Dialogue with the past: linguo-stylistic analysis of V. G. Rasputin’s short story "French Lessons" (to the 85th anniversary of the birth)

Abstract

The relevance of the article is determined by the fact that V. G. Rasputin’s prose is mostly researched from literary and methodological perspectives; less attention is devoted to its linguistic analysis. Despite the abundance of studies focusing on individual aspects of the short story "French Lessons", its holistic linguo-stylistic analysis has not been performed yet. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive description of the linguistic and stylistic specific features of the literary work in question. The research relies on the contextual, aesthetic-stylistic, linguo-poetic methods as well as level-by-level analysis. The paper identified a complex of linguistic means. On the one hand, these means are directed at the sphere of the environment depicted by the writer, and in which the main plot events unfold. On the other hand, they help to create the images of the author, the narrator, and the characters. The paper concludes that V. G. Rasputin made extensive use of lexical phraseological and grammatical means characteristic of the colloquial style to depict "fictional time". The characters’ specific speech features are reflected in the "author’s register" of the narration. The stylistic leitmotif of the story that determines both its composition and its imagery is a complex interaction of different viewpoints (those of the author, the adult narrator, the child-narrator, the characters). "Narrative time" is an amalgamation of colloquial and stylistically neutral means, a frequent occurrence of the adult narrator’s free indirect speech employed to assess the protagonist’s actions and emotions.