THE ROLE OF COGNITIVE CONTEXT IN THE SEMIOTIC INTERPRETATION OF FOREIGN INCLUSIONS IN THE NOVEL “SPIRITLESS” BY SERGEY MINAEV

Abstract

The study is performed within the framework of cognitive linguistics and interpretative semiotics. It analyzes the process of adequate interpretation of English - language inclusions incorporated in the text of the novel “Spiritless” of the popular scandalous Russian writer Sergey Minaev, which are important elements of realization of the general communicative strategy of the author. The analysis focuses on the English words, phrases and sentences, chosen by the method of continuous sampling, the interpretation of which is done by means of semiotic analysis of the cognitive context. The author considers the key communicative tactics (the communicative tactic of definition and description and the contextual communicative tactic). The most significant lexical layer of foreign origin in the novel under analysis refers to the names of famous world brands of clothes, footwear, watches and bags, popular kinds of alcohol, etc. The peculiar feature of use of names of foreign brands by Minaev consists in the emergence of a semantic “superstructure” and emotional coloring in the process of structuring of the paradigmatic connections “foreign - expensive, nice, successful”; “Soviet - stagnant, “sovok”, backward, etc.” The article contains a conclusion that foreign words and phrases are rather difficult for comprehension by the Russian reader, that is why their correct interpretation needs a complex process of matching of conceptual fields of the knowledge obtained as a result of cognitive experience of the reader, the contextual space framing the borrowed element, and the necessary communicative tactic chosen by the writer which facilitates fast functioning of the interpretative mechanisms in the recipient’s mind.