CC BY
44
УДК 811.161.1
DOI 10.17150/2308-6203.2019.8(1).147-163 Шаклеин Виктор Михайлович
Доктор филологических наук, профессор, заведующий кафедрой
Кафедра русского языка и методики его преподавания, Российский университет дружбы народов, 117198, Российская Федерация, Москва, ул. Миклухо-Маклая, 6, e-mail: shaklein_vm@pfur.ru
Victor M. Shaklein
DSc. in Philology, Professor, Head of Depatment Department of Russian Language and Methods of Teaching, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 6 Miklukho-Maklay Str., 117198, Moscow, Russian Federation, e-mail: shaklein_vm@pfur.ru
Белова Мария Александровна
Учитель английского языка, методист Общеобразовательное частное учреждение Международная гимназия инновационного центра «Сколково», 143026, Российская Федерация, Москва, территория инновационного центра «Сколково», ул. Зворыкина, 4, e-mail: 6marbel@gmail.com
Maria A. Belova
English Language Teacher, Teacher Trainer The International Gymnasium of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, 4 Zvorykina Str., 143026, Moscow, Russian Federation, e-mail: 6marbel@gmail.com
Микова Светлана Станиславовна
Кандидат филологических наук, доцент Кафедра русского языка и методики его преподавания, Российский университет дружбы народов, 117198, Российская Федерация, Москва, ул. Миклухо-Маклая, 6, e-mail: mikova_ss@pfur.ru
Svetlana S. Mikova
PhD in Philology, Associate Professor Department of Russian Language and Methods of Teaching, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 6 Miklukho-Maklay Str. 117198, Moscow, Russian Federation, e-mail: mikova_ss@pfur.ru
КРЕОЛИЗОВАННЫЙ ТЕКСТ В СМИ: ПРИНЦИПЫ ЭФФЕКТИВНОГО ДЕКОДИРОВАНИЯ
Аннотация. Появление и активное развитие инновационных каналов передачи информации, формирование сетевого мышления требуют от СМИ нестандартных форм подачи материала. Одним из ответов на запросы современной аудитории становится увеличение объема креолизованных текстов не только в электронных, но и в печатных изданиях. Такие тексты, состоящие из вербальной (надпись, подпись, текст большего объема) и невербальной (иллюстрация, схема, таблица, график, шрифт, цвет) частей, активно используются в СМИ, поскольку позволяют адресату наиболее точно «прочитать» интенцию адресанта, при этом сама интенция может выражаться имплицитно. Такой тип текста отвечает общим тенденциям массовой коммуникации к визуализации информации, повышению эффективности воздействия текстов на аудиторию благодаря двойному кодированию, компактности представления материала, чем обусловлен растущий научный интерес к кре-олизованным текстам в психологии, литературоведении, лингвистике, журналистике. Однако терминология данной области исследования в настоящее время не может считаться конвенциональной, в связи с чем в научных работах на равных правах используются термины «креоли-зованный текст», «семантически осложненный текст», «поликодовый текст» и др.
Авторы настоящей статьи характеризуют термины, используемые в отечественных и зарубежных исследованиях, оценивают их частотность и семантическую емкость. Выявляются специфические черты креолизованных текстов, описываются их различные типы в зависимости от использованных метаграфических и иконических знаковых систем. Рассматриваются три этапа «чтения» креолизованного текста (подготовительный этап, организованное восприятие, финальный этап) и роль визуальных компонентов в чтении этого текста. На примере карикатур обосновывается значимость фоновых знаний для адекватного прочтения креолизованных текстов. Лингвокультурные универсалии являются оптимальным источником объектов, значение которых очевидно для представителя определенной культуры, что облегчает декодирование креолизованного текста в рамках создавшей его лингвокультуры. С другой стороны, тексты, построенные на основе лингвокультурных универсалий (реалий, прецедентных имен, устойчивых словосочетаний, омофонов, омографов и др.) характеризуются особой сложностью для представителей иной лингвокультуры. Этим обусловлена необходимость рассмотрения подобных текстов в плане их эффективного декодирования. Материалом для исследования стали карикатуры А. Меринова конца XIX — начала XX вв., каждая из которых содержит одну из перечисленных выше лингвокультурных универсалий.
Ключевые слова. Креолизованный текст, девербализация, карикатура, ироническая модальность, лингвокультурология, слот.
