Problems in the Study of Language and Literature

Text dynamics: Renewing challenges for semiotics of literature

“…Roman Jakobson and Jurij Tynyanov's article (Jakobson, Tynjanov 1987[1928), linking certain cultural series to the whole body of culture, did not ignore the importance of the separate treatment of the particular series interacting within culture. Taking literature as the major research object, the "system of systems" is meant to be "the correlation between the literary series and other historical series", which "has its own structural laws", without the investigation of which "the question of a specific choice of path, or at least of the dominant path of evolution" cannot be solved when there are "several, theoretically possible, evolutionary paths" (Jakobson, Tynjanov 1987[1928: 30-31). Without the "disclosure of the immanent laws of the history of literature (and language)" it is impossible to define "the character of each specific change in literary (and linguistic) systems, " -"it would be methodologically fatal to consider the correlation of systems without taking into account the immanent laws of each system. "…”

“…Without the "disclosure of the immanent laws of the history of literature (and language)" it is impossible to define "the character of each specific change in literary (and linguistic) systems, " -"it would be methodologically fatal to consider the correlation of systems without taking into account the immanent laws of each system. " (Jakobson, Tynjanov 1987[1928: 30-31). The immanent analysis of a specific series and the correlative investigation of the "isolationist" interpretations of the adjacent series to understand the "system of systems" (culture in the sense of the "series of series" as a complex correlation) constitute a basic premise accounting for the evolutionary dynamics of both, a specific branch of art as a series and culture as an overall system.…”

“…We will rely on the above-defined notion of "immanent" analysis, having in mind both the historical tradition of literary culture identified as a 5 Cf. Also Jakobson-Tynyanov's manifesto: "Th e history of a system is in turn a system" (Jakobson, Tynjanov 1987[1928: 48).…”

“…Jakobson 1987Jakobson [1971: 41) and culture (where the dominant is to be searched for "in the poetic work of an individual artist and […] in the poetic canon, the set of norms of a given poetic school" and "also in the art of a given epoch, viewed as a particular whole", Jakobson 1987Jakobson [1971: 42). Concerning the individual text, the dominant (a) "is a focusing component of the individual work of art: it rules, determines and transforms the remaining components", being the dominant, the operational rule which "guarantees the integrity of the structure" (Jakobson 1987(Jakobson [1971: 41), and that includes that (b) the aesthetic function in its capacity of the dominant "permits us to determine the hierarchy of diverse linguistic functions within the poetic work" (Jakobson 1987(Jakobson [1971: 43). The phenomenon of the dominant is responsible for the nature and the constant transformation of "the relationship between a poetic work and other verbal messages" (Jakobson 1987(Jakobson [1971: 43).…”

“…Concerning the individual text, the dominant (a) "is a focusing component of the individual work of art: it rules, determines and transforms the remaining components", being the dominant, the operational rule which "guarantees the integrity of the structure" (Jakobson 1987(Jakobson [1971: 41), and that includes that (b) the aesthetic function in its capacity of the dominant "permits us to determine the hierarchy of diverse linguistic functions within the poetic work" (Jakobson 1987(Jakobson [1971: 43). The phenomenon of the dominant is responsible for the nature and the constant transformation of "the relationship between a poetic work and other verbal messages" (Jakobson 1987(Jakobson [1971: 43). The shifting dominants thus explain cultural evolution in various aspects (for example, the evolution of genre canons).…”