Idiostyle - what is it? Concept, signs, features and analysis of idiostyle

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Today, not everyone can answer the question that this is an idiostyle. We can often find this term in scientific works on the style of speech and the style of a literary text. Idiostyle is a phenomenon that characterizes the individual style of creativity of a writer. In addition, it can be a characteristic manner of presenting the text in the work of a poet or publicist. For the first time, idiostyle, language styles and speech styles began to be studied in the works of the famous Russian linguist V. V. Vinogradov.

About the term

Idiostyle is a linguistic term, which is an abbreviation for the phrase "individual style", denoting a set of meaningful linguistic characteristics that are significant for the style of any author. Typically, the term "idiostyle" is used in the analysis of fiction and refers to the unique style of the author, whose works differ sharply from the general mass of other works both in the style of narration and in lexical composition.

Some scholars tend to view idiostyle asa combination of "styles of language" and "styles of speech", however, this hypothesis has not received due distribution.

Analogues of the concept

In recent years, the concept of "discourse" has become new in linguistics, which partly coincides in meaning with the concept of "idiostyle", but has a broader meaning. If literary features of one writer or poet are called idiostyle, then discourse means a set of unique author's styles of any direction, era, time period.

The manifestation of idiostyle in a book is, first of all, an indicator of its uniqueness from the point of view of a literary phenomenon.

For example, the work of Vladimir Mayakovsky will be the subject of study of idiostyle, and the work of symbolist poets of the early 20th century will be considered within the framework of discourse.

From the point of view of theoretical linguistics, discourse cannot be a broader designation of idiostyle, since these phenomena consider various objects of artistic self-expression of a person, however, in practical stylistics, with a direct analysis of literary texts, these terms are similar in meaning.

Idiostyle and idiolect

The term "idiolect", which arose in linguistic circles in the mid-90s of the last century, was unofficial for a long time and was not considered by serious scientists as a linguistic phenomenon. However, later, thanks to the work of Academician Yuri Nikolayevich Karaulov, it was recognized by domestic linguists and was subjected to detailed study. For a long time, the term "idiolect" was considered only a feature of "idiostyle" or one of its manifestations. Examples of the term also did not stand out in a separate category for a long time.

Idiolect, as a phenomenon, denotes the language of all texts of an author. If the subject of study of idiostyle is directly the artistic texts of a writer, then the idiolect includes all text materials created by the author throughout his life. This category includes: works of art, journalism, documentary works, scientific works, correspondence, notes. In the modern interpretation, the concept of "idiolect" is much broader and also includes Internet publications, as well as the author's personal correspondence on social networks.

It should be noted that the main criterion for determining texts in the category of idiolect is their chronological sequence, since due to the arrangement of texts in the order of their creation by the author, one can get a more accurate picture of the dynamics of the development of the author's language.

An important difference between these two phenomena is the fact that idiostyle refers to the analysis of works officially published by the author and in the public domain. The subject of study of the idiolect is partly works, access to which can only be authorized after the death of the author or with his direct permission.

Linguistic personality and idiostyle

There is no such concept in world linguistics that would not have any relation to the term "linguistic personality". The term "linguistic personality" was introduced into circulation by academician Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov, and the concept he denotes is stillhas been at the top of the list of researched questions of linguistics.

A linguistic personality in Russian philology is called any native speaker of a certain language, however, most scientists tend to understand the term not as a designation of a particular person, but as a set of all texts reproduced by him over the period of existence and a set of all speech acts of a given individual, on the basis of which it is possible to make a conclusion about what language level is available to him.

The study of the language level is, first of all, of sociocultural significance, because, using the statistics of the use of certain words by the people, one can draw conclusions about the state of the language in a given period.

The term "state of the language" refers to the characteristics of its features. For example, a sign of a language can be the percentage of borrowed words or the number of swear words, the number of vernaculars, the number of neologisms, etc. Based on the overall picture, you can see what state the language is in, whether it has retained its lexical composition or is filled with borrowings and low vocabulary.

It is obvious that the practical part of the concept of "linguistic personality", which includes literary texts, is partly identical to the concepts of "idiostyle" and "idiolect". However, if the idiostyle and idiolect consider texts in the context of the author, paying more attention to the author of the works and his personal philosophy, then the linguistic personality is based on the study of texts, audio and video materials directly, putting the language itself at the head of the study, without considering those orother texts in the context of the author's worldview.

