CC BY
13Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 1 (2018 11) 46-53
УДК 81-13
Rainman and Lieutenant Kizhe:
Name in Second-Order Semiological System
Nadezhda N. Efimova*
Irkutsk State University 1 Karl Marx Str., Irkutsk, 664003, Russia
Received 10.01.2017, received in revised form 18.12.2017, accepted 11.01.2018
The article sums up the analysis of quasi-names as a result of receptive distortion in the course of auditory perception. Rolan Barthes' theory of second-order semiological system is applied to modeling cognitive procedures of sense reception and transformation. Individual concept dominating the receptor's intentional horizon at a particular point of time correlates with internal time of ego and transforms the initial sense of the message into a new meaning. Algorithm of formation andfunctioning of second-order semiological system is tested as an instrument of individual myth creation. Study of individual quasi-names underlies general gnoseological view of concept's myth-forming function not limited to ideological concept domain. Correlation between the signifier and the signified is investigated within the context of phenomenological identity attained through interiorization - bringing the sign in harmony with the internal time of ego.
Keywords: quasi-name, lapsus auris, addressor, addressee, mondegreen, myth, semiological system, World of Action, World of Value, internal time of ego.
DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-0203.
Research area: philology, semiotics.
The issue of speech ellipsis as a whole and elliptical perception or listener's techniques of gap filling in particular was classed by Roman Jakobson as a problem discussed in language science "largely sporadically and in piecemeal fashion" (Jakobson, 1996). In "Dialogues" with Kristina Pomorska he emphasizes multilevel character of elliptical perception and lack of researchers' attention to "subjectivity of the listener, who fills elliptical gaps in a creative manner" (Jakobson, 1996). Discussion of this problem presumes study of disambiguation strategies, on the one hand, and correlation
between oral and written speech, on the other hand. Jakobson states "purely temporal" character of oral speech and "spatial-temporal" character of written text: "we listen to escaping sounds, but, while reading, we normally see static letters, and the time of written flow is reversible for us: we can read and reread, moreover, we can look ahead. Subjective anticipation of the listener transforms in objectified presumption of the reader: he may take a look at the end of the letter or novel ahead of time" (Jakobson, 1996). This opposition is made explicit in the proverbs: "Spoken words
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
are like flown birds", "Spoken word is but wind, the written letter remains".
Fixed character of the written texts makes it a convenient object of study, whereas oral speech being attached to the moment of speaking has for centuries been hard of access for scientific analysis, although it has always remained an object of listeners' subjective evaluation.
Quasi-names as names of non-existing personages represent one of the study objects in investigating reception transformations and deformations termed lapsus auris by I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay in his "Phonetic laws" (1910). Significance of text acoustic facet as a structured and structuring domain was obvious to ancient researchers of poetry and rhetoric. Present day tradition of oral speech study is rooted in Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of anagrams, Humboldt's study of sound, Potebnya's philosophy of language and Russian formalists' experiments with sounds.
In the last few decades linguocognitive studies have encompassed investigation of acoustic signal, algorithms of its processing by auditory and cognitive systems, mechanisms of understanding and secondary sense generation, as well as prerequisites and procedures of incomplete implementation of speaker's intention.
Stressing three objects of language science -language system, speech activity and language material, L.V. Shcherba suggested including negative language material (various speech errors) in the last category. He also advanced the notion of passive grammar describing language phenomena from the viewpoint of the addressee. L.V. Shcherba declared listening and reading no less active processes than initial speech activities - speaking and writing.
These three major conceptual foundations -importance of lapsus auris, significance of negative language material and passive grammar -gave rise to specific trends of linguistic research
with lapsus auris becoming one of their objects. It should be noted though that speech error studies are largely focused on slips of the pen and slips of the tongue as products of initial speech activities.
Within the framework of lapsus auris phenomena, of particular interest are quasi-names. It is noteworthy that mishearings are a very evasive object, as they more often than not remain unrecognized by the addressee, and are very seldom fixed in writing. The more valuable are the examples we do discover.
