Lecture
In the philological sciences, the human being appears both as a subject and
as an object.
The human being as a subject of philology is, first, the philological researcher and, second, the «consumer» of philological
These connections have become, as it were, the load-bearing structure of contemporary philology as a branch of humanistic knowledge. Let us consider the role of each component of these connections.
First of all, let us turn to the human being. «Is a person not sufficiently himself without language?», — asks
the German-American scholar O. Rosenstock-Huessy
(1888—1973). And he answers: «No! A person needs self-realization. Self-realization is possible only through language». (See
in the reading materials given below the excerpts from the book
by O. Rosenstock-Huessy.)
Now let us consider language in its relation to the human being. In translating the works of É. Benveniste into Russian, Yu.S. Stepanov
formulated the French author’s main thesis: «l a n g u a g e
is made to the measure of man, and this measure is
i m p r i n t e d i n t h e v e r y o r g a n i z a t i o n o f l a n g u a g e (the spacing in
the text is — A.Ch.)». Benveniste posed what seemed a naive question:
if language is an instrument of communication, to what does it owe this property? In the scholar’s view, the answer is as follows: «it is precisely in language and
through language that man is constituted as a subject»6
. (See
in the reading materials given below the excerpts from the book
by É. Benveniste.)
Let us give several illustrations proving the thesis
of the French scholar. In languages there exists a class of words that is built around the speaker’s designation of himself, i.e. with
«I» at the center. See, for example, the following series of words in contemporary
Russian: I — my — in my opinion — I have (= here) — now (= at the time when I am here). There exist sentence structures
that indicate the presence of a person in the situation, although he is not named: Behind the wall someone was singing; There is noise in the house.
It is assumed that, accordingly, on the other side of the wall
or house there is at least one person who hears the singing or
the noise.
The human being, further, constitutes himself in the text as well. Compare two well-known texts «about the maple» (we give excerpts):
My fallen maple, my frozen maple,
Why do you stand bent beneath the white blizzard?
Or what did you see? Or what did you hear?
As if you went out beyond the village to stroll.<…>
(S. Yesenin)
and
The autumn world is meaningfully arranged
And inhabited.
Enter it and let your soul be at peace,
like this maple.
…Do not forget that it will straighten again,
Not bent,
But made wise by earthly reason
The autumn maple
(N. Zabolotsky).
Each of the authors presents himself in a particular way: these modes of self-constitution are usually described in terms of «lyrical hero», «image of the author», and the like.
The relation «man and text»: the text is created by man and for man (see the discussion of the utterance in Chapter 3).
The text «lives» in the world of human communication. Numerous examples of the vicissitudes of this life are known from the history of Russian literature. Beginning in the 1970s—1980s, in
our country there appeared the so-called «returned» literature — the works of writers who for a long time had been under a ban (E. Zamyatin, A. Platonov,
partly M. Bulgakov, B. Pasternak, and others); while the writings of a number of
writers who were regarded, for example, in the mid-twentieth century as exemplary, «classic», dropped out of active life.
5.2. The concept of homo loquens as an object of
contemporary philology
In the philological sciences, the human being appears both as a subject and
as an object.
The human being as a subject of philology is, first, the philological researcher and, second, the «consumer» of philological
154 155
knowledge obtained by the philologist-researcher (teachers
and instructors of philological disciplines, analysts and experts
working in the field of philology, practicing journalists,
specialists in advertising, and others).
The human being as an object of philology (homo loquens) is those aspects, facets of the human being as a whole, which constitute the subject
of interest of both philological sciences — linguistics and literary studies. In order to formulate the concept of homo loquens as
an object of philology, let us find that which is common to what linguistics and literary studies see in the human being at the present stage of their development.
Contemporary linguistics’ interest in the human being
is fixed in the concept of the linguistic personality.
The linguistic personality is «the totality of a person’s abilities and characteristics that condition the creation and perception by that person of speech works (texts)»7
. Why specifically texts? The fact is that texts created by a person are diverse
in complexity, subject matter, content, purposefulness, and in
many other respects. This diversity is explained not
only by the specificity of this or that particular language. Let us give an example.
