Linguistic peculiarities of functionality of authorial commentaries in the English literary text (based on the English-language novel “Sister Carrie” by Theodore Dreiser)

Abstract

This article is dedicated to examination of verbal means of expression of authorial commentaries in English fiction. The relevance of the selected topic is defined by the fact that the question of characteristics of authorial commentaries remain an insufficiently studied area within the framework of interpretation of a literary work. Such linguists as R. Posner in the “Theory of Commentaries”, I. V. Arnold in the “Stylistics of Decoding”, and N. D. Arutyunova in her work “On the Problems of Structural Linguistics” have been dealing the topic at hand. Examination of the authorial commentaries allows assessing the depth and wholeness of the literary work. The article presents the analysis of linguistic means of functionality of authorial commentaries in the English-language novel “Sister Carrie” by Theodore Dreiser. Authorial commentaries manifest as one of the means for explication of dialogical nature of the literary text. Linguistic means emphasize the expressiveness of authorial commentaries within the framework of progression of a storyline. Most of the authorial commentaries in T. Dreiser's novel “Sister Carry” represent the contrasting contexts, reflected in the development of two thematic lines. To the first theme includes the associative series: beast – nature – the forces of life. The second semantic layer is demonstrated in the line: human – man – free will. Contrasting contexts originate the oppositions not only on the level of meaningful-logical information, but also on the level of subtext.