Информация о статье. Дата поступления 15 октября 2018 г.; дата принятия к печати 24 декабря 2018 г.; дата онлайн-размещения 31 января 2019 г._
"CREOLISED" TEXT IN MASS MEDIA: PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE DECODING
Abstract. Arising and active development of innovative information channels, forming net thinking, require non-standard forms of presenting material in mass media. One of the solutions to this problem is increasing the number of creolised texts not only in electronic, but in printed media as well. Such texts containing verbal (heading, subscript, text comprising of more than one sentence) and non-verbal (image, scheme, table, font, colour) parts are widely spread in mass media because they allow the reader to precisely understand the author's intention and the intention can be expressed in an implicit way. Such texts correspond to mass communication general trends towards information visualization, raising the effectiveness of the text impact on audience thanks to double coding, compact presentation of the material. These are the reasons of growing scientific interest in creolized texts in psychology, literature studies, linguistics, journalism. However, the terminology of the scientific sphere is not conventional: different terms "creolized text", "se-mantically complicated text", "polycode text", etc. are all used in similar meanings in scientific papers. The authors of the article characterize terms used in Russian and foreign articles and monographs, assess their frequency and semantic scope. The specific features of creolized texts are pointed out, different types of such texts depending on metagraphic and iconic sign systems included in them are described. We distinguish three phases in reading such texts (preliminary stage, organised perception, final stage) and the role of visual and verbal components in the process. By the example of caricatures we show the importance of background knowledge for adequate decoding of creolized texts. Linguistic and cultural universals are an optimal source of objects whose meaning is evident to the representative of a certain culture. This makes the creolized text decoding easier in linguistic culture of its origin. On the other hand, texts based on linguistic and cultural universalia (realia, idioms, homophones, homographs, etc.) present extra difficulties for non-natives. The material of the research is caricatures of the late 20th — early 21st centuries by A.Merinov. Each of the caricatures is based on a certain linguistic and cultural universal.
Keywords. Creolized text, deverbalization, cartoon, ironical modality, cultural linguistics, slot.
Article info. Received October 15, 2018; accepted December 24, 2018; available online January 31, 2019.
Introduction
The 21st century is often called the Information age. Knowledge, invention, intellectual property have become the most significant resources in the modern world. Within the last two centuries people invented new ways of sharing information. The ways of its presentation have also changed. Mass media in the beginning of the 20th century had no
technics to add various colours or images. The text used to be more massive. The modern way of presenting information differs a lot. It is much more compact, has a high degree of organisation and visual appeal. As it is possible now to share different codes, not only the verbal one, the codes create new senses. Sometimes non-verbal codes can even compete with verbal ones.
Taking into account a spectrum of various sign systems and the possibility to combine them with language, we can assume that there is a large quantity of various non-homogeneous texts. They are used in everyday communication — gestures, miming, intonation, real objects, smells, sounds, music, pictures, photos, colours, forms and other signs that do not belong to a natural language. However, they are not used equally often. Undoubtedly, intonation, rhythm, miming and gestures are the essential companions of sounding speech if the communication is not for example, a telephone call. However, the speaker might still use them, though they will not affect the process of decoding.
In written speech, the most noticeable non-verbal elements are font, size, colour, background, accent and other signs that are connected directly with the elements of a natural language. The next large group are various images. 'The combination of a verbal text and an image' is the most general definition of the material analysed in the following research. In modern mass media, including on-line resources, these texts are of an extreme frequency.
The given phenomenon is investigated in different fields of studies: psychology, sociology, linguistics, cultural science, computer science, but first of all in journalism. Images accompanied by text elements are analysed from the point of view of a newspaper design in works of Russian and foreign scientists, such as P. Glynn [1], E.M. Rozenbljum [2], W. Eisner [3], G. Kress [4], A. Randviir [5]. The authors highlight the significant role of the images and their strong influence on the recipient. However, it is hard
to find an unequivocal description of their functions.
When creating a newspaper the author, the publisher or the graphic editor adds images to the text in order to make it aesthetically attractive or/and for any supplementary information. Such way of coding is sometimes more difficult to percept than a verbal text, and it is more emotional.
Aim
In the following research, we tend to make a list of terms to describe the phenomena of inhomogeneous text with a verbal component and a visual message. The key prerequisite for the research is the fact that a text that has both verbal elements and an image in its structure has received a variety of names in both languages. The main aim of the paper is to define the cultural role in choosing linguistic sources to implicate ironic modality in such texts.
