The phenomenon of conceptual integration in allusions

Full Text

Introduction. Allusion, the subject of study in the fields of linguistics, stylistics, literature and translation studies, has been defined from different perspectives so far. In Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary, the term allusion is delineated as a hint to a well-known literary and historical fact (LED 1990). An extensive denotation is provided in the Dictionary of Foreign Words: 1. Correlation of what is described or what is happening in reality with a stable concept or phrase of a literary, historical or mythological origin. 2. In fiction, oratorical and colloquial speech - one of the stylistic figures: a hint to the real political, historical or literary fact that is assumed to be well-known (СИС 1989). I.R. Galperin considers allusion to be an “indirect reference, by word or phrase, to historical, literary, mythological, biblical facts or to the facts of everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. The use of allusion presupposes the background knowledge of the event, thing or person alluded to on the part of the reader or listener” (Galperin 1977:334). D.U. Ashurova defines the term from the perspectives of cultural studies and cognitive stylistics. According to her, allusion is a cognitive and culture relevant linguistic unit, that bears conceptual and cultural information and thus serves as one of the objects of investigation within linguoculturology. She proceeds explicating the term by asserting that “In terms of cognitive stylistics the allusive process is presented as a comparison or contrast of two referent situations, one of which is verbalized on the surface layer of the text, and the other is supposed to be in the person’s mind” (Ashurova 2015). An important feature attached to allusion is its depiction as a mechanism activating certain knowledge structures when encountered in the text (Ashurova 2015).

Generalizing all of the definitions, the term “allusion” can be defined as follows: a culturally and conceptually significant linguistic unit that is ascribed as an indirect referent to a person, place, thing and/or event of literary, religious, historical or mythological significance.

Allusions are prescribed an immense role in the literary text: they are used to get a grasp over certain situations, narrated or described in the text and offer an integral insight to the reader. As many scholars state, allusions fulfill different functions in the literary text: 1) allusions serve as a means of foregrounding at the textual level, calling forth the reader’s attention to a particular fragment of the text; 2) allusions function as a conceptually significant unit, activating different knowledge structures of religious, mythological, literary on the basis of intertextuality; 3) allusions establish intertextual relationships between the precedent text and the recipient text; 4) allusions function in text as implicatures, the correct interpretation of which, helps to reveal conceptual information laid on the basis of literary work (Kristeva 1980; Ashurova, Galieva 2016, 2018; Dusabaeva 2009; Molchanova 2007, Piege-Gro 2008; Fateeva 2000). The semantic layer of allusion is considered to have fulfilled the stylistic and cognitive task assigned to it, if it does not result in pragmatic failure with its representation in the literary text: it should equally be comprehensible to the reader as is initially aimed by the author. Most importantly, the correct interpretation of the allusion depends on the level of the background knowledge of the reader. As a matter of fact, unlike descriptive language means which are usually made use of to form priorly not known, new relations by being applied to certain objects, people, events in poems or other literary works, allusions, on the contrary, oblige the reader to make use of the existing blocks of information regarding certain objects, people or events. Suffice to say, the addressee is ascribed as the decoder of implicit message, as long as he/she has enough background information of non-linguistic character necessary for the revelation of the disclosure created due to the usage of allusion.

Having enlisted some of the functions of allusions above, we dare to come up with two more no less important functions performed by allusions: 1) allusions create a constant associative attachment to the precedent text, by activating knowledge structures kept in our conceptual worldview referring to both the source and recipient texts; 2) allusions are assigned as means of indirect conveyance of the author’s modality in the literary text and its correct interpretation remarkably contributes to the successful revelation of the author’s individual world picture. To attain this, the addressee is supposed to have sufficient extralinguistic knowledge to decode and interpret the hidden message that the speaker/writer is trying to convey through specially polished language units.

According to the type of referred source, historical, literary, religious and mythological allusions are distinguished (Galperin 1977; Ashurova, Galieva 2016; Dusabaeva 2009). Within the scope of the current research, religiously marked allusions and their conceptual significance in the literary text are intended to be under thorough consideration.

Religiously marked allusion is a cognitively significant linguistic phenomenon that encompasses religious knowledge structures in its semantic layer and animates them in the process of the addressee's interaction with the precedent text (Galieva 2018). It presents implicit transfer and attachment of the qualities belonging to the heroes, objects and events of religious origin making them equivalent correspondents to those in the text receiver.

