Theme-rheme progression as a cognitive mechanism of comic

Abstract

In the article, a research of theme-rheme progression is first offered as a cognitive mechanism of creation comic. The offered mechanism lies in the creation of a humorous effect through language expression of stylistic devices in the theme of super phrase unity. To the most frequently used stylistic devices, distinguished in the literary texts by the modern American writer Dave Barry, we take hyperbola, device of the deceived expectation, diminishing. The lengthy of super phrase unity in comparison with a sentence allows it to have wider theme and rheme that take place in the whole series of sentences. A theme is characterized by certain incompleteness, allusion, arises reader’s/addressee’s interest. A rheme plays a role of a «long-awaited answer», is a peculiar expansion, explanation, saturated by stylistic devices of comic. The results of the conducted analysis allow distinguishing two types of theme-rheme connections in the literary text: contact and distant. Such method of theme and rheme super phrase unities selection in the text needs the addressee’s use of cognitive mechanisms of information decoding presented in literary texts by author/addressor. It is set that for the contact connection typical examples are those, where the theme-rheme mechanism is produced by simple linear progression, difficult progression with a constant theme, and difficult progression with «imposition of a meaning». The distant connection is characterized by examples with duplication of verbal theme-rheme relations with non-verbal – pictures, correlation of theme and rheme as verbal/nonverbal. It is defined, that for the distant type of connections it is inherent to use a non-verbal type of communication – pictures, displayed in the literary texts by Dave Barry.