Rythm-forming, functional and pragmatic potential and immanence of repetitions in the modern Spanish language

Abstract

This article offers the results of the investigation of repetitions in the modern Spanish language. To understand the role of the repetitions in a certain text, first of all, it’s necessary to determine whether they are immanent in the language or culture, and, therefore, unmarked, or, on the contrary, carry some charge: stylistic, rhythmic or pragmatic. Such differentiation is carried out by means of the analysis and synthesis of the theoretic material (А. Аlonso, E. А. Llorach, J. Nogeira, V. Iovenko, V. Vinogradov, etc.), contrastive and comparative analysis. The results show the redundancy of the Spanish language in comparison with Russian, which accounts for the numerous unmarked repetitions in Spanish. On the other hand, the frequent use of repetitions as stylistic, semantic or rhythmic device becomes evident too. For the analysis, we chose some official documents, characterized by the absence of stylistic devices, and some appellative and literary texts (poetry by A. Carvajal, a novel by S. Puertolas, etc.), which are apriori aimed at the form and pragmatic effect. This approach helps achieve the most objective conclusions concerning the nature of the repetitions in a text. We considered lexical and grammar repetitions, grammar, semantic and concept repetitions. Phonetic and lexical repetitions, as the basic stylistic devices, have not been subjected to analysis, as their markedness is evident. The results of the research, presented in the article, may be useful both for the people studying the Spanish language in order to speak it correctly and to understand the pragmatic function of repetition, and for translators to decide whether to follow the structure and rhythm of the text if repetitions are marked, or to omit them when they are in the original text, should they be immanent in the language and the culture.