LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL STUDIES: THE QUEST FOR NEW IDEAS

The article highlights the principles of researching into text from the interdisciplinary linguistic and cultural perspective. Cognitological analysis of linguistic and extralinguistic cultural meanings reveals that there exist of specific linguistic and aesthetic formations best presented through the ‘language – culture – identity’ triad. One of the components of literary discourse is monocultural layer, which secures the continuity of national cultural tradition; researching into it, one should take into account mental and historical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and other factors. Linguistic and aesthetic analysis helps to establish the system of linguistic and cultural means (metaphorization, imagery, verbal symbols, linguistic conceptualization, connotative meanings), which reveals its potential in literary texts. The lingual identity as a general notional category shows its nationally-oriented characteristics through the dichotomies of ‘addresseraddressee’ , ‘author-reader’, ‘narrator-narratee’ and is presented in the author’s idiolect.

The sign of the time for the world linguistics is the development of fields which overlap with other spheres of scientific knowledge forming new areas of research such as psycholinguistics, sociolinguistic, ethnolinguistics, linguistic philosophy, lingual cognitology, linguistic pragmatics, linguistic and cultural studies, hermeneutics.It is rather difficult, moreover, it hardly makes any sense to limit a research to one of these areas if a researcher relies on the linguistic paradigm employing methods of different fields.The decisive factor here is new complex approaches to the analysis of many conventional ideas, which ensures new resources of knowledge.
The 21 st century linguistic and cultural studies have developed their own analytical approach relying on the achievements of both fields of knowledge; furthermore, they show evidence of syntheticism involving at least two more theories -cognitology and pragmatics.Anthropomorphism as a core humanistic monocategory has significantly affected our perception of the concept of the individual as a unity of mental and historical, psychophysiological and global social hypostasises.
The linguistic factor within this holistic approach carries out the function of some structural core, the driving force of narration, since language as the fundamental property of text reflects the whole spectrum of ways to convey personal and social, national and global, familial and regional meanings.Today the picture of the world is perceived as a complex phenomenon due to the combination of scientific conceptual and linguistic approaches to the study of its representations; furthermore, it is getting increasingly more complex owing to the ambiguity of globalization processes and to the partial removal of traditional world-view barriers.Language as a relevant factor in creating text and communicating meaning rises in status, which is predetermined by its role in the world tendencies of cultural and linguistic expansions and by inter-lingual contacts and correlations.
At the same time, regarding culture as an extralinguistic correlate of language and the national individual in the system of material and spiritual values [4] presupposes addressing a complex of problems related to the description of nationally-oriented artistic phenomena -representations of mental categorization.Seeking answers to these inner contradictory, as they may be, questions, linguistic and cultural approach requires the inclusion of both linguistic and extralinguistic segments of culturological meaning in the integrated semiotic paradigm.Such an interpretation of a new approach involves the analysis on the level of 'linguistic and aesthetic signs' *7] comprising deep rather than surface knowledge and meanings.
The introduction of the notion of 'linguocultureme' as a unit of linguistic and cultural approach does not ease the problem caused by the general complexity of the interdisciplinary subject.The problem persists, firstly, owing to the fact that essential parameters of such a unit are not clearly defined (should we apply the structural organization criterion and define it as word, word combination, statement?or should we adopt the semantic qualification criterion and speak about meaning, shades of meaning, all kinds of semantemes, lexical and semantic groups, semantic fields?);secondly, due to the fact that the very principle of interpretation of initial verbal material presupposes taking into account heterogeneous categorical properties of text.Thus irrespective of the length of a verbal form, which, on the one hand, has to be minimized for the purpose of research, and on the other hand, has to be sufficient to give relevant information about interrelation of the elements of the 'culture-language -identity' triad, this analysis is aimed at nationally-defined linguistic and aesthetic criteria in the semantic network of cultural and conceptual content.
