Metaphor as a Literary Device of Conceptualizing Reality in Polycodic Fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/pytlit2020.101.191Keywords:
Steven Hall, polycodic text, compositional metaphor, non-verbal means, iconic images, conceptualizationAbstract
The article highlights the problem of metaphorical thinking as a way of conceptualizing reality in Steven Hall’s fiction “The Raw Shark Texts”. The relevance of the study is due to the need to expand the analysis of the communicative features of the literary text with an iconic component. The main goal of the article is to analyze the features of the text polycoding as a form of artistic communication and to find out the role and functions of the metaphor as a means of conceptualizing reality in the polycodic text of the novel.
S. Hall makes full use of graphics possibilities in the text of his fiction, expanding the scope of the novel to a heterogeneous form, combining verbal and iconic means at the content-structure level. The combination of complex means of various semiotic systems, the inclusion of other components in the verbal structure of the text, paradoxically does not complicate its perception, but rather simplifies the understanding of the text, enriches the possibilities of its interpretation, gives the recipient more freedom for decoding.
The text-forming function of the Hall’s compositional metaphor is the ability to be expanded throughout the fiction text, indicated in chapter titles, reinforced by basic concepts (conceptual metaphors) and supported in the plot (visual metaphors, primary and creative metaphors). Reproducing the features of sensory mechanisms and their interaction with the psyche, the author was able to grasp the common between concrete objects and abstract concepts, to compare the incomparable. This approach allows us to consider the conceptual metaphor as a structural component of the novel, focusing on the specifics of the metaphorical construction of new realities. The comprehensiveness of the compositional metaphor in the novel “The Raw Shark Texts”, with all its constituents (conceptual, visual, primary and creative metaphors), its pervasiveness and the ability to reveal images within the entire fiction text gives it originality, integrity in the entirety of all its verbal and visual means.
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