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Metaphorical models of the concept of "Longing" in the idiostyle of A. P. Platonov

Lyan Ilan'

Postgraduate student, Department of Russian Language and Literature, Far Eastern Federal University

690000, Russia, Vladivostok, 10, Russian Island str.

lyan.il@dvfu.ru
Anisova Anna Aleksandrovna

PhD in Philology

Associate Professor, Department of Russian Language and Literature, Far Eastern Federal University

690000, Russia, Vladivostok, Narodny Prospekt str., 51

anisann@list.ru

DOI:

10.25136/2409-8698.2024.5.70641

EDN:

RDOKTC

Received:

01-05-2024


Published:

08-05-2024


Abstract: The article is devoted to the identification and analysis of conceptual metaphors that are involved in the implementation of the concept of "Longing" in the works of A. P. Platonov. The subject of the study is the metaphorical models of the concept under study. At the present stage of linguistic science, metaphors are presented as complex phenomena that are not only a fact of language, but reflect the mechanisms of human consciousness and ideas about the world. Conceptual metaphors are considered as a special tool of human cognition, having a culturally archetypal nature. The mechanisms of perception lie in the subconscious of a person, at the level of which there are units of the mental level – concepts represented to a greater extent by conceptual (cognitive) metaphors. Metaphorical models are one of the components of a concept and can be identified with the "signs of the concept that form its structure". The work is carried out in line with the cognitive campaign in linguistics, based on the research of conceptual metaphor. The following methods were used: continuous sampling, descriptive, contextual, modeling. The scientific novelty of the research consists in identifying metaphorical models of the concept of "Longing" in the discourse of A. P. Platonov. As a result of the study, 6 cognitive models of metaphors were identified: "Localization", "Living being", "Substance", "Object", "Organ", "Receptacle". These models represent the idea of the concept of "Longing" as an entity that has a location inside a person, more often it is the heart of a person. This entity is represented as a living being or object. At the same time, if longing is a living being, then a person cannot control it, but can only hide from it, and if longing appears as an object, then a person can manipulate it. Also, longing is thought of as a kind of container that can absorb a person.


Keywords:

metaphor, cognitive metaphor, Andrey Platonov, concept, longing, discourse, artistic text, metaphor model, cognitive science, linguoculturology

This article is automatically translated.

Introduction

In the 20th century, new approaches to understanding the nature of metaphor are emerging. Metaphor is considered as a special tool of human cognition, having a culturally archetypal nature. The mechanisms of perception lie in the subconscious of a person, at the level of which there are units of the mental level – concepts represented to a greater extent by conceptual (cognitive) metaphors or, in the terminology of J. Lakoff and M. Johnson, metaphorical concepts [9, p. 288]. Metaphorical models are one of the components of the figurative component of a concept and can be identified with "the signs of the concept that form its structure" [4, p. 81].

The subject of this study is the metaphorical models of the concept of "Longing", identified in the works of A. P. Platonov. The research material is the most complete and modern collection of works by A. P. Platonov in 8 volumes [8]. The methodological basis of the research was the ideas of cognitive science, namely the theory of conceptual metaphor proposed by J. By Lakoff. The following methods were used in the work: continuous sampling, descriptive, contextual, modeling.

Discussion

At the present stage of linguistic science, metaphors are presented as complex phenomena that are not only a fact of language, but reflect the mechanisms of human consciousness and ideas about the world. A cognitive approach to metaphor is being developed, which was laid down by the works of D. Lakoff and M. Johnson [6]. In this regard, not only linguistics begins to study metaphors, but also psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, linguoculturology, etc. To describe the abstract, metaphors are used, because it seems to be extremely difficult to find another way to realize abstract things. The result is a mindset based on metaphorical thinking based on myth. These researchers conducted a systematic discussion of metaphor from the point of view of thinking and cognition and created a theoretical system of conceptual metaphor. J. Lakoff and M. Johnson note that there are special mental entities – metaphorical concepts in the deepest foundations of the human conceptual system [ibid., p. 90], therefore, cognitive models associated with a special kind of metaphor – conceptual metaphor are distinguished in the structure of the concept.

