APHORISMS AS MEANS OF INTERPRETING OF LINGUISTIC TERMS: PECULIARITIES OF DEFINING

Abstract

The article analyzes the peculiarities of aphorisms functioning in linguistic scientific discourse. Linguistic aphorisms have been identified as individual authorial utterances that reflect subjective interpretation of linguistic terms. Over seven hundred aphoristic utterances were taken from scientific, academic, reference and fiction books, as well as from collections of aphorisms, where the linguistic terms have been presented. They serve as the material for research. Applied here are methods of targeted sampling, cognitive analysis and quantitative analysis, as well as descriptive method. A primary aim was to differentiate between two types of definitions of linguistic terms: scientific ones (i.e. the utterances of the primary nomination) and fictional ones, which serve the purpose of secondary nomination. The scientific definitions render the essential and core features of linguistic terms, while the fictional ones focus on the indirect and peripheral term characteristics determined by author’s communicative and pragmatic goal. Defining of linguistic terms through aphoristic utterances has been viewed as a unity of semantic, pragmatic and cognitive aspects. The research findings distinguish between aphoristic definitions-elucidations and definitions interpretations, depending on either objective-logical or expressive-stylistic information dominance. Aphoristic utterances created by linguists have been viewed as the definitions-elucidations characterized by high level of reference and frequent use of linguistic terminology that bring them closer to the logical designations or scientific definitions. Associative and metaphorical thinking forms the background of definitions-interpretations, typical for writers’ discourse. Therefore, their utterances have been considered as artistic definitions of linguistic terms, that are the means of additional semantization of corresponding notions. Such aphorisms illustrate anthropological approach to the analysis of linguistic phenomena. The secondary aim was to trace the ways of rendering the meaning of linguistic terms through aphoristic utterances. The following types of aphoristic definitions have been singled out considering the modes of explaining linguistic terms: descriptive definitions, comparative definitions (simile), definitions based on either semantic opposition or similarity.