The project of the dictionary of perceptual images used in B. Pasternak’s poetic works

In the article, the project of the dictionary of perceptual images used in B.L. Pasternak’s poetic works is represented. The main objective of the creation of the dictionary is a detailed and multidimensional description of a significant fragment of the author’s individual worldview taking into account the features of Pasternak’s imagery and the text production potential of perceptual units. Perceptual units are defined as linguistic means of representation of perceptual images which can be systematized by the perception mode: vision, audio perception, tactile sense, sense of smell and taste. In the context of the offered research, perceptual imagery is considered as a subordinate concept in relation to verbal imagery. The bases for separating perceptual units is their ability: 1) “to create” perceptual imagery (the aesthetic basis); 2) “to mark” a perception proposition in the text (a proposition as a linguistic model of a situation) (the semantic basis). The study material is 499 original poems written by Pasternak in which 2 512 utterances representing semantics of all types of sensory perception were revealed. In the course of work, the following methods are used: the method of semantic and contextual analysis of linguistic units of different levels, the lexicographical method, and elements of the linguistic and stylistic analysis of literary texts. The presented variant of the dictionary entry (the perceptual image “silence”) includes four zones: 1) the head word (names the perceptual image); 2) the zone of ways of linguistic representation (taking into account morphological features, with the indication of the number of contexts); 3) the zone of contexts which shows all uses of the unit in Pasternak’s poetic texts with the indication of the name, the year and the line of the poem; 4) the zone of commentaries and the author’s imagery in which language-poetical remarks of dictionary makers are given. The zone includes the most exemplary instances of expressive means verbalization, for example, “metaphor”, “reification”, “comparison”, etc. The dictionary of perceptual images mandatorily contains the frequency parameter, and demonstrates the contextual uses of words for determining the author’s individual semantic accretions. The dictionary of perceptual images reflects the author’s individual features of poetics and can be qualified as an ideographic dictionary systematized by perception types. The key perceptual images observed in all the periods of Pasternak’s poetic creativity can represent one or several types of sensory perception and be presented by the means of various linguistic levels. The visual presentation of perceptual imagery in the form of the author’s dictionary gives a chance to trace traditions and innovations in Pasternak’s poetic texts and opens opportunities for the comparative analysis of linguistic means of representation of separate perceptual images in works of different authors.

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