formalization of speech signals in order to create computer manuals, acoustic and perceptive methods of speech comprehension, the study of psycholinguistic aspects of speech comprehension.

Painstaking research resulted in working out three official standards of checking the channels of radio and telephone connection, as well as in creating databases for correcting pronunciation norms. The speech identification computer program should be mentioned among other achievements of the laboratory.

In 1972 the department of Russian for foreign students came into being. It encompassed two main trends: Russian for the students of natural sciences (supervised by M.L.Remnyova) and Russian for the foreign students 126

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Philology: Scopes and Visions of Arts and the Humanities (supervised by G.I.Dergacheva). K.V.Gorshkova, previously in charge of the Russian language department, was appointed its the head. In 1992 these departments joined the philological faculty.

Since November 1946, in order to popularize new theories in philology the faculty has been publishing its own journal "Philology" (the ninth of the series of “The Moscow University bulletin"). To promote the research work on new scientific problems more manuals and educational supplies were published in later 1960-ies and 1970-ies. The books of the series "The languages of the world" contained grammatical description of a language, a reader and a dictionary. Since mid-nineties "The science reports of the philological faculty" have been issued regularly. These were followed by the collection of articles "The problems of Russian linguistics", new editions of the department of German linguistics ("Atlantica"), the numerous publications of the department of English linguistics (“Folia Anglistica”, “New Developments of Modern Anglistics”, “LATEUM Newsletter” and many others).

In 1990-ies new departments of theory and practice of translation, Byzantine and Modern Greek philology (headed by D.A.Yalamas) were organized. The editorial and publishing centre and the centre of pre-university training have been opened respectively in 1994 and 1993. The centre of Russian culture abroad (headed by Prof A.G.Sokolov) was established in 1992 as there was growing need in analyzing the materials which were previously “shelved” and became available only in the late 1980-ies.

To keep pace with the times in 1991-1992 the faculty opened its first computer class, and the computer center, headed by A.M.Yegorov, started its work. With the advance of technology four more multimedia classes appeared. In 1995 the faculty built its own high-speed computer network connected to the Internet and maintained by four servers. In 1999 the network comprised more than 140 computers from all the departments and offices. All students are expected to acquire the basic computer skills using such programs as "MS Word", "MS Excel", V Basic programming and others.

In 1995, to make the most of computers and other technical facilities in linguistics, the centre of new information technologies (headed by G.E.Kedrova) was set up. The main task of this centre lies in elaborating and introducing new computer and telecommunication network technologies, developing systems of remote control in teaching, creating multimedia language courses. The centre contains two laboratories: the laboratory of computer-based education and the laboratory of oral speech with impressive bulk of audio and video materials for the classroom use.

At the moment philological faculty contains seven branches: those of the Russian language and literature, Romance and German philology, Slavonic philology, Classical philology, Byzantium and modern Greek philology, theory and practice of translation, theoretical and applied linguistics. They comprise 20 departments: of the Russian language (headed by Prof M.L.Remnyova), the history of Russian literature (headed by Prof V.B.Katayev), the history of Russian literature in the 20th century (headed by Prof B.S.Bugrov), theory of literature (headed by Prof A.Y. Esalnek), Russian folklore (headed by Reader T.B.Dianova), Slavonic philology (headed by Reader V.P.Gudkov), general and comparative linguistics (headed by Prof S.N.Kuznetsov), English linguistics (headed by Prof O.A.Alexandrova), German linguistics (headed by Prof G.G.Ivleva), French linguistics (headed by Prof I.N.Kuznetsova), Iberian and Romance linguistics (headed by Reader O.M.Mungalova), Romance linguistics (headed by Reader M.A.Kosarik), German linguistics (headed by Prof E.M.Chekalina), the history of foreign literature (headed by doctor in philology G.K.Kosikov), Classical philology (headed by Prof A.A.Rossius), Byzantine and modern Greek philology (headed by D.A.Yalamas), theoretical and applied linguistics (headed by A.E.Kibrik), the Russian language for foreign students of philological faculty (headed by Reader L.V. Krasilnikova), the Russian language for foreign students of the humanities (headed by Prof L.V. Klobukova), the Russian language for foreign students of natural sciences (headed by Reader T.V. Kortava). (may be to NOTES ???)

