Филологические науки/3.Теоретические и методологические проблемы исследования языка

Doctor of philology Olizko N.S.

Chelyabinsk State University, Russia

Semiotico-synergetic study of postmodern literary discourse

Within the cognitive-discursive approach, discourse is treated as a thought and speech process, objectified in a certain set of texts connected with the help of cognitive strategies of generating and understanding, having consistent with these strategies internal organization and employed to generate and convey meaning, as well as to decode other texts. Literary discourse is a collection of works of art, a result of the interaction of author’s intention, the possible reactions of the reader and the text that displays the product in the space of semiosphere (semiosphere is a set of sign systems, including both text, language and culture in general).

Postmodern literary discourse as a part of semiosphere is discussed in this paper in terms of synergetics – the science of complex dynamical systems, laws of their growth, development and self-organization. Synergetics as an interdisciplinary area of research is pluralistic and offers philosophical and methodological interpretation of linguistic processes in nonlinear terms. From the point of this approach postmodern literary discourse is a developing synergetic system, characterized by hierarchy, instability, nonlinearity, emergence, symmetry / asymmetry and openness.

In terms of hierarchy semiosphere consists of micro-(intertext), macro- (discourse) and mega- (interdiscourse) levels: interdiscoursive semiosphere space is formed by a diverse set of discourses, among which there is the postmodern literary discourse, consisting of a set of intertexts. “Intertext - discourse – interdiscourse” system is characterized by instability due to the fact that changes in the intertextual inclusions lead to the transformation of the discourse which, in turn, affects interdiscourse of semiosphere as a whole. The property of openness allows the system to evolve from simple to complex, because each hierarchical level acquires an opportunity to develop and grow due to the fact of information exchange. Postmodern discourse is characterized by the emergence, providing the appearance of spontaneously occurring properties uncharacteristic for individual hierarchical levels (intertext, discourse or interdiscourse), but inherent in the system as a holistic functional formation. Because of its inherent nonlinearity and instability textual environment is treated by postmodernism as unpredictable, always ready to create new semantic variations. Dominant meaning, synchronizing symmetrical (which are in dynamic equilibrium) and asymmetric (which are in the dynamic disequilibrium) elements of the system is a creative attractor, organizing literary discourse.

The originality of postmodern writing as a specific way of world perception, attitude and world display, is expressed in the removal of boundaries – temporal, geographical, genre, discourse – between “its” and “others”, between language and speech, in an ironic relation to any authority, as well as mapping verbal communication in the form of variable, fluid space in which the text appears as a combination of comments to itself with endless references to “traces” of previous texts. Incomplete and open text is perceived as an intertext – the product of interactions between two or more texts or their elements. The collection of intertexts emphasizing dialogical character and incompleteness of postmodern writing, forms postmodern discourse.

Within lingo-synergetic interpretation postmodern literary discourse can be represented as a nonlinear self-developing unity of open mobile intertextual structures, interacting in the interdiscourse semisphere space.

Schematically it looks like this:

The outer circle describes the boundaries of semiosphere - semiotic space formed by a diverse set of discourses, among which we highlight the literary discourse. Postmodern literary discourse as a component of literary discourse consists of a set of texts, characterized by postmodern orientation in terms of expression of ideas that find realization in different linguistic levels. The kernel of this structure is organized by conceptual postmodern discourse, that is a set of concepts reflecting the essential characteristics of postmodernism – “Mask of the author”, “game”, “myth” and others. Implementation of relevant concepts in a separate work of art is carried out by means of strategic categories of intertextuality and interdiscoursivity.

In an open and non-linear postmodern discourse, the realization of intertextual structures is built on the principle of fractal similarity, actualizing the mechanisms of in- and intertextual interactions and providing a self-similar connection of text parts, other texts written by the same author and different precedent phenomena.

In literary discourse of postmodernism intertextuality is realized with the help of precedent phenomena objectified in the form of various kinds of reminiscences, referring to the relevant literary and artistic sources. Interdiscoursivity actualizes elements belonging to a variety of semiotic systems within a single work. The category of interdiscoursivity describes the interaction of literary postmodern discourse with different verbal semiotic systems (some kinds of scientific meta-language) and non-verbal sign systems (music, painting, architecture, cinema and others). Postmodern literary discourse, consisting of an infinite number of self-similar representations of a certain set of intertextual structures, is realized as the connection of multiple discourses and symbolic systems, the ordering of which is carried out in accordance with some models of fractal self-organization. Fractal is a repeating pattern, breaking up into fragments, each of which is a miniature of the entire form. In this sense intertext included in interdiscourse semiosphere space, is not a final piece, but a self-similar infinite series of inserted meanings that actualizes the process of the artwork self-organization.