Abstract
The article dwells on the origin and development of linguistic imagology, a new field of research which studies the linguistic aspect of foreign image representation in fiction literature, mass media and other types of discourse, as well as the linguistic means of reflecting the relations between the auto-image (image of “the self”) and the hetero-image (image of “the other”). The specific approach offered in the paper is based on the analysis of nine multicultural novels about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict written in English. It consists in singling out two degrees of estrangement between the auto- and the hetero-image, with alienation and the image of an alius making an accent on differences and misunderstanding, and alterity together with the image of an alter, on similarities and propinquity. Lexico-semantic and stylistic analysis of the novels, carried out in the article, reveals linguistic tools which are employed to represent the hetero-image as either an alius or an alter.
Highlights
The second half of the 20th century was marked by a whole series of social events and phenomena, such as postwar recovery and decolonization, human rights movement and promotion of multiculturalism, etc., which required new interdisciplinary approaches of humanities towards interpersonal, international and intercultural communication
MATERIAL AND METHODS To reveal the ways in which linguistic imagology can be employed in the analysis of foreign images in literature and the research of the correlation between the auto- and heteroimages, we carried out lexico-semantic and stylistic analyses of English fiction books focused on one of the most tragic and prolonged political and military conflicts in human history, that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The lexico-semantic and stylistic analyses of the image of “the other” and of the linguistic means employed to represent the correlation between the hetero-image and the autoimage prove the necessity to differentiate between the notions of alter and alius, which stand for different degrees of estrangement
Summary
The second half of the 20th century was marked by a whole series of social events and phenomena, such as postwar recovery and decolonization, human rights movement and promotion of multiculturalism, etc., which required new interdisciplinary approaches of humanities towards interpersonal, international and intercultural communication. Imagology was one of the new fields of research that responded to the challenges of the time. As it follows from the etymology of the term itself imagology is the study of images, namely the images of a foreign nation and of one’s own as well. It deals with ethnic images in general and with national stereotypes and prejudices in particular, aiming to research their origin and evolution, and analyze their functioning in various types of discourse. The issues of otherness and alterity, which are today viewed within the context of various social, political and cultural phenomena, such as globalization and migration, date back to ancient times. Modern approaches towards understanding ethnic and cultural diversity are considered to have been shaped by ancient Greek philosophers who sought to describe neighbouring barbarians (those who did not speak Greek), for example in Egypt and Persia
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