Let us recall a scene from A.S. Griboyedov’s comedy «Woe from Wit» —
the second scene of Act II (the beginning of Chatsky’s monologue and a fragment of the dialogue between Chatsky and Famusov that follows it):
Chatsky
And indeed, the world has begun to grow foolish,
You may say with a sigh;
When you compare, and look
At the present age and the age gone by;
The legend is fresh, yet hard to believe;
As he was famed whose neck bent most often;
As it was not in war, but in peace that they gained by bowing,
Striking the floor without sparing themselves!
<…>
Famusov
Ah! my God! he’s a carbonaro!
Chatsky
No, nowadays the world is not like that.
Famusov
A dangerous man!
Chatsky
Everyone breathes more freely,
And is in no hurry to enlist in the regiment of fools.
Famusov
What he says! and he speaks as he writes!
Note Famusov’s final line: What
he says! and he speaks as he writes! What provokes Famusov’s remark? Chatsky, in his view, violates the norms of oral speech:
Chatsky’s oral utterance is built according to the laws of written
speech. If this situation had taken place in real communication, one could have confined oneself to stating the
fact that the partner in the communicative act does not master (does not fully / poorly masters) the norms of oral speech. (It is another matter with a literary text: in it this assessment is loaded with additional
meanings.) Thus, language has at its disposal norms of oral and
written speech; it is the speaker who makes the choice of norm.
So, to the question of what explains this, one may accept
the following answer: «Behind every text stands a linguistic personality». It is precisely the person who chooses and uses (in our case this right is «transferred» to the character) the ways and means of constructing reality (real, imagined) in
the text.
The concept of the linguistic personality encompasses both the linguistic
personality of the speaker (writer) and the linguistic personality of the reader (listener). Thus the linguistic personality is stratified
in terms of the functions it performs in the processes of communication. Here it does not matter that the text may remain
in inner speech. What matters is something else: under the influence of the perceived text, the listener (reader) changes / preserves his
behavior, views, carries out / does not carry out certain
actions, operations; changes occur in his emotional
sphere. The nature of the course of these processes is studied by the theory
of the linguistic personality as one of the directions in contemporary
linguistics.
154 155
knowledge obtained by the philologist-researcher (teachers
and instructors of philological disciplines, analysts and experts
working in the field of philology, practicing journalists,
specialists in advertising, and others).
The human being as an object of philology (homo loquens) is those aspects, facets of the human being as a whole, which constitute the subject
of interest of both philological sciences — linguistics and literary studies. In order to formulate the concept of homo loquens as
an object of philology, let us find that which is common to what linguistics and literary studies see in the human being at the present stage of their development.
Contemporary linguistics’ interest in the human being
is fixed in the concept of the linguistic personality.
The linguistic personality is «the totality of a person’s abilities and characteristics that condition the creation and perception by that person of speech works (texts)»7
. Why specifically texts? The fact is that texts created by a person are diverse
in complexity, subject matter, content, purposefulness, and in
many other respects. This diversity is explained not
only by the specificity of this or that particular language. Let us give an example.
Let us recall a scene from A.S. Griboyedov’s comedy «Woe from Wit» —
the second scene of Act II (the beginning of Chatsky’s monologue and a fragment of the dialogue between Chatsky and Famusov that follows it):
Chatsky
And indeed, the world has begun to grow foolish,
You may say with a sigh;
When you compare, and look
At the present age and the age gone by;
The legend is fresh, yet hard to believe;
As he was famed whose neck bent most often;
As it was not in war, but in peace that they gained by bowing,
Striking the floor without sparing themselves!
<…>
Famusov
Ah! my God! he’s a carbonaro!
Chatsky
No, nowadays the world is not like that.
Famusov
A dangerous man!
Chatsky
Everyone breathes more freely,
And is in no hurry to enlist in the regiment of fools.
Famusov
What he says! and he speaks as he writes!
Note Famusov’s final line: What
he says! and he speaks as he writes! What provokes Famusov’s remark? Chatsky, in his view, violates the norms of oral speech:
Chatsky’s oral utterance is built according to the laws of written
speech. If this situation had taken place in real communication, one could have confined oneself to stating the
fact that the partner in the communicative act does not master (does not fully / poorly masters) the norms of oral speech. (It is another matter with a literary text: in it this assessment is loaded with additional
meanings.) Thus, language has at its disposal norms of oral and
written speech; it is the speaker who makes the choice of norm.