Generally speaking, it is about the word functioning in its natural cultural environment, when we take into account versatile factors in text formation such as metaphorization, imagery, symbolization, conceptualization, cognitological and pragmatic constituent, associative and evaluative connotation, 'vertical context', allusive and antinomic parallels and other means employed to create linguistic and aesthetic potential of text.Here it is worth while presenting H.-G. Gadamer's idea about literary texts in which the connection between linguistic and cultural traditions becomes especially evident; such texts require other than traditional approaches, which are suggested by our experience and produce predictable results, for literary text as a linguistic work of art requires creative perception, which is the initial stage of a long and repeated effort of comprehension [Hermenentics: 1986].Text, literary text in the first place, is the basic substance as a whole in its uncountable and, at the same time, definite representations; according to R. Barthes, 'intertextual text is woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages (what language is not?)' *1].
The inclusion of another constituent -the individual -in linguistic and cultural context, firstly, takes the analysis to the level of cognition of national linguistic structure; it is mainly about linguistic activity of an individual as a representative of the national linguistic and cultural psychological type; secondly, it presupposes the presence of the addresser -addressee dichotomy (narrator and narratee, the author and a reader / listener); thirdly, it highlights the verbal image of the author with their Iconcept and verbal images of intended recipients of textual information; fourthly, it allows for the possibility that the author and their addressees may approach a text from different perspectives (it is a well-known fact that the author's interpretation of their text may disagree with that of other speakers of the language).It should also be taken into account that in terms of linguistic and aesthetic qualification, the distance between the author and a reader / listener may result in the alienation problem; according to М. Heidegger, it is the appearance of a 'stranger' -a strange soul, solitary and self-sufficient in its interpretation of a text: 'Something solitary', 'something strange' can mean something single, which is occasionally 'solitary', which happens in some special and restricted sense to be 'strange' *5].Nevertheless, despite possible differences in text interpretation by the addresser and an addressee, the thing they have in common is linguistic and mental, linguistic and cultural, linguistic and psychological 'demiurg'.
Linguistic and cultural analysis based on a web of heterogeneous verbal complexes (including culturemes) is carried out from different scientific perspectives and on different scientific levels.In terms of cognitology, the discussed approach presupposes the fulfillment of tasks with different degrees of complexity: it is a way from the scope of vocabulary to the parameters of national culture, and the reverse one, from features of culture to their verbal expression; the latter is more complicated because of a variety of possible interpretations of traditional national forms (everyday life, rituals, etc.); both principles of analysis aim at establishing the way to achieve a linguistic and aesthetic effect.In studying such symbiotic processes, analysis of the linguistic constituent proper does not take the research beyond the semantic interpretation of language units.
Text creation -as well as discourse analysis -involves considering all the structurally determined and semantically fixed parameters of word and taking into account its direct and indirect, connotative meanings.A notable example here is attempts at text analysis based on the properties of so called key words.А. Wierzbicka, researching into deep relations between key words and cultural environment, states that the purpose of her analysis is not to 'But the question is not how to ‚prove‛ whether or not a particular word is one of the culture's key words, but rather to be able to say something significant and revealing about that culture by undertaking an in-depth study of some of them.If our choice of words to focus on is not ‚inspired‛ we will simply not be able to demonstrate anything instead' *3].Obviously, the researcher's goal is to establish the specific cultural components of word meaning which would extend our knowledge of the semantic structure of word.
Let us consider some texts whose linguistic and cultural contexts contribute to the process of extension of word meaning.For instance, 'Словник української мови' ('The Ukrainian Language Dictionary') defines the lexeme деревій (yarrow) as 'a fragrant medicinal herb of the Compositae family' *12], thus the word does not have any connotative features.Meanwhile in literary texts, the word acquires numerous additional meanings.The very mention of the 'fragrance' of the plant can bring about a linguistic and aesthetic effect.In Lina Kostenko's poem, for example, yarrow 'aroma' conjures up an image of Ukrainian steppe with its specific touch of freshness so evident to the national consciousness,
Used together with the Dnieper and steppe, yarrow is perceived as a culture sign; the attribute smoke-grey adds to its poetic image; cf.stylistically neutral yarrow shows white in O. Honchar's text, 'Де-не-де біліє деревій, жовтіє безсмертник, пахнуть, сохнуть від спеки васильки, ще не зчесані металом' / 'Here and there yarrow shows white, immortelle shows yellow, there comes the smell of cornflowers, dry with heat, not cut off with metal yet'.
