THE SYMBOLIC POTENTIAL OF TROPES IN A LITERARY TEXT

Abstract

The topicality of the research is determined by a keen interest taken in the process of text-related meaning formation in literature by such branches of humanitarian studies as philology, semiotics, hermeneuitics, linguistics, decoding stylistics of a poetic text. Consequently, the objective of the article is identification and description of symbolically charged elements of the text imagery created by such stylistic devices as metaphor, allegory and onomatopoeia which are capable of integrating the semantic and emotive planes of a literary text. The chief methodological approach used in this research is contextual interpretation of tropes including elements of structural-semantic, logical, phonosemantic and stylistic analysis whose combination allows to present the object of research in its complexity and versatility. Passages from English and Russian works of literature were chosen for this sort of analysis. The article describes mechanisms of semantic increment in a literary work of art by means of tropes. The peculiar role played by metaphor, allegory and onomatopoeia as highly functional text elements capable of representing a specific type of text cohesion by means of adherent connotations is shown. It is maintained that the tropes in question possess the capacity to bring into play the symbolic potential inherent in their very nature. The novelty of the approach developed in this research is represented by the following postulate: while the symbol is an intermediary between text and culture, the trope is an intermediary between text and symbol. The materials and methodology of the research may be used in practical and theoretical courses in philology, philological hermeneutics, stylistics and stylistic interpretation of literary texts.