Ways of formation of metaphors in the literary text as realization of the maintenance of nominations of gestures (on the material of the work “Atonement” by I. McEwen)

Abstract

This paper presents a study of ways to form metaphors to realise the content of nominations of nonverbal elements – gestures – identified in modern British prose – the novel “Atonement” by I. McEwan. Analysing textual contexts made it possible to single out the types of metaphors in the literary text. These metaphors are united by a standard metaphorical transfer of a non-verbal element-gesture. It is emphasised that words are “containers” of meanings, and the perception of speech is the coding of pre-existing meaning, and its understanding is decoding. It is pointed out that messages are containers filled with values that are sent from a sender to a recipient. In general, conceptualising linguistic communication according to the model of fixed (written) text, we understand linguistic communication in terms of the difference between language (as an existing system) and its implementation (as a written literary text). It was found that from the reader’s point of view, it is crucial to know the meaning of non-verbal elements-gestures, which are the basis for their rethinking in the context of metaphor in the literary text. These structures help readers develop the meaning of the literary text, going beyond explanations of gestures in terms of psychological functioning and metaphorical meaning.