In 'Деревій' ('Yarrow'), a short story by H. Tiutiunnyk, the word yarrow represents a poetic image and acquires numerous connotative meanings; it is turned into the central means of text formation, into a symbolic word, which affects the whole semantic structure of the author's discourse.The central character of the short story is Danylo Koriak, a peasant who takes a job of a caretaker; moving to a lodge, he takes care to make a bunch of yarroow.This is a kind of exposition of the story; then there comes a detailed description of the character's emotional state and his attitude to the plant, 'До деревія у Данила пристрасть мало кому зрозуміла, і те, що він понад усе любить деревіїв дух, пояснюють одним: змалечку Коряк чинбарував з батьком, то й звик, щоб у хаті міцним, колючим, як нашатир, дубовим настоєм пахло.Сам же Данило каже: ‚Мені воно що мочений дуб, що деревій -як ладан, тільки краще, бо аж здоровля прибуває …‛' / 'Danylo has a passion for yarrow, which few can understand; they come with one explanation for his liking yarrow's aroma more than anything in the world: as a child, Koriak helped his father to make medicines and dyestuffs, so he got used to the smell in his house, sharp as ammonia, strong as oak infusion.Danylo himself says, ‚For me either of them, yarrow or wetted oak, is just like incense, better even, 'cause it's good for your health <‛' Interesting are the author's remarks here: it is more than a pleasant smell, it is passion, something few can understand; Danylo likes the yarrow aroma more than anything in the world (a contextual hyperbole; the finishing 'touch' in praising yarrow is comparing it to the church incense, 'better even', says the character (the highest praise in his opinion).
As the story goes on, the poetic image of yarrow develops into an element of the plot.Having moved to the lodge, Danylo gets down to work, he has to 'розтикати попід стелею деревій, щоб зміцнити вологий весняний дух у своїй загородці, де примістка' / 'stick branches of yarrow in the cracks of the ceiling in order to make a damp spring air in a corner behind the partition where he is going to sleep still stronger'; '…найприємніше йому робота -розперезати снопик деревію і ощадливо, по одній стеблині уквітчати ним стіни, низеньку стелю, холодні темні кубіки, а тоді сісти на коритце, перекинуте догори дном, і дихати, дихати так розкішно, глибоко, що аж у грудях щем …' / '< the most pleasant work for him to do is to untie a bunch of yarrow and carefully, stem by stem, to adorn with it the walls, the low ceiling, the cold, dark cubicles, and then to sit down on an upturned small tub and to breathe in this luxury, to take such deep breath it wrings his heart <' (in this context, new components of the word meaning -'adornment', 'comfort' -are revealed).H. Tiutiunnyk ends his short story on a poetic, though a slightly sad note, 'І грудям дихалося легко, просторо, тільки щеміло там щось на самісінькому дні …' / 'His chest breathed easily, deeply; only there was this pang deep inside, at the very bottom of his heart <' Yarrow as an imagery word, as a symbolic name acquires numerous connotations: 'aroma of living nature', 'an adornment used in the absence of other decorations', 'the best thing in the life of a peasant', 'a reminder of approaching old age', 'a medication that gives strength'.After all, the concept word yarow is an element of the semantic and conceptual field of 'flora' as a discourse line of numerous verbal representations (oaks, meadows, grassy ditches, grass, acorns, forest, hazel, lilies of the valley, nettle, leaves, stumps, mushrooms, flowers, 'frog's soap', irises, larkspurs, bludder nuts, poplars, young oaks, ash-trees, buds, willow, hay, acacia, seeds, bush, bird-cherry tree, branches, apple-tree, pear-tree, blackthorn, brushwood, maple leaf, bird-cherry blossom, steppe); moreover, the motifs of деревій (yarrow) and дерево (tree) are rather close in the text ('сонечко вимахне з-за дерев' / 'the sun will jump up from behind the trees').Tiutiunnyk's narrative creates a typified verbal picture of Ukrainian rural environment marked with highly poetic evaluative elements.
