Integrity and connectivity as constructive features of the text

In the range of issues related to the characterization of the text, which assumes a comprehensive coverage of this phenomenon, the issue of integrity and connectivity, perhaps, can be considered one of the main ones. This is explained by the fact that the text as an object of linguistic research is presented primarily as an informational and structural unity, as a functionally completed speech unit. It is this text quality that currently makes it possible to determine quite clear patterns of text formation.

Integrity and coherence - these are essentially the basic, constructive features of the text - reflect the substantive and structural essence of the text. At the same time, researchers, in particular, distinguish between local connectivity and global connectivity. Local connectivity is the connectivity of linear sequences (statements, interphase unities). Global connectivity is what ensures the unity of the text as a semantic whole, its internal integrity.

Local connectivity is defined by interphrase syntactic connections (input-modal and pronominal words, verb-time forms, lexical repetitions, word order, conjunctions, etc.).

Global coherence (it leads to the substantive integrity of the text) is manifested through keywords that thematically and conceptually unite the text as a whole or its fragments.

The coherence of the text is manifested through external structural indicators, through the formal dependence of the components of the text.

The integrity of the text is seen in connection thematic, conceptual, modal.

This means that the concept of the integrity of a text leads to its content and communicative organization, and the concept of connectedness leads to a form of structural organization.

First, about connectivity. The structural relationship can be explicit and implicit. For example: It became stuffy. And so we went outside. - It became stuffy. We went out into the street (causation is expressed in words or only by logical-intonational means).

Structural communication can be left-handed and right-handed, depending on the location of communication signals in the text components.

For example: I think that he lacks a lot in his work. For example, objectivity (the form refers us to the previous context; as well as the word, for example, it is associated with the leading statement; on the other hand, the connection goes to the right — much, that is, from the context on the right, objectivity ).

Another example: Youth is a kind of gift not to get tired, not to know boredom, to perceive everything with enthusiasm. But this gift, if it is understood as a natural interest in life, can be lost over the years, or it can be multiplied (signals from the left-hand communication — but this gift is its ).

Another example: In such cases, he got up and, over the pain, sat at the typewriter. (Left-side context: The anguished pains in the amputated leg often prevented Ivan Stepanovich from falling asleep. - A. Kron. The sea captain.)

There is another reason why I have no right to be silent. The number of publications, including foreign ones, grew. My manuscript became obsolete without leaving the desk. And I understood: they are not waiting for information from me, but biographies. Then I rushed to the other extreme. Began to write a biographical sketch (ibid.).

The combination is another reason points to the right communication (the reason should be disclosed); the combination rushed to the other extreme, too, orients to a subsequent explanation (right-handed communication).

Thus, left-sided communication is an indication in the text of what was previously said (anaphora); Right-hand communication is an indication of the subsequent (cataphor).

Left-side communication is especially clearly seen in a chain dependence: In the alder there are brown round nubs on the branches. These are storerooms. In them, the tree stores its seeds. Left-side communication is clearly visible in the following interphase unity: After Prishvin , a large number of entries and diaries are left . These recordings contain Mikhail Mikhailovich’s many thoughts on writing skills. In this case, he was as astute as in his attitude to nature (K. Paustovsky. Golden Rose).

Structural communication signals can be detected even in a sentence torn from the text, if they are explicitly presented. For example, the proposals of T o were a distant world, where the simplest objects sparkled with youth; And again, they walked for a long time in the dark (V. Nabokov) clearly have a textual background; the signs of communication testify to this: that, and.

A structural connection can also be expressed through syntactic parallelism, where chains of statements repeat the same model; communication is carried out by the uniformity of the verb form and other forms of formal organization:

Botanical Bay was icebound. Tall pines cracked from the cold. Unceasing wind blew dry snow from the ice. The bay gleamed glumly at night, like black glass, and reflected the stars (K. Paustovsky. Northern Tale). Here, the same patterns of sentences are used, the same word order, the same temporal forms of verbs ( was constrained, blew, glistened, reflected ).

The integrity of the text is, first of all, thematic, conceptual, modal unity.