Each of these departments has its own history.

Moscow university has a great past. It is at present one of the greatest universities of the world; and, we may hope, it has no less glorious future.

Moscow University stood the test of time, justifying V. G. Belinsky’s opinion: “… Moscow University is the only academy in Russia; it has no equals; it has its own history, because of its development. Moscow Uni-

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Philology: Scopes and Visions versity has the breath and flow of life, its straining for the perfect is so great that every year it moves ahead to an appreciable distance”. [9] *****There could be very little doubts about the facts that language study is at once one of the most problematic and one of the most significant fields of research. The human experience being infinite in its detail and its complexity, linguistic experience presents one of its facets. As a “repository of community’s verbalized knowledge about the world” (R.Fowler) language has its special role to play in preserving and handing down the cultural tradition from one generation to another. To the eyes of the sociologist, there are as many different worlds upon the earth as there are languages, each language being a guide to social reality, an instrument of observing, reacting, expressing oneself in a special way. Lack of equivalence between any two languages is nothing but outward expression of inward differences between different worldviews. From the philosophical standpoint, however, the interest in language studies will persist as long as the man makes daring attempts to cognize himself and the world around.

Notes: 1. In preparing this article facts and dates were taken from the following books: Летопись Московского университета: 1755-1979. М.: Изд-во МГУ; 1979; Московский университет в воспоминаниях современников. М.: Современник, 1989; Пенчко Н.А. Основание Московского университета. М.: Изд-во МГУ, 1952; Шевырев С.П. История императорского Московского университета, написанная к двухсотлетнему его юбилею: 1755-1855. М.: Изд-во МГУ, 1998. С.17 (1-е изд.: М., 1885). Apart from the above-named editions (references in the text are with the numbers of pages), other materials taken from the departments of philological faculty were used.

2."Так напечатано в Академических ведомостях: но речь Барсова, как было сказано в ее заглавии, была говорена при открытии университета" (Шевырев: 72) 3.Ежемесячные сочинения, к пользе и увеселению служащие. 1755. С.173 4. Сергиевский М.В. Введение в романское языкознание. М., 1952. С. 254 5. Белинский В.Г. Полн. собр. соч.: В 13 т. Т. 7. М.; Л., 1955 С. 261-262 6. Орлова М.Д. Воспоминания о непрошедшем времени. М.: Слово, 1993. С. 84 7.In the next years the heads of the department were: D.D.Blagoi (1948-1952), A.N. Sokolov (1952-1956), R.M. Samarin (1956-1961), A.G. Sokolov (1961-1974), L.G. Andreev (1974-1980), I.F.Volkov (1980-1991), M.L. Remnyova (since 1991) 8.Folia Anglistica: Semantics, Pragmatics and Semiotics. Edited by O.Alexandrova and M. Konurbayev.

M.: Диалог МГУ, 1998, C.19.

9. Белинский В.Г. Указ. соч. Т. 3. 1953. С.226

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Philology: Scopes and Visions

Konchalovsky, Andrei Human values and the language of cinema 1.

Can we speak about the 'language of cinema'? Can a parallel between language and cinema be drawn at all?

The nature of cinema lies in imagery, not in words. The laws of verbal expression are much more flexible than those of cinema expression. The word appeals to one's fantasy, which creates the image; in this respect, the reader's imagination is only capable of producing images that have, for this individual, the verisimilitude of truth. Reading Tolstoy, for instance, you always picture the events to yourself according to your perception of reality. And, having seen an adaptation of War and Peace, you are liable to say: "Natasha Rostova is not at all like I imagined her." The subject of the action is always right, for he or she is inside an event. There can be no conflict between what the reader reads and the way he or she imagines what has been read, since the images produced by the text are reflected in the reader's mind according to his or her own ideas. Cinema, on the other hand, forces the director's particular perception onto the viewer, whose own perception might be rather different from the director's, and that is where the conflict between the two interpretations of the same text emerges.