This seemingly traditional, 'common-people-oriented' presentation reveals the true culturological meaning of the text: one can find happiness only being close to nature, the world beyond nature is not interesting, it is almost illusory (for instance, Danylo 'does not notice', his 'chief', 'Та, кажу, може б, і признав, якби ж трохи далі стояли' / 'I say, might have recognized you if you'd been standing a bit further').Aloofness from life beyond his secluded lodge (the character hastens back home only when his family come over) is the core of his mentality rather than evidence of critical attitude to reality.
A contemporary tendency towards the use of many dated words, genuinely Ukrainian phrases and forms in the literary Ukrainian language modifies the general linguistic and cultural background of belles-lettres texts.For instance, Ivan Drach in his poem 'Берло' ('Sceptre'), which gave the name to the whole collection of poems (Kyiv, 2007), uses an obsolete word берло ('a stick decorated with gems and carving, a symbol, a sign of power' *12]) to convey the idea of the sovereignty of Ukraine, The word became the sceptre'.
The name of the ancient symbol of power is used to highlight the idea of sovereignty, which has deep historical roots.For the poet берло / sceptre is not just an object that symbolizes power, it is associated with the word as the sign of unbreakable spirit of our ancestors, who through the word passed down the idea of our independence,
Interestingly enough, the author has unearthed a forgotten symbolic name for the historical concepts of glory, bravery and dignity; a much more common word for the symbol of power -булава / mace -does not serve the author's purpose; instead, he uses the word which, alongside корона / crown, держава / orb, скіпетр / sceptre, belongs to the semantic field of 'statehood'; cf.'Чи заздрість тобі на сю корону, сю багряницю, сеє берло?' / 'Do you crave this crown, this crimson robe of state, this sceptre?' (Lesia Ukrainka).The poetic image, the symbol communicated via the word expresses the preconceived idea about the role and the importance of language as an integral component of Ukrainian world and consciousness.The word has become the sign of national identity, mental selfsufficiency.
Different approaches to generalized knowledge, to cognitological basis of meaning reveal themselves in textological presentations of ethnical and cultural essence.Researches can be conducted in terms of the transition from the declared conceptual interpretation of a verbally expressed notional content to its presentation in the form of literary images -linguistic and aesthetic signs.The totality of linguistic and cultural interpretations of meanings contained in general discourse suggests that the basic principle of text aesthetics is gradual rising from particular textual phenomena to the peaks of conceptualization.Reflection about text, literary text in the first place, its interpretation, moving through the density of textual material leave some 'excess'.According to R. Bart, 'the text cannot stop at the end of a library shelf, for example; the constitutive movement of the text is a traversal (traverse: it can cut across a work, several works)' *1].
