DOI: 10.12731/wsd-2014-9.2-22 UDC 81
UNRELIABLE NARRATION AS A TENDENCY IN MODERN LITERARY DISCOURSE
Kalinina E.V.
In the aspect of modern approaches to the study of art creativity unusual narrative can be considered to be the author's technique of fixing ofactions and events through the associative grip of memory and imagination domains. In this case the reader perceives the domain of memory on the background of the imagination domain. The unreliable narration focuses the reader 's attention on the mental processes that occur in the mind of the storyteller, who is characterized by a specific mentality, lack of social adaptation and other similar ontological features. The story-teller himself/herself distances from the actual course of events, suffers from the psychological trauma and on initiating the story he/she tries « to heal» from the pain caused by these injuries. The sense of loss, guilt and extreme despair inevitably affect the manner of narrative storytelling. We can say that the goal of the unreliable narration is to put to the forefront the characteristics of the narrator's psychological state, make the focus on his/her inner life and the ironic understanding of the reality. The narrator's comments on the reality are not consistent with the concept of the sound judgment. Author's fixing the narrator's alarmed consciousness is considered to be the most consistent features of the unreliable narration.
Keywords: unreliable narration, modern literary discourse, postclassical narratological tradition, conceptual integration.
НЕТИПИЧНОЕ ПОВЕСТВОВАНИЕ КАК ТЕНДЕНЦИЯ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ ЛИТЕРАТУРНОМ ДИСКУРСЕ
Калинина Е.В.
В аспекте современных подходов к исследованию художественного творчества нетипичное повествование можно рассматривать как своеобразную авторскую технику фиксирования действий и событий посредством ассоциативного сцепление доменов памяти и воображения. При этом домен памяти воспринимается читателем на фоне домена воображения. Нетипичное повествование фокусирует читательское внимание на ментальных процессах, происходящих в сознании рассказчика, который характеризуется специфическим складом ума, отсутствием социальной адаптации и другими подобными онтологическими признаками. Сам рассказчик оказывается дистанцированным от действительного хода событий, страдает от психологических травм и, инициируя повествование, пытается «излечиться» от боли, наносимой этими травмами. Ни на минуту не притупляющееся чувство потери, вины и крайнего отчаяния неизбежно отражаются на манере повествования рассказчика. Можно сказать, что цель
нетипичного повествования заключается в том, чтобы выдвинуть на передний план особенности психологического состояния рассказчика, сделать фокус на его внутренней жизни, ироническом постижении действительности. Комментарии рассказчика относительно действительности не согласуются с понятием здравого суждения. Авторская фиксация встревоженного сознания рассказчика рассматривается нами в качестве самой последовательной характеристики нетипичного повествования.
Ключевые слова: нетипичное повествование, современный литературный дискурс, постклассическая нарро-тологическая традиция, концептуальная интеграция.
The current theoretical research in the field of language system both in terms of spontaneous dialogical speech, and in the literary discourse sphere quite often assume a similar compositional plan:
1) determining the relevance of the research object which looks promising for finding answers to important questions;
2) comprehending that the process of learning this object creates other not less important issues.
Commitment to a particular linguistic theory, in its turn, means expanding its research framework in the process of survey in order to find answers to the questions posed by this theory. This model seems to be an integral part of modern linguistic research including that of the cognitive nature.
Among the topical interests of cognitive linguistics we could mention the following problems:
■ dynamic conceptual framework and epistemological processes that characterize a person as homo loquens;
■ internal and external mechanisms of mastering the language person;
■ theoretical and practical basis for structuring these mechanisms according to certain parameters;
■ perception, interpretation and production of various types of discourse [2, p. 50; 6, p. 21; 8, p. 34; 11, p. 4-5].
In the framework of cognitive science the researchers find the best solutions to the problems associated with an active cooperation of such entities of linguistic and philosophical nature as language, thought and conscience.