Meaningful integrity lies in the unity of the topic - microthemes, macrotemes, themes of the entire speech work.

The smallest private topic is a topic concluded in interphrase unity (it is usually given in the beginning, the first phrase of unity). Interphrase unity is monothematic. The transition from one topic to another is a signal of the boundaries of interfractive unities. The unity of the theme is manifested in the regular repeatability of keywords through the synonymization of keywords, through re-nomination. The unity of the theme is ensured by the identity of reference, i.e. ratio of words (names and their deputies) with the same subject image. With the unity of the topic, finally, is connected the phenomenon of implication, based on situational connections. The presence of some of the displayed items suggests the presence of other situationally associated with them.

Here is an example of what the role of keywords is in creating the semantic integrity of the text, in realizing their active connection with other words, which help to fully reveal the indicated topic:

For several days, the cold rain poured incessantly. The wind was noisy in the garden. At four o'clock in the afternoon we already lit kerosene lamps, and involuntarily it seemed that the summer was over forever and the earth was moving farther and farther into deaf fogs , into uncomfortable darkness and cold .

It was the end of November   - the saddest time in the village. The cat slept all day, curled up on an old armchair, and shuddered in a dream when dark rain splashed through the windows.

The roads are blurred . The river carried a yellowish foam, like a downed squirrel. The last birds hid under the eaves, and now for more than a week, no one has ever visited us - neither Mithry’s grandfather nor the ranger.

It was best in the evenings . We flooded the stove. The fire roared, the crimson reflections trembled on the log walls and on the old engraving portrait of the artist Briullov. Leaning back in his chair, he looked at us and, it seemed, just like us, putting aside the open book, thought about what was read and listened to the buzz of rain on the cracks of the roof (K. Paustovsky. Farewell to summer).

The theme of the autumn cold rain and the sensations it causes are revealed before us. The key word rain binds together the entire fragment of the text, consisting of four interframe unities: it rained, cold; wet wind; dull fog; darkness and cold; dark rainwater; roads blurred; buzz of rain.

In essence, this is the deployment of one theme, the theme of rain, which helps to convey the other, the deeper meaning of the passage — the physical and mental state of the “observers” of this rain. So, the keywords created not just the plot background of the passage, but also something more - the deeper meaning of the text.

The key words, becoming the dominant symbols, create around themselves a single semantic context, involving in it other words that are situationally associated with the word-concept chosen as the key word. As, for example, in the following interphase unity, the image of the journey found by the writer entailed the corresponding verbal set: the roads were also given; at every step; interlacing of roads.

The work on this book resembles a journey through a little-known country, when new distances and roads open up at every turn. They lead to no one where, but they promise a lot of unexpected things that give food for thought. Therefore, it is tempting and just necessary at least incomplete, as they say, to outline, but still understand, the interweaving of these roads (K. Paustovsky. Golden Rose).

The dominant role of keywords, as applied to poetic works, was well described in his 1906 notebooks. A.A. Block: “Every poem is a veil stretched on the points of a few words. These words shine like stars. Because of them there is a poem "[1].

Keywords create semantic text fields [2].

This is a semantic leitmotif. As a rule, keywords are associated with the theme of the text, a fragment of the text, a separate interphrase unity.

If this is a phrasal unity, then the keyword is necessarily present in its conception as a semantic center. And it is this word that semantically attracts to itself other words, located in the explanatory part of a complex whole, revealing the given micromeme.

Keywords as a semantically important element of the text may be central in the system of images of a particular artist of a word. Through them, not only the main idea of ​​the work is expressed, but also the author's stylistics. L.K. Chukovskaya in “Notes on A. Akhmatova” wrote: “In order to get to the point, one must study the nests of constantly repeating images in the poet’s verses - they contain the author’s personality and the spirit of his poetry” (August 8, 1940) [3].

Researcher V. Vilenkin, in particular, drew attention to the fact that such a key concept-word for A. Akhmatova can be considered the image of “shadow” [4]. For the first time "shadow" appeared in the "White Pack":

There my shadow has remained and longs,

Everything in the same blue room lives.

