Units of Cultural Code as an Exponent of the Author’s View of the World in M. Stepnova’s Novel “Surgeon”

Abstract

One of the topics relevant today regarding the peculiarities of the author’s discourse is the codes of culture, common to native speakers of the same language, but gaining originality in the artistic text. In the selection of units of language, their obvious thematic proximity and concentration, in their content, refracted by the writer’s vision, the originality of the word master is manifested. The novel «Surgeon» by M. Stepnova, one of the prominent writers of our time, has not yet been considered from the point of view of the peculiarities of understanding the vital subject area. The analysis of the novel is aimed at determining the functions performed in the text by units of gastronomic code, such as the names of dishes, drinks, products and their various characteristics. This allowed us to see that the use of edible nominations is one of the striking features of the writer’s style. The meal, as the author shows, occupies a significant place in the value system of the representatives of the older generation of the Khripunovs, and its features were most directly reflected in the formation of the personality and fate of their son - the main character of the story. The theme of food runs through the whole novel: it participates in showing the lifestyle and welfare of the characters, mentality and social position, the nature and motivation of actions, relationships between people, and meeting family members at a common table becomes a measure of the well-being of the family hearth. The author’s amazing skill manifests itself in showing both mouth-watering food and a food nightmare - fatty or sweet; these two vectors in the development of the gastronomic theme are the main ones in the novel, and it was gastronomy that influenced the choice of the main character of the life path. The sweet motif is most widely represented in the novel; it participates in the presentation of events, causal relationships and plot twists - the ostentatious concern of parents for their unloved son, the honey-unnatural manner of behavior and speech of the characters, the rejection of a woman because of her fundamentally different taste preferences, etc. Food code units are used both in direct meanings - when showing «non-conceptual» food, and take on an ideological, figurative and plot-forming function in the text of the novel.

Keywords

• linguacultural codes
• gastronomic code
• contextual meaning