Some Examples of the Stylistic Use of Legal Terms in Marcel Proust’s Novel In Search of Lost Time

Abstract

The present article is devoted to the stylistic use of legal terms in Marcel Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time. After French jurist Gerard Cornu under a legal term we mean a multi-value word having at least one legal meaning, and under legal terminology and legal vocabulary we mean the totality of such words. The study of the role of such cases relies on the classification of figures by Swiss linguist Marc Bonhomme and on the study of figures by French linguist Georges Molinié. The author used the methods of lexical, semantic and stylistic analysis to show that Marcel Proust used single legal terms as well as terms of a concrete branch of law, and general legal terms in his texts. Legal terms function mostly within comparisons and metaphors. They can be limited to a single word, they can be realized in entire phrases or they can cover some paragraphs. The analyzed stylistic figures are all used to describe different social relations, such as between members of the narrator's family or between masters and servants, and also to show how some members of a society see other people. This fact confirms the affirmation of Pierre Assouline, French journalist and literary critic that social dimension, often underestimated, is very important in the novel.

Keywords

• metaphor
• image-bearing comparison
• stylistic figure
• legal lexis
• legal terminology
• legal terms
• Marcel Proust
• In Search of Lost Time