Materials and methods
Quantitative research aimed to define the indicators of linguistic and cultural types has been carried out on the material of caricatures. The texts were published in various magazines, newspapers, and online.
The method of complete sample was used to collect the caricatures from editions published in the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. This period represents the most noticeable changes in a political and sociocultural situation which were imprinted in a cartoon genre.
The features of the selected material caused the use of the methods: introspective, conceptual, cognitive, contextual, interpretive, quantitative, as well as linguistic and cultural analysis.
Background
The research has revealed that non-verbal signs give more freedom for decoding to the recipient. This fact causes some extremely negative consequences. For example, the worldwide scandals around political cartoons (generally, anticlerical) inflame the intolerance and social misunderstanding. Rose Flemming, the editor of the Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Posten" ("The Morning Newspaper), tells in his book "Tavshedens tyranni", ("The tyranny of silence") that he could not anticipate the scale of the future world crisis when in September, 2005 he authorised for the publication twelve drawings of the Muslim prophet [6]. Even more horrible event took place later that year in a publishing house of French comical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. It made the society weigh up the pros and cons of the political cartoons. There is a range of new researches devoted to the phenomenon of a cartoon, the description of a principle of its influence on the recipient, an establishment of ethics and morals in the given genre.
According to a modern Russian linguist N. Klushina [7], one of the factors of growing popularity of visual texts is "deverbalisation of emotions in modern media culture". According to the author, 'deverbalisation' causes multipathing, additional senses and codes in modern communication. The phenomenon of a creolised text which the author calls an example of "deverbalisation" triumph means that pictures and other signs turn into semantic code as well as words.
Professor Elizabeth El Refaie writes about semiotic properties of texts and images and multiplication of meaning which can result from this combination [8]. The researcher of modern
Arabic discourse Bahaa-Eddin Mazid in his analysis of Egyptian social cartoons states "a group of signifiers that combine into a cohesive and coherent whole to make up a text" [9]. These descriptions are very close to general definition of a creolised text. However, there is no special term for these texts neither in the above-mentioned papers, nor in a number of similar ones. In some works there is a concept of a "Visual/Verbal text", but the term is not used regularly.
The term 'creolised text' in the sense close to the one described in English (or the American variant 'creolized text') is used only in translated articles of Russian-speaking authors. In English-speaking literature, the given term is used to characterize a text in the pidgin language.
The comparative analysis of Russian and English-speaking scientific literature on inhomogeneous texts has not revealed English analogues of key concepts 'deverbalization' and 'cre-olised text'. The researches in this area are actively conducted in both languages. However, the discrepancy between English and Russian terminology can make the knowledge exchange more complicated. Despite its metaphorical nature, the term 'creolised text' defines precisely inhomogeneous text as a semiotic unit. Moreover, the existing English variant with a similar meaning 'pidgin' can simplify the concept expansion.
In order to substantiate the term accuracy we have analysed the most popular synonyms used in Russian linguistics. The term "paralinguistic" unites all the meanings that are not included into, but relate to language system. The examples of paralinguis-tic signs are font, handwriting, accents.
The reference of images to paralinguis-tic signs seems inappropriate, as they are not related to natural language.
The term 'semantically complicated text' also does not reflect the integration of essentially different code systems. However, it underlines complicating such texts with some additional meaning. So it seems more relevant to use the term 'semantically complicated text' with reference to a text consisting of one sign system. The examples of such texts are verbal texts complicated by any paralinguistic elements.
Fig. 1 represents two verbal elements "Plan A" and "Plan B". The first verbal element is crossed out with one inclined line. The line itself does not represent anything but together with another semiotic code, it adds the meaning 'the crossed out option was tried and was not a success'.
The term «polycode text» seems to be the most general and wide. In English, it is used in programming. A prefix "poly-" has a meaning 'much' or 'many'. It specifies only that the word structure includes signs of two or more various code systems. We assume that polycode text should have different subclasses of texts with various sets of
elements and a certain degree of their 'cohesion'. The opposite concept is a 'monocode', or 'homogeneous' text, presented verbally or non-verbally.
It seems reasonable to use the word 'polycode' as a generic term for all the texts made of elements belonging to different code systems. A polycode text, as well as its opposite monocode, can be semantically complicated. They can equally incorporate elements that bring additional meaning. However, they do not have enough semiotic power to act independently.
