Linguistic forms of totalitarian and antitotalitarian communication in Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

The author focuses on the linguistic forms of a confrontation between heroes of the novel Life and Fate by V. Grossman and the so-called "Newspeak" of the Soviet Era. The main idea is that it is not only the author's own speech but also the speech of his characters that conveys the invincibility of the human desire for freedom. The study describes the different communicative approaches represented in Grossman's novel. The author does not provide a stylistic analysis, but a linguistic one, trying to distinguish between manipulative and non-manipulative communication. So, the methodological approach of this study is a linguistic one, and its first presents the author's arguments, explaining the importance of using linguistic analysis for Life and Fate. The study begins with a short analysis of the main characteristics of totalitarian communication (perlocutionary effect of the word, changes in word's reference, reduction of polysemy, logocracy and label-words, censorship, denunciation and self-denunciation) and then shows two types of anti-totalitarian speech represented in the novel as well. The first one is a reactive linguistic resistance, expressed by everyday, non-ideological and colloquial conversation, on the one hand, and a more or less evident struggle against ideological euphemisms, on the other hand. The second type of anti-totalitarian speech is the so called language of life and freedom (in Grossman's thought these are two sides of one reality). Linguistic forms of free live communication are the following: 1) a word as a linguistic act of denial, acquiring a huge affirmative force in these situations; 2) free and intellectual dialogue; 3) the author's comments; 4) questions, in which the author is primarily focusing on do-issues of a surprised statement and problem questions that do not suppose any obvious answer. The article analyzes the four forms, and numerous examples show that in the novel they express a positive idea that the free human nature does not change even in a totalitarian society. The linguistic analysis points out the relationship between the linguistic form of questions and the theme of freedom in Grossman's novel.

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