The quest for the truth, justice, high spirituality is an integral part of the Ukrainian people's mentality; these basic concepts are reflected in the artistic and aesthetic practices of authors who dig deep through surface routine in order to make a philosophical generalization, to grasp a metaphysical, sometimes a transcendent 'clot' of meaning (cf. a popular definition by Yu. S. Stepanov, 'Concept is some sort of ‚a bundle‛ of culture in human consciousness, it is the form culture takes in the mental world of an individual' *13]. For instance, in Yevhen Hutsal's short story 'Удосвіта' / 'At Dawn' the development of transcendental ontological idea of existence is revealed through emotional state of the central character and his clearly defined national I-concept.The cognitive characteristics of the environment are systemically organized in the text: at first, the author describes a road across the fields at dawn, along which dreams creep -the dream of wormwood, the dream of cornflowers, the dream of chicory; along the road 'дрімають чебрець, материнка, чорнобиль, шипшина, стоять без плескoту жита й пшениці' / 'there doze thyme, oregano, green ginger, hedge rose, rye and wheat stand still making no ripple'.In this sleepy still of dawn, the author sees the images of mythical beings -a field fairy, the field queen, 'чи просто живого химерного духу' / 'or just a living chimerical spirit'; they remind him of pagan times, it is a pity that 'не повернутись пантеїстичній (і такій у своїй основі правдивій і поетичній) релігії твого народу' / 'there is no return to the pantheistic (and so truthful and poetic in essence) religion of your people'.Then in his imagination 'зеленкувате склепіння неба стає схоже на храм, який вищає і вищає, світлішає, набирає урочистості, і не байдужої, а такої, що пробуджує холодок захоплення в тобі, а в зіницях запалює іскри' / 'the greenish vault of the sky starts looking like that of a temple, it gets increasingly higher, lighter, more solemn without becoming remote or indifferent; you feel coolness of admiration, and your eyes start to spark'.The author goes on with his story, 'Славно тоді в цьому велетенському храмі, і гарні думки приходять в голову, й молишся безмовно, щоб хоч трохи дорівнятись до цієї чистоти, щоб хоч дещицю вкласти собі в душу цієї непорочності, добра й любові, які панують у природі' / 'You feel good in this huge temple, nice thoughts come into your mind, and you pray silently to get at least some of this purity, to put into your heart at least an infinitesimal part of this innocence, goodness and love you see in nature'.
The author leads his reader from awareness of the primacy of nature to cognition of its archetypal essence; hence his interpretation of mythology, his idea of spiritual temple which brings about high thoughts and worshiping nature as the embodiment of the uppermost substance -faith; the author evidently regards faith in terms of Hegel's philosophy 'as innate spiritual capability of the human soul to know the secret layers of existence, to mystically (intently) stay within the object of cognition and to intuitively comprehend its essence' *10].Interestingly, Ye.Hutsal sees connection between the poetic world of nature and the beliefs of his people, their cherishing high moral values -innocence, goodness and love.
Therefore temple is not so much 'a place which evokes elevation of thought and feeling of loftiness and beauty' *12+ as a symbol of eternity, spirituality, faith and beauty *Кононенко 2013: р. 75-76, 130].
The key word and the symbolic structures of the-temple-of-the-soul type are units of one semantic/conceptual fields, 'Так у храмі душі моєї / Незнищенно живее твій образ' ('So in the temple of my soul / Indestructably your image lives') (I.Kachurovskyi), собори наших душ (the temples of our souls) (O.Honchar) and so forth.And so it goes, from text to literary image, metaphor; from these to generalization, which accumulates people's ideas and beliefs, the latter creating the national verbal picture of the world.Poeticalization, conceptualization of sacred names in Ukrainian discourse, which is a noticeable modern tendency, is obviously more than just a reaction to ideological prohibitions imposed by the totalitarian past, more than 'the fashion' for religious motifs; these attempts at new literature, not fully comprehended yet [cf. a comprehensive analysis of Ukrainian Christian poetry in: Розумний 1988-1989], are, first and foremost, a quest for new imagery to convey lofty ideas, spirituality, aesthetic feelings.
As to the discourse of modern Ukrainian authors (mostly poets), whose works are 'beyond tradition', it can be hardly regarded as independent verbal/stylistic continuum which goes against the general tendency of text creation; this type of discourse fits into the process of seeking new linguistic and literary forms; these works follow the pattern of Western European, mostly postmodern poetic speech.According to some researchers, the most prominent feature of these exercises is new metaphoricity, 'it might be surrealistically shrewd or take the form of an original, unexpected juxtaposition; it might be polyfunctional or presented as lines of metonymic comparisons' *2].
In spite of innovative 'tricks', coding and associative conventionality, the emergence of renovated poetic reality which relies on metaphorical imagery (metaphor can create reality in addition to conceptualizing the reality that already exists [16]) is a proof of conceptual existence of the Ukrainian word as a given.Attempts at new perception of linguistic and cultural world are just another way of showing it as that same reality; complicated and coded, it still does not give grounds for rejection of reflectively perceived linguistic reference.