Therefore, polycode texts have a number of characteristics:
- Quantity of sign systems (not less than two) and their nature;
- Presence or absence of semantical complicators;
- Quantity of channels of the perception;
- Quantity of shots;
- Degree of 'cohesion' of sign systems.
The last factor serves to define a special type of the polycode text — 'creolised' text. As well as any polycode text, 'creolised' text is "a complex text formation in which verbal and nonverbal elements form one visual, struc-
PLAN 6
Fig. 1. Illustration
(http://mindfulseparation.com.au/blog/?p=176)
tural, semantic and functional unit" [10; 11].
The paper of E. Anisimova "Cre-olised Texts, Are They Texts of the 21st Century?" [12] observes texts consisting of verbal and non-verbal components. According to the author, this term should be used for the texts "where both verbal and iconic resources, as well as other semiotic codes, take part".
Talking about the term 'creolised' some authors underline its ambiguity. Even the researchers who use it do not insist on its accuracy or semantic proximity to the described phenomenon. However, the majority of scientists agree that the term is metaphoric. Obviously, that sense of a creolised text does not represent the sum of semiotic signs included in it. Their meaning is integrated.
It is necessary to define non-verbal components of the text. First, the most common types of non-verbal 'satellites' of the texts are already mentioned as paragraphic codes (also called "metagraphic") and iconic codes. The metagraphic sources consist of
- punctuation signs (also called syntagraphics);
- units of the second order like italics, fonts, etc. (also called supragra-phics);
- topographical or graphic arrangements of the text.
Such elements have "no direct relation to the content". However, they create "optimum conditions for its perception" [13].
The concept "iconic code" (from English icon) is "a photo, drawing, a sculpture or another sign that represents a real object" [14]. Some researchers also call them "visual graphic sources" [13], but the concept "visual"
or "visible" concerning the verbal text can be considered to be superfluous. It is important to distinguish its properties and functions from the fine arts.
Considering paragraphic sources as auxiliary and icons as possessing their own meaning, it is possible to come to the conclusion that only the latter can take part in forming the sense of the creolised text. Its sense is a "synthesis" of senses of two or more valuable sign systems. The paragraphic sources can be used as additional elements (complicators).
In spite of the fact that the term «creolised text» is not decisively defined and limited such texts should meet two basic requirements:
1) Their parts belonging to various semiotic systems show interrelation, complementarity and interferences that cause complex influence on the addressee;
2) The meanings of the components are integrated forming the new sense, which is not equal to the sum of senses of the semiotics signs included in them.
Discussion
Firstly, it is extremely important to understand what tendencies made people use more and more icons to express themselves in the written speech. Modern language structures are undergoing considerable changes. The Russian linguist N.L. Shoubina [15] marks that the increase in quantity of nonverbal signs in published texts and expansion of their functions in the information continuum is not only the result of creativity. It is also the internal evolutionary process in language system and speech practice, the process of adaptating norms to any language system. However, it is also caused by the
influence of an average native speaker (also defined in Russian researches as 'Linguistic Personality') in the language system updating it according to changes of conditions in which the language is being used. Oral speech changes because of the large quantity of official documents used in everyday life. It, undoubtedly, has a considerable impact on written texts. Internet (online) communication plays an important role in this process. There is a great variety of communication channels used online such as chats, forums, blogs, and different messengers for mobile devices.
"Intonation, miming, gestures, the type of communication (dialogue) reveal intentions of a speaker with sufficient evidence. While in written speech, in particular in certain text types, this intention still needs to be distinguished by making some effort and involving the stored experience in analysing different text types» [16]. It is true in case if the written text is well-thought through and structured. To create such a text the author would need ideas, some time to work on the plot, maybe some corrections or even attempts.
Undoubtedly, while taking part in an online dialogue a sender does not have time to think over the text composition. The situation is similar to oral speech: the addressee waits for the reaction "here and now". Thus, written online communication reminds of oral conversation script. This phenomenon is caused by signs replacing habitual human miming and gestures called emoticons (or smiles).
Along with small graphic elements, helping to transfer only a nuance, electronic devices give almost boundless possibilities to exchange photos and video clips accompanied by verbal (both oral and written) speech.
