BIBLICAL IMAGES-SYMBOLS IN FRANK PERETTI’S MYSTICAL THRILLERS: LINGUAL REPRESENTATION AND PRAGMATIC VALUE

Abstract

The paper aims to clarify the biblical image-symbols in Frank Peretti’s mystical thrillers. The problem of the detailed analysis of the lingual representation of the biblical image-symbols and their pragmatic value is solved in the article by applying a complex of methods of linguistic poetics, cognitive linguistics, stylistics and methodological tools of discourse analysis. The paper considers the biblical images-symbols, used in American mystical thrillers written by the protestant author Frank Peretti, as biblical intertexts depicting not only biblical knowledge but also author’s intentions and beliefs in conveying the most profound ideas and principles of the literary texts. Executed in the written works by lexical means, biblical image-symbols become the heart of biblically-marked contexts, which are differentiated according to their addressee orientation into author`s and character`s biblically-marked contexts and their scope – into propositional, composite, and complex biblically-marked contexts. The lingual representation of the biblical image-symbols is differentiated according to their structure into one-component (anthroponyms, toponyms, artifact, animalistic, anthropomorphic) and multicomponent, (two-component, three-component and four-component). The type of semantic transposition in the meaning of the lingual representation and pragmatic value of the biblical image-symbols determined the distinguishing of metaphoric and metonymic linguistic classification of the biblical image-symbols. Metaphoric are classified according to their structure (onecomponent and multi-component), their stylistic characteristics (language and speech metaphoric linguistic representants of the biblical image-symbols), and their denotative meaning (anthropomorphic, naturalmorphic, zoomorphic, and phytomorphic). Metonymic are differentiated according to the kinds of the metonymic transference of meaning into four groups: metonymy of belonging, metonymy of place, metonymy of signs, and metonymy of phenomenon.