Each person gets a different picture in their mind's eye while reading. Seeing the sentence, "It was hot", an African will imagine a desert in +50 ď‚°C, and an Eskimo will think of a tundra and +20 C. Each will construct a picture according to his own perception of the world. It might be said that a reader watches his or her own film, with a unique sequence of close-ups and wide shots: the writer merely provides the reader's imagination with necessary cues. The same can be said about music, which provokes a different set of images and feelings in each person.

In a cinema hall, though, every viewer, however different from the neighbours around, sees the same film at the same time. This is an important point when we talk about the cinema language. In this respect, cinema is poorer than literature insofar as it forces particular images onto the viewer, leaving him no leeway for personal interpretation. But if that is so, why is cinema so powerful? The reason is in the immediate sensual perception of an image.

For early humans, the very concept of 'image' was laden with magical force. The first rock carvings depicting humans and beasts were made by outstanding people, by those who were able to capture and secure something external, existing with no connection to their own will. Creating a human or an animal, from rock or clay, was the prerogative of the Supreme Being. The Islamic ban on reproducing human images is easy to understand. This ability to capture images has been the hallmark of artists throughout history, and was inherited by great photographers, like Cartier-Bresson. The passionate wish to capture and immortalise the image they see is the artists' burden. Boris Pasternak expressed the nature of this desire beautifully in one of his poems:

So aloof, so meek in your ways, Now you're fire, you're pure combustion.

Only let me lock up your beauty Deep, deep down in a poem's dungeon. (translated by Alex Miller) The main image used in cinema is the human face. It is so expressive (no surprise, what with the several hundred facial muscles each of us possesses) that we need but a fraction of a second to understand what it is expressing. To describe such an expression in words, you would probably need a longish passage.

Not only the face is so expressive. So is the human body, each posture, each movement. So is the environment, which the person invests with his or her character, mood, atmosphere.

There was an interesting item on the TV the other day. British experts analysed the body language of two politicians, Tony Blair and Muammar Qaddafi, at the moment of their meeting. The position Khaddafi's foot adopted, showing from underneath his loose garment and turned actively towards Blair, told them that the Libyan leader felt highly spiteful towards his interlocutor, whereas Blair himself was feeling unsure and selfconscious, like a weak man before a strong man.

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Philology: Scopes and Visions One of the early discoveries in cinematic ABC was that a sequence of two images gives a third meaning, not inherent to any of the two images on their own. This is what the famous "Kuleshov effect" is based on: one and the same close-up of the same actor expresses different feelings (the viewers think), depending on the immediate context - the shots that come before and after. A different perception of the same picture is achieved through the human ability to synthesise two images and make logical conclusions. But the images synthesised are sensual.

A word is understood by your brain. Perceiving the letter, you get no immediate emotional response. And this is very important to remember to understand a certain crudeness of the visual image, its harshness and even vulgarity, inasmuch as the accompanying evaluation is immediate. When you see a picture, you don't say to yourself: "This is a knife". You understand what it is right away. The image is reacted to by the hypothalamus, a gland in your brain, quicker than it is rationally comprehended. Researches have shown that if a person sees a snake, adrenaline is released into the blood even before the person has realised that the thing is a snake.

The immediate feeling of danger is the most primitive of our emotions. You get the signal, "Run!" or "Attack!" before you can actually think that this must be done. The sensual perception of images in humans is ahead of the rational comprehension and affects the subconscious directly. Any reading requires concentration, imagination and rational understanding, whereas the visual image acts directly and promptly. Bergman said that cinema images come in through the eye and, avoiding the brain, attack the sensual side directly.

A moving image is a sort of psychedelic entertainment in itself, even when devoid of actual meaning. We can look at running water or flames for hours, sinking deeper and deeper into a contemplating reverie close to hypnosis. But when we read, we have to strain the mind so that the information we receive could produce images. It should be noted, however, that mechanical repetition of words, while praying, singing hymns or reading sacred texts aloud, can also induce a state of contemplation. You cease to understand the meaning of what you are pronouncing, the words lose their sense and influence you by their rhythmic repetition. Your brain starts to emit ultra-short alpha waves and you feel relaxed. A monk sitting atop a mountain looks into the distance and stops understanding what is before him rationally. It could be a sea or a mountain ridge. He just detaches and contemplates.