Thus, we can notice that a group of words are sometimes replaced with only one symbol. Speaking about certain 'economy' of means of a natural language, "it is necessary to distinguish the concepts 'text compression (text compression necessary to limit the minimum redundancy necessary for understanding) and 'information reduction' (in size)". Reduced information, or the reduction of transferred se-miotic units is caused, as a rule, also by text compression since the text does not contain shade meanings, additional details, modality (the relation of the sender to what was said), etc. Text compression in turn is caused by choosing most semantically wide, but minimal in form units capable to keep "an informative saturation of the text" [15].
A great number of papers on the visuals in mass media describe different models of sign analysis, characterising its format. For example, the analysis of the location of an object (from above — ideal, wished, from below — real; on the left — familiar, habitual, given, on the right — new), the distance between the object and the camera, the colours, the form, etc. Scientists discover some reaction patterns observing recipients facing a visual object (a work of art, etc.) or taking part in an experiment. There is a range of similar experiments in the research "Psychology of Perception and Poster Art» by P.A. Kudin, B.F. Lomov and A.A. Mitkin. The authors "have united some results of psychological researches of art with the professional composite analysis of political posters". Based on the received data Kudin, Lomov and Mitkin formulated and described the principle of three phases of object or situation perception. The first phase, according
to the researchers, is the most general, and every following phase concretizes the received information. "The theory of staging perception has basic value for understanding the features of influence on the spectator of the fine arts. This theory allows estimating correctly that role which is played by any graphic sources in complete impression of a picture, a sculpture or a poster" [17].
The preparatory stage is a preliminary orientation and the general influence on the spectator. It is created by the size of the object, distribution of masses, colour scale and the prevailing colour.
The organised perception is the second stage. The certain composite psychological sources used by the author (such as parity of statics and dynamics, symmetry and asymmetry, proportion, rhythm, colour contrasts and shades of colours), conduct the view and the attention of the spectator according to the plan (or intuition) of the artist. It allows to fully understand the content of the picture.
The complete image and its estimation is the final third stage. It provides the acquaintance of the spectator with all the details of the picture, the elicita-tion of semantic links, the association of all the elements (with the account of the already developed composite outline) in a complete image, and then (at once or after some time) the formation of the estimated emotional, intellectual and aesthetic feedback. Thus, the estimation of the spectator can be ambivalent: in relation to the represented event (to the fact or the object) and in relation to artistic value of the representation.
In order to understand the process of decoding a creolized text, it seems important to analyse a common prin-
ciples of any decoding. Scientists all over the world are working on the term 'frame' or 'semantic frame', its structure and functions. It is defined as a collection of facts that specify "characteristic features, attributes, and functions of a denotatum (topic or theme), and its characteristic interactions with things necessarily or typically associated with it" [18]. One of the key concepts of the semantic frame is slot. A slot is a feature of frame meaning that differs it from other frames. Each frame according to A. Baranov can be presented as a table of slots each having its name and content. It is very important that the same slot can be included in the tables of absolutely different frames. The slots can be caused both lexically and grammatically. The similarity of slots can be found between the slot names and the slot content. For example, the frame 'a table' is characterised by a slot 'legs' that has the content 'four'. The similarity can be between the same slot names. For example, 'a chair' or 'a person' also has legs. On the other hand, the content 'four' is also presented with a name 'wheels' of a 'car' frame. This idea of the slot similarity was stated as the essential in the irony decoding [19].
A. Wierzbicka, the well-known linguist, suggested the term "cultural universal" [20] for the concept of an item fixed in the language as a result of cultural, political or social influence. It seems reasonable to use another term 'linguistic and cultural universal' [21] to underline the linguistic nature of the elements that belong to natural language. The researches made for this article let us assume that linguistic and cultural universals are familiar to the members of a certain ethnos depending on their range of knowledge, etc.
Irony is normally expressed through difference between the 'meant' and the 'said'. The range of linguistic and cultural universals is an optimal source of monosemantic items that are obvious for a recipient belonging to a particular culture. It makes the process of predicting the decoded meaning much easier for the author. This feature of linguistic and cultural universals makes them extremely frequent in cartoons. The cultural universals can be expressed both in verbal and iconic symbols.
The irony can be presented differently. In case that it includes universals, it is normally expressed as a contrast between:
- several iconic cultural universals;
- one or more iconic cultural universals and a written text;
- an iconic cultural universal and a linguistic and cultural universal;
- an iconic text and one or more linguistic and cultural universals;
- two or more linguistic and cultural universals.
