Basic Models of Spin Coating

2.1. Text as a communicative unit. Basic categories of the text.

2.2. Notion of text’s divisibility.

2.3. Notion of cohesion.

2.4. Notion of coherence. Types of coherent ties (isotopic relations; referential identity proper; partial identity; semantic affinity).

2.5. Centrifugal and centripetal forces within a work of art. Notions of prospection and of retrospection.

2.6. Anthropocentricity of a work of fiction and its local and temporal reference of a work of fiction.

2.7. Notion of concept, conceptuality of the text.

2.8. Heterogeneous multi-channel informative richness of the text.

2.9. Systemacy of a work of fiction.

2.10. Integrity/completeness of a work of art.

2.11. Category of modality of a work of art.

2.12. Pragmatic orientation of a work of art.

Generally speaking, a category is a specifically defined division in a system of classification; a class of objects.

Being analyzed in the system of generalized functional categories, a text can be qualified as the highest communicative unit. This is an integral unit consisting of communicative-functional elements organized in a system aimed at realizing of the author’s communicative intention.

A textual category is a classificatory structural unit or property of a text.

Textual categories (content, functional, structural, communicative, etc.) being essentially different form an integral unity which is not equal to the sum of its components.

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2.1. Text as a communicative unit (after E.G.Fomenko, pp. 7-8, V.A.Kuharenko, pp. 68 and on). The notion of interpretation has been cherished in literary studies for a long time. The latest suggestions for renewal of the analysis of literature and discourse have proved that a full-scale study of the actual uses of literature will need increasingly explicit and systematic description of textual structures (7). Also, the notion of interpretation should be reformulated in terms of precise models of textual communication.

First and foremost, modern linguistics has shifted from sentence into text grammar. It takes into account structures beyond the sentence boundary. Such structures are called “supraphrasal units”, “prosaic stanzas”, “complex syntactic whole”.

In spite of terminological discrepancies, most of the scholars agree to distinguish the basic characteristics of this phenomenon: two or more complete sentences merge into a larger-scale unit for the purpose of expressing some logical-semantic unity. This is a section of a speech chain, characterized by sense, meaning and structural completeness. In it a definite piece of information is being introduced, developed and completed. Accordingly, in supraphrasal unit, sentences are distinguished, introducing the topic, developing it and summarizing. In the first part of the unity we get to know some object, in the last one we again come across it, having been enriched with the data obtained through the intermediate one. Obviously, this is not the only pattern of SPU construction for it can only consist of two parts (the introducing and the completing one, or the introducing and the developing one).

E.g.: Roland picked out a tiny pearl handled knife with a blade of soft silver folded into it. Sophie took it from him. When she opened the blade to show him, the whole thing was still no more than four inches long" (W. Golding. Darkness Visible).

There is a close connection between the sentences in the SPU. It is within the unity that a pronoun substitutes for a noun, an auxiliary verb for a meaningful verb, an adverb for an extended adverbial modifier, etc; a common grammar tense, voice, mood is preserved. The decoding of synsematic words as a SPU part is held here as well. And what is even more important, SPU develops a common single microtheme. Such a substantial and formal unity and independence enables us to consider SPU an autosemantic unit of the whole text, the upper rank of the hierarchical line: “word” – “sentence – supraphrasal unit”.

External characteristics of a SPU coincide with a paragraph. At the same time, they can not be equated. SPU is first and foremost a linguistic unit, while a paragraph is a compositional one.

As a matter of fact, the structure of a work of art can be regarded either as a cohesion of the plot chains, or as a cohesion of text segments, shaped and completed in a certain way.

Thus, it is appropriate we differentiate the “composition” from “architectonics”. The composition is defined as the plot development in terms of exposition, knot, climax and dénouement and/or change of points of view. The architectonics of a text is the cohesion of its paragraphs.

The connection of text compositional elements is a logical-semantic one. The ties between paragraphs are more intricate, for they can be either logical-semantic or intonation, rhythmical, lexical, semantic.

2.2. Notion of text’s divisibility. The text is not a chaotic piling up the language units of different levels. This is a well-organized system, in which everything is tied together and interrelated. At the same time, the text is by no means an indivisible monolith. The text’s systemacy and statefulness provides for its formal (architectonic) and substantial (compositional) segmentation. However, the autosemantic potential of paragraphs is rather limited because they can only be interpreted as a part of the whole text. Thus the category of the text divisibility is closely connected with the notion of cohesion.

2.3. Notion of cohesion. Cohesion can be defined as a process that connects sentences in a text. This term is applied for the relations among sentences and clauses of a text that are signaled by certain grammatical features. Cohesive ties vary in the kinds of mental processes they can express. The involved linguistic forms include:

- pronouns and other pro-forms;

- ellipses;

- emphases and some others.

