Meaning and meaning. Text reading depth

To characterize the content side of the text, its semantics, the question of the relationship between the concepts of “meaning” and “meaning” turns out to be important. The meaning as applied to the verbal text and, in particular, to the minimum unit of this text is understood as the holistic content of any utterance, not reducible to the values ​​of its constituent parts and elements, but itself defining these meanings. Since each word as a part or element of a utterance in the composition of this utterance manifests one of its possible meanings, the birth of a general meaning is the process of choosing exactly this meaning necessary for a given context, that is, necessary to obtain the desired meaning of the whole utterance. It means that it is the meaning that actualizes in the system of meanings of the word its side, which is determined by the given situation, given context.

The distinction between “meaning” and “meaning” was noted in Russian psychology as early as the 1930s. L.S. Vygotsky (Thinking and Speech, 1934). “If the“ meaning ”of a word is an objective reflection of a system of connections and relationships, then“ meaning ”is the introduction of subjective aspects of meaning, according to a given moment and situation” [1].

It is this distinction that allows the author of the text, in terms of language units, to construct the meanings he needs. Moreover, the individual determination of meaning does not have to be definite. It is also possible to calculate the ambiguity and multiplicity of the text and, accordingly, its reading, as well as simultaneous reading of the superficial and deep. The meaning lying on the surface of the text or its components is more objectively tied to the meaning of its (or their) constitutive statements. Deep meaning is more individual and less predictable.

I must say that there are texts that are designed for the uniqueness of perception, interpretations of them are contraindicated in their essence. These texts are non-artistic (scientific, business). In this case, a double meaning or just ambiguity, the ambiguity of the meaning means the imperfection of the text, its insufficient refinement. In the case of a literary text, the presence of deep meaning or subtext creates a special significance of the work, its individual artistic value. As well as partly the disappearance of the semantic definiteness of the text, especially in the text poetic.

The means of translating the level of external, surface values ​​to the level of internal meaning can be different - these are often non-verbalized means: background knowledge, pauses, intonation, punctuation. This and special syntactic structures, in particular parcellation.

A special meaning can be given to the statement, for example, with the help of parcelling: “We should take a couple of children from an orphanage. Not for the sake of a piece of bread for old age, but so as not to be empty in the soul, ”thought Grigory Gerasimovich (A. Koptyaeva). The point after the word at home is a signal of the end of the narration, a pause, and therefore the logical center of the statement focuses on the predicate, we should take it (what would be desirable, but did not happen). Switching the logical emphasis to a combination not for the sake of a piece of bread (without a pause, indicated by a dot) crosses out this meaning (it turned out that they took it for a piece of bread). The necessary, new meaning is found in the following example, where parts of the statement are also parsed: I returned. With arms and legs, but worse than without them (E. Karpeltseva). The proposal, which was not divided into parts, would not have a concessive tone (although with hands, but worse than without them) and would sound like a confirmation of what was said earlier. And this would contradict the writer's idea: the wife, accompanying her husband to the front, begged him to return in any case - even if a cripple, but to return. Without dismemberment, the meaning would be exactly the opposite: it returned with arms and legs, as requested ...

The degree and depth of perception of the inner meaning depends on many reasons related to the personality of the reader. But this is not only his erudition, level of education, but also a special intuition, sensitivity to the word, intonation, the ability to experience emotionally, spiritual subtlety. “This ability to assess internal subtext is a very special aspect of mental activity that may not correlate with the ability to think logically. These two systems - the system of logical operations in cognitive activity and the system for evaluating the emotional meaning or the deep meaning of the text - writes A.R. Luria, - are completely different psychological systems ”[2].

The reader can sometimes extract from the text, and from a separate utterance, much more information than the author intended to put into it, in particular, information about the author himself. Or, on the contrary, do not understand the meaning of the text, which the author expected. It is known, for example, how N.V. was upset and depressed. Gogol success of the "Auditor". He thought that the viewer would be horrified and be shocked to see himself in the heroes of the play. But, on the contrary, everyone rejoiced and shouted “Ek, turned down!”. The author was disappointed, he suffered because he was not understood. The audience perceived the external, ridiculous side of the phenomenon, but did not understand its deep essence, i.e. the author's calculation was not justified.

An interesting example is given in his memoirs by A.F. Horses of different understanding and interpretation of the same event, set out in the text of the speech of the famous Metropolitan Philaret about the "innocently convicted" prisoners, for whom the prison doctor FP asked. Gaaz: “You all say, Fedor Petrovich,” said Filaret, “about innocently condemned ... There are none. If a person is punished, it means there is guilt behind him ... ”The quick-tempered and sanguine Gaazvskochil from his place ...“ But you forgot about Christ, Vladyka! ”He cried, pointing to the callousness of such a statement in the mouth of the archpastor and to the evangelical event - the condemnation of an innocent ... Everyone was embarrassed and froze in place: Philaret, who was in an exceptionally influential position, had such things never before, and no one dared speak into her eyes! But the depth of Philaret's mind was tantamount to the depths of the heart of Gaza. He drooped his head and fell silent, and then after several minutes of weary silence he stood up and said: “No, Fedor Petrovich! When I spoke my hasty words, I did not forget about Christ — Christ forgot me! .. ”- he blessed everyone and left” [3].