- If we assume that linguistic and cultural universals are fixed in the memory of a member of a particular ethnos together with their perception of the world, the ironical effect in a cartoon is reached by its separation from the fixed image and meaning.
The most common linguistic and cultural universals analysed in Russian scientific researches are the following ones:
- realia (plural noun);
- paradigm (in Russian known as 'precedent') names, phrases and texts;
- multi-word lexical units ('phraseological units' in Russian) such as idioms, phrasal verbs, etc. (often collectively referred to as phrasemes);
- proverbs and sayings;
- multiple meanings of words, or similar words ('homophones' and 'homographs' studied by English researchers and also Russian concept 'homoforms') that normally do not match in different languages. Those kinds of words are used in puns.
Results
In order to understand the necessity of cultural universals it is important to analyse a range of popular texts from the perspective of a recipient that does not belong to Russian linguistic culture. Using cartoons as the material for the analysis might also help to sum up the creolised text features and irony perception principles. It should also be helpful to recognize the role of linguistic and cultural universals in the mechanisms of irony formation in such texts.
All the cartoons, analyzed in this article, belong to the same époque. They were created in late 20th — early 21st centuries. This historical period is very eventful and is characterised by the decrease of political and ideological influence of the USSR. The author of these cartoons is the well-known Russian cartoonist A. Merinov who is still publishing his cartoons both new and old in the newspapers and on web resources. His artworks of this particular period contained many cultural universals.
Every cartoon analysed further contains a linguistic and cultural universal. The most obvious role of linguistic and cultural knowledge seems to belong to the realia. They are words and expressions for culturally-specific material elements. As their nature is based on the culture and the lifestyle of a given ethnos the role of linguistic and cultural background cannot be overestimated. The first cartoon (fig. 2) presents a
Fig. 2. Cartoon by A. Merinov
Wife: "...fallen creature. Five letters. The last one is the soft sign". Husband "Rouble (spelled in Russian with a soft sign at the end)!" (http://zhurnal.lib.rU/e/elena1958/055merinov.shtml)
picture from Russian private life. Two people who are obviously a couple are solving a crossword puzzle. This iconic piece of realia is well-known around the world. However, the verbal text is not that obvious. The woman is looking for the answer to the definition 'a fallen creature, the word contains five letters, the last letter is the soft sign' and the man's reply is 'rouble'. It seems clear that the decoding of this cartoon involves the knowledge of Russian spelling. It also requires some data from
Russian economy which is close and familiar to every native. The fact that the rouble exchange rate tends to fall became the theme of the cartoon.
The second cartoon (fig. 3) contains two iconic objects, one of a ship and the other of a submarine that is aimed at it. Without any text the given cartoon would not have the ironical effect. The author adds two proper nouns familiar to a member of Russian culture. These nouns are the names of the characters of a classical story by Ivan Sergeyev-
Fig. 3. Cartoon by A. Merinov
The name on the submarine: "Gerasim", the name on the ship: "Mumu" (http://www.mk.ru/merinov)
ich Turgenev. From the linguistic and cultural point of view they are paradigm names. In this cartoon they get an occasional correlation: Mumu, the name of the dog, becomes the name of the ship. Gerasim, the name of the man who was forced to drown the dog, now belongs to the submarine. As the iconic text requires less effort from the recipient it is 'read' during the first and the second stages. Firstly, the recipient analyses the colour and the shapes, as well as the objects. Secondly, they understand the directions and predict the possible action. Finally, when the attention comes to the written text, an unconscious association between the heroes of the story appears, presented verbally and by the new concepts of 'transportation'. At the stage of analysing the received information through the background knowledge, a member of Russian sociolinguistic identity, would associate the plot with the new content. The popularity of this paradigm text is extremely wide among Russian natives.
The meaning of the universals is deformed by its transferring on a new image. Therefore, the slot 'to drown', included in the paradigm name of the story protagonist corresponds with the potential slot realised in the icon of the submarine. Such unobvious and not frequent comparison creates irony in this creolised text. Its adequate decoding is possible only through gradual interpretation of the two inhomo-geneous parts involving the cultural background.