That is why the analysis of the writer's idiostyle is carried out within the framework of the discipline "stylistics of a literary text".

History of the concept

The term "idiostyle" itself was proposed by Academician Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov in 1958 as an alternative to the concept of "linguistic personality", but it did not take root in Russian linguistics until 1998, when, with the light hand of Academician Yuri Nikolayevich Karaulov, the definition was given second life.

It was Yu. N. Karaulov who was the first to propose not to replace one term with another, but to delimit the spheres of their influence, which would allow a more detailed study of the phenomenon of human speech style.

Since the end of the 90s of the last century, the term has been actively used in advanced research in the field of linguistic stylistics, linguistic biology, as well as in the field of linguistic and cultural analysis, and in the early 2000s it has become firmly established in Russian linguistics as one of the fundamental phenomena of linguistics.

Definitions

Despite the stability in the field of linguistic analysis, the term "idiostyle" still does not have a full and well-established definition, which allows different scientists to interpret it differently in their monographs.

For example, academician Vyacheslav Vasilievich Ivanov is inclined to believe that under the term "writer's idiostyle" we can understand the totality of semiotic games, that is, the totality of all language variants of the same word, considered from the position of analyzing its semanticparts.

Doctor of Sciences Sergei Ivanovich Gindin did not agree with V. V. Ivanov and believed that the idiostyle is nothing more than a wide range of speech transformations that sharply contrast with the norms and phenomena of the literary language.

Also, S. I. Gindin believed that the term should not be considered the styles of writing fiction, since texts containing an artistic element obey the rules of artistic style, and not the style itself, within which the concept should be considered.

He also noted that only some of the great classics fall under the category of "author's idiostyle", and the introduction of the term, due to the small amount of material corresponding to it, makes no practical sense at all. Moreover, such a "terminological leapfrog" will only complicate the study of both literary texts and the speech basis of the language.

Researchers

The first studies of idiostyle features directly as part of the terminological system were carried out by Yuri Nikolaevich Tynyanov, Yuri Nikolaevich Karaulov and Viktor Vladimirovich Vinogradov. It is in the works of these famous scientists that the definition and theoretical substantiation of both the term and its sphere of influence are first given.

B. V. Vinogradov was the first to suggest considering examples of idiostyle as a sign of a specific part of works of art, and also a few years later connected it with his new term - linguistic personality, trying to combinethe concepts they denote into one system of language analysis.

- this, according to the academician, is not a part of the linguistic personality, but only its manifestation.

Theoretical works of these scientists made it possible to exclude this term from the scope of the study of language stylistics and create a new discipline - "The style of a literary text", the basis of which was the study of the concepts of "discourse", "linguistic personality", etc.

At present, the style of a literary text is a rapidly developing scientific direction from the family of practical linguistics. It should be noted that most of the works published in this discipline can be understandable and interesting not only to a narrow circle of specialists, but also to quite an ordinary reader who does not have special linguistic training.

Recently, an example of the concept of idiostyle has become identical to the term "concept". The concept of "concept" is intended to designate a set of unique author's ideas, meanings, theories that appear in each of his texts, whether it is a work of art or any other type of text fragment.

In this case, these key concepts may turn out to be only a characteristic of the idiostyle, but by no means a phenomenon equal in importance to it, asnotes the outstanding linguist Oleg Yuryevich Desyukevich in his works, recognizing that with the advent of the concept of “concept” in science, many studies not only ceased to make sense, but the very perception of discourse in linguistics became morally obsolete.

His position is not shared by the philologist Irina Ilyinichna Babenko, who believes that the concept is a continuation of the discourse, but not an element of linguistic analysis that contradicts it, because idiostyle is, like the concept, a criterion for text analysis.

In general, Russian studies of the late 20th - early 21st centuries are characterized by a tendency to develop an individual approach to the text, in which the subject of analysis is not so much the text itself and its formal criteria, but the author's vision of this work. The author as an object of analysis is more interesting to researchers than his work, which serves for linguists only as a tool for perceiving and conveying individuality.