E.g. “(1) He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed (2) and I saw he looked ill. (3) He was shivering, (4) his face was white, and (5) he walked slowly as though it ached to move” (E.Hemingway).

It is clear that the underlined items refer to the same person. This anaphoric function of he and his gives connection to the independent clauses, so that we interpret them as a whole. The pronouns constitute a text, or rather, form part of the same text. The pronouns he and his are identical in reference, or co-referential (cohesive).At each stage they overtly express the points of contact with what has gone before. Anaphora does not by itself constitute cohesion, but it marks which clauses are related in this manner.

Generally, cohesion is defined as a “semantic-syntactic concept manifested by overt grammatical and lexical signals of ties in the text” (9)

The term cohesion is to be told from the term coherence. Cohesion is a formal unity – “внешняя спаянность” (К.Кожевникова), while coherence is the text’s “internal integrity” (I.R.Galperin), substantial connectivity.

2.4. Notion of coherence. Types of coherent ties (isotopic relations; referential identity proper; partial identity; semantic affinity).

Coherence is most often discussed in relation to the paragraph. It is a semantic-pragmatic concept that contributes to the communicative unity of the text. The borderline between cohesion and coherence is that the former is always realized by overt signals while the latter may be realized with or without overt signals.

Coherent ties are expressed by semantic relations, which are different in their nature.

In the layer of text coherence two classes of semantic relations are usually distinguished:

1) isotopic relations;

2) logical relations.

Isotopic relations exist between two or more related items in cohesive clauses, which refer to the same person, thing or situation.

F. Daneš divides isotopic relations into three groups:

1.Referential identity proper;

2.Partial identity;

3.Semantic affinity.

Referential identity proper

To the first group belong isotopic chains whose second component brings nothing new about the identity referred to be the first component (e.g. informatively empty pronominal repetition).

The referential identity proper group is covered by:

a) recurrence (repetition of the same word or phrase);

b) pronominalization (anaphoric and less often, cataphoric);

c) ellipsis;

d) synonyms (with non-sharp borderline towards hyponymy and hyperonymy)

Partial identity is based on the principle of synonymic substitution:

a) one entity is referred to by a proper name, the other by a common noun;

b) the substitutive relation is based on the hierarchical structure of vocabulary;

c) the relation is based on metaphor (if the metaphor stands in “component one” position, then the non-metaphorical “component two” deciphers the metaphor; if it stands in “component two position”, the metaphorical expression normally contains a signal of identification;

d) the choice of “component two” is motivated by the content of the preceding context: “on a chilly day a sparrow was sitting on the wall. The poor creature was shivering” /

The isotopic relation of semantic affinity includes:

- semantic cognation (similarity);

- semantic contiguity.

It is based on the inner organization of vocabulary.

E.g.

Referential identity proper:

“That’s a different thermometer. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it’s ninety-eight (E. Hemingway)”

Partial identity

“The last blot fell on the soaked blotting paper, and the draggled fly lay in and did not stir. The back legs were stuck to the body; the front legs were not to be seen” (K.Mansfield).

Semantic affinity

“Old Woodifiled paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver of eyelids showed that he heard”(K.Mansfield).

Logical connecters link whole clauses, or propositions. They are classified into separate types. Like isotopic relations, logical relations can be expressed by with or without grammatical signals. The well-known indicators of logical relations are conjunctions. Conjunctive elements are cohesive not in themselves but indirectly but virtue of their specific meaning. The simple form of conjunction is and. When the “and” relation operates between sentences, it is usually restricted to just a pair of sentences. This provides an indication of the difference between “and” as a structural coordinate relation and “and” as a cohesive (additive one).

e.g.: “He was critical about women. A single defect – a thick ankle, a hoarse voice, a glass eye was enough to make him utterly indifferent. And here far the fist time in his life he was beside a girl who seemed the incarnation of physical perfection”. (F.S. Fitzgerald).

In this paragraph, one clause is linked with a conjunction; introduced by ‘and’, it stands in contrast to “he was critical about women. A single defect..”. The first two sentences are linked without a logical connector; both of them are explanatory of what is stated in the third sentence.

Logical relations between sentences include:

- enumeration;

- addition;

- transition;

- summation;

- concession and some others.

Enumerative conjuncts (“furthermore, far more importantly, etc.”) indicate a listing of what is being said. Additive adjuncts specify that part of the sentence is an addition to what has been previously implied. Concessive conjuncts signal the unexpected, surprising nature of what is being said. An inference from what is implicit in the preceding sentence or sentences can be indicated by an inferential conjunct [Quirk et al, 1982: 251-256]. Let us illustrate the logical relations of result and enumeration:

“So now it was all over he thought. So now he would never had a chance to finish it. So this way the way it ended in a bickering over a drink” (E.Hemingway).