Russian linguists are actively exploring cognitive metaphors. V. N. Telia emphasizes the connection of metaphor with the cognitive activity of human consciousness [10, p. 50]. N. D. Arutyunova sees in metaphor "the key to understanding the foundations of thinking and the processes of creating not only a specific cultural and national vision of reality, but also its universal image" [1, p. 6]. At the same time, the researcher divides metaphors according to cognitive function "into secondary (side) and basic (key)" [ibid., p. 14]. The first "define the idea of a specific object or a particular category of objects <...>, the second <...> determine the way of thinking about the world (the picture of the world) or about its fundamental part <...>" [ibid.]. From the point of view of I. M. Kobozeva, metaphor creates a "common platform for participants in communication, based on which the subject of speech can more successfully introduce non-generally accepted opinions into the addressee's consciousness" [10, p. 48]. M. A. Krongauz sees the mechanism of metaphors in the fact that they "conceptualize various areas by transferring a conceptual system into them from another area" [5, p. 265]. According to L. O. Cherneyko, "figurative metaphor is a way of a special vision of the objective essence by the subject, such a vision in which, out of its many properties, only what the attention of consciousness (or rather, subconsciousness, since metaphorization is an unconscious process) is highlighted" [10, p. 50].

In the study of conceptual metaphors, one or another model is identified, which is understood as "a mental model of processed and processed linguistic data, formed according to certain cognitive and semantic parameters and existing in the linguistic consciousness of a native speaker of a given language and culture" [ibid., p. 11].

The course of the study and the main results

From the analysis of the works of A. P. Platonov, the following metaphorical models of the concept of "Longing" can be presented. We have identified 6 models. Let's look at them in more detail.

1. Localization

Longing has a location:

- inside a person: "I knew why I was sad and why the evening seemed like a thoughtful, loving, distant creature lying down on the ground" [8, vol. 1, p. 257];

- in the heart: "But in the heart of this fighter there was also memory and longing for his slain comrades, and he thought <...>" [ibid., vol. 5, p. 154];

- near the heart: "Moscow stood against the violinist like a woman, with her legs apart and her face hunched over from the longing that was agitating near her heart" [ibid., vol. 4, p. 26];

- in my head: "The music was spinning fast, like longing in a bone and round head, from which it is impossible to get out" [ibid., p. 69];

- in the eyes: "Ivan listened to his mother and looked into her beloved face, into her eyes, which looked at him with longing love" [ibid., vol. 7, p. 193];

- in the soul: "You see," he said, "I just can't stand the light, I can't see the stars at night, such longing and languor rise in the soul, as if something dear has been irrevocably lost" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 296];

- in the chest: "<...> longing was born inside him, it grew out from under his chest bones <...>" [ibid., vol. 4, p. 84];

- in the voice: "The songs were clear and simple, almost without words and thoughts, one human voice and longing in it <...>" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 26].

2. A living being

In the structure of the concept under study, the following vital signs are distinguished, which characterize longing as a living being that can

- to be born: "During the day, Sartorius was almost always happy and satisfied with his current job, but at night, when he lay on his back on the folders of old cases, longing was born inside him <...>" [ibid., vol. 4, p. 84];

- rusty: "Only in Makar's chest did some kind of conscientious work longing grow" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 224];

- touch: "But at such moments, longing seized us, and we reduced the pressure of energy, matter disappeared under us" [ibid., p. 283];

- to pursue: "Calming down and hiding from longing, he intercepted his hand higher and leaned against Fekla Stepanovna" [ibid., vol. 3, p. 116];

- to distract himself: "He imagined himself as a locomotive engineer, an air fleet pilot, a prospector geologist, <...> - just to occupy his head with uninterrupted thought and distract longing from his heart" [ibid., vol. 2, p. 351];

- to make a sound: "And humanity felt loneliness and the call of longing and, in love with the world, went to seek unity with it" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 334];

- have an age: "<...> and his soul was touched by the usual grief, the old longing for his father's lost house" [ibid., vol. 5, p. 83];

- move: "<...> so that the longing that is unbearable for the human heart may depart from them" [ibid., p. 35]. At the same time, longing can move along the top – bottom line: "Longing has risen in me" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 257]; "I will rest – longing descends on me <...>" [ibid., vol. 3, p. 119].

