THE STYLISTIC POTENTIAL OF PHONETIC AND GRAPHIC LINGUISTIC MEANS IN DRAMATIC TEXTS (BASED ON THE PLAYS OF THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD)
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2018-7-48-53
Despite the disposition of the theater of the absurd for linguistic minimalism, the plays of the British theater of the absurd possess a great phonographic potential due to the generic features of the dramatic text. The article explains the paradoxical ability of the dramatic text to transfer performer’s phonostylistic means through the author’s remarks, special syntactic constructions and graphic tools. The identified phonostylistic and graphic means in the absurdist plays by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard do not only help to convey the authors’ ideas, but also conform to the philosophy of the absurd. The most represented means is the instrumentation based on different sound repetitions (alliteration, consonance, rhyme) with the use of sound symbolism. The phonographic analysis of the texts also revealed some cases of onomatopoeia and paronomasia. Rhythm has a special stylistic meaning in the drama. It is inherent in both theatrical actions and speech, which is reflected in the dramatic text. The article considers the ways of creating a specific slow, monotonous rhythm peculiar to the theater of the absurd with its idea of cyclical existence. The described examples confirm the stylistic markedness of the plays of the theater of the absurd which can be an object of further research in linguistics and stylistics.
Keywords: theater of the absurd, dramatic text, phonostylistics, graphic language means, instrumentation, sound symbolism, rhythm
References:
1. Аrnold I. V. Stilistika. Sovremennyy angliyskiy yazyk: uchebnik dlya vuzov. 12-e izd. [Stylistics. Modern English:textbook for universities. 12th edition]. Moscow, FLINTА, Nauka Publ., 2014. 384 p. (in Russian).
2. Beckett S. The complete dramatic works. London, Faber and Faber Publ., 2006. 476 p.
3. Nikolaeva M. N. Stilisticheskaya konvergentsiya sintaksicheskikh fi gur v tekste stikhotvoreniya ‘No!’ Tomasa Guda [Stylistic convergence of syntactic means in the poem ‘No!’ by Thomas Good]. Аktual’nyye voprosy fi lologii i perevodovedeniya v svete sovremennykh issledovaniy: sbornik nauchnykh statey po materialam XIV Mezhdunarodnoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii. Chuvashskiy gosudarstvennyy pedagogicheskiy universitet im. I. Ya. Yakovleva [Actual issues of philology and translation studies in the light of modern research: collected articles on XIV International Scientifi c and Practical Conference. Chuvash State Pedagogical University named after I. Ya. Yakovlev. Edited by N. V. Kormilina, N. Y. Shugaeva]. 20 17. Pp. 209–214 (in Russian).
4. Magnus M. Phonosemantics. URL: https://web.archive.org/web/20071129221917/http:/www.trismegistos.com/MagicalLetterPage/ (accessed 13 July 2018).
5. Stoppard T. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. URL: http://www.lib.ru/PXESY/STOPPARD/r_g_engl.txt (accessed 13 July 2018).
6. Hutchings W. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: a reference guide. Praeger Publishers, 2005. 167 p.
7. Tomskaya N. N., Nikolaeva M. N. Yazykovyye osobennosti teksta p’esy “Travesti” Toma Stopparda kak proizvedeniya teatra absurda [Linguistic features of Tom Stoppard’s ‘Travesties’ as a work of the theatre of the absurd]. Voprosy fi lologii i perevodovedeniya: sbornik nauchnykh statey. Chuvashskiy gosudarstvennyy pedagogicheskiy universitet im. I. Ya. Yakovleva [Issues of philology and translation studies: collected articles. Chuvash State Pedagogical University named after I. Ya. Yakovlev. Edited by N. V. Kormilina, N. Yu. Shugaeva]. 2015. Pp. 248–252 (in Russian).
8. Stoppard T. Travesties. NY, Grove Press Publ., 1975. 71 p.
9. Stanislavskiy K. S. (in Russian). URL: http://az.lib.ru/s/stanislawskij_k_s/ (accessed 13 July 2018).
( 465.77 kB ) 
( 459.46 kB )
Issue: 7, 2018
Series of issue: Issue 7
Rubric: TOPICAL ISSUES OF COGNITIVE-DISCURSIVE LINGUISTICS AND TEXT LINGUISTICS
Pages: 48 — 53
Downloads: 799