LANGUAGE AS A SYMPHONY: A POETIC VISION OF THE SAUSSUREAN LINGUISTICS


2016. № 1 (7), 111-120

Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract:

The article discusses the word-symbol music and its interaction with metadiscursive(that is to say calling and identifying speech acts) words silence, whisper, babble, talk, voice, which, in turn, are associated with Saussurean triad langue – language – parole. The author concludes that music is associated with related “language/languages” and “image of the world”, and with “speech” and “speech activity”, allowing the world to talk about itself, and the poet to narrate about the world. “Subject” forms of each of the three levels correspond to the signs of the world reality, exposed to the poetic transformation, and their embodiment in imagination and poetic thinking. The article also analyzes statistical data: the frequency of the word-symbol music is equal to the sum of the frequencies of occurrences of wordssymbols silence, whisper, voice and talk, which are independent but interactive “musical” components. Such understanding of music corresponds to the Saussurean view of language as a symphony implementation of which does not depend on the manner of its execution. The study is based on the Russian poetry of XVIII–XXI centuries, presented in the National corpus of the Russian language.