ЛИНГВОКУЛЬТУРОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ ПОДХОД К ИССЛЕДОВАНИЮ АЛЛЮЗИИ

Introduction

As the economic, cultural and scientific contacts of countries and their peoples increase topics related to the study of intercultural communication, the relationship between language and culture, the study of the linguistic personality are becoming more and more relevant. Each individual belongs to one or another national culture, which includes national traditions, language, history, literature. Linguistics of the 21^st century is actively developing a direction in which language is viewed as the cultural code of a nation, and not just an instrument of communication and cognition.

Cultural linguistics is one of the leading areas of linguistics, based on the idea of ​​an inextricable connection between language and culture. As K. Levi-Strauss noted, language is both a product of culture, and its important component, and a condition for the existence of culture [11]. Cultural linguistics as an independent area of ​​linguistic research was formed in the 70s with the aim of providing scientific foundations for the presentation and activation of data about the country and culture of the target language. In the center of its attention is a person as a native speaker of language and culture, his background knowledge, behavioural norms that make him a representative of this culture [2]. V.A. Maslova defines cultural linguistics as a branch of linguistics that arose at the junction of linguistics and culturology, which studies the manifestations of the culture of the people, which are reflected and entrenched in the language [9]. According to V.A. Maslova, the task of cultural linguistics is to explicate the cultural significance of a linguistic unit on the basis of correlating the prototype situation of a phraseological unit or other linguistic unit, its symbolic reading with those cultural codes that are known or can be offered to a native speaker by a linguist [8]. This article provides examples of the functioning of allusions within the framework of the linguoculturological paradigm.

Allusions play an important role among the units transmitting culturally significant information. Allusions can be expressed through phrases that are part of famous quotes, fragments of proverbs and catchphrases, as well as through famous names or titles referring to precedent texts, to cultural and historical reality, works of various types of art. The convergence point of all definitions of allusion existing today is the interpretation of the allusion as an indirect reference to some fact (person, event, text) assumed to be known [1], [7]. N.A. Kuzmina understands allusion as a reference directly to the world with its realities [5]. The allusion is a three-sided unit: it is both part of the new text, part of the old text and a signal of the presence of a precedent text.

Within the framework of the linguoculturological paradigm Z.Z. Chanysheva proposed a typology of allusions taking into account four criteria: 1) the source of origin, 2) the nature of the manifestation of allusions, 3) the cultural sphere of their distribution, 4) the nature and volume of semantic connotations [10]. Also, within the framework of this paradigm, it seems possible to single out the classification of allusions from the point of view of their functioning: 1) describing an object and 2) creating a humorous effect.

Traditionally, allusion functions as a means of extended transfer of the properties and qualities of the mentioned characters and events to those referred to in the statement, in this case «the allusion does not restore a well-known image, but extracts additional information from it» [3]. In other words, an allusion is a kind of rolled up information that is used to characterize an object. As a result, speech is freed from excessive descriptiveness, which facilitates the perception of information by the recipient. Thus, allusion is a means of saving linguistic resources, and the brevity of the form, in turn, increases its expressiveness and emotional impact on the reader or listener.

Ross: Well? Isn’t that amazing?

Joey: What are we supposed to be seeing here?

Chandler: I dunno, but ... I think it’s about to attack the Enterprise [13].

The allusion denotation is the starship Enterprise from the American sci-fi television series «Star Trek: Enterprise». A reference to a series about space travel and foreign civilizations tells us that Chandler imagines an intrauterine baby as some kind of an alien creature.

The use of allusion in order to create a comic effect, as a rule, involves borrowing a certain element from a foreign text and including it in a new context, which deliberately generates some kind of contradiction, when completely different concepts or objects of reality appear on the same plane. There is a deliberate mixing of the areas of the sublime and the ordinary, the abstract and the concrete. A comic situation often arises in the case of using allusions that are difficult for another person to decode.

The following example deals with an unintentional historical allusion that transcends the boundaries of national culture and therefore elusive for the heroes, but used by them against the background of clearly understandable national cultural allusions. Joe and Chandler choose a stage name for Joe:

Chandler: Joe ... Joe ... Joe ... Stalin?

Joey: Stalin ... Stalin ... do I know that name? It sounds familiar.

Chandler: Well, it does not ring a bell with me ...

Joey: Joe Stalin. Y’know, that’s pretty good.

Chandler: Might wanna try Joseph.

Joey: Joseph Stalin. I think you’d remember that!

Chandler: Oh yes! Bye Bye Birdie, starring Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin is the Fiddler on the Roof [13].

The authors of the Macmillan English Dictionary classify cultural, literary, biblical allusions as well as humor and irony as cultural reference, which includes references to knowledge and experience that are common to a particular group in a given culture [12]. Accordingly, the source of culturological marking of linguistic units is the reality itself, which is closely related to a given national-cultural area, which is understood as the sphere of action of a given culture. Thus, the ability to explicate the meaning of allusions is a criterion for belonging not only to «us» or «them» national culture, but also to one or another group of people who share a similar individually personal culture, that is, the division into «us» and «them» can also occur within one linguocultural community. The individually personal culture of the addressee is «...the process of assimilation and active reproduction of social experience by an individual...» as a result of which he becomes a person and acquires the knowledge, abilities, skills necessary for life among people, the ability to communicate and interact with them in the course of solving certain other tasks, masters the culture of human relations, social norms necessary for interaction with different people [6]. The category «us – them» is a basic culturological category that is responsible for the categorization of reality in terms of the belonging of existing objects to their personal sphere, that is, to oneself or to one’s personal space, both physical and mental [4].

Conclusion

Cultural information encoded in allusions is of great importance for cultural linguistics, since among other things, it reflects the attitude of the modern average representative of a particular culture to traditional national cultural values ​​and stereotypes. In addition, the frequency of the use of certain allusions makes it possible to see the changes taking place in the mentality of the nation in relation to its cultural values. Further study of linguoculturologically marked linguistic units and stylistic techniques will help us better understand the process of interaction between language and culture.