There is a very important difference between a moving image and a still or a photograph. When you see a picture or a photograph, subconsciously you know that this image is immovable and any changes are unlikely.

This gives you a certain comfort because you know that you can look at the image for as long as you like, you can study it - contemplate it, filling it with your thoughts and evaluations, which may breed an emotion. A cinema image, even when it is static, does not give you an opportunity to relax: you are tense like a beast of pray scanning the prairie with a roving eye, because you are waiting for some change, even a minute one. There is no place for contemplation in cinema, or, rather, contemplation is achieved by other means, by the plot, for instance.

A cultured viewer is so well versed in the variety of styles and characters that can be presented visually that, looking at an image, he can tell what Đšpoque this or that picture is referring to. And it is enough to see just one shot from a film about, say, fin de ciecle or the Renaissance, to tell the level of the director's competence.

The fin de ciecle is so firmly associated with black-and-white pictures and the general style of silent movies that one cannot make a film about it using bright colours, a zoom lens or a moving camera, because it would ruin the credibility of the image firmly planted in the educated viewer's mind. Sometimes good lighting or scene composition can compensate for the lacking emotion and become objects of art in their own right.

I believe that the expression "cinema language" is often misunderstood. Cinema is only a hundred-odd years old. The things that theorists like Martin, Bazin and Plazhevsky called discoveries in the cinema language were in fact discoveries in its ABC. Close-up, medium shot, various kinds of montage, panoramic shots, camera movement, camera angles, various optical devices, lighting, perspective and other elements that make up the narrative are actually cinema's ABC, not its language. What Eisenstein did in his studies was researching this alphabet, not the actual cinema language. By 1970s and 80s, all the discoveries that could be made were made.

All the letters had been invented, the development of the alphabet was over. If the end of history, proclaimed

by Fukuyama, is a disputable notion, the end of the development of the cinematic alphabet can be stated with a fair degree of certitude. There are probably some technical innovations in store, a surround screen, perhaps, or 130

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the universal implementation of chairs that shake and move and make the viewer feel part of what is going on, like the ones introduced by George Lukas; but they have actually nothing to do with art. They are merely devices, on a par with those which have already become an established part of the cinema alphabet, and are secondary. The primary thing is relating feelings and emotions to the viewer, relating through the content narrated by the artist.

True artists concern themselves with the content of the shot, not stringing phrases together from elementary cinema letters, and it was so even in the times when the alphabet was still being discovered. And it is this content that defines the cinema language. At the dawn of cinema, Chaplin did not look for interesting angles or striking montage. He tried to express human emotions through his characters and their behaviour. In Eisenstein's art, angles and montage were so important because the 1920s revolutionary urge to break free from the old approaches was so insistent; but, in search for novelty, attention to the feelings was lost and the films of the time are often rather poorly conceived from the point of view of emotion and psychology. The formal experiments did much to enrich the cinema alphabet, but not the language. Montage does not express emotions, it is only a device. I believe the language lies first and foremost in the content of a shot.

Fellini's language is different from Bergman's language, not in terms of montage, but because of what goes on in the picture, how the characters feel, how they behave. The director's individuality lies in his characters' psyche, expressed through their actions, as well as in the landscapes, the light, the mood of the picture.

There are formal distinctions, as there are in literature. For example, the language of Platonov, Chekhov and Bunin, their narrative styles, are completely different, but their style of writing is not the main thing. What matters is the writer's world, or, rather, his characters'. In cinema, what matters is the director's world, which is essentially his cinema language.

In the 1960s and 70s we studied the cinema alphabet (and called it its language) from the point of view of its structure, component parts, their expressive power and efficiency. It was fascinating, because the alphabet was still under construction in those days and had to be completed. Today, such inventiveness has lost its meaning. All the letters are there, and at general disposal.

But I would like to touch upon a more important topic. The technical progress and the aesthetics of postmodernism, which have gained a firm foothold by the start of the new millennium, have considerably changed the very nature of creativity.