The story of Lieutenant Kizhe came to public notice as an anecdote included in "Stories of the time of Paul I" published by Vladimir Dahl in the journal "Russkaya Starina" in 1870. According to his version, a scribe miswrote an order promoting several ensigns (praporshchiki) to second lieutenants (podporuchiki): instead of "praporshchiki zh ... - v podporuchiki" ("ensigns (names) ... to second lieutenants", he wrote "praporshchik Kizh, ... - v podporuchiki" ("Ensigns Kizh, (other names) ... to Second Lieutenants". The unusual surname caught the eye of the Emperor Paul I, who for no obvious reason decided to promote the nonexistent Kizh to first lieutenant (poruchik). The imaginary officer rapidly rose through the ranks to staff captain and full captain, and when he became colonel the emperor commanded that Kizh appear before him. As no Kizh could be found, the military bureaucrats followed the paper trail and discovered the original mistake. To conceal the discrepancy, they decided to inform the emperor on the death of Kizh. Paul I was really sad at the news; "What a pity," he said, "he was a good officer".
This storyline formed the plot of a novella by Yury Tynyanov published in 1928 and filmed in 1934. Yu. Tynyanov considerably expanded the fable and romanized the name of the protagonist, who became Kizhe thus evoking associations with French origin.
Researchers believe that Tynyanov's idea of "Lieutenant Kizhe" emerged as a strategy to exemplify his theoretical speculations. In "The Problem of Versicular language" he dwells on "semantically senseless words acquiring seeming semantics in verse" (Tynyanov, 1924: 82). This "semasiologization" of senseless words was ascribed by Tynyanov to "tightness and unity of poetic line", which intensify so called "oscillating signs of meaning" thus creating "seeming meaning" (Tynyanov, 1924: 82). The dynamic poetic line may contain "semantic gaps, which are filled with the word meaning no matter what" (Tynyanov, 1924: 82). Tightness and rhythm of the line confer meaning to these gaps with orientation to the neighboring word.
These regularities hold for different languages. Thus, the very term "mondegreen" -mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, in a fashion producing a new meaning - is based on the single example described by American writer Sylvia Wright. Listening to her mother singing the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl O'Moray": she misheard the actual lyric:
"Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They hae slain the Earl O'Moray, And laid him on the green", perceiving it as:
"Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They hae slain the Earl O'Moray, And Lady Mondegreen". Mondegreens are created by a listener who for some reason fails to hear a lyric clearly and, in an attempt to fill the gap, substitutes the incomprehensible fragment with familiar units.
Sylvia Wright describes the picture of Lady Mondegreen's death, "the Earl's mysterious and tragic partner", as follows: "I saw it all clearly. The Earl had yellow curly hair and a yellow
beard and of course wore a kilt. He was lying in a forest clearing with an arrow in his heart. Lady Mondegreen lay at his side, her long dark brown curls spread out over the moss. She wore a dark green dress embroidered with light green leaves outlined in gold. It had a low neck trimmed with lace (Irish lace I think). An arrow had pierced her throat: from it blood trickled over the lace. Sunlight coming through the leaves made dappled shadows on her cheeks and her closed eyelids. She was holding the Earl's hand" (Connor, 2009).
Sylvia does not recognize the fact that Lady Mondegreen is never mentioned in the ballad -neither before the death episode, not after it. The image of the dying Lady correlates with the foggy multilateral concept already existing in the girl's picture of the world - it is apparently the archetypic concept of tragic death. The obscure inscrutable words are transformed by this concept and give rise to the integral mythological discourse.
Therefore, paradoxically, in order to acquire the meaning, the word ought to be incomprehensible - it then activates certain lexical background, which brings to the forefront certain "oscillating signs of meaning". Poetic line makes all the words obey a specific law of close interaction; so the meaning of poetic words differs greatly from that of every day words and words in prosaic text. Yu. Tynyanov emphasizes the potential meaningfulness of unintelligible puzzling words turning to Chekhov's short story "Muzhiki" ("Peasants" in Constance Garnett's translation), in which Olga cries upon hearing the cryptic word "dondezhe" ("till when" in Old-slavic, transformed into "tarry" by C. Garnett): "Sasha raised her eyebrows and began in a loud rhythmic chant: 'And the angel of the Lord . . . appeared unto Joseph, saying unto him: Rise up, and take the Babe and His mother.'" "The Babe and His mother," Olga repeated, and flushed all over with emotion. "'And flee into Egypt, . . . and
tarry there until such time as . . .' At the word "tarry" Olga could not refrain from tears. Looking at her, Marya began to whimper, and after her Ivan Makaritch's sister. The old father cleared his throat, and bustled about to find something to give his grand-daughter, but, finding nothing, gave it up with a wave of his hand" (Chekhov, 1996).
