Faculty of philology department of english philology viktorija mi

CHAPTER 2. THE FEATURES OF MODERNIST LITERARY DISCOURSE
AND ISSUES OF PSYCHOLOGISM 
 
According to Sanders (1994:514), people have always been interested in the studies of mind. 
Ancient philosophers believed that there is a strong relationship between human experience, power 
of mind, and language as a means of social interaction. I suggest showing the mysterious and 
nevertheless stunning way these three notions are constantly influencing and complementing one 
another in the following figure: 
Figure 1. Dimensions of Human Social Interaction. 
1.EXPERIENCE 
(social – physical dimension) 
2.REFLECTION  3. LANGUAGE 
( psychological dimension) (verbal – communicational dimension) 
Figure 1. Dimensions of Human Social Interaction. 
As can be seen from the figure above, first of all a human being gains some experience on the 
basis from the physical environment and social interaction with other humans he or she faces in the 
moments of success or failure, happiness or disappointment, hope or disillusionment. The 
experience gained is reflected and thoroughly reconsidered in the conscience, whereas the power of 
reason enables a person to discriminate between meaningful and unimportant moments, so that the 
later ones could be forgotten easily while the significant information is saved in the memory. 
Finally, the important information needs to be preserved and shared with other people, thus, as a 
socially intelligible creature a person expresses his or her thoughts verbally, via the system of 
linguistic sounds known as language. This linguistic activity, on its own behalf, causes new 
experience and requires a particular reaction of its addressees, and the influence these three 
dimensions of human social interaction have upon one another continues in a certain chain reaction, 
or endless circle. Thus, it seems certainly that it is possible to suggest the presence of clear 
important relationships between the three aforementioned phenomena, namely: experience, 
reflection, and language. 

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Indeed, my assertion provided above can be supported by modern philosophers such as 
Descartes, Locke, and Kant, who made collaborative effort in order to develop the studies of mind 
within their own philosophical frameworks. They claimed that every human being has to 
accomplish specific individual tasks in his or her life. Trudgill (2000: 125) maintains Sanders’ ideas 
about the influence that our mind has on our language and complements them by stating that the 
natural sciences, which had been based of the doctrines of philosophy, gradually developed as 
independent disciplines and influenced the rise of Psychologism as a separate field of scientific 
studies. Indeed, Psychologism can be treated as a branch of philosophy that was established on the 
basis of the methodological research that combined an empirical and naturalistic approach to the 
nature of man and extended existing knowledge about the unexplored possibilities of human mind. 
According to Trudgill, psychologists supported the view that the meanings of words are primarily 
shaped as certain concepts in the mind because of certain external influence, thus, human thoughts 
can be materialized and thoroughly expressed in the metaphysical reality by verbal or non–verbal 
means of communication. The difficulty of interpreting the powers of human mind with confidence 
was emphasized and indeed, this belief questioned the complexity of the mechanism of human 
thought and reasoning.
In his study, Sanders argues convincingly (1994:516) that there is constant activity within the 
mind. Human beings are each in some way constantly thinking: they are analyzing problems or 
following a line of investigation, recalling some significant events or experience from the past, 
making important decisions, discriminating between significant and insignificant moments in their 
daily life, or simply dreaming and planning certain activities in the future. Thus, it seems certainly 
that there are ever changing feelings and emotions related to everything that people experience, and 
an endless variety of judgments and commentaries about the world they visually perceive. Actually, 
as Greenfield claims, for many modern humans, mind is “the seething morass of cell circuitry that 
has been configured by personal experiences and is constantly being updated as we live out each 
moment” (2000: 13). Greenfield argues that the mechanism of the mind goes on and on and never 
seems to stop. It is a constant source of images, memories, and ideas intruding themselves upon our 
awareness. This endless process is impossible to control and it is wise to accept this continual 
versatility of images and ideas appearing across the landscape of our mind as an inevitable mental 
process. 
Although human mind usually conceals painful experience and flashes of unpleasant 
memories, it is undesirable to ignore or deny the influence it has on people’s lives. (Bryson Gore 
2005:20). According to Lee (1977:13), the majority of modernist pieces of literature are based on 
the belief that if the processes happening in the mind are constantly neglected, the character of 

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human nature becomes poorer as there appears a decrease in the power of creativity, self-
determinism, responsibility, morality, reason, and a value of life itself. The linguist emphasizes the 
fact that the current decadent notion of man without a mind or inner personality, considered only as 
an animal or a biological organism has been institutionalized into the theories and practices of 
modern civilization in the spheres of media, sociology, education, economics, and psychology. As 
Lee claims (ibid.), “Modernism is usually described as a response to an era whose political and 
social developments invited nihilism, scepticism, and despair”.  Therefore, modernist authors seek 
to explore the deepest levels of human mind and to visualize the feelings hidden there in order to 
represent the ambivalent modernist reality and the most important problems modernist people face, 
namely: the sense of loss and disillusionment. 
Is it so easy to depict the complexity of human mind and to portray it in the works of 
literature? Definitely, modernist writers have applied a number of innovative methods and 
techniques to disclose the essence of human psyche. Modernist fiction basically relies upon the 
subjective moments of experience, flashes and visions, dreams and hallucinations which seem to be 
illogical and absurd, but still conceal a deep value and meaning. Stevenson argues convincingly 
(1998 :24) that any possible interpretations and ways of analysing modernist novels derive not only 
from their subjects or topics under discussion but from the haziness and unreliability of their telling. 
The constant search for notional, cultural, and personal identity becomes the core question and task 
for the modern character, whereas the main task of the modernist writer can be worded in the 
following way : to explore unknown layers of the inside world existing in our minds with the help 
of deep psychological analysis. (Robert B. Pippin 1999:47)