Metaphorical fields in V. Kaverin’s novel "The two captains" (to the 120th anniversary of the birth)

Abstract

The paper focuses on the identification and description of text-building and meaning-forming (world-modelling, conceptual) metaphorical fields in V. Kaverin’s novel "The Two Captains". The metaphorical field is viewed as a hierarchical structure. The core zone is comprised of the conceptual metaphor "life/world – creativity"; the centre zone includes metaphors extending the core metaphor, in the first place, the metaphors "book of life/life – book" and "world – theatre" (read life, a page of life, the main character and others). The linguistic units which are used simultaneously in their literal and figurative meanings (history) constitute the periphery zone. The world-modelling metaphor forms a system of "figurative parallels" in the novel. Due to this, the form of a trope can vary though its stable semantic significance remains unchanged. "Figurative" parallels include cover not only tropes, but also words in their literal meaning. Owing to continuous repetitions and associative connections with metaphorical contexts, such words support and expand the sphere of influence of extended metaphors. Life as such is perceived in the novel as creative work harmonizing reality due to the expansion of the metaphor scope with the help of intertextual inclusions (The world is a theatre, people are actors and others) and as a result of the reconceptualization of the metaphors theatre, game. They change their negative connotation ("acting") to positive ("creativity"). The metaphors (book of life –) theatre and (book of life –) fairytale receive the additional meaningful connotations "realisation of a dream, fulfilment of passionate desires". Although the subject and image of the metaphors included in the metaphorical field differ, the seme ‘creativity’ enters the comparison feature of each of them.