The name Rain Man appears in a similar way - at the interface of external form and internal readiness for meaning. The hero of Barry Morrow's road comedy-drama, a selfish dealer Charlie, gets to know his autistic older brother Raymond, to whom their father bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar fortune, only at the father's funeral. In an attempt to get control of the money Charlie spirits Raymond away from the mental institution and their trip through the country becomes a path of personal transformation for the younger brother. The climax of this psychological journey is marked by Charlie's recognition that Raymond is in fact Rain Man - the comforting personage from his childhood, who would come to console him on rainy days by singing soothing songs. The very name Rain Man unlocks the secret chambers of Charlie's soul, where there is still space for love and tenderness. The double meaning of the English expression "rainy day" adds to the significance of the name - Rain Man appears to be the one coming on rainy days and saving Charlie from childish sadness and adult selfishness.
Therefore, lapsus auris is a sign actualized in a non-standard communicative situation opposed to ideal and standard communicative situations by concurrence/non-concurrence of sign interpretation by addressor and addressee. According to Rolan Barthes, sense is the addressee's message, while meaning is the result of addressor's interpretation. Ideal communicative situation as an absolute concordance of primary and secondary sense-formation algorithms and
their results (sense and meaning) presumes dialogue between addressor and super-addressee. Introducing the notion of super-addressee M.M. Bakhtin states that "The author can never put himself as a whole and his speech product at ultimate and bottom-line mercy of the present or close addressees. and always presumes (with greater or lesser awareness) a certain higher entity of responsive understanding" (Bakhtin, 1979: 34). Super-addressee is an ideal addressee whose understanding is in tune with addressor's understanding.
In his study of slips of the tongue Z. Freud wonders: if I am to make a slip of the tongue, why do I slip in a particular way? A similar question arises in the research of ear slips. The genesis of a concrete addressee's counter-text is fundamental for lapsus auris phenomenon investigation. Considering myth genesis and functioning from the perspective of connotative semiology Barthes concludes that mythological meaning is not incidental, but is based on historical analogies. In case of lapsus auris they are individual phenomenological analogies.
Barthes' second-order - mythological -semiological system draws on Saussure's classical understanding of sign formalized in the three-dimensional pattern resting on the notions of the signifier, the signified and the sign. In the secondary-order semiological system "a sign (namely the associative total of a concept and an image) in the first system, becomes a mere signifier in the second" (Barthes, 1991: 58). So the signifier in myth has double function: that of the final term of the linguistic system and the first term of the mythical system.
Barthes' pattern of myth genesis was designed to describe and dismantle the mechanism of intended ideological mythologization achieved via visual and lexical means. But its possible applications reach wider domains, individual mythology being one of them. His concept of
mythologization applies to cognitive modeling of speech perception resulting in lapsus auris as a constituent of individual myth underlying phenomenological identity.
In Barthes' view, the primary factor transforming sign into a new signified is the concept - the driving force triggering myth generation. The concept, being not the reality itself, but its perception, restructures a system of prerequisites and results, motives and intentions. The sign being affected by the concept forfeits its primary sense and acquires new meaning.
Barthes's gnoseological provisions regarding myth-generating function of ideological concept are obviously not limited to ideological domain and cover wider varieties of concepts. He describes concept as being historical and intentional. We assume that individual concept creating individual myth possesses these properties -it is intended for the specific addressee, being non-existent or irrelevant for the others. As the signified may have several signifiers, it "selects" one of them through the dominant concept. "When it becomes form, the meaning leaves its contingency behind; it empties itself, it becomes impoverished, history evaporates, only the letter remains. There is here a paradoxical permutation in the reading operations, an abnormal regression from meaning to form, from the linguistic sign to the mythical signifier" (Barthes, 1991: 116). Barthes presents correlation between the first-
order (language) and second-order (myth) sign systems as follows (Table).