Let us consider, for example, a text by a Ukrainian poet Vasyl Holoborodko; his poem 'Потрібненепотрібне' ('Useful -Useless') is built around the idea of bringing together the two antinomic concept words; their dualism is 'subconsciously' related to another pair of words, mushroom -holster.The story told by the character is rather simple: gathering mushrooms, he found a holster, which looked like a mushroom; inside there was the second holster which contained the third one and so on; the holsters were stuffed with some papers, which the character called 'непотріб' / 'useless stuff', 'папери так само мені не потрібні, адже ж не мені I have no use for the papers either, since not for me вони призначалися, тепер здогадуюся, що так само they were meant, now I guess that it was the same й унікальні на тій галявині гриби, with those unique mushrooms on that glade, складені із двох зрослих докупи маківок, which had two caps grown close together, не мені призначалися, хоч і були мені потрібні not for me [they] were meant, though I had a use for them'.
The underlying idea of the text is contrasting a useful natural product with an object for carrying a small gun (the contrast is emphasized through outward similarity of the glossy brown surface of the two objects and through the euphonic similarity between the two Ukrainian words -'гриб' (hryb) and 'кобура' (kobura)); so the author's verbal association carries him (and his reader) to the war time, though further context baffles a reader: it turns out that there are some useless papers in the mushroom-like holsters.Is it a hint that the very memories of the war are to be blotted out; that one should not write about it?Or is it a way to express a belief that people should live in harmony with nature and put everything else out of their heads?The poet does not forget about the holsters though he has no use for them; and then he realizes that he won't eat mushrooms, he does not need them either.So Holoborodko's poem calls up a whole range of associations that can explain both the 'coded' metaphorical text and modern perception of the world.
Complicated, exquisite, quaint, sometimes phantasmagorical poetic images, allusions, which probably are not fully comprehended by the authors themselves, antinomic overlay of meanings are the constructional elements of poetic texts, whose connection with Ukrainian culture is maintained through the definiteness of language.Consider, for instance, the following lines by Victor Kordun,

Задля жоржинності -
For the sake of dahlianessжоржиновий Христос dahlia Christ долонькою маленькою with a small palm of his hand геть відгортає землю moves the ground away від коріння жоржин from the roots of dahlias'.
It makes us pause -how should we decode this text?Evidently, it is about the beauty of life, admiration for nature which we worship in our hearts, that is why there appears dahlia Christ; he moves the ground away from the roots of dahlias in order to find the source of this perfection; the idea of this beauty, uniqueness, 'God's grace' is conveyed through the conceptualized notion of dahlianess.Such interpretation does not exclude the possibility of other points of view; it is quite probable that the sense of such allusions is in their polysemy, ambiguity, in seeking explanations for sacred mysteries.
The analysis of linguistic and aesthetic material from 'the-dialogue-of-cultures' perspective, intensive study of the new system of imagery might help to answer the question to what extent postmodern poetry influences the development of new literary language and style.
The introduction of intertextual component makes the linguistic and cultural aspects of text far more complicated; if the author's idiolect or a text conforming to general literary norms are overlaid with outer factors, it leads to interlacing elements of different textual backgrounds, to combining verbal complexes of different planes.A new text is good if it does not loose its inner integrity and if it meets unified linguistic and cultural requirements.
Literature usually follows some linguistic and aesthetic traditions as the expression of nationallyoriented literary discourse, though not in the sense of sticking to the general stylistic trend; rather some preference is given to some already tested verbal means and devices; furthermore, it does not mean that this tradition makes a text depersonalized.It is essential to recognize the influence of predecessors in the text continuum, not so mush in order to see textual parallels -a sign of continuity of literary process -as in order to reveal common culturological background of national literary tradition.Free to choose a literary trend, style, means of expression, a writer -even the one who strives originality, 'uniqueness' -remains within the bounds of generally accepted culture-oriented intertext; linguistic discourse is an important factor in establishing this general 'root'.According to V. Derzhavyn* [6], national literature could be created by means of another language; in our case, linguistic and cultural analysis proper can be carried out only on the basis of the Ukrainian literary material.
