The thesis reveals the specifics of artistic embodiment of biblical images-symbols in Frank Peretti's mystical thrillers by a complex analysis of the ways of their lingual representation with the use of methodological tools of discourse analysis, linguopoetics, linguistics, and cognitive pragmatics.
Artistically embodied in Frank Peretti’s mystical thrillers, whose worldview is based on Protestantism (Christianity), biblical images-symbols as biblical intertexts express not only archetypal (biblical) knowledge but also author’s associations in conveying the most significant ideas and guidelines of the literary texts.
Implemented in the literary texts by lexical and semantic nominative means, biblical images-symbols become the centres of biblically-marked contexts, which are differentiated according to their addressee orientation into author's and character's biblically-marked contexts and their scope – into propositional (which are expressed by one sentence), composite (which comprise several sentences creating one paragraph), and complex (the scope of which extends beyond one paragraph) biblically-marked contexts.
The lingual representants of the biblical images-symbols (hereafter the LRBIS) are differentiated according to their structure into one-component and multi-component LRBIS. One-component LRBIS are further distinguished as personal names (anthroponyms and toponyms) and common nouns (artifact, animalistic, anthropomorphic). The multi-component LRBIS are described according to their two-component, three-component and four-component structural patterns.
The type of semantic transposition in the meaning of the LRBIS determined the distinguishing of metaphorical and metonymic LRBIS, among which the metaphorical ones predominate. Metaphorical LRBIS are classified according to their structure (one-component and multi-component metaphorical LRBIS), their stylistic characteristics (language and speech metaphorical LRBIS) and their denotative meaning (anthropomorphic, naturomorphic, zoomorphic and phytomorphic metaphorical LRBIS). Metonymic LRBIS are differentiated according to the kind of the metonymic transference of meaning into four groups: metonymy of belonging, metonymy of place, metonymy of the signs and metonymy of the phenomenon.
The thesis elucidates the peculiarities of the speech-act realization of the LRBIS while artistically emboding the biblical images-symbols in Frank Peretti’s mystical thrillers, which is revealed in such statements, as representative, directive, comissive, and expressive.
The pragmatic analysis of the speech-act realization of the LRBIS revealed the pragmatic (perlocutionary) effect of the speech acts which is manifested in verbal, nonverbal, and mixed forms, and can be successful or unsuccessful.
The reasons for the successful or unsuccessful pragmatic (perlocutionary) effect are determined as follows: congruity / incongruity of the participants of communication, predictability / unpredictability of the results of communication, relevance / irrelevance of the communicative situation, and congruence / incongruence with the norms of culture of speech behaviour. The most important factor for the successful speech-act realization of the LRBIS is the congruity of the participants of communication due to the similarity of their views, guidelines, life experience, social status, psychological and emotional state, etc. The incongruity of the participants of communication results in the unsuccessful speech-act realization of the LRBIS because of the lack of understanding between communicants in the field of biblical discourse, and, in particular, the unwillingness of one of them to serve God.