History of the individual concept is of phenomenological character, as history of the concept rests on the fragment of receptor's individual history. As well as ideological concept, individual concept is aimed to give rise to a certain effect and is integrated into a larger system. In parallel to Freudian concept of dream interpretation, Barthes postulates mythological concept to represent the true intention of speech, just like secondary (latent) meaning of the dream represents the true dream meaning.
Phenomenology does not evaluate actual or potential existence of possible world (as, becoming real, it would lose its status of probable world). It seeks to grasp internal integrity of this world formed by multiple facts and events, which would be incompatible in other worlds. Lapsus auris as a final result of perception marks introduction of the message into individual world of the receptor and simultaneous actualization of this world. Sign refers to both the World of Action and the World of Value, and, therefore, is perceived differently in the addressee's and addressor's worlds. Lapsus auris exemplifies extreme difference in the communicants' perception algorithms, resulting in polar opposition between addressee's and addressor's signified.
Cognitive modeling of speech messages is based on phenomenological reconstruction of
Table
L Signifier Signified
M a Sign SIGNIFIED
y n SIGNIFIER (sense in language, form in myth)
t g
h u
a
g
e
SIGN (meaning in myth)
individual myth acting as one of sense-generating foci of perception. It is created by an individual concept dominating addressee's state of mind at a particular time.
The concept is encoded in sign, only one part of which - signifier (sound sequence in oral speech or graphic sequence of letters in written speech) - is accessible to immediate perception of receptor. Entering the receptor's internal ego domain sign falls under the laws of receptor's world representing a kind of phenomenological myth. The addressor's signifier, therefore, forfeits the original signified and acquires a new signified, which correlates with the concept relevant for the receptor and present at the latter's intentional horizon in a latent form. This process actuates receptor's concept making it the foundation of discourse termed "discourse topic" by V.Z. Dem'yankov. The notion of discourse topic characterizing possible world represents a semantic focus of the message produced and received, regardless of presence or absence of any kind of manipulation on behalf of the addressor.
Sign is recognized as such only at the certain background, outside which it is no longer a sign. The background, which emphasizes the sign, is inevitably characterized by the notion of time. The concept of "time of soul" and its dominance over objective time goes back to Saint Augustine, who "It is in thee, my mind, that I measure times" (The confessions of Saint Augustine, 2002). Phenomenology of internal time excludes any presumptions of time objectivity and postulates prevalence of subjective experience and secondariness of objective time conceptualization. In Husserl's view, present time is perceived not as a point alone, but as a fragment of reality - a point and its surroundings. Inherent unity of space and time as an organizing element of human life is stated by Yu.M. Lotman and correlates with M.M. Bakhtin's notion of chronotope.
Time, like other non-presentative categories, is perceived metaphorically and its measurability is conventional and subject to individual cognitive processing. It may be described by its internal manifestations - signs. Similar to time of culture characterized by certain signs and certain structure of semiosis, which are key to its understanding, internal ego time is reflected in external signs accessible to analysis. Signs may be observed in specific discourse fragments, which, in their turn, are generated around central event embodied in the concept. Internal time of ego characterizes dynamic and versatile state of temporary equilibrium. Like time of culture thickens and consolidates around a certain event, accentuating it with an outburst of semiotic activity, time of ego compels consciousness to interpreting specific signs in the light of concrete intentionality. Signs enter the domain of internal time of ego concentrating around the primary concept, the discourse topic. The time of ego is objectified in discourse activity revolving around primary signs as semantic and pragmatic foci of time. According to general cognitive theory of translation, "the horizon of internal time of ego forms as an infinite sequence of experienced events, where experience of a single image is to be located" (Voskoboinik, 2004: 46).
Internal time of ego and sign are deeply interrelated: time is a product of sign activity, while sign is only perceived within the context of internal time structuring semiosis. Sense transformation resulting in a new signified is the ultimate outcome of incongruence of addressor's and addressee's intentional horizons. The addressor's sense having entered the domain of addressee's internal time transforms and attains phenomenological equality with the dominant concept. Positivist equality between sign and sense does not disappear, but steps aside as irrelevant for further discourse deployment.