The peculiarity of linguistic and cultural studies, of literary criticism in particular, is predetermined by the very object of their research -the national linguistic aspect of culture (evidently, V. Derzhavyn applies this general principle of analysis).Such interpretation of linguistic and cultural approach allows for analysis of translinguistic influences and relations, in translations in particular; though in this case, the essential condition is the analysis of the recipient language (the Ukrainian language in Ukrainian linguistic and cultural studies), which allows of insertions of a donor language prototype.
For instance, having analyzed the texts of 'Faust' by Goethe and of 'Попіл імперій' ('The Ashes of the Empires') by Yurii Klen, I. Kachurovskyi found out 'a considerable number of imitations and borrowings which reveal themselves on different levels, from the vocabulary, the structure of the work, the technical means to philosophical and religious motifs' *8]; thus the researcher emphasized the need for complex linguistic and cultural analysis of both texts; otherwise 'it would be difficult to speak about Yurii Klen as a Ukrainian author' *8].Here a short story 'Фауст' ('Faust') by H. Kosynka is worth being mentioned.Kosynka's character, Prokip Koniushyn, does not bear any physical resemblance to the character of operatic performances; though the tragedy of this peasant is greater than that of Goethe's Doctor Faust.The linguistic and cultural context suggests that Prokip has nothing in common with the operatic Faust.The transformed metaphors of the Ukrainian texts are aimed at a particular linguistic and cultural effect in its national interpretation.
On the other hand, textological study of possible influences of a donor language on text involves the analysis of linguistic and cultural means, it presupposes highlighting donor text components and identifying their relation to linguistic and aesthetic structure of the basic narration.Let us consider Valerii Shevchyk's short story 'Samson' whose structural principles parallel those of a popular biblical story.A whole system of clear allusions helps to draw intertextual parallels; associations triggered by echoing the classical text are emphasized through numerous symbolic literary images.According to M. Eliade, 'myth gives people full assurance that whatever they are ready to undertake has already been done; it helps to resolve any doubt one might feel about the consequences of an action one is about to take' *14+; it means that the intersection of myth and historical narration is aimed at confirming the existence of some ultimate historical and cultural truths, ontological essence of human life.
V. Shevchuk's story is remarkably close to the biblical one: a giant of a man, who looks different <<._____________________________ *Cf.'<from the history of literature perspective, the identification of ‚national literature‛ as literature of a particular nation with ‚national literature‛ as literature in a particular language has proved to be wrong: the two notions hardly ever coincide; moreover, too often they turn out to be quite different [6, p. 54-55].
from other people, is made drunk, his long hair is cut (according to the myth, hair was the source of Samson's strength); he is blinded; like his biblical prototype, he defeats a lion.Despite obvious similarity to the biblical story, Shevchuk's character is perceived as a Ukrainian man who went by the name of Ivan.The reference backdrop reproducing typical Ukrainian environment, the semantics of text constituents, symbols and allegories, ethnolinguistic textual factors testify to the fact that, notwithstanding the general moral and ethical ambivalence of this work, it does not go beyond Ukrainian national mentality.
Shevchuk's text abounds in symbol words: long hair, eyes, horse, lion, wormwood, ferret, bees, honey are the imagery which create a metaphorical background of the text; therefore the story is perceived as a parable, an allegory, thus the desired linguistic and aesthetic effect is achieved.