So, to the question of what explains this, one may accept
the following answer: «Behind every text stands a linguistic personality». It is precisely the person who chooses and uses (in our case this right is «transferred» to the character) the ways and means of constructing reality (real, imagined) in
the text.
The concept of the linguistic personality encompasses both the linguistic
personality of the speaker (writer) and the linguistic personality of the reader (listener). Thus the linguistic personality is stratified
in terms of the functions it performs in the processes of communication. Here it does not matter that the text may remain
in inner speech. What matters is something else: under the influence of the perceived text, the listener (reader) changes / preserves his
behavior, views, carries out / does not carry out certain
actions, operations; changes occur in his emotional
sphere. The nature of the course of these processes is studied by the theory
of the linguistic personality as one of the directions in contemporary
linguistics.
156 157
The human being is a subject of constant interest to literary studies. At the center of the artistic investigation in literature
investigation in literature
stands the human being. It is not for nothing that it is precisely the character who is the central figure of the artistic world of a literary work, the subject of the action; it is precisely with the character, if we recall
M.M. Bakhtin, that the author carries on his unending dialogue.
From the standpoint of seeking the common interests of linguistics and literary studies, the key role is played by the creative personality
of the human being.
The creative personality is the totality of a person’s abilities and
characteristics that condition the independent
creation and perception by that person of artistic reality.
Let us recall that artistic reality arises on
the basis of that reality which is conveyed by linguistic signs.
Thus, according to data from E.N. Kovtun8
, in the plays of the 1920s belonging to the Czech writer K. Čapek, as a rule, there is no precise indication of place. However, the space in which
the events unfold has a closed character (an island,
a forest, a plain surrounded by mountains). Such is the reality created
by linguistic signs. The artistic space of the plays is
the entire planet. Connections between the two spaces are created both
by individual characters, and by details of costume, and by external
sources of information (ships arriving at the island,
incoming telegrams, radio messages), and others.
The concept of the creative personality covers the creative personality of the author and the creative personality of the reader.
The author and the reader are both creators of artistic
reality. The difference between them lies «only» in the fact that
one of them, the author, creates an original reality (from Lat.
originalis — original), while the other, the reader, re-creates
it.
The fact that the writer is a creative personality is universally recognized. Let us turn to the reader. The function of «being a
creative personality» belongs to him as well. The reader’s task consists not only in perceiving and understanding the text; that is the function of any listener (reader). The reader
of a literary-artistic work re-creates artistic reality. The re-created reality may be
clothed in the form of an utterance, a retelling, an essay, an oral
account, a new literary-artistic work,
for example based on the motifs, on the plot, and so on. In the process of re-creation
a search for the meaning of the work takes place. This is — the core of the reader’s activity of re-creation, since «the meaning of a literary
work is not a given, it is an object of search»9
.
M.M. Bakhtin advanced the idea of «creative understanding». For it to begin to be born, one needs the reader’s
imagination, experience, one needs the «expectations» with which the reader
meets the literary text. Thus, different readers’ encounters
with T. Tolstaya’s novel «The Slynx» (1986—2000) are, without doubt, based on different grounds. These may be, for example:
1) the genre classification of the text: a novel (a complex, convoluted plot is expected, after the image and likeness of «War and Peace»
by L. Tolstoy or «The Road to Calvary» by A. Tolstoy);
2) the title of the novel: «The Slynx» (in the mind of the mass reader
«kys’» calls to mind a cat — a symbol of peace in the house, of calm,
of domestic comfort, or, more likely, a lynx — a symbol of predatory aggression);
3) simple human curiosity.
In the course of reading the novel, expectations may turn out to be «deceived». This will cause some readers to stop reading; others, however, it will stimulate to a more attentive attitude toward the text,
to the «play» with the text offered by the author. Reading a few pages of «The Slynx» will convince those who wanted to see «the truth of life» in a familiar linguistic and textual expression that
here there is a different «truth of life», packaged, to say the least, unusually. This external «appearance» stimulates the reader to search for
the meaning of the text.
Note the possibility of different paths toward the search for
meaning:
Benedikt pulled on his felt boots, stamped his feet to make them sit right,
checked the stove damper, brushed the bread crumbs onto the floor — for the mice,
stuffed a rag into the window so it wouldn’t let in the cold, went out onto the porch and
156 157
The human being is a subject of constant interest to literary studies. At the center of the artistic investigation in literature
stands the human being. It is not for nothing that it is precisely the character who is the central figure of the artistic world of a literary work, the subject of the action; it is precisely with the character, if we recall
M.M. Bakhtin, that the author carries on his unending dialogue.