Religiously marked allusions embody large-scale encyclopedic information, albeit in small quantities (word, phrase, phraseological unit). As a matter of fact, even presented in the form of the smallest language unit – word, it encodes a considerable amount of information related to the precedent text. To put into simple words, regardless its condensed form, religious allusions can refer to entire texts (Galieva 2018).

When highlighting the cognitive aspect of religiously marked allusions, it is of huge significance to remark that along with conveying information of religious character they bear the potential to carry cultural information about this or that nation: religiously marked allusion is seen as a cultural element, i.e. a linguocultural unit (Ashurova, Galieva 2016). All of these reflect cultural markedness of the religious allusions. Thus, religiously marked allusions require the addressee to be engaged not only in cognitive activity but also in the interpretation of cultural information that might only be realized through the activation of the reader’s cultural literacy and individual conceptual world picture.

The role of religiously marked allusions in the literary text as intertextual markers is of paramount importance, as they build an associative bridge between the source and recipient texts, and activate entire precedent situation in the mind of the reader. In the obtained allusive process, two situations, objects or people are compared or contrasted, and the results of contradictions or comparisons affix a new conceptual significance to the literary text, as a consequence, the reader acquires the sequences of events as an integral whole: the insights are gathered firstly on the basis of the outer layer of the text verbalized via linguistic units, and secondly on the basis of the conceptual display of the world collected in the human mind. The process in which a new conceptual essence evolves is accredited as conceptual integration (blending).

The aim of the current article is to reveal the cognitive mechanism of allusion construction and analyze textual representation of religiously-marked allusion in the framework of conceptual integration theory. Thus, proving that allusion is not just a stylistic figure used as a means of decoration but is a linguistic phenomenon characterized by cognitive significance, representing knowledge about the world and projecting this knowledge from one conceptual domain to the other.

Methods. The main research methods include: 1) associative analysis, aimed at identifying associative links of the allusions under research; 2) intertextual analysis, revealing intertextual signals and the relationships between precedent and recipient texts; 3) etymological analysis, focusing on establishment of the sources of allusions used in the literary text; 4) conceptual blending analysis, identifying interconceptual links between the two conceptual inputs aimed at revealing the blend, formed in the result of the projection of one conceptual domain on the other.

Results and Discussion. Conceptual integration theory, proposed by G. Fauconnier and M. Turner and further developed by Coulson and Oakley, postulates that conceptual blending is a mental operation, that “makes new meanings out of old” (Fauconnier, Turner 2002: 18). According to G. Fauconnier and M. Turner (2002: 44) constructing an integration network is a cognitive activity which “involves setting up mental spaces, matching across spaces, projecting selectively to a blend, locating shared structures, projecting backwards to inputs, recruiting new structure to the inputs or the blend, and running various operations in the blend.” To put into simpler words, generating mental spaces, connections between input domains and creating blended spaces set up a new conceptual integrity and insight, new meaning and novel associative fields. Mental spaces constitute important functioning elements of conceptual blending and they are utilized to categorize and organize “incoming pieces of information within the referential representation” (Coulson, Oakley 2000: 177). Fauconnier and Turner assert that mental spaces consist of elements that are usually presented as frames that are interrelated with each other and may undergo some amendments as thought and discourse change.

The basic mental spaces involved in the process of conceptual integration are conceptual domains, generic space and the blend itself. Below we intend to briefly define each mental space so as to achieve full comprehension over the constituents of blending process. Conceptual (input) domains are the sources that comprise and present totality of knowledge structures out of which further related concepts are drawn. In some cases, input domains are necessitated to be distinctively divided into source and target domains: the former provides background knowledge against which the latter is described, perceived and understood. In the process of conceptual integration, the two domains are incorporated via generic space. This mental space is of huge importance in the blending procedure as it imparts basis for uniting the input domains by bringing together common grounds between them. On the basis of the found correspondences, the blend, a new conceptual meaning turns up. Interestingly, the blended space bears relatively similar elements of both inputs, but at the same time it goes through some modifications as the result of which the integrity of the input domains obtains previously undesignated attributes and as a consequence, a novel meaning is created.

Noteworthy, allusions are based on the mechanism of conceptual integration. The semantics of allusion incorporates the knowledge structures belonging to the conceptual worldview of both the precedent and the recipient text. At the same time, the conceptual meaning, formed as a result of the integration of the associations related to the source text and separate components of the target text, is transferred to the intertext. As a result, the allusion acquires new semantic integrity, descriptive, and figurative properties by activating a specific event, object, or personage anew.

Further we intend to analyze the religious allusions that are based on the mechanism of conceptual integration in the literary texts via the thorough explication of the story “Mammon and the archer” by O’ Henry.

