Halyna Horodylovs'ka

Lviv Polytechnic National University

Redefining of the term semantics and the expansion of its function in modern Ukrainian literary language

(based on the literary works of Roman Ivanychuk)

© Horodylovska H. P., 2014

The article analyzes the functioning of terminological vocabulary in historical works by Roman Ivanychuk, particularly the peculiarities of its use in artistic speech. The processes of terminologization and determinologization are examined as well. Usage (at the model level) and contextual (at the functional level) characteristics of terms are given for comparison. Potential semantic, stylistic, emotional and expressive possibilities of special vocabulary in the context of a literary work are revealed.

Keywords: Ukrainian language, term, semantic transformation, stylistic value, Roman Ivanychuk’s novel, literary work.

The article suggests semantic and stylistic analysis of terminological vocabulary, showing peculiarities of its use in artistic speech, particularly in the texts of Roman Ivanychuk historical works. The article deals with the means and methods of terms’ usage in nominative sense and in the figurative and metaphorical one, with their functions in the author’s language and speech parties of the characters, the semantic transformation and the determinologisation processes of these linguistic phenomena.

It is found out that the language of the writer’s prose is characterized by the successful use of terms, which shows not only the features of his individual author’s style, but also enriches the language with new means of expression. This is caused by the author’s creative idea (genre of a novel, its ideological and thematic content), and the individual approach to the highlighted events.

Terminological vocabulary can be traced in various speeches (monologues, dialogues, and characters’ inner speeches). It allows the writer to describe the real personalities of scientists, to create linguistic characteristics of the characters, to depict scientific atmosphere that surrounds them. Terms in the writer’s historical novels have their techniques of use; they convey the necessary scientific information, they function as the means of stylistic expression, characterized by unusual use through appropriate semantic transformations and processes of determinologisation. Their introducing to a literary text testifies the author’s awareness of various branches of knowledge – both natural and social.

It is noted that terms of the historical novelist’s works are exposed to the semantic transformations of two-dimensional character. In some cases, their content is fully implemented, and in others – it is neutralized, replaced by new associations, on the basis of which the secondary meaning of the word arises. While interacting with the means of fiction there is a kind of expressive determinologisation of previously neutral terms. This determinologisation is connected with metaphorical reinterpretation of special words, resulting in the expansion of their meaning. For instance, the medical term symptom is a specific feature of any disease. In Roman Ivanychuk’s literary works it is determinologised and used in a metaphorical sense: a symptom of indifference, the coming hard times symptom.

Creative individual and author’s use of the terms in the historical novels, along with other linguistic means made it possible to see their harmonious correlation, proving that they are not limited to the framework of scientific texts, but on the contrary they expand the scope of their functioning, enrich and diversify of expression meaning in artistic speech, and reflect the integration processes of the modern Ukrainian language.