Therefore, a quasi-name emerges as an anomaly calling for standardization, which may be attained through discourse. Bodiless Kizhe, Rainman, Lady Mondegreen and their counterparts arise as enigmatic paragrams, sound complexes looking for material embodiment. For "seeming meanings" to materialize, certain obscure, secondary, "oscillating" facets of meaning have to be stimulated. In Tynyanov's story these oscillating characteristics continuously reappear as ripples and riffles. The author repeatedly refers to glimmering, vibrating and wobbling emptiness, when he describes the scenes of Kizhe's execution and escorting to exile. Similar vague and uncertain presence of characters is implied in the two other examples - receptors are prepared to perceive entities, which are looming on their intentional horizon and, therefore, grasp the incoming signs and transform them into more distinct identities. Once born, they persist
and generate peripheral meanings. The power of mishearing sense-generating potential is made explicit by S. Wright: "if you lay yourself open to mondegreens, you must be valiant. The world, blowing near, will assail you with a thousand bright and strange images. Nothing like them has ever been seen before, and who knows what lost and lovely things may not come streaming in with them? But there is always the possibility that they will engulf you and that you will go wandering down a horn into a mondegreen underworld from which you can never escape" (Connor, 2009).
Therefore, the process of second-order semiological system formation detailed in Barthes' "Mythologies" demonstrates explicit similarity to that inducing phenomenological myth - within the concept domain the sign loses its initial sense, which is "stolen" by the concept and acquires a new meaning imposed by the addressee's myth.
References
Bakhtin, M.M. (1979). Estetika slovesnogo tvorchestva [Aesthetics of Verbal Creation]. Moscow, Art. 424 p.
Barthes, R. (1991). Mythologies. New-York, The Noonday Press, 1991. 83 p. Chekhov, A. (1991). Peasants. Available at: http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/185.htm (accessed 28 October 2016).
Connor, S. (2009). Earslips: Of Mishearings and Mondegreens. Available at: http://www. stevenconnor.com/earslips/ (accessed 10 October 2016).
Jakobson, R. (1996). Jazyk i bessoznatel'noe [Language and the Unconscious], Available at: http://www.studfiles.ru/preview/460710/ (accessed 27 November 2016).
The confessions of Saint Augustine (2002). Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm (accessed 1December 2016).
Tynyanov, Yu. (1924). Problema stihotvornogo jazyka [The Problem of Versicular language]. Leningrad: Academia. 117 p.
Voskoboinik, G.D. (2004). Lingvofilosofskie osnovanija obshchej kognitivnoj teorii perevoda [Linguophilosophical foundations of general cognitive theory of translation]: Dis. ...dokt. filol. n. Irkutsk, 2004. 290 p.
Поручик Киже и Человек Дождя:
имя во вторичной семиологической системе
Н.Н. Ефимова
Иркутский государственный университет Россия, 664003, Иркутск, ул. Карла Маркса, 1
В статье рассматриваются квази-имена как результат рецептивного искажения в процессе слухового восприятия. Предпринята попытка моделирования когнитивной процедуры восприятия в русле предложенной Р. Бартом концепции вторичной семиологической системы. Индивидуальный концепт, доминирующий на интенциональном горизонте рецептора в момент восприятия, коррелирует с внутренним временем ego и трансформирует смысл сообщения. Проанализирована возможность применения алгоритма формирования и функционирования вторичной семиологической системы к процессу создания индивидуального мифа. На основании анализа конкретных примеров квази-имен предложена общегносеологическая трактовка мифообразующей функции концепта, не ограниченной идеологической концептосферой. Соотношение означающего и означаемого исследуется в контексте феноменологического тождества, функционирующего в Мире Ценности и достигаемого в процессе интериоризации - приведения знака в соответствие с внутренним временем ego.
Ключевые слова: квази-имя, lapsus auris, адресант, адресат, мондегрин, миф, семиологическая система, Мир Действия, Мир Ценности, внутреннее время ego.
Научная специальность: 10.00.00 - филологические науки, семиотика.
