Russian Language Studies (Dec 2016)
LITERARY TEXTBY N.S. LESKOV AS A SYSTEM OF LANGUAGE MEANS
Abstract
The article gives a linguistic and stylistic analysis of N.S. Leskov’s fiction. One of the main ambitions of the author is to reveal the possible correlation between the language features of N.S. Leskov’s heroes and the Russian cultural tradition of the past. Some original and vivid examples of the speech of representatives of specific Russian professions and estates are analyzed as well as linguistic parallels between complicated church language and the writer’s system of stylistic devices are defined. We show new interlinks between historic, linguistic and literary aspects of the text and especially N.S. Leskov’s unusual world as a form of culturally-historically determined consciousness. We pay special attention to Old Slavonic «experiment» in Leskov’s texts and skaz , polyphony of names of his heroes and writers’ examples of folk etymology. We came to the conclusion that in The Notes of the Unknown different stylistic and linguistic devices are combined.
