Figurity of the Text: Poetic and Pragmatics of Stylistic Figures

Abstract

The article examines the problem of the discursive dimension of stylistic figures, their poetics and pragmatics. Types of figures, functions, primarily aesthetic and persuasive, rhetorical potential, contexts of use are analyzed. Special attention is paid to the question of the matrices of the creation of a stylistic figure, on which the process of its identification is based. Emphasis is placed on the expressive influence, “rhetorical power” of stylistic figures, a conclusion is drawn about their subordination to the expression of the artistic dominants of the work, primarily the artistic referent, the author’s modality and the reader’s expressiveness. Depending on this, the figure can be dictum, modus, dictum-modus or purely rhetorical, in addition to the narrative or descriptive type. The term “figurative frame” is introduced to convey the interdependence and contamination of figures in an artistic context, primarily of the metaphorical-metonymic type. The features of use and the factors affecting it are analyzed. The aesthetics of the figure as such depends on the distance of the figures, the basis of the conceptual conflict, their imagery and harmony, and their coherence. At the heart of this problem is the theory of figures proposed by Mark Bonhomme. Special attention is paid to the reader’s perception of figures. The main processes of interpreting a figure as a discursive construction are determined by the identification of the figure, its activation, contextualization, and expressive effect on the reader. It is concluded that figurativeness as a sign of a stylistic figure depends on a certain matrix that defines the figure and allows it to be interpreted by the reader, the communicative plan with the modality of the author, the conditions of the context taking into account the contamination of figures and the features of the reader’s rhetorical and encyclopedic competences.