RANGES OF FIGURATIVE ANALOGIES (V. NABOKOV: SELF-PRESENTATION; SEARCH OF IDIONORM)


2022. № 1 (31), 220-228

V. V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract:

«Idiolect» is a linguistic reality accessible to direct observation. Unlike the concept of «style», the idiolect is less complicated by semantic variations: created by the model of the word «dialect», the idiolect is focused on fi nding a speech portrait of the creator of the text. In our case, we are talking about V. V. Nabokov. The author stands against dogmatically unambiguous understanding of the genre, recreating his own biography as an abstract combination in which the lived (real) and imaginary (attributed to the characters) are synthesized. Nabokov convinces his addressee: to reproduce what is forgotten (a fragment from a text or a «fragment» of being), a hint of one or two words is enough for our memory. The role of prompters in such cases can be performed by: (1) the very fact of the proximity of verbal units; (2) acoustic impressions determined by the phonic properties of these units; (3) visual images that simulate the work of visual and other analyzers. Assessing his own idionorm (position from the inside), the writer is able to show insight no less than a professional psychologist — an observer from the outside, whose language is devoid of metaphor that captures the subtleties of a symptom. In a metaphorical experiment, our consciousness transcends the boundaries between ab- straction and the object; thought makes a «leap» into an alien area, affi rming analogy without regard to the degree of similarity. The experimental metaphor is geared towards the immediate sensory response of the addressee. The study involves new materials con- fi rming the correlation of speech pattern with the characteristics of the individual mind of a person who rejects the replicated techniques of visualization. Nabokov convinces the reader that the language itself provides us with “software” that does not limit the creative initiative of the performer of speech acts, a communicant in the broad sense of the word. Nabokov’s text is an authoritative source, rich in material for the dictionary of the writer’s metaphors.