Linguistic and creative aspects of representation of the macroconcept of life in the wordplay poetics of the story 'The Circle' by V.V. Nabokov

Abstract

This paper is based on a detailed analysis of the representation of the concept of circle as a component of the macroconcept of life in the poetic wordplay of the story “The Circle” ('Krug') by V.V. Nabokov. In the light of the theory of wordplay poetics, the following non-standard ways of representing the macroconcept of life were revealed: the absence of the concept nominee in the studied direction of association; the involvement of etymological data of the key representative and semantically related associates. The method of N.S. Bolotnova's associative layer analysis was used to identify implicit meanings and to reveal key elements that can be helpful in decoding the wordplay of the text. It was found that the core of the macroconcept of life is based on the conceptual metaphor “life – circle”, which is characteristic of the Russian linguistic view of the world. The areas of association were singled out by the method of association analysis of the concept and divided into separate blocks, each representing one of the semes (elements of the meaning of the concept of circle) in the story “The Circle” and connected with implicit associations. Taken together, they provide V.V. Nabokov's complete individual view of the macroconcept of life. The obtained results demonstrate the idiosyncratic character of V.V. Nabokov's prose. By means of the wordplay poetics of the story “The Circle”, the concept of life reflects the individual view of the world by V.V. Nabokov, and the axiological layer of the concept translates the author's philosophical views on life.

Keywords

• v.v. nabokov
• idiostyle
• creative linguistic personality
• playful poetics
• macroconcept
• literary concept
• associative semantic field