Much has become so easy and accessible that anyone can make films nowadays. You take a camera - it is small, light, digital and completely automatic - and shoot. Then cut-and-paste the material on your home computer, add some music and hey presto! - you've made a movie. It has become as easy as writing pop music, a good deal of which is nowadays made by computers, the so-called sequencers, not by human composers. The computer provides the necessary harmonies and you can make music, unburdened by any formal knowledge of chords or even notation, not to mention such complexities as musical form structures, which any conservatoire student must learn. The modern so-called musicians can bring you a complete recording, but will be unable to write down what they have composed on staves.

I would like to dwell a little longer on the 'origins of the master', the masterhood as it is. In the past, trades and professions came to people together with myths and legends, each profession was handed down like an old song, was sucked up with the mother's milk. Even today, a Chinese doctor who values himself can proudly recount a dozen previous generations of doctors in his family. The tradition behind the pottery from Tuscany, made from the local red clay, is a thousand years old. Like the Trojan legend, made perfect by Homer and passed on from father to son, the professional secrets were inherited, be it bone or wood carving in China or making painted clay toys in Russia. In the schools of Titian and Veronese, students had to spend decades before they were considered accomplished painters in their own right. Jewellers, poets, map-makers were worth their weight in gold: they were kidnapped but never killed; instead, they were provided with all they needed for their work. They made things that were unique in terms of their outstanding quality, which the locals could then imitate and learn. Quantity was never a requirement: on the contrary, each count, duke or Pope wanted to have something that nobody else had.

The industrial revolution and liberalism put new goals before humankind. Mass production and easy accessibility became the watchword of the age. In the last century, the art of marketing emerged, and today, the 131

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Philology: Scopes and Visions world of popular culture is the world of multi-nought figures. Today, a work of art is judged according to its commercial prospects. Therefore, a product created by an illiterate but crafty businessman is called art - if it is bought. This triggers the speedy growth of amateurism and eliminates the need for education and professionalism. Amateurs have invaded cinema and music today, and sometimes they have enormous success. The same can be said about plastic arts, television, theatre. It can be explained both by the ready access to technical means and by the post-modernist tendency, spreading like wildfire in the West, to sever any ties with the previous centuries of world culture. This separation enables the modern artist to get rid of what is usually referred to as cultural associations. But it was this association that filled the artistic image with multifarious wealth and profoundness. There can be no amateurs where technical proficiency and years of painstaking training are required. You cannot be an architect if you are not properly trained: your building will simply collapse. The same in ballet, in sports, in the circus or in opera.

If we look at the modern commercial cinema from the point of view of art, we will find a similar, but still a different process. The directors' chairs are occupied by young boys who have just come from advertising or the MTV. They know the ABC and the technical devices backwards, but the language, i.e. the content plane, in which the artist's individuality is shown, is very muddled. Modern films are all virtually indistinguishable from one another. On the floor today, everything does itself more or less. A group of experts in different cinema specialities can, in theory, make a film between them without a director. A six-year old child can learn the two words, "Action!" and "Cut!", and the film will be made. The actors will act, the cameraman will shoot, the sound recorder will tape the voices. The cutter will then piece the footage together. The music editor will add the score.

The same can actually be applied to the language of certain prominent directors. Can Steven Spielberg's language be called original? It is not his language. It is the language of his storyboard man or his editor. I would stick my neck out and say that Spielberg has no language of his own. Even in his excellent film, Saving Private Ryan, it is probably the language of the talented Polish director of photography, Janusz Kaminski. They made a few good films together, including Schindler's List. But as soon as Spielberg changed his director of photography, he reverted to storyboards and it became apparent that it was his cameraman who created his language for him. Spielberg has no language of his own. His idiom is made up by what other people say for him. I would risk saying that the modern cinema language is in a deadlock, because that is where the content plane is, too.

What is the reason, then, of this universal degradation of cinema language? It is the change in the viewer's age and intellectual baggage.

