ИДЕОСТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИИ ФАНТАЗИЙНОГО ЗНАНИЯ В МОНОГРАФИИ Р.А. ХАРРИСА “THE LINGUISTICS WARS”

Introduction

Science is traditionally associated with objective knowledge. But besides objective knowledge science may also transfer fabricated knowledge which is regarded as a product of imagination of a researcher.

Fabricated knowledge in scientific text is a means of conceptualizing new information or new scientific theories or a device for reasoning or persuasion in argumentation of researchers. It is inherent to scientific research in general and may successfully function in both natural sciences and in the humanities [7, P. 24].

The ability of a researcher to use his imagination in his study is individual. A form of representation of fabricated knowledge in scientific texts depends on the individual style of a researcher.

Methods

The main methods of analysis of fabricated knowledge in scientific texts are contextual, cognitive, logical, definitional, lexicological, and interpretation. Contextual, cognitive and logical analyses and interpretation help to reveal contexts where fabricated knowledge is represented. Logical type of analysis is used to correlate contexts of fabricated knowledge with either rational or irrational part of the model of fabricated knowledge (see below). Definitional, cognitive and logical analyses elicit referential relations within contexts of fabricated knowledge. It allows referring these contexts to rational or irrational part of the model of fabricated knowledge. In this research I consider metaphors as the most widely used means of representation of fabricated knowledge. Analysis of metaphors on the basis of a signifying descriptor helps to characterize and interpret the ideas of the author of the text.

Modelling of Fabricated Knowledge

I view fabricated knowledge as an abstract category specific for human cognition. Research into this category allowed formalizing it [3]. The formalization of the category was based on definitional, semantic, contextual and conceptual types of analyses of linguistic units representing the rational and the irrational in the English language. The category of fantastical knowledge thus has two parts that are in some sense opposite to each other – the rational part and the irrational part.

The rational part of the category includes five groups of concepts, that represent the sphere of fantasy and imagination not bound by the laws of nature:

1. Model (abstraction, idealization);
2. Potential (hypothesis, prediction, possibility, prescience, intuition);
3. Analogy (identification, similarity);
4. Interpretation;
5. Mental / thought experiment.

The irrational part of the category includes four groups of concepts that show the peculiarities of theoretical procedures applied in scientific texts:

1. Myth (legend, fiction, tale, story);
2. Dream (daydream, reverie, vision);
3. Delusion (falsehood, falsity, fraud, illusion, lie, mirage);
4. Fantasy (fancy, figment, enigma, ideality, mystery, unreality).

Analysis of the text

The aim of this study is to analyse peculiarities of the individual style of R.A. Harris represented in his monograph “The Linguistic Wars”. This analysis helps reveal the main conceptual spheres of a scientific (linguistic) text which are born thanks to the author’s creative imagination and represent fabricated knowledge. In this monograph the author considers the processes that took place in the 60-70s in the sphere of linguistics, namely the conflict between Structuralism and Generative Linguistics. The author interprets the linguistic conflict employing the images of war, battle, opposition of the good and the evil.  

The analysis showed that fabricated knowledge is employed in the text in such conceptual spheres as language, linguistics, researcher, scientific work, science, scientific theory, knowledge, world, and mind. The most developed spheres in the monograph are the spheres language and linguistics as they represent the main theme of the study. Language and linguistics are depicted as elements of war. This idea is clearly expressed in the title of the monograph – “The Linguistic Wars”. Thus, language is seen as the object and the main reason for the conflict, and the sphere of linguistic is the battlefield. The conceptual sphere researcher represents the author’s view of scholars as warriors – leaders, allies or novices. The spheres scientific work, science and scientific theory are represented as means and tools of war. The spheres knowledge, world, and mind are not connected by one and the same creative image but they represent the author’s vision of these spheres as spheres filled with erroneous or fictional, mythical data.

Dwelling on these spheres the author uses mostly metaphorical means of representation of fabricated knowledge.

The analysis of the metaphorical means of representation of fabricated knowledge in the monograph was based on the method of description applied in the Descriptive Theory of Metaphor [1], [2], [4]. The scope of signifying descriptors in the monograph is wide.  The best described spheres are language and linguistics. In the sphere language the main signifying descriptors are the following:

In the sphere linguistics there are seven signifying descriptors:

The author makes the most use of fantastical knowledge in these spheres to create a persuasive system of images to realize his cognitive and communicative intention.

Non-metaphorical means of representation of fabricated knowledge are used mainly in the spheres knowledge and world. The analysis of non-metaphorical means of representation of fabricated knowledge in the monograph showed that these are mainly non-referential utterances, i.e. formal expressions that contain a verbal sign that has no real referent. E.g. “Now how, in Manitou’s name, is a linguist to apply these notions to an utterance” [6, 29]; “Abstraction is unthinkable in the world of totally unique objects,… such a world is itself unthinkable” [6, 12]. The fact that formal utterances may represent secondary or, in my terms, fabricated knowledge was stated by M.Turner and G.Fauconnier in their study “Conceptual Integration and Formal Expression” [5]. In “The Linguistic Wars” non-metaphorical means of representation of fabricated knowledge are used to explain a model of new knowledge in a more vivid way, to describe erroneous knowledge in science, to reflect a mythical view of the object under study [7,25].

Conclusion

The analysis of means of representation of fabricated knowledge in the monograph “The Linguistic Wars” allowed characterizing it as highly creative. The author widely employs both means of representation of fabricated knowledge – metaphorical and non-metaphorical, though metaphorical means prevails. Fantastical interpretation of such conceptual spheres as linguistics, scientific work, science, scientific theory, and mind is realized only via metaphors. The only sphere where non-metaphoric means of representation of knowledge prevails is the sphere knowledge. The system of images created with the help of fabricated knowledge reflects the main objective of the author set at writing the monograph and may be considered as a trait of his individual style.