Dubenko O. National Poetic Worldviews in Linguocognitive and Translatological Perspectives

The investigation presents the first endeavour in the realm of modern linguistics to highlight the theoretical-methodological framework of comparative cognitive poetics as that domain of study which would facilitate an effective examination of the in-depth semantics ciphered in the poetic images of different language and cultural affiliation. The thesis offers a comprehensive analysis of universal and idioethnic cognitive characteristics encoded in those pivotal poetic images that have found their articulation at the level of national poetic worldviews. The nature of this cognitive content is anchored in the idiosyncrasies of language systems, cultural stereotypes and forms of aesthetic perception typical of the corresponding linguocultural milieu. The key instrument of comparing national poetic worldviews is seen in the cognitive category of gestalt that is capable of embracing poetic inner form in its polyphonic wholeness. Gestalt is regarded to be a more high-order type of cognitive structure than concept, as it combines in a holistic manner the perceptual and the rational. The notion of gestalt is also wider than that of image, because the former is defined as a multidimensional, complex image of a certain segment of reality that in a systemic way encompasses homogeneous and heterogeneous elements and creates a new, holistic quality of reflection which cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts. The sum total of cognitive-reflective figures, or distinctly perceived gestalt elements that are isolated by representatives of a certain linguocultural community against the background of other expressive elements, form the substratum for prototypical gestalt-formulas of a national poetic mapping of the world. Inevitable differences in the interpretation of key poetic signs observed in national poetic worldviews may be designated by the term parallax which, due to its etymology, conveys the essence of these distinctions to the best advantage. The gestalt-formula displayed by a certain poetic sign in a cross-cultural perspective gives evidence of its semiotic valency, or its correlation with those associative fields, archetypes and primary elements that participate in shaping of a peculiar figurative-associative halo intrinsic to the corresponding sign in poetic contexts. The generation of such gestalt is governed by the prototypical combinatorial schemes of the poetic and cultural national traditions. Personification that represents a genetic feature of poetic speech which stems from the features of archaic, mythological mentality gives convincing illustrations of inner form in its both linguistic and philosophical-aesthetic understanding. A multiple-aspect analysis of those language and conceptual factors that predetermine the specificity of personified images in Anglo-American and Ukrainian cultures provides graphic examples of parallactic tendencies in the compared poetic traditions and testifies differences in masculine-feminine categorization of objects, phenomena and abstract notions, observed at the level of: language worldviews (language parallax), conceptual worldviews (conceptual parallax) and poetic worldviews (poetic parallax). The national poetic mapping of the world is defined as a holistic system of conceptual meanings and their interaction that reflects ethnocultural features of artistic Weltanschauung at the level of unconscious knowledge which are represented in poetic speech. Accordingly, poetic image is an individual interpretation of conceptual and language poetic mappings of the world, the carrier of condensed lingual, historical and cultural codes that condition relative translatability of poetic images. In this situation the reader of both the source and target poetic texts confronts the task of creating a balanced gestalt or that symmetric wholeness which is built up in compliance with the law of good gestalt that stipulates human disposition to distinct, completed forms.