3. The substance

Longing as a substance has the following signs:

- volume: "And he washed and washed his brain, squeezed out by narrow suffering, monotonous labor and dull longing" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 129]. It can increase: "From universal employment, electric advertisements, the smell of exhaust gases and the roar of raging cars, Kreutzkopf's longing increased tenfold" [ibid., p. 114];

- temperature: "Hot longing concentrated in him, and no feat happened to quench Kopenkin's lonely body" [ibid., vol. 3, p. 110];

- taste: "Zakhar Pavlovich observed rivers – neither the speed nor the water level fluctuated in them, and there was a bitter longing from this constancy" [ibid., p. 45];

- smell: "<...> from the wilderness of the steppe, distant places, there was a smell of sadness of distance and longing for the absence of man" [ibid., p. 244].

It appears as:

- solid. It can be erased: "The longing in Timur's heart has long been erased, but the mounds are still standing, and neither wind nor water have erased them" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 90]. It has the form: "Egor walked there, feeling the pressure of blood, the free vibration of the brain and the acute longing of approaching love" [ibid., vol. 2, p. 79] and the size: "<...> and the longing for him in his heart was greater than the fear of this strange big woman" [ibid., vol. 7, p. 88];

- liquid: "Moscow stood against the violinist like a woman, with her legs apart and her face hunched over from the longing that was agitating near her heart" [ibid., vol. 4, p. 26];

- gaseous. It penetrates with the air: "<...> the excited air, warmed by millions of people, longingly penetrated Sartorius' heart" [ibid., p. 43]. It appears in the form of fire: "And the world will howl and burn in anguish, in death, in rapture and ecstasy" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 302].

4. The subject

Longing appears as a cloth that can be covered: "... All this has long passed, and only a quiet longing occasionally overshadows the human heart" [ibid., vol. 5, p. 280].

A person can manipulate it as an object. He can have her:

- hide: "But this girl's eyes were darker than Sonya's and slowed down, as if they had unresolved concern, but they looked half-closed and hid their longing" [ibid., vol. 3, p. 172];

- to leave: "The main thing is the longing for a sister, probably leaving her native tribe forever, the leader leaves inside himself" [ibid., vol. 6, p. 446];

- to wear: "It's so quiet on earth that the stars are falling. In our hearts we carry our longing and thirst for the impossible" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 277].

5. The receptacle

Longing is understood as space: "But Filat's longing for the loss of his friend is now overgrown with a sad memory, almost not painful" [ibid., vol. 2, p. 274], you can enter there: "And his wife began to gnaw, bend him down, and the peasant grieved, went into melancholy, could not live" [ibid., vol. 7, p. 216]. It can accommodate:

- man: "In order to prevent this public suffering, Kozminsky Komsomol members annually began to dig wells, but were exhausted by the power of impassable sands and lay down on the ground in anguish of futile labor" [ibid., vol. 1, p. 154];

- the heart: "His heart was cramped in longing for a familiar life" [ibid., vol. 5, p. 107].

6. The organ

Longing is likened to an organ of the body. So, she may itch: "The more diligently the sorrow for my homeland is concentrated in me, the more clearly the longing for desert life is in me" [ibid., vol. 2, p. 95].

Conclusions

So, the identification of metaphor models allows us to describe the idea of longing in the discourse of A. P. Platonov. First of all, it is necessary to note the indications of the localization of longing. It is inside a person. There is a clarification of where exactly: more often it is the heart and what is connected with it: near the heart, in the chest, in the soul. Sometimes longing is in the head. Thus, longing is objectified, it seems to be some kind of entity that has a location. This essence is material, appears as a substance or a living being. As a living being, longing can touch a person or haunt him, it moves up and down. Basically, longing appears as a substance having volume, temperature, taste and smell. This substance can be liquid or gaseous. But most often it is solid. In this case, it has a shape, and appears as an object. Then a person can manipulate it: wear it or hide it. There are isolated cases when longing is thought of as an organ inside a person. Also, longing appears as an enclosed space that can accommodate a person. Thus, longing, although closely related to a person, appears as an autonomous entity that a person is forced to interact with.