As O’ Henry’s short stories are well-known for the endings that are impossible to anticipate, this story is no exception too. The story narrates about the everlasting battle between the material and spiritual worlds, but the author leaves it at the reader’s disposal to draw conclusions over the winning side: though at first glance, it seems as if financial prosperity overstated its dominance, without the specific conditions created by love, the story would not happen to have a happy end indeed. So as to reveal conceptual information hidden in the story, it is expediently important first to bring the factual information to the fore.

Mr. Rockwall, a rich soapmaker has always relied on the power of wealth claiming that money can buy everything, even love. He wants his son to suit his status and behave as rich gentlemen. However, Richard, Mr. Rockwall’s son, who is characterized as an insecure, reluctant and reserved young man, does not place the same high estimation over the material wealth as his father does. Instead, being in love with Miss Lantry and failing to tell her about his love directly, Richard tries to ensure Mr. Rockwall that money is powerless to buy love of his life. Few days before Miss Lantry’s departure from the city, Richard gets a chance of accompanying her to the theatre where she intends to join her family. A sudden drop of the ring that Richard has been presented by his aunt, makes them stop and a little later the coach gets stuck in the traffic jam being unable to make its way to the destination. Despite the encountered inconvenience, the lady turns out to be not so sad about the traffic jam: she confesses about her disinterest in the theatre. Richard who has long intended to have some time with his beloved in private, takes over the chance of saying a word of love to Miss Lantry. The news about their engagement reaches Mr. Rockwall quite soon He remains in complete indifference to the news as he turns out to be the initiator of the artificial traffic jam. Mr. Rockwall once again assures himself how powerful money is, which could buy love for his son. The reader can get to know about the self-assurance of the main hero by his inquiry from the hireling named Kelly about `a fat naked boy', the portrayal of the character known in Roman mythology Cupid, the idol of love. The man equates his absence to the inexistence of the strength of love.

Though the story is entitled “Mammon and the Archer”, the reader does not encounter the interference of such characters throughout the text. It might be explained by the fact that the whole conceptual significance of the literary text is compressed within the title in the form of these two allusions “Mammon” and “the Archer”, and despite their total absence in the flow of events, the entire plot is built upon the conceptual significance of concepts “Wealth” and “Love” that they represent and which in the content of the story become binary oppositions (Galieva 2014) . To decode the implicit conceptual sense constructed by the title, we need to first examine each component of it.

Generally, the term “Mammon” dates back to biblical days and stands for the notions of money and wealth. According to the dictionary of Merriam Webster, the term “mammon” is defined as “material wealth or possessions especially as having a debasing influence”, similarly Britannica interprets it as “biblical term for riches, often used to describe the debasing influence of material wealth”. Originally, the term itself comes from the Greek word “mammonas”, which is translated as “money, wealth, and material possessions”. The word “Mammon” appears with the same denotations but obtains negative connotations in Bible: “passion towards the possessions of this world, gluttony, greed, and dishonest worldly gain”. Such depictions of Mammon can be evidenced by the following biblical verse, which was uttered by Jesus in his Sermon to the disciples:

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? (Matthew 6:24-25)

In his speech, Jesus asserts that one fails to have two springs of love to both God and Mammon (worldly wealth) at a time. This is because those who prioritize gaining wealth in this transient life which is viewed as moral darkness, they surrender themselves with the concerns of materialism, leaving no room for the love towards God in their hearts. So the main inference that can be deduced from the verse is that righteous person sincerely and loyally serving God does not let worldly desires to take over dominance.

As the notion of “Mammon” is synonymously interchanged with the concept of “Money”, undeniably important it is to present the associative fields explicating the lexeme “Money”. The assemblage of the following connotations in the “Rogiet’s Thesaurus of English words and phrases” was constructed to establish denotative meaning of the concept of “Money”: lucre, pelf, Mammon, wealth, currency, precious metal, gold, silver, pocket money, account, bank, capital, purse, power of the purse, almighty dollar, gold standard, the best, blunt, cash, treasure, money power, financial world, pound, shilling, six-pence, paper money, treasury note, dollar, rich man, moneyed, capitalist, riches, luxury, solidity, fortune, millionaire, wealthy.

Meanwhile, in the story “Mammon and the Archer” the term Mammon is equated to the concept of “money” too and the following connotations ground the associative links between these two lexemes rich, gentleman, money, buy one’s time, gold, power, pay, spend, dollar, cent.