In the last century, together with the downright commercial cinema, there was cinema art, the instrument of comprehension and cognition, of discovering the world. The directors were great sea captains who betook themselves to uncharted lands to acquaint us with truths hitherto unknown. The names of Visconti, Pasolini, Fellini, Bunuel, Bergman, Antonioni, Kalatozov, Kurosawa rang with the same glory as those of Bering, Laperouse or Columbus. They were heroes, pioneers and their viewers discovered the world with them. In the 1960s, a considerable part of the viewing audience were intellectuals. They did not go to the theatre to see stars, they wanted to see the directors' works. Why have people stopped going "to the directors"? Because the audience has changed. The change took place in the early 1980s, when cinema joined the process of globalisation. Hollywood's largest companies started buying cinemas in Britain, France, Italy, then in South East Asia and Latin America. Today, many cinema theatres belong to American film makers. This is pure monopoly. At the same time, this cultural invasion was called struggling for the freedom of information and freedom of choice. How touching.

In a small Italian town, there will be two movie theatres, both in the same street. There will be two Hollywood films in one and two Hollywood films in the other. There will probably be one Italian. French, English?

Very rare. Russian? Forget it. It is funny, is it not: the viewer does have a freedom to choose - to choose between four Hollywood movies. Cinema is reaping the fruit of intellectual colonisation: the world has to watch a uniform, homogenous, transnational Hollywood tripe aimed at the average teenager, the member of this new generation of film-goers which chooses Pepsi with its slogan, Ask for More. And teenagers are mainly interested in passing the time, not in cognition. Content is not needed, there is no demand for it. And where there is no demand, there is no supply. This is where the reason for cinema's intellectual emaciation lies. In this respect, 132

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Philology: Scopes and Visions the consequences of globalisation are disastrous. The aggressive marketing of cinema entertainment has fostered a new demographic type of viewer.

With this viewer, cinema must talk in a language that he understands. As an American critic said, it must confess the philosophy of Mickey Mouse...

2.

So what has happened to the human values that innumerable generations, including mine, were brought up to respect?

Before mass media and the Internet, starting from Moses and Jesus and ending with Shalyapin and Solzhenitsyn, values took centuries to work out. They were created by generations of artists, poets, thinkers. They took their position in people's minds as universal values, characteristic of the whole civilisation. This gradual nature of their creation and establishment made them so durable. Today, a value can be created according to the wish of a corporation or an individual who has the money to pay, who is interested in its dissemination, expects certain political or material gains and is ready to pay for it. From now on, values are not produced inside the society, they are introduced from without. Today, tolerance is a value, tomorrow it may be uncompromising firmness, the day after tomorrow it may be selfish hedonism. The image figures will be endorsed accordingly. One person today, another tomorrow, and the day after they will both be forgotten for the sake of a third.

Marketing has become the main driving and forming force behind civilisation, because its strength lies in the fact that the quality of a product is less important than the quality of its advertisement. What matters is the result, measured in the profits. Here is a curious example. How much would you think does a very large pickled fish cost? In 1991, a young English artist called Damien Hirst bought a shark in Australia for 6,000 pounds, put it in formaldehyde and took it to England. He placed the dead fish in a large tank and, giving it an elaborate name, sold it to the Saatchi gallery for 50,000 pounds. A well-planned marketing campaign, called Young British Artists, began, developing the tendency and proclaiming it the highest achievement of modern art. We can imagine the funds spent for the marketing since soon there was a pickled calf, then a pig and so on. In January 2005, the shark was sold to America for six million pounds, with the whole England sighing sadly because the English masterpiece was being taken overseas. What would you say to that? Really, very sad conclusions as to the perspectives of development facing the Western civilisation spring to mind.

Literature, cinema, music, art have succumbed to the laws of postmodernism and mixed the high with the low, striking the pose of a high-brow jester. Everything has turned to kitsch. The most worrying thing is that the young generation perceives it as the only art. The objects that are scornfully called pop-art by some, are Art for these kids. Andy Warhol is a world-renowned master for them, because his painting has been sold for $15,000,000. When they look at his painting, they think it is real art. Even the Pushkin Fine Art Museum placed Warhol reverently between Raphaels and Giottos. And this is the tendency that is consciously cultivated by critics and art dealers.

Last December, the Daily Telegraph compiled the top five of the 20 th century's best works of art. To form it, a list of 500 masterpieces was made and sent round to 500 critics, artists, gallery owners and art theorists, who were asked to arrange them according to their relative importance. Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe came in third, the only two objects before it being Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and - to everyone's surprise and embarrassment - The Fountain by Marcel Duchamp, which took the first place. The Fountain is a standard earthenware urinal, which the artist put a kind of signature on and exhibited at an art show in 1917.