The conflict between plaintext and inner meaning, as has already been said, is especially characteristic of a literary text, since sometimes the outer events indicated in the text conceal the inner meaning, which is created not so much by the events themselves, as by the motives behind these events, motives that prompted the author to refer to these events. And since motives are guessed rather than “read” in the text, they may turn out to be different for different readers. After all, the reader has his own view of things. And it does not necessarily coincide with the author's interpretation. And therefore, the probability of occurrence of one particular meaning (for the author and the reader) is extremely low. To understand such a text requires active analysis, comparison of text elements with each other. It means that it is not enough to understand the direct meaning of the message in the text, the process of transition from the text to the selection of what the inner meaning of the message is [4] is necessary.

The process of decoding the meaning of messages and then understanding the general meaning of the text is entirely connected with the reader’s verbal thinking, in this process it is he who is the main link in the “author - text - reader” triad.

Thus, the meanings of messages in the text (words, statements, fragments) serve as a means of expressing meaning, and for different contexts it can be different. And to comprehend the language means of the text (that is, to reveal their meanings) does not mean to understand the meaning of the text. Understanding is a complex process, conditionally speaking, consisting of at least three stages: 1) choice of contextually actualized values ​​in words, 2) identification of surface meaning based on these values, 3) comprehension of internal meaning taking into account contextual motivation. In this case, one must also bear in mind that not all components of the meaning find a distinct verbal embodiment. And therefore the “darkness” of meaning is guessed rather than understood. In addition, the non-verbalized sphere of utterance (communication) most often carries with it emotional connotations and, therefore, is highly individualized. This is especially characteristic of poetic artistic texts.

The problem of “meaning and meaning” is particularly relevant for the texts translated. After all, the text of the translation should recreate the meaning of the text of the original. But the translator, relying on the meanings of words and their combination in the translated text, cannot always find in the translation language means for adequately conveying the meaning of the translated text. Therefore, the replacement of some language signs by others cannot be done separately [5]. Holistic statements are usually replaced, this is what makes it possible to preserve the meaning in the translation. The equivalence of holistic expressions is more likely than the juxtaposition of values ​​fixed by separate words. If language signs are not equivalent in integral expressions, the language “shortage” can be compensated analytically.

A.A. Smirnov in the book "The Logic of Meaning" [6]. In particular, the author establishes the correspondence of Russian and Arabic words through the establishment of the identity of their meanings. As an example, he takes the Arabic phrase of the buyna an-nhar wa al-may and translates into Russian the components of this phrase: buyna - between, nahr - fire, wa - and, may - water. It turns out the phrase "between fire and water." Further, A.V. Smirnov conducts a logical analysis of this phrase and comes to the conclusion that in Russian it is meaningless: “between fire and water” means “where fire connects with water.” But “if fire connects with water, neither fire nor water becomes. And where does he connect with her? We received “meanings”, the “meaning” of which became even less clear to us. What things correspond to these values? [7] translating only the meanings, we will never reach the meaning of “hot water” here.

So, the problem of “meaning and meaning” is significant and important not only theoretically, but also, perhaps, to an even greater degree practically, because it leads to the level of understanding of the text, which, in fact, is the purpose of creating a text.

This problem is globally connected with the process of generating a text, and with the process of its perception.

In accordance with the concept of A.R. Luria about the path “from thought to speech” can be conventionally outlined the way the text is generated (for the author) as follows: 1) the emergence of the motive that prompted to turn to the writing of the text, the feeling of the need to convey a certain meaning; 2) the formation of the deep structure of the transmission of this meaning at the level of internal speech; 3) the deployment of the deep structure in the surface speech structure (text).

On the other hand, the stages in the perception of the text (the “reverse” process - for the reader) are also revealed: 1) perception proper (direct perception of meanings, receiving a message); 2) understanding (understanding the message through the analysis of external verbal forms); 3) interpretation (disclosure of the internal meaning of the message) [8]. It is obvious that understanding and interpretation are closely related to each other. However, there are attempts to distinguish between these levels of text perception, in particular, E.S. Kubryakova [9] in understanding includes 1) understanding the text according to its components; 2) the correlation of linguistic forms with their meanings; 3) the derivation of the general meaning of the text on the basis of directly given in it language units and the establishment of relations between them. As for interpretation, it means a transition in the perception of the text to a deeper level of understanding, associated 1) with the procedures of inference and obtaining output knowledge; 2) with the correlation of language knowledge non-linguistic.