From the standpoint of seeking the common interests of linguistics and literary studies, the key role is played by the creative personality
of the human being.
The creative personality is the totality of a person’s abilities and
characteristics that condition the independent
creation and perception by that person of artistic reality.
Let us recall that artistic reality arises on
the basis of that reality which is conveyed by linguistic signs.
Thus, according to data from E.N. Kovtun8
, in the plays of the 1920s belonging to the Czech writer K. Čapek, as a rule, there is no precise indication of place. However, the space in which
the events unfold has a closed character (an island,
a forest, a plain surrounded by mountains). Such is the reality created
by linguistic signs. The artistic space of the plays is
the entire planet. Connections between the two spaces are created both
by individual characters, and by details of costume, and by external
sources of information (ships arriving at the island,
incoming telegrams, radio messages), and others.
The concept of the creative personality covers the creative personality of the author and the creative personality of the reader.
The author and the reader are both creators of artistic
reality. The difference between them lies «only» in the fact that
one of them, the author, creates an original reality (from Lat.
originalis — original), while the other, the reader, re-creates
it.
The fact that the writer is a creative personality is universally recognized. Let us turn to the reader. The function of «being a
creative personality» belongs to him as well. The reader’s task consists not only in perceiving and understanding the text; that is the function of any listener (reader). The reader
of a literary-artistic work re-creates artistic reality. The re-created reality may be
clothed in the form of an utterance, a retelling, an essay, an oral
account, a new literary-artistic work,
for example based on the motifs, on the plot, and so on. In the process of re-creation
a search for the meaning of the work takes place. This is — the core of the reader’s activity of re-creation, since «the meaning of a literary
work is not a given, it is an object of search»9
.
M.M. Bakhtin advanced the idea of «creative understanding». For it to begin to be born, one needs the reader’s
imagination, experience, one needs the «expectations» with which the reader
meets the literary text. Thus, different readers’ encounters
with T. Tolstaya’s novel «The Slynx» (1986—2000) are, without doubt, based on different grounds. These may be, for example:
1) the genre classification of the text: a novel (a complex, convoluted plot is expected, after the image and likeness of «War and Peace»
by L. Tolstoy or «The Road to Calvary» by A. Tolstoy);
2) the title of the novel: «The Slynx» (in the mind of the mass reader
«kys’» calls to mind a cat — a symbol of peace in the house, of calm,
of domestic comfort, or, more likely, a lynx — a symbol of predatory aggression);
3) simple human curiosity.
In the course of reading the novel, expectations may turn out to be «deceived». This will cause some readers to stop reading; others, however, it will stimulate to a more attentive attitude toward the text,
to the «play» with the text offered by the author. Reading a few pages of «The Slynx» will convince those who wanted to see «the truth of life» in a familiar linguistic and textual expression that
here there is a different «truth of life», packaged, to say the least, unusually. This external «appearance» stimulates the reader to search for
the meaning of the text.
Note the possibility of different paths toward the search for
meaning:
Benedikt pulled on his felt boots, stamped his feet to make them sit right,
checked the stove damper, brushed the bread crumbs onto the floor — for the mice,
stuffed a rag into the window so it wouldn’t let in the cold, went out onto the porch and drew in through his nose the frosty, clean air. Ah, how good it is! (in bold
italics are highlighted fragments of free indirect speech, of which «for the mice» is unsettling. — A.Ch.);
In those forests, old people say, lives the Slynx. It sits on
dark branches and cries so wild and plaintive: kys-s! kys-s! — but
no one can see it. A person will just go into the forest, and it will
get him from behind on the neck: hop! and its teeth into his spine: crunch! — and with its claw it will find the main little vein and tear it, and all his reason will go out of the person.
Such a one will come back, but he is no longer the same, and his eyes are not the same, and he walks not minding the road, as happens, for example, when people walk in their sleep under
the moon, with hands outstretched, moving their fingers: asleep themselves, yet walking. <…>
Of course, the search for meaning is the most difficult task: for the discrepancy between content and meaning is an essential feature of a literary text. But there is also the matter of the
reader himself: not every reader is ready to solve this task, to
become, in U. Eco’s words, a «co-creator» of the text’s meaning,
a «collaborator» of the author.