Language and the naive picture of the world which are common to a particular socio-cultural community and at the same time unique for the special representative of this group is obviously planted in the subject's mind in the process of active interaction with the real world. At subsequent stages, these pictures of the world are refracted through the prism of axiological the activities of the subject's «Self» and are formed in the course of cogitative activity and expressed in the language activity. These stages form the essence of both the speaking subject's epistemological activity and the cognitive processes that directly or indirectly interconnected with the background knowledge and information coming from the external world [8, p. 35].
The current researches on the identification of specific cognitive processes are also beginning to play the constructive role in the study
of the language in both classical and contemporary fiction. Cognitive grammar, conceptual metaphor theory, multidimensional analysis of author's simulating the mental spaces - in comparison with the traditional linguistic approaches - provide an opportunity to highlight the urgent issues related to revealing the specific features of linguistic meaning functioning within the frameworks of the modern literary discourse. These cognitive directions, in their turn, lead to the appearance and wide spread of new paradigms in the field of explaining and interpreting literary texts. Linguistic researches conducted under the auspices of these paradigms not only take into account the linguistic forms as it traditionally does the theory of poetic art and decoding stylistics, but turn to the analysis of those cognitive processes and structures that form the basis for realizing and manifesting diverse linguistic forms in the literary discourse.
The notion of «post-classical narratology» first appears and receives theoretical justification in David Herman's article «Scripts, sequences, and stories: elements of a postclassical narratology» [20]. Appealing to such cognitive notions as schemas, scripts and frames D. Hermann innovatively defines the elements which are specific for the cognitive approach to the narrative discourse. Focusing attention on the concept of «cognitive narratology» the researcher concludes that the new branch of knowledge is actually based on a number of text analysis theoretical models and systems which have been actively established and developed in philological science and related humanitarian branches before [20, p. 1049].
In the current survey of the narratological nature reviewing the unreliable narration is directed against what is essentially can be defined as «mimetic reductionism»; it is alleged that all aspects of the
narration can get the comprehensive explanation on the basis of our knowledge about the objective reality. Thus, D. Hermann believes that «nuclear set of cognitive principles and parameters found in mind promotes comprehending the unreliable narration» [21, p. 114].
In support of this opinion Maria Makela declares that the researcher loses sight of the specific characteristics and forms of the narration when its reliable and natural variation is elected as a model for all narrations; it is recognized that the fictional consciousness is quite identical to that of real people. A priori recognizing that all of the telling is «placed» in a communicative context, related to exclusively real situations, leads to ignoring the unreliable narration specific features [22, p. 237-240].
The researchers in the field of the unreliable narration put forward the unanimous opinion that the narrative text is of high interest, first of all, due to its potential ability to vividly portray the situation and the events that «exceed» the visible boundaries of our direct real world knowledge. I. Alber advances a point of view according to which the narration mimetically recreates the objective world as the reader essentially knows it. At the same time the narration «immerses» the reader into such virtual worlds simulated by the author which are being perpetrated in accordance with the rules and principles that have almost nothing in common with the outside world, living in the real time [14, p. 79]. The worlds designed by the author are potentially similar to the surrounding world, although this is not always clearly observed: the virtual narrative worlds, as a rule, plunge the reader into the scripts or events that are impossible in the physical or logical sense [14, p. 80].
Possibly because of this the postclassical narratological tradition actively deploys the cognitive poetics which deals with the interaction between «the textual impulses» and «the reader's mental reactions» [10; 13]. The cognitive poetics theoretical interests include the personally predefined verbal behavior of the casual reader who interprets the text.
The researchers develop the following three approaches to reading texts that appear to be effective and efficient on multivariate analysis of the unreliable narration:
■ the explanatory reading involving the explanation of the text content and form based on a variety of the contextual factors;
■ the adaptive reading in which the texts are examined for private purposes;
■ the projective adaptive reading representing the problematic combination of the first
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