Just think about it: 500 experts believe that the most important achievement in the art of an enormous century is something that actually has nothing to do with art and is more about shocking the public and aesthetic mischief. That overwhelming fear of seeming old-fashioned...

Up to mid-20th century, art was built on traditions, i.e., cultural associations, which means that something puts me in mind of something else, and that something else reminds me of a still other thing, the one it is based on. I remember when my grandfather, a painter, was busy with another picture, he would say to his son (my uncle): "Remember Velazquez? Remember Titian?", although what he was making could well be a Cubist stilllife or a realistic bunch of lilac. Art was judged according to the wealth of associations it evoked. Even a great

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Philology: Scopes and Visions modernist like Francis Bacon was inspired by Velazquez. The same in film direction. Great directors' films always bred associations. The influence of the great masters was the key to continuity and development.

Forty years ago, Fellini, Kurosawa, Bergman were household names for the students of Moscow's Cinema Institute. The new directors, though, hardly even read Chekhov.

I used to hope that TV and video would provide a sanctuary for the searching and thinking people. But for such a sanctuary to be created, these people have to be offered some guidelines. In reality, you come to a video store and see the latest hits on the shelves, maybe a few older ones about James Bond or Indiana Jones. But no classics. It is very hard to buy those great films, because there is no demand for them. There is no demand because there is no awareness of their existence. The modern directors' art, both in cinema and in theatre, has shed off cultural associations as prejudices. They draw inspiration from the fashionable and the acclaimed.

These principles presuppose a militant rejection of tradition and trying to be new at any cost. The quest for truth has been replaced with the search for something "fun" and "cool". Cultural associations are being eliminated from European art, and that is a patent fact.

For as long as human values were unshakeable, the creator's glory was almost always well-deserved. It was formed by generations and placed the creator above all other people. He was higher, for the deserved it, and everybody knew he did. I think it can be called respecting your peers. The respect made other ambitious artists imitate and strive to reach the top. The direction one had to follow was clear. Any young person knew Tolstoy, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn, as great people worthy of imitating. The same in cinema: we tried to reach the summits, the clearly defined and deservedly respected pinnacles of our profession.

A young artist is like a swimmer in an ocean. Where does he swim? In the daytime, he sees the land, at night there is a lighthouse to guide him. Today, fame is created at will, through mass media. It costs a certain amount of money. Often, fame is just false. And a young man, dreaming of becoming famous in art, feels like a swimmer in an impenetrable night: the horizon is full of false lights and you do not know where to go.

Francois Moriac, when he said that the 20th century would be the century of football, missed his mark by a hundred years. This century has started now. Sadly, the reason is disgustingly clear: this is where the big money is. A football star gets much better paid than a film star. A football club can pay $40,000,000 for a footballer. No film star can expect to 'cost' so much. I myself am scared by the way I express myself. I can imagine how this load of responsibility plagues the person kicking the ball.

There is another angle to modern fame. Today, a world-famous person is not necessarily respected. Rather, he is envied, or even despised. "He's just as mediocre as me, but he had the money to buy the fame." False fame does not last long, and anyway - if you know that a famous director or a pop megastar is in fact no better than yourself, you think - well, I could do the same easily. There is no point in becoming better, in perfecting your skills. What you need is a good marketing manager. Today, seeming is more important than being.

Patrick Buchanan, an American philosopher and sociologist, wrote a profound book, gravely called The Death of the West. In this work, he adduces numerous examples illustrating his idea that the West is heading for an inevitable crisis on all counts, political, demographic and moral, since the new generations break away from the age-old humanitarian and Humanist traditions in Europe. Russia has developed on the periphery of the great European civilisation, and her culture can only be called European with certain reservations. Russia had no Reformation and no Renaissance, the four hundred years of emerging civil society and democracy passed her by. However, in the age of globalisation and the hegemony of information technologies, Russia is trying to master the European experience against time, hurrying and singeing her fingers, never understanding that this outstanding example is already out of date. Reading the forecasts of the impending global crises in climate and resources is enough to see that the industrial European countries will soon face dramatic shocks, if not a complete collapse, in their underlying social principles and structures. Russia has a chance not to be involved in this maelstrom, with her enormous territory, her continental (i.e., fairly stable, albeit not very pleasurable) climate, her huge natural resources. And, what is even more important, Russia's 'retarded' culture has not worked out the Time is Money principle. Time is treated less rationally and there is still the space for contemplation, which, if psychologists be believed, is necessary for the harmonious development of an individual. So must Russia actually throw it all away and rush in the wake of the West?