The character's hair is an important symbol in the text, 'довге волосся віялося за спиною', 'віється за ним волосся' / 'his long hair streaming behind his back'; 'довжелезне волосся віялося за ним, неначе кінська грива' / 'very long hair was flying behind him like a horse's mane'; 'так розмаювалося волосся, що перехожий несвідомо ховався в канаві чи хлібі' / 'his hair flying so wide that a passerby instinctively hid in a ditch or the wheat'; in the latter case the word hair carries the connotation of force, threat.'Віючи широкими патлами' / 'His long disheveled hair flying all around him'; 'патла розвіювалися за ним, як кінська грива' / 'long disheveled hair flying behind him like a horse's mane'; 'різали ножами патла і виривали з голови разом зі шкірою' / 'cut off his long disheveled hair with their knives and tore it off together with the scalp'; 'Патли!Ріжте йому патли!' / 'Get his tresses!Cut off his tresses!'); the change of hair for contemptuous long disheveled hair, tresses (a woman's beautiful long hair) is a significant detail because this is how the sotnyk (lieutenant of cossacks) and the drunkards see it; then it is hair again -the sign of miraculous strength that was gone, 'лапнув за волосся й натрапив на щось чудне' / 'he clapped a hand over his hair, his head felt strange under his hand'.Thus the symbolic meanings of the words hair and long disheveled hair, his tresses reveal themselves, though they do not affect the plot; a reader is supposed to subconsciously comprehend the meaning of the symbols.
Extensive use of the symbolic image of eyes conveys the idea of unity between human and nature; though for the character, the loss of his eyes did not result in severing the ties with life or nature.Bees, honey are the symbols of goodness, friendliness; wormwood, of bitterness, sorrow; lion, of an enemy waylaying a man, sometimes pretending to be submissive and kind; horse is the embodiment of beauty, warmth, friendship; ferret is evil itself.
The 'friend -enemy / native -stranger' motif is one of the pillars of the story's conceptual structure; it has its verbal and aesthetic presentation in the text: Ivan as well as his horse 'belong here', the sotnyk is a stranger sent from some other place; the lion looks 'strange'; after all, Ivan himself is not Samson at all (the biblical name is used only in the title of the story).Consider some other concrete details: there are no noticeable difference in the speech of the characters, Ivan, the sotnyk, the scribe, the drunkards; when Ivan, feeling contented, was returning from Motria, the lion did not look like a wild animal to him, 'А з левової голови вилітали бджоли, а коли Іван нагнувся, запахло йому медом ' / 'And out of the lion's head there flew some bees; and when Ivan bent down, he caught the smell of honey'.The villagers consider Ivan to be 'дивак' / 'a strange guy', who 'майже ні з ким не балакає й не вітається' / 'hardly ever speaks to anyone here and never says hello'; so he is a real 'чужий' / 'stranger' opposed to the crowd with 'людські тіла й звірячі голови' / 'human bodies and the heads of beasts'.In this way, the author communicates the idea of incompatibility of an outstanding individual with 'others'; Ivan differs from the rest of the village, including the sotnyk; nobody tries to stop the latter when he is mutilating the giant, so these 'others' position themselves as Ivan's true enemy.Still, the best features of the people's character are indestructible -'І він пізнав нову силу, що з'явилась у глибині його єства, в глибині цього ранку й сонця' / Ivan the giant 'felt a new power that emerged in the depths of his nature, in the depth of this morning and this sun'.Thus so called 'vertical context' helps to reveal the concepts of 'friend and enemy', 'native and stranger'.
The linguistic identity in the widest sense of the word -as the creator of text, as an addressee who perceives linguistic and aesthetic content of text, as a character functioning in a given linguistic context -indirectly, though rather powerfully enters literary discourse.The formation of the image of the author -a perceptive lyrical writer or a sober realist, a modern poet or an adherent of phantasmagorical plot-making -is easily traced in the language and style of their work, as well as in the organization of text images.The author's linguistic and aesthetic principles affect the process of text creation; linguistic and cultural analysis of the classic national texts and valid generalizations about the nature of literary discourse enable a researcher to get adequate evidence of the nationality-conscious individual.Obviously, in order to draw correct and valid conclusions concerning outstanding achievements of Ukrainian linguistic and cultural monoparadigm, the linguistic and cultural status of the authors themselves has to be taken into account.It is the majesty of Text, its nationally-oriented hypostasis that is behind these attempts to 'make out' the personality of the author with their characteristic features of language and style.