After the death of A. Blok and the death of N. Gumilyov - again:

From the past rebel, silently

My shadow goes to meet me.

In The Poem Without a Hero and other works, the metaphor of the shadow changes its nature, expands and deepens its meaning, often turns into a cipher, the solution of which leads to an understanding of the subtext. So the keyword, acquiring new shades of meaning, becomes a cryptographic signal.

I am going to meet the vision

And I struggle with my own shadow -

Ruthless there is no struggle.

My shadow is torn to everlasting glory,

I stand as a guard at the outpost

And I tell her to go back.

The key word “window” in the commentary to “Eugene Onegin” is very subtle for V.V. Nabokov. This word-image turns out to be significant for understanding the spiritual image and life of Pushkin's favorite heroine Tatiana [5].

The image of the motif of a burning candle plays an important role in the content structure of B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”. After all, a candle as it “wins” a victory over darkness.

The role of keywords can even reach the level of the genre, for example, there was a certain selection of word-signals for the Russian elegiac school (V. Zhukovsky, K. Batiushkov). As soon as the words appeared to languish, turn pale, youth, joy, moon, rose, tears, cypress , etc., as the reader immediately understood that there was an elegy in front of him. Created lexical canon of the genre. Elegy remained impenetrable for a simple everyday word. Elegy as a “song of sad content” (V. Belinsky) was thematically limited. And consequently, lexical canonization seemed to be a genre-forming attribute.

The connecting element of the text at the level of content is the author's assessment and understanding of the displayed objects, the relationship of the author's intention and composition, the author's position. All this is connected with the text setting of the text and its implementation in the style, in the forms of representation in the text of authorship. The author's modality holds together all the elements of the text content. For an artistic text, this is the “image of the author” (according to the terminology of VV Vinogradov), for a non-artistic text it is the author’s concept, point of view. None of this - there is no semantic unity of the text, its integrity. The organization of speech means for transmitting content from an angle of view, reflecting the author's position, and determines the integrity of the text.

As regards the artistic text, L. Tolstoy said this well: “People who are not very sensitive to art often think that a work of art is one whole, because the same persons act in it, because everything is built on the same basis or describes the life of one person. This is unfair. This only seems so superficial to the observer: cement, which binds every artistic work into one whole and therefore produces the illusion of reflecting life, is not the unity of persons and positions, but the unity of the author’s original moral attitude to the subject ”[6].

Thus, the text will take place if it possesses two signs - structural connectivity and meaningful integrity. Moreover, both signs are inseparable and overlap each other. The presence of only one of the signs does not indicate an appropriately constructed text. In terms of expression, the text can be "connected" (syntactic linkage tools are used; subject-rematch sequences are followed), but in terms of content, such text can be absurd. A similar example is given by S.I. Gindin [7].

I went to the cinema. Cinema on Ostozhenka. Ostozhenka is one of the oldest streets in Moscow. Moscow is the center of all railways in the country. Railways - national economy. Such a “text” does not reveal the theme designated at the beginning ( I went to the cinema ), but leads away from it, although the structural rules for constructing the text are strictly observed here — the theme-rhematic sequences at the level of statements are clearly represented. The text seems to have lost its sense orientation, which is usually determined by a specific goal setting, a communicative task [8].

True, such “absurdity” can be planned by the author and be a kind of literary device. This can be found in the texts of N.V. Gogol. For example, coherent in form, but essentially incoherent speech of a police official (“Nose”):

But, fortunately, I had glasses with me, and the same hour I saw that it was a nose. After all, I am short-sighted, and if you become in front of me, then I only see that you have a face, but I don’t notice anything like a nose or beard. My mother-in-law, that is, the mother of my wife, does not see anything either.

Another example, when the absurdity is planned as the installation of the author:

Driving up to the porch, he noticed two faces looking out of the window at the same time: female, in a cap, narrow, long as a cucumber, and masculine, round, wide, like Moldavian pumpkins, called gorilyakami, which make balalaika in Russia, two-string lungs balalaika, beauty and amusement of a grasping twenty-year-old guy, blinker and dandy, and winking and whistling at white-breasted and white-hulled girls who gathered to listen to his quiet- blown trinket (N. Gogol. Dead Souls). So, after comparing Sobakevich’s head with a pumpkin, the text “floated” in an uncertain direction: a pumpkin, a balalaika, a country boy among girls.