The cartoon requires an instant reaction; therefore it does not comprise a long text. The image allows creating richer range of associations and means with a limited quantity of units, and they are not lexical. The given feature also
causes the reference to the language units with cultural shade. It brings a native speaker to a certain schema that contains slots of information and general attitude to them accepted in particular culture. For the irony as a method of hiding the 'meant' behind the 'said' those paradigm names became a source of set and predictable associations.
The third cartoon (fig. 4) is based on another frequently used linguistic and cultural universal, a multi-word lexical unit or a phraseme. The possibility of irony creation is caused by the main features of the phraseme. Firstly, the meaning of such unit is not made up of the meanings of its elements. Also its meaning is well-known among the natives and is normally unambiguous. This cartoon is an example of an iconic 'illustration' of the direct meaning of the phraseme components.
In order to understand the cartoon, the recipient needs to be familiar with the whole meaning of the phraseme as well as with the meanings of all the components. The phraseme has a meaning "to go back to the good old days' and is translated with an English idiom "to do (something) for old time's sake". The original unit contains two elements: a verb "shake" and a noun "something or someone old" in the instrumental case. The shade of meaning that the case should add to the noun wears off in the phraseme. Speaking about this cartoon, it is important to mention that the author regenerates the meaning of the case "a grammatical patient, also called the target or undergoer, the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out".
At the first stage of the perception the recipients 'read' the colours, shapes, outfit, age and other visual de-
Fig. 4. Cartoon by A. Merinov
Direct speech: "Let's shake an old fellow (lit.)" (http://www.mk.ru/merinov)
tails. At the second stage they analyse the actions of shaking, falling money, waving hands, etc. At the final stage they read the verbal message and comparing it with a common meaning realise that no one is doing anything like "back to the good old days". The characters are actually shaking down the old man to get his money. Thus, the irony is coded in this effect of unfulfilled expectations as well as in breaking the integrity of the phraseme. The slot "to shake" is presented verbally in the phraseme but loses its habitual meaning in the iconic action of shaking in the cartoon. The same happens to the slot "old (fellow)". If a recipient is not familiar with the figurative sense of the unit the cartoon will be perceived as a literal illustration of the verbal part.
The next cartoon (fig. 5) does not only contain a proverb but is also occasionally transformed. This proverb says 'your own burden does not weigh you down'. In a metaphorical way it means that the things that a person
does or chooses to do for himself, his family etc. do not seem burdensome, tiresome, etc. This proverb based on common sense and cultural experience is also widely-known among Russian native speakers. The cartoon represents a person who is going to drown himself with a stone attached to his neck. An outsider says, "Your own burden — however it weighs you down". The proverb obtains difficult structural and semantic transformations. The noun 'burden' is used in the given context in the direct sense 'something which is carried'. It becomes clear during the third stage when the recipient compares the protagonist and his stone with the written text. The negative particle 'not' is replaced with the conjunctive adverb 'however' that gives a shade of surprise to the statement. The whole deformed proverb gets a literal meaning. As well as with the previous cartoon, the decoding of this one requires a certain amount of linguistic and cultural knowledge.
Fig. 5. Cartoon by A. Merinov
Direct speech:"Your own burden - however it weighs you down (lit.)" (http://www.mk.ru/merinov)
One more type of linguistic and cultural universal that is widely used for irony coding in cartoons is multiple meanings or similar words. If the other types were obviously related to the culture, this vocabulary items are normally international, and at first sight have the equivalents in other languages. Before analysing the last cartoon, it is important to define a sphere of knowledge generated in the consciousness of a native influenced by a contiguity of various slots. Juri Lot-man defined semiotic space (semiosis) as a 'semiosphere' as an analogue of biosphere and noosphere. Just as the biosphere represents a set of live substance on the one hand and the condition of continuation of life existence on the other, semiosphere is a result of culture development [22]. Semiosphere is formed by the influence of a national language paradigm (or a picture of the world in Russian researches) and is reflected in a language paradigm.
According to A.R. Muhtarullina, the national paradigm is abstract, and at the same time, a cognitive and psy-
chological reality which is manifested in informative activity of the people, in a uniformity of behaviour in a stereotypic situation. The language paradigm is a set of people's notions of reality fixed in the terms of a language [23]. National originality of language and culture is reflected at different levels of language system. However, the linguistic and cultural features are presented explicitly at the lexical level. Indissoluble communication of language and culture causes the presence of a national and cultural component of a word meaning. The component reflects historical, social, geographical and other features of life of the given ethnos and does not have equivalents in other languages.