The founder of the individual approach to the study of the text and its lexical component is traditionally considered academician V. V. Vinogradov, although the academician himself admitted that in his research he relied on more serious works of academicians Roman Osipovich Yakobson, Yuri Nikolaevich Tynyanov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, Boris Moiseevich Eikhenbaum, and Vladimir Mikhailovich Zhirmunsky.

Literary examples

From the point of view of practical stylistics, authors whose work in one way or another corresponds to the concept can be not only classics of literature, but also authors who give their own creativityconceptual language coloring.

Features of the idiostyle of Russian writers of the 20th century are manifested primarily in the presence of a set of features confirming the uniqueness and uniqueness of their texts.

For example, the work of V. V. Mayakovsky may correspond to the concept, because:

• all works of the author are in the same style;
• The author's works are characterized by the use of words of the same type;
• the author creates his own reality, the rules of which are the same for all his works;
• The author's works are characterized by the use of neologisms and other lexical types of words that characterize his universe and provide the atmosphere of the text.

By analogy, the criteria are similar to the features of the works of L. N. Tolstoy, M. Ya. Fedorov, N. V. Gogol and many other authors.

The writer's idiostyle is, first of all, the totality of the lexical features of his texts.

Group of scientists

Obviously, the discussion around the concepts of "idiostyle" and "linguistic personality" has long turned into a confrontation between scientific communities, each of which has its own positions of well-known scientists.

Currently, there are two officially approved positions in linguistic circles regarding the issue of considering idiostyle as a separate linguistic criterion.

The first version is represented by the hypothesis that idiolect and idiostyle are deeper and less deep levels of text structure analysis, respectively. This hypothesis is supported by such well-known scientists as Alexander Konstantinovich Zholkovsky,Yuri Kirillovich Shcheglov and Vladimir Petrovich Grigoriev.

B. P. Grigoriev believes that all functions of the analysis of idiostyle as a linguistic phenomenon should be aimed at describing, first of all, the deep connection of the elements of the creative world of the writer, which, in turn, should lead to a study-reflection that describes the linguistic structure of the corpus of texts of any author.

The writer's idiostyle is, in turn, a complex of texts that meet the idiostyle criteria and are the totality of all the author's creative works.

It is known that any artistic text and speech example are the result of genetic language memory, which allows the author to create individual images in his mind, using the speech experience of his ancestors.

Thus, the idiostyle of a writer is a concept that, as a criterion of a literary text, is a manifestation of genetic linguistic thinking.

Such views, rooted in the discipline of Anthropological Linguistics, are found in the works of Stepan Timofeevich Zolyan, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky and many other linguists.

Literary bilingualism

In 1999, Professor Vladimir Petrovich Grigoriev asks about a categorical group of texts written in one language and translated into another.

It is known that the idiostyle in literature is a characteristic of the unique authorial beginning in the text. This gives rise to a heated discussion in the linguistic community about the idiostyle of translation, the essence of which lies in the following theses:

• Can we analyze translated texts in the same way we do regular linguistic analysis?
• Which language should be used to analyze the text - using the source language or the target language?
• Should we, when working with translated texts, distinguish between the author's own translation and translation performed by another person?
• Is the analysis of such texts part of the style of the text, or should we attribute this phenomenon to the discipline "Translation Theory"?

These and many other questions still remain open, allowing various scholars to interpret the linguistic analysis of translated texts according to their scientific concepts.

The term “translation idiostyle” does not yet have an exact definition, as well as characteristic features, but this does not prevent it from being used when analyzing texts and identifying differences in approaches to understanding the structure of a text.

The well-known translator Vladimir Mikhailovich Kiselev believes that the idiostyle in the book is an indicator of the accuracy of the translation, a sign of the translator's unique perception of the author's reality.

In the discipline "Stylistics of a literary text", the concept of idiostyle of translation is extremely necessary, since many authors of the classical period of Russian literature were bilingual by the type of their linguistic thinking.

The prose and poetry of these creative people form a single "linguistic reality", which is not divided into separate parts for analysis. V. V. Vinogradov is inclined to believe that the idiostyle of translation, as a phenomenon, should be studied andto explore along with the artistic idiostyle, without conducting analysis in special conditions.

Idiostyle in literature is a manifestation of its essence, the totality of all that without which literature cannot exist.