Do not create the text as such and thematically selected, but not grammatically related series of words. For example, such series are used in teaching a foreign language, when a task is given from words to make sentences and combine them into text ( I, walk, stop, tram, go, institute ).

The use of separate words, outside of grammatical connections, can serve as a special literary device. In particular, V. Sorokin in the book “Norma” (M., 1994), through the list of words, tells the whole life of the “normal” from the point of view of certain social foundations of a person - from birth to death: this list is like an influx of consciousness - significant events and minor details; objective world and event, social and individual. According to this list, it is possible to accurately determine the typicality of the social environment outlined by the dotted lines, the inevitable phasing of the life path; stereotype of living conditions and therefore the stereotype of behavior of an individual individual. Here are some of these words (the words are given selectively, the author’s total list is 23 pages: 75–98):

As a literary device, a chain of nominative names is used in the ironic terms and in the following text [9]:

Mom, fairy tale, porridge, cat,

book, bright cover,

Pinocchio, Carabas,

knapsack, school, first class,

dirt in the notebook, three, two,

dad, scream, headwash,

summer, labor, river, straw,

autumn, scrap collection,

Pushkin, Darwin, Cromwell, Om,

Gogol and Napoleon,

Mendeleev, Herostratus,

farewell ball, certificate,

Institute, exam, nerves,

competition, lecture, course one,

trainings, seminars,

songs, dances, tara-bars,

accuracy of knowledge, even-odd,

joy, session, test,

construction team, heat, work,

cultural campaign, newspaper, photo,

hostel, bribe-miserable,

cinema, TV,

pencil, shovel, scrap,

fifth year, project, diploma,

vacation, sea, steamer,

across the Caucasus hiking,

Kullman, chef, end of quarter,

workshop, plot, shaft plan,

HBC, garage, apartment,

mother-in-law, humor and satire,

kindergarten, bike,

cards, chess, neighbor,

heart, liver, excess weight,

age, pension, social security,

anniversary, watch reward,

speech, monument, fence.

O. Molotkov

Как видим, своеобразная канва из слов способна передать некоторое содержание, однако это лишь окказиональный случай построения текста, запрограммированный его создателем на оригинальность формы, это своеобразный эксперимент, рассчитанный на эффект неожиданности. Что же касается обычного текстообразования, то здесь действуют определенные правила и закономерности, определяемые логико-грамматическими, языковыми категориями.

Кстати, перечень может вписаться и в обычный, грамматически связанный контекст, и тогда он воспринимается как структурный элемент сложного целого. В следующем примере даны однородные номинативы-высказывания, завершающиеся традиционно оформленным обобщающим предложением:

Город отражался в воде рейда всеми своими огнями. Блеск пламени достигал морского дна, – так прозрачна была вода севастопольских бухт.

What's happening? – спрашивал я себя.

Верди. Венеция. Старинный рояль и вино. Песенки студентов, седые актеры и молодая женщина с красной камелией, приколотой к корсажу.

Предательство, любовь, печальный поцелуй в висок.

Севастополь, красная эскадра, матросы-комсомольцы, якоря, цепи. Советские гюйсовые флаги, тончайшая музыка и слушатели, которым мог бы позавидовать Бетховен.

Все это произвело в душе радостное смятение. Только к концу спектакля оно сменилось ясным ощущением неповторимого времени, переживаемого нами, и небывалого будущего, идущего ему на смену (К. Паустовский. Черное море).

Перечисление номинативов здесь тематически сгруппировано, что отражено при помощи абзацного членения.

Итак, чтобы текст был оформлен как осмысленное целесообразное структурное единство, необходимы оба признака – признак связности и признак целостности.

Последнее включает в себя и такое качество, как коммуникативная установка. Гиперсвязность текста достигается именно его коммуникативной (целевой) установкой.