2.5. “Centrifugal” and “centripetal” forces within a work of art. Notions of prospection and of retrospection. A text’s divisibility and coherence are directly related to the exertion of its centrifugal and centripetal forces. On the one hand, a text is not homogeneous: in it different plot lines are being developed, topics intermingled, points of view changed, different stylistic devices introduced. Thus, the text is getting loose due to centrifugal forces dominating. On the other hand, all these means are submitted to carrying out a single overall task: segments scattered all over the text unite through their reference to a common character, to a common local and spatial continuum. In such a way centripetal forces actively come into play. The availability of these two oppositely directed forces can be explained due to the ontological discrepancy between a text’s linear unfolding and the multidimensional nature of reality it is reflective of.

The major centripetal force contributing to a fictional text’s coherence is that is its plot consecutive development. On the contrary, the plot’s diffusivity results in the prevalence of centrifugal forces. Repetition turns out to be the basic means of their neutralization and establishment of coherence. There is no by accident that the modernist prose aimed to show the world as chaos abounds in repetitions. Without moving forward the narration, they prevent it from dissipation as a reader is returned to the work’s objective pivot.

The inevitable and insoluble unity of centrifugal and centripetal forces is brightly expressed through textual categories of prospection and retrospection. The term of “prospection” stands for the plot’s “cataphoric” movement forward, while retrospection is that is the “anaphoric” movement back to some initial point. As a rule, the fictional world is reflective of the real world’s consecutive development. Thus the cataphoric type of the plot organization prevails. At the same time, the cases of prospection and retrospection are quite frequent.

In a narrow sense, prospection is observed as the “flash-forward” anticipation of future events, while the retrospection is the turn back to some events, which took place in the past – a “flash-back”. Both of them violate the local-spatial continuum; tear up immediate meaningful ties of two contact utterances. Nevertheless, thanks to the scrupulous

E.g. "Не strode into the living room feeling very cohesion, a “bridge” to the preceding (or following) segment is established. brisk and competent. He could not know, of course, that when Louise did get home he would be out cold on the divan" (R.P.Warren, “The Cave”).

The main signal of anticipating prospection is the change of the grammar tense: namely it’s turn to the future form. Additionally, such lexical indicators are frequent as: “much later”, “it will be not once that”, etc.

There is practically no fictional text without retrospection. Its forms and duration are often to change but signals of introduction remain such as:

1) words of the thematic group of “memory”, “reminiscence”, etc.;

2) grammar tense of Past Perfect;

3) adverbs of place and time “then”, “there”, etc.

Although differently directed in temporal and ideal sense, prospection and retrospection have common characteristics:

- Both categories deal with the partial sense repetition: at first the information is presented in a folded way; then it is being unfolded.

- Both of them carry out the function of informative and sentimental enriching the present. Violating the present’s unity, they nonetheless make for its connection to the past and future.

- Both of them enable the effect of multidimensionality of the text’s main substantial universals: Human, Time, and Space.

2.6. Anthropocentricity of a work of fiction and its local and temporal reference of a work of fiction. Every communicative unit is considered within a triangle of “I – now - here”. In he head of the system there is Man – a personage, a character. Whatever and whenever done in the text is dedicated to a better characterizing of a Man. Let through a character’s outlook, time and space in a work of fiction merge into an indivisible unity called “chronotop”.

E.g. "At a little town of Vevey, in Switzerland... the shore of the lake... hotels... at that time..." (J.Joyce).

Expression of time in a fictional text is characterized by interesting regularities:

- An extended system of English grammar tenses allows reducing a number of lexical temporal markers. Indication of time as such takes a little volume within the text: At noon, in summer. Writers often find them sufficient and come at once to the descriptions of nature, men, actions, etc.

- Fictional time does not exist separately from a person perceiving it.

- Fictional time as a form of substance is very much a subject to individual form of perception: the course of time is irregular: it can either fly or crawl.

- Represented in the text, the fictional time flows unevenly for a reader as well. Text segments abounding in events are perceived as dynamic and vice versa.

Space depicted in the fictional text is a relatively more independent phenomenon than the time is. Descriptions of place – the interior or the landscape can form relatively autonomous segments. However, the space in the art text is never free from a man’s presence. The phenomenon of all text categories’ submission to the task of characterizing a person results in the absolute anthropocentricity of a fictional text. Regardless of the theme, problem, plot etc. a man is always in the centre of the work of art, it being absolutely anthropocentric and local-temporal related.

2.7. Notion of concept, conceptuality of the text. Whatever is the type of linearly unfolded content and factual information, an author always submits it to the expression of the work’s main idea. Idea of the work formulated is called a concept. As far as the fictional discourse is concerned, one can find a text without a plot, without a clearly distinguished topic, etc. But there are no works without a concept. Implementation of social, moral, and aesthetic idea – a concept – by artistic means is the kernel of the creative process. Therefore, a concept’s compulsory availability – a fictional text’s conceptuality – can be considered its fundamental category. The whole of the interpretation process in fact can be represented as a meticulous search of language means expressive of the concept. The concept concentrates substantial results of the author’s mastering of reality and his/her massage.

