Article

Name: Characterological and Plot-Forming Functions of Anglicisms in V. O. Pelevin’s Prose (Based on the Novel “iPhuck 10”)

Authors: Alina G. Silcheva, Artur A. Tsymbalyuk

Moscow University named by A. S. Griboedov, Moscow, Russian Federation; Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, Shenzhen, China

In the section The Plot in Literature and Folklore

Abstract:

The article touches upon one of the topical problems at the intersection of literary studies and linguistics – how loanwords are embedded in the original language of the narrative. The novel “iPhuck 10” (2017) was chosen for the study, its title already containing an English-language insertion. To analyze the network of loanwords in the novel, a selective set of Anglicisms was formed. Only those lexemes were selected that are used in the lines of the main character, Mara Gnedykh, in her characterization and in those sections where she acts as a narrator (the chapter “making movies”). This way to explore characters’ features and storyline by analyzing loanwords in their speech determines the novelty of the study. A total of 93 tokens were analyzed. The key research method is the semantic field method; intertextual analysis was also used as a secondary method.

It is determined that the Anglicisms in the novel can be divided into the following thematic blocks: professional vocabulary and colloquial speech; emphasized politically correct vocabulary, the use of which creates a comic effect; the language of the market describing the capitalist world. It is proved that the English-language inclusions in the Pelevin text differ in a wide range of functionality: in addition to characterizing and designating the place and time of action, Anglicisms also reflect the worldview of a modern person and produce, albeit through the prism of postmodern deconstruction and satire, a portrait of a modern person. Loanwords also direct the plot and reveal some narrative aspects at the linguistic level.

Keywords: Anglicisms, foreign language inclusions, functions, postmodernism, contextual understanding, plot, title complex, V. Pelevin

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