COMMUNICATIVE ROLES OF SERIAL KILLER CHARACTERS BASED ON AMERICAN FICTION OF XX CENTURY

Abstract

The article reveals the study of communicative roles of serial killer characters. The study is based on American fiction of the twentieth century. (“American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis, “The Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris, “Misery” by Stephen King and “Along Came a Spider” by James Patterson). In the process of research the problem of role differentiation is learned; the main approaches to the study of the concept of “communicative role” proposed by leading Ukrainian and foreign linguists are analyzed; the interpretation of the concept of “communicative role” is given; three types of communicative roles are studied: categorical, operative and related communicative roles; categorical, operative and related communicative roles of serial killer characters are singled out; each role is illustrated with examples from American fiction of XX century. The categorical roles are singled out on the basis of sociocultural and professional background of the serial killer characters. Operational roles have been studied on the basis of frequently repeated communication situations. Related roles have been explored by means of transactional analysis. The findings showed that characters perform common categorial role of a killer and other categorical roles according to their social status and professions (doctor, reporter, director, etc.). The serial killer characters also perform operative roles of the thinker, the joker and the host of the situation, which confirm their desire to manage not only the process of communication, but also real life situations and to draw people’s attention to their own personalities through jokes, demonstration of their knowledge or expression of their thoughts. Their relative role of the parent indicates that these characters consider themselves to be more intelligent than others and strive to influence the lives of others. Fiction characters verbalize their intentions in communicative situations created by the author, which helps to research their communicative roles taking into consideration lingual and extralingual factors in the process of their interaction.