It seems important to underline the difference between nominative-semantic and figurative-semantic spaces of language. Thus, the nominative-semantic space of language performs a directly-nominative function in relation to a national paradigm. On the opposite, the figurative-semantic space unites figurative units of language with
multiple meanings that represent the national paradigm in the metaphorical meaning. The same word can be used in one or more direct meanings in the nominative-semantic space and in one or more figurative meanings in the figurative-semantic space. So, Russian words such as a pig and an oak can name an animal and a tree in the nominative-semantic space or a person in the figurative-semantic space. Their key slots ('dirty' and 'solid and hard') will bring an auxiliary image associated with the perceived object (in this case with a person). The given auxiliary image is predetermined by the contiguity of slots. In general, the figurative-semantic space hides the information about the associative interpretation of extralinguistic parts of reality familiar to the natives.
If in the case of figurative-semantic space the adjacency is caused by the common slots of meaning, the so-called 'similar words': 'homophones', 'homographs' and 'homoforms' (the last ones
are not studied in English science), find their similarity in the structure, spelling or pronunciation. The similar words, for example homophones like son and sun in English are the result of the evolution of a particular language and do not normally have any equivalents in other languages. The same words in Russian, for example, sound like 'syn' and 'sontse'.
English as an analytic language does not have such a wide morphological derivation system as synthetic Russian does. It causes the absence of a term 'homoform' as a type of word similarity in spelling in one or few morphological forms. This similarity is probably one of the most difficult for decoding for non-natives.
The last cartoon (fig.6) presents the use of homoforms in the ironic text. It is a dialogue between two men: one is on the top of a hill and the other is on its bottom. The word 'bottom' itself ('dno' in Russian) does not have any similar words in English and in Russian. From
Fig. 6. Cartoon by A. Merinov
A man on the hill: "Do you want the confidence in tomorrow (lit.)", a man at the bottom: "Why do I need a new bottom (lit.)" (http://www.mk.ru/merinov)
the figurative-semantic perspective this word has a slot 'low' in both languages and can be used, for example, for the state of life. However, changing the cases of this word in Russian the native will find the similar form of the singular prepositional case ('dne') with the same case of the word day ('dne'). That is how the person at the bottom understands the question "Do you want confidence in the day of tomorrow" as "Do you want the confidence in the bottom of tomorrow" and asks 'why do I need a new bottom'.
This pun seems extremely difficult for a non-native even if their level of Russian is high. It requires not only a clear understanding of figurative-semantic space of the Russian language based on its cultural evolution but also a good knowledge of grammar.
Conclusion
To sum it up, Russian linguists suggested using a new meaning of a term "creolised" to name a subtype of inho-mogeneous texts. A text can be called "creolised" if it contains two or more codes that are all meaningful. They
can be perceived by one or several channels. The meaning of the whole text must be integrative. The loss of any code breaks the final meaning. Such text can also contain additional signs that influence the meaning but do not change it dramatically. The most frequent "creolised texts" are made of verbal and iconic codes.
A large variety of the elements creating ironical effect in creolised texts can be selected and classified on a rich material of cartoons. Metaphorical nature of texts in cartoons requires frequent use of phraseological units, untranslatable vocabulary (lacunas or lexical gaps) with geographical, historical, social or cultural correlation. The comic effect is being coded by structural changes in familiar expressions (phraseological units) or contrast between a lexical unit and the image, etc. It makes the process of cartoon decoding almost impossible for the recipient who does not belong to a particular linguistic culture. Moreover, misunderstanding of a cartoon text causes false perception of the image and as a result wrong conclusions.
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ДЛЯ ЦИТИРОВАНИЯ
Шаклеин В.М. Креолизованный текст в СМИ: принципы эффективного декодирования / В.М. Шаклеин, М.А. Белова, С.С. Микова // Вопросы теории и практики журналистики. — 2019. — Т. 8, № 1. — С. 147-163. — DOI: 10.17150/2308-6203.2019.8(1).147-163.
FOR CITATION
Shaklein V.M., Belova M.A., Mikova S.S. "Creolised" Text in Mass Media: Principles of Effective Decoding. Voprosy teorii i praktiki zhurnalistiki = Theoretical and Practical Issues of Journalism, 2019, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 147-163. DOI: 10.17150/2308-6203.2019.8(1).147-163.