References
1. Arutyunova, N. D. (1990). Metaphor and discourse. In: N. D. Arutyunova, M. A. Zhurinskaya (Eds.). Theory of metaphor (pp. 5-32). Moscow: Progress.
2. Arutyunova, N. D. (1999). Language and the human world. Moscow: Languages of Russian culture.
3. Baranov, L. N. (2004). Cognitive theory of metaphor: almost twenty-five years later. In: D. Lakoff, M. Johnson, Metaphors we live by (pp. 7-21). Moscow: Editorial URSS.
4. Kondratieva, O. N. (2005). Soul, heart, mind. In: V. I. Karasik, I. A. Sternin (Eds.). Anthology of concepts. Vol. 1 (pp. 80-92). Volgograd: Paradigma.
5. Krongauz, M. A. (2005). Semantics. Moscow: Academy.
6. Lakoff, D., Johnson, M. (2004). Metaphors that we live by. Moscow: Editorial URSS.
7. Moskvin, V. P. (2006). Russian metaphor: An essay on semiotic theory. Moscow: LENAND.
8. Platonov, A. P. (2011). Collected works in 8 vols. Moscow: Vremya.
9. Sergeeva, N. M. (2005). Mind and reason In: V. I. Karasik, I. A. Sternin (Eds.). Anthology of concepts. Vol. 1 (pp. 286-305). Volgograd: Paradigma.
10. Yan, Kai (2018). Analysis of lexical means of expressing emotions in modern Russian and in I.A. Bunin's literary texts (joy, surprise, fear). Diss. ... candidate of Philology. Moscow.

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The article Metaphorical models of the concept of "Longing" in the idiostyle of A. P. Platonov", proposed for publication in the journal "Litera", is undoubtedly relevant, due to the author's appeal to the study of the idiostyle of a domestic writer. The work is written in line with linguistic stylistics, the author turns to the study of metaphorical models of concept expression in a literary text. The relevance of this research is due to the fact that the work is aimed at studying the writer's idiosyncrasy. The article is innovative, one of the first in Russian philology devoted to the study of such issues. The article presents a research methodology, the choice of which is quite adequate to the goals and objectives of the work. The author turns, among other things, to various methods to confirm the hypothesis put forward. The article uses, among other things, general scientific methods of observation and description, as well as methods of linguistics and literary criticism. The main methods were the continuous sampling method, descriptive, contextual, and modeling. Theoretical inventions are illustrated by language examples in Russian, as well as convincing data obtained during the study. This work was done professionally, in compliance with the basic canons of scientific research. The research was carried out in line with modern scientific approaches, the work consists of an introduction containing the formulation of the problem, the main part, traditionally starting with a review of theoretical sources and scientific directions, a research and a final one, which presents the conclusions obtained by the author. Structurally, the introduction lacks a statement of issues, clear goals and objectives, which makes it impossible to compare the introductory part with the conclusions based on the results of the work. It should be noted that the conclusion requires strengthening, it does not fully reflect the tasks set by the author and does not contain prospects for further research in line with the stated issues. The bibliography of the article contains 10 sources, among which works are presented exclusively in Russian, including translated ones. We believe that referring to the works of foreign authors in the original language on similar topics would undoubtedly enrich the theoretical background of the work. In general, it should be noted that the article is written in a simple, understandable language for the reader. Typos, grammatical and stylistic errors have not been identified. The work is innovative, representing the author's vision of solving the issue under consideration and may have a logical continuation in further research. The practical significance of the research lies in the possibility of using its results in the process of teaching university courses in literary theory, literary stylistics, as well as for further study of the writer's work. The article will undoubtedly be useful to a wide range of people, philologists, undergraduates and graduate students of specialized universities. The article "Metaphorical models of the concept of "Longing" in the idiostyle of A. P. Platonov" can be recommended for publication in a scientific journal.