Variant – 3 What problems is text semantics concerned with?

VARIANT – 28

1. 
   Discuss the category of implicitness and formulate the notion of an implicate.
   

Implicitness as a text category. Implicitness, aimed to transfer indirect, hidden, not completely verbalized information, is another inherent category of a fictional text. The problem of the implicit originated from the study of “subtext”, “the mystery of creation” of literary works, or “poetic world”, “the second plane of the work”. This problem has been rather well cultivated in the linguistic literature. Much attention has been paid to the status of implicit information in the English belles-lettres text, mechanisms of engendering implicitness in the verbal system of the text, taxonomy of language units indicative of implicitness.
The monograph by G.G. Molchanova contains a detailed description of all the language means manifesting the category of implicitness. G.G. Molchanova introduces the notion of an “implicate” regarded as a text component. An implicate is a twofold structure and semantic unit of the implicit layer; it reflects the problem situation in the text, its communicative and stylistic tension. Implicates serve as prompts for the readers to understand the essence of things being hidden, buried, not available to direct visual perception. There are different types of implicates. Their classification is based on violation of the communicative principles suggested by Grice (1985). According to the aims of communication Grice distinguishes some principles of communication or rather cooperation, which are subdivided into four communicative postulates: Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner.
1. Violation of the postulate or Maxim of Quantity (“be brief”) is relevant to such implicates as alliteration, anaphora, epiphora, all kinds of repetition. From the point of view of factual information these implicates seem to be redundant. However, a deliberate abundance of one and the same language sign in the text leads to appearing new implicit information;
2. Violation of the postulate or Maxim of Quality (“try to make your contribution one that is true”) is conditioned by the use of such implicates as metaphor, hyperbole, litotes, pun, irony, based on the contrast of real and “imaginary” worlds;
3. Violation of the postulate or Maxim of Manner (“avoid obscurity”) causes implicitness based on violation of logical succession in the text such as retrospection, prospection, implication of precedence, open ending, etc.
So implicitness is created by a multitude of language means; among them a special emphasis should be put on implicit titles, implicit poetic details, fictional dialogues, and certainly, stylistic devices.

2.