Thus, the concept of homo loquens denotes a person carrying out, by means of natural language, an activity of
creating and perceiving a text containing any kind of reality.
The concept of homo loquens extends to manifestations of human activity in all spheres of communication: scientific,
business, legal, advertising, artistic, everyday,
and others. In each of these spheres the speaker (writer) and the listener
(reader) have their own peculiarities. These peculiarities are studied by the corresponding philological (humanistic)
disciplines: journalism, the theory and practice of advertising,
of business communication, and others. (See in the reading materials given below
excerpts from the books of I. Brodsky and O. Mandelstam.)
The abilities and characteristics of a person that condition
the activity of creating and perceiving texts containing
any kind of reality lie on several planes.
l the formal-demographic and ethnographic;
l the social, psychological, and socio-psychological;
l the cultural-anthropological;
l the philosophical-worldview-related;
l the cognitive and communicative;
l the linguistic;
l the situational-behavioral, and others.
In their significance, the characteristics of a person are equivalent
to what academician V.A. Engelhardt called the internal environment of the human being: by them, each taken separately, in various combinations, taken together, is determined the activity of creating and perceiving
a text.
In contemporary philology a general philological scientific discipline has not yet taken shape whose subject of study
is homo loquens as an object of philology. (Cf.: for example,
the text as an object of philology is studied by the theory of the text; language and
literature — by humanistic semiotics.) The study of homo loquens as an object of philology is conducted within the framework of a number of scientific
disciplines that are conjoined with linguistics and literary studies.
Let us name two such disciplines:
l philological hermeneutics, which studies the processes of understanding a text.
«Understanding, — writes G.I. Bogin, — leads to the mastery of
the «essence of the matter»». The scholar asserts that «the ultimate social
goal of philological hermeneutics is to help people communicate <…>, to overcome the failure of one person to understand another» (Bogin
G.I. The Attainment of the Capacity to Understand.
Introduction to Hermeneutics. [Posted on the educational portal auditorium.ru]).
158 159
drew in through his nose the frosty, clean air. Ah, how good it is! (in bold
italics are highlighted fragments of free indirect speech, of which «for the mice» is unsettling. — A.Ch.);
In those forests, old people say, lives the Slynx. It sits on
dark branches and cries so wild and plaintive: kys-s! kys-s! — but
no one can see it. A person will just go into the forest, and it will
get him from behind on the neck: hop! and its teeth into his spine: crunch! — and with its claw it will find the main little vein and tear it, and all his reason will go out of the person.
Such a one will come back, but he is no longer the same, and his eyes are not the same, and he walks not minding the road, as happens, for example, when people walk in their sleep under
the moon, with hands outstretched, moving their fingers: asleep themselves, yet walking. <…>
Of course, the search for meaning is the most difficult task: for the discrepancy between content and meaning is an essential feature of a literary text. But there is also the matter of the
reader himself: not every reader is ready to solve this task, to
become, in U. Eco’s words, a «co-creator» of the text’s meaning,
a «collaborator» of the author.
Thus, the concept of homo loquens denotes a person carrying out, by means of natural language, an activity of
creating and perceiving a text containing any kind of reality.
The concept of homo loquens extends to manifestations of human activity in all spheres of communication: scientific,
business, legal, advertising, artistic, everyday,
and others. In each of these spheres the speaker (writer) and the listener
(reader) have their own peculiarities. These peculiarities are studied by the corresponding philological (humanistic)
disciplines: journalism, the theory and practice of advertising,
of business communication, and others. (See in the reading materials given below
excerpts from the books of I. Brodsky and O. Mandelstam.)
The abilities and characteristics of a person that condition
the activity of creating and perceiving texts containing
any kind of reality lie on several planes.
Let us enumerate the most important:
l the formal-demographic and ethnographic;
l the social, psychological, and socio-psychological;
l the cultural-anthropological;
l the philosophical-worldview-related;
l the cognitive and communicative;
l the linguistic;
l the situational-behavioral, and others.
In their significance, the characteristics of a person are equivalent
to what academician V.A. Engelhardt called the internal environment of the human being: by them, each taken separately, in various combinations, taken together, is determined the activity of creating and perceiving
a text.
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