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Philology: Scopes and Visions The speed with which irrevocable processes develop is steadily growing, and it can be illustrated both by the acceleration of political events and the human memory becoming shorter and shorter. Consider: the Neolithic age lasted a million years, the mastering of agriculture took ten thousand, the Middle Ages lasted a thousand years, the Renaissance - five hundred, and the modern technologies took only fifty years to develop, and during these fifty years human perception has changed radically. If the changes are so rapid, the human memory is not needed. Today's youngsters are even unaware of the existence of the recent pop stars, like Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong, not to mention Bach or Haydn. How should they know that black caviar is good if they have never eaten outside Macdonald's?

The famous Indian writer and Nobel prize winner, residing in England, Shiva Naipaul, wrote in his recent article that literature is dead and the world feels no sadness at its demise, for it is just not necessary any more.

People do not feel that they have lost something. It is essentially the same thing I have said here about cinema.

The modern Westerner can only be sympathised with, because he is almost totally dried up by consumerism, corrupted by the possibility of instant gratification of his superficial needs, and finds no time for concentration.

You have to listen to a Chaikovsky symphony for about ten or twenty minutes before you start comprehending it. To read Dostoyevsky or Solzhenitsyn, you need to sacrifice something, namely, your time. You have to focus your attention, to peer into the text and think profoundly, only then you can start to comprehend and sympathise. Contemplation is what you need for appreciating a work of art. But you do not need to be immersed in pop music to understand it. The same can be said about literature. Today, you do not need to immerse yourself in a book or sacrifice your time to it. You read it very much like you listen to music in a lift: it plays away and you think your own thoughts. A reader's or viewer's attention glides over the book or the film like a waterstrider over a pond. Let us not forget that the world's first novel, the Bible, required the greatest concentration.

Innumerable works have been written about the information shock that our civilisation is suffering. The Internet has changed human history. Contrary to what we dreamt of forty years ago, the profusion of information and its absolute accessibility has not made our knowledge of the world deeper. The more information we get, the less we know. We are incapable of discrimination. It is easy to sink in the torrent of unnecessary informational garbage constantly sweeping over us. And this cannot but have its effect on our minds. Pasternak, a great lover of music, said wisely: "The best that I have ever heard is silence." Today, though, the information field is filled with incessant screaming. It seems to me that in the future, the rich will have the privilege of silence, informational and any other. They will leave the computers to their office staff.

I do not think this is a pessimistic point of view. I do not think that humankind is dying out. I believe it is surviving. But the conditions it is surviving in are very bad for individual development. At the same time, unfavourable conditions are always better than favourable ones, since they make you do your best to survive. When people get everything brought to them on a silver tray - TV, cheap food, comfortable living, access to any information - they stop appreciating the value of things. Having a huge bulk of information at your disposal does not make you better informed. You can know all the sorts of expensive wine, go to every first night, buy your clothes at the best boutiques, but your life will be just as drab as before. The quality of your life depends on nothing more than your ability to think and to realise your true place and the part that you play in the lives of other people, whereas the modern life and philosophies persuade us to stop thinking, to consume, to Ask for More! It is sad, but is the Western culture really heading for its decline, as Buchanan and Schpengler would have us believe?

But after all, I believe it is only the West that all this can be actually said about. And the West is not the whole world. China, India, Japan, the Arab East retain their traditions. The great countries of ancient civilisations - Hinduist, Muslim or Confucian - still hold onto their centuries-old traditions, struggling - sometimes over-zealously - against the influence of the Western values. That is why, at today's film festivals, prizes go to directors from China or Iran. And this, in terms of world culture, gives me hope that humankind will retain both the wish and the ability to create and discover the painting, literature and cinema that I am used to consider art.

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