The ways of representing hidden meanings in English-language fiction discourse

Abstract

The article attempts to justify the expediency of linguistic research’ direction that reveals the pragmatic qualities and cognitive basis of different types of implicit speech in English-language fiction discourse. Latent meanings in fiction text/discourse have repeatedly been the subject of research. The totality of implicit speech’ types and researched on the means that actualize it is identified. Referring the methods of cognitive linguistics, the pragmatic potential of speech means for the expression of the hidden meaning is illustrated by the prose English-language texts. The aim of this article was to identify the totality of the types of implicit speech and research on the means that actualize it in English-language fiction discourse. In this researching work, we analyzed such speech means of expressing implicit meanings as: a specific use of idioms, i.e., hints, additional nuances of meaning. Observing how innuendo is used can provide some insight into the speaker's goal when he or she chooses that discourse strategy. In conclusion, it is noticed that the hidden meaning, e.g., in the presence of an additional metaphorical transfer, may require a great deal of cognitive effort from the reader. We proved that the hint is characterized by a wealth of implicit potential.