Mr. Rockwall thinks highly of materialism underestimating spiritual values and, in this extent, it can reasonably be claimed that Mr. Rockwall appears in the role of Mammon in the text. If the definitional meaning of the word “Mammon” is compared with the characteristic traits of Mr. Rockwall, alike lines can be drawn. In fact, the implicit integration between the character of Mr. Rockwall and the allusion of Mammon forms a conceptual blend and serve to reveal conceptual significance of the title from one side by now:

Fig.1

On the other hand, the second unity of the characters, Richard, Mr. Rockwall junior and Ellen, Mr. Rockwall’s sister assure that “money can’t help”, “money won’t buy time”, “Money is nothing”.

The other no less important character opposing to the material world and fighting against its devaluation in the story is the archer. The term “archer” possesses almost the same denotations in the dictionaries: “a person who uses a bow and arrow” (Merriam Webster); “someone who shoots arrows from a bow” (Macmillan); “someone who shoots arrows using a bow” (Collins English dictionary).

In myths, the archer is depicted as someone carrying a bow and an arrow too, however, in mythology, the term “archer” obtains additional symbolism: it is the portrayal of passionate love. The best-known archers in classical mythology are Cupid and Eros, Roman-Greek gods of love. He is usually depicted as a winged angel with a bow and arrow. Cupid is believed to locate strong affection in the heart of the person, whom he strikes with his heart shaped arrow. This very interpretation of the term is the most relevant stance in the analysis of the story “Mammon and the Archer”. In fact, the term “archer” connotes the concept of LOVE in the story being analyzed just in the same way that Roman mythology narrates about. In the “Roget’s Thesaurus of English words and phrases” the associative fields defining the concept of LOVE are developed as follow: affection, friendship, Eros, true love, real thing, feeling, kindness, fondness, liking, attachment, devotion, lovesickness, Cupid’s sting, passion, love god, Cupid, cupidon.

The following linguistic means serve for the revelation of the thematic implicature formed by the term “the archer” in the story: sickness, love, lovers, happiness, powerful, old gold ring, love ring, true love, lover, to be married, a little fat boy with arrows, Cupid, arrows, powerful.

First, having activated mythological knowledge structures that assisted to remind of Cupid’s representation in myths, second, after getting to know that Richard does not take after his father and he is not in the same high thought of money and wealth like his father is, the main inference that can be deduced is the fact that Richard and Cupid, both symbolize the concept of LOVE and the blend that can be obtained from the integration of representational characteristic traits of these literary and mythological characters urges that it is love which is powerful and money cannot buy it.

Fig.2

In brief, adequate interpretation of knowledge structures immensely contributes to the comprehensive explication of the title and enables the reader to attain a full understanding over the conceptual essence of the story.

Conclusion. Summarizing all the data imparted above, the following major implications can be pinpointed below:

• allusion is a conceptually and culturally significant language unit that activates non-linguistic knowledge structures of religious, cultural, literary, mythological, historical character;
• allusion, as an intertextual marker, requires co-functioning of the precedent and recipient texts foregrounding conceptually significant information;
• allusions are based on the mechanism of conceptual integration giving opportunity to explicate additional implicit conceptual information laid on the basis of the fictional text;
• religiously marked allusion regardless its compact form condenses a large amount of extralinguistic and encyclopedic information of mythological-religious character.

SOURCES

Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. London, Glasgow: Collins, Stuttgart, Klett, 1987. 1702 p.

Lingvisticheskiy Entsiklopedicheskiy Slovar'. Gl. red. V. N. Yartseva. 2-ye izd. Moscow: SE., 1990.

Macmillan Dictionary of English. Macmillan Publishers Ltd. URL: https://clck.ru/3LiNoi

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus. Spriengfield, Massachussets: USA, 1988. 712 p. URL: https://clck.ru/3LiNne

O’Henry. Mammon and the Archer. URL: https://clck.ru/3LiNkn

Roget`s New Millenium Thesaurus. 1st edition. Copyright by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. URL: www.thesaurus.reference.com

Slovar' inostrannykh slov. Moscow: Russkiy yazyk, 1989.

About the authors

Mukhayyo R. Fayzullaeva

Author for correspondence.
Email: muhayyo_uzswlu2706@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4557-912X

PhD, Senior Teacher, Department of Linguistics and English literature

References

Supplementary files

Supplementary Files

Action

1. JATS XML

Download

2. Fig.1

Download (128KB)

Indexing metadata

3. Fig.2

Download (107KB)

Indexing metadata