The text’s concept is formed gradually. Every element introduced and functioning in the text (actualized language units as well as textual categories) serve to the common aim: a concept forming.

2.8. Heterogeneous multi-channel informative richness of the text. The obligatory availability of a concept accounts for a text’s exfoliation into several layers (informative channels):

1) The first one is that of content and factual information (CFI) (term by I.R. Galperin). This textual layer represents a substantial part of the com­munication and conveys the information in a linear way. Even incompetent readers can decipher CFI. Unfortunately, it often remains for them the only perceivable layer of fiction.

2) Content and factual information is not the purpose of the written communication. Just the other way round, it is but a means of conveying a deeper layer of conceptual information (CI). CFI compression will result in formulating the work’s topic, while CI compression gives the text’s idea.

3) There is a third layer of implication, an underlying message of the text. Being an undercurrent of the work of fiction, it gives it some additional depth and meaningfulness.

Linear, explicit and undercurrent informational flows are directed to form the layer of conceptual information. Proceeding form the abovementioned, V.A.Kuharenko states that the informativeness of a work of fiction (as a text category) should be defined as a heterogeneous multi-channel informativeness, which is only directed to the disclosure of the text’s concept.

2.9. Systemacy of a work of fiction. The fact that local and global, micro- and macro means of the text submit to the fulfillment of a single task provides for their close interrelations and connections – i.e. systemacy, which also is a categorical indication of a work of fiction:

- No element of the system exists by itself and for it self: every one is included into the unite system, which is created and acts to pursue a single goal.

- The system of a fictional text is a close one. Not a single bit of it is a subject to further development, excerption or substitution.

- The only variable part of the written communication is a reader. Multiple interpretations are only the evidence of the perception culture evolution. The work is ever closed and completed. In other words, the closeness of the text’s system is fully stipulated by an author’s intention and deals with the completion of the text generating process.

2.10. Category of unity (completion) of a work of fiction. The idea of a text’s system being closed correlates with the category of integrity as inherent in the whole of the text. In this way one can tell the text from a non-text. All the above mentioned text categories such as divisibility and coherence, prospection and retrospection, informativeness, local and temporal reference can be as well found on the lower syntactical level. On the contrary, both conceptuality and integrity are only peculiar to the whole of the text. An author-dependent intentional completeness of a text gives it a modal and pragmatic orientation. The author is a sole master here, for he/she decides where to put the full stop. This means that the concept is formed, the way to its understanding traced, the communication is over, and the system – closed.

2.11. Category of modality of a work of art. Modality is an invariable category of a fictional text. As well as there are no stylistically neutral texts, there are no texts deprived of modality. This is ontologically inherent in the text because it is a result of an author’s subjective reflection on reality. Everyone is highly selective while constructing his/her world picture. No one is able to embrace all the signs of all the objects. That’s why everyone picks out of this endless multitude those ones which fit to his/her outlook on life.

Accordingly, the modality of the text is not only displayed through modal and appraisal words (although they are very important to indicate the signs of author’s modality) but also through the choice of characteristics to represent some objects; through the choice of objects of narration reflective of an author’s milieu and world picture. The text modality comes into play before the text is created: it presumably starts from the first act of an author’s choice – that of a work’s topic and idea. Along with conceptuality, it stipulates all the stages of constructing the fictional reality, all the stages of selecting extralinguistic and linguistic material suiting for the work.

2.13. Pragmatic orientation of a work of art. A text’s pragmatic orientation (i.e. the inducement of the readers’ reactions) is very closely connected to the modality and conceptuality of the text. All the texts of all genres and functional styles account for the reciprocal action of their addressee, for a perlocutive effect (coming after illocution – a speech act). This reciprocal action can be either an outwardly expressed deed, or a speech act, or possibly, a “soul” action – a change of mind, feelings, and outlook on life.

The fiction is mostly oriented on the latter effect. The pragmatic orientation of text is established through such an organization of the textual system elements, which provides for readers’ attraction to the author’s side and convincing in author’s position (expressed through the concept).

The pragmatic orientation of the text can be expressed explicitly, when an author directly addresses the reader, invites him/her to follow the reasoning. “Dear reader” is kind of old-fashioned clichés for the purpose. However, even our contemporary, John Fowles actively persuades the reader to confirm righteousness of his words: "I would have you share my own sense" (The French Lieutenant's Woman).

More frequently, the author’s pragmatic purpose is realized not through the specially expressed reader’s involvement in the system of his arguments, but through the actualization of such elements of artistic structure, which can exert the maximum impact on the reader.

Basic Models of Spin Coating

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1357