The dissertation is the first comprehensive study focusing on semantics of verbal images of time in the Ukrainian 20th century poetry, based on more than 6,000 verbal images of time selected via continuous sampling from poetic texts by 65 authors. It systematizes different approaches to image semantics of temporality in the context of various linguistic paradigms. The dissertation offers arguments for examining image semantics of temporality in its integrative dimension, with the use of tools from the traditional (taxonomic, functional-pragmatic) and the modern (synergetic) paradigm, as well as from several linguistic disciplines (semasiology, text linguistics, linguocultural studies, stylistics of decoding, communicative stylistics, semantic syntax, etc.). It also justifies the use of the general (anthropocentrism, holism, expansionism, functionalism etc.) and the special (semantic centrifugal force, complementarity, interference) principles of studying semantics.
The dissertation offers an insight into the non-linear, non-equilibrium nature of the temporal image subsystem. This subsystem forms the periphery of the functional-semantic field of temporality which has image semantics (consisting of the referential, the evaluative and the representational layer) as its informational basis. The author describes dynamic processes within the subsystem which occur due to sociocultural influences (1920s – 30s as well as 1960s – 90s). Such influences cause the subsystem’s bifurcation and polarization (images with explicit and implicit temporal components as well as tropic syntagms carrying negative and positive evaluations of various types).
The temporal connotation is shown to be the main factor influencing implicit temporal images’ formation and functioning. The main element of such connotation is the connoteme of time which accompanies the semantics of precedent names (common and proper) as well as linguoculturally recognizable multiple-word textual fragments which form the basis of verbal images of time. The dissertation reveals the connection between the temporal connotation, on the one hand, and the semantics of events in the realms of social life, everyday life, rituality, individual time, natural and cosmic time, folklore and fiction, on the other.
The dissertation establishes a systemic connection between referential and evaluative models of temporal image semantics: images of sociohistorical and individual time most often give rise to negative evaluations while images of natural and cosmic time produce positive evaluations. The author describes relations between representational models (‘time – human’, ‘time – environment’, ‘time – art’) and functions of noun syntaxemes of the temporal group (subject for verbs of physical action, subject of a qualitative characteristic and subject of a qualificative and evaluative characteristic).
The dissertation explores the evolution of temporal semantics from the textual image perspective based on the interaction of key stimulus words, on the one hand, and one-word and multiple-word associational reactions to them, on the other. Upon identifying the valorative poles of said words, the latter are shown to be relevant to individual stylistic currents within modernism and to postmodernism as a whole.
The author identifies the functions of the attractor and the repeller as the main factors of modeling the image semantics of temporality. It is established that the functions of the attractor (the idea of time being in opposition to the human) are aimed at stabilization of the temporal verbal image subsystem, providing support for negative explicit semantics of temporality. The repeller works to disrupt this subsystem by supporting implicit and positive semantics of temporality. Based on the analysis of representational models ‘time – human’, ‘time – environment’ and ‘time – art’, it is revealed that the archetypical meaning ‘force creating obstacles for the human’ is related to the functions of the attractor, while ‘force acting as one with the human’ – to the functions of the repeller. The functional opposition between the attractor and the repeller is explained in the context of semantic development of the key temporal words in poetic texts of modernism and postmodernism. It is revealed that the negative semantics of images of time in the texts by existentialist poets is organized by the action of the attractor (the idea of time being in opposition to the human), while the positive (neo-romanticism) and ambivalent (neo-mythologism) semantics is organized by the action of the repeller. The evaluation present in these image forms in postmodernism oscillates between negative and ambivalent.
The results of the dissertation are meant to be used when teaching basic and specialized courses in stylistics, linguistic text analysis, lexicology, ethnolinguistics, linguocultural studies, and linguosynergetics.
