PRECEDENT TEXT AND SEMANTIC TRANSFORMATIONS IN VICTOR PELEVIN’S 1991 SHORT STORY “BULLDOZER DRIVER’S DAY”


2023. № 2 (36), 349-355

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

Abstract:

The article introduces readers to the author’s phenomenon of lexico-semantic transformations in a literary text. Victor Pelevin creates a cultural and linguistic precedent for a positive change of consciousness by changing vocabulary in the widespread speech register of a commonly used language. The invaluable merit of the author is that he created a cultural and lexical precedent as a model for changing and improving consciousness by using a new version of emotional utterances in speech. The author makes a revolution in the reader’s mind, replacing physiological obscene vocabulary with socio-ideological, which brings language and thinking in line with reality. Without reference to physiology, the synchronous context and reality itself are actualized; the emotional value of the present is weakened through infernal images; the emphasis shifts to explicit realities; consciousness is harmonized and positivized. The article off ers a new genre identifi cation of the story as fantastic, since the narrative creates a new transcendent reality in the artistic space of the text. The ironic style, very precisely and successfully chosen by the author, is ideal for the genre of a fantastic story. The presence of the author is hidden and manifests itself in such implicit forms as creativity and creative intention in creating a new reality and a new consciousness by updating the language in the space of a literary text. The article also presents fragmentary observations and some partially systematized principles of semantic transformations and artistic transformations in the form of occasional neologisms, linguistic technologization, game reaching the balancing act, charades, as well as transparent names, actions and names with evaluative transformation in reference to the precedent text.