Typical deviations in narrators’ culture of speech from its literary norms in english prose

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Typical deviations in narrators' culture of speech from its literary norms in english prose

Vdovenko

Статтю присвячено особливостям культури мовлення наратора в англомовній прозі. Автор статті приділяє увагу мовленню нараторів у романах, наратив яких зображено точкою зору нараторів.

У сучасному світі лінгвісти мають підвищений інтерес до проблеми мовлення нараторів. Типові девіації та особливості мовлення наратора ще не розглядалися, хоть це питання має велику цікавість.

Мета статті - визначити стилістичні особливості мовлення наратора. Стаття присвячено особливостям мовлення дитини та підлітків, відхиленням від норм літературної мови. Стаття також торкається проблеми невірної вимови слів та граматичних помилок у мовленні дитини у романі Марка Твена «Пригоди Гекльберрі Фінна». Стаття описує особливості мовлення підлітків Холдена Колфілда та Джуді Єбот у романах Дж. Селінджера «Над прірвою у житі» і Джін Вебстер «Довгоногий дядечко».

Розглянуто стилістичні особливості англійської літератури для дітей. Мова твору організована з точки зору дитини характеризується різноманітними відхиленнями від норм англійської літературної мови. Виявлено особливості на рівні фонетики, морфологічному рівні, і на синтаксичному рівні мови. Мовлення дитини навантажене графонами, які вказують на низький рівень освіченості наратора.

Ключові слова: культура мови, наратор, мова дитини, мова підлітка, англомовні художні твори.

The aim of our article is to determine the peculiarities of the narrator's speech in English prose. The article describes the peculiarities of children's and teenager's speech, deviations from literary speech. It also touches upon the problem of mispronunciation of words and grammatical mistakes in Huckleberry Finn's speech in Mark Twain's novel «The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn» and also focuses on the peculiarities of teenager's speech, its deviations from literary speech of the main characters: in Holden Caulfield's and Judy Abbot's speech in the novels of J. Salinger «The Catcher in the Rye» and Jean Webster «Daddy-Long-Legs». Narrative in these novels is presented through the child's and teenager' s point of view and is characterized by all kinds of different variations including pronunciation rules of English.

Modern stage of linguistic has an increased interest towards the problem connected with the research of the peculiarities of the child's and teenager's speech and its typical deviations in English prose.

Despite the fact that of the problem of the child's speech was investigated by some scientists (N. Nemtsova, O. Poltoratsky, S. Skubina and others), the main types of deviation from literary norms of the language and its standard deviation were not considered. Chosen topic represents the analysis of the characteristics of the child's and teenager's speech and its standard deviations: grammatical, phonetic and syntactical.

The purpose of the investigation predetermines the concrete tasks of the research: to identify the typical phonetic deviations from the literary norm in the main characters' speech; to single out the typical grammatical deviations from the norm; to examine syntactical peculiarities speech mispronunciation mistake

Finn's limited knowledge and incomplete education leaves him no choice to say exactly what he means. Our investigation of the child's speech and its typical deviations in Mark Twain's novel «The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn» leads to the following conclusions - among all deviations from the norms of literary language 30 % of them are on the phonetic level.

On the phonetic level in the child's speech we have found such phenomena as: a wide use of graphons, reduction and intrusion:

«S'pose he contracted to do a thing .... » [1, p. 132] (instead of - «Suppose»);

«Anybody but pap would `a' waited and seen the day ... but that warn't pap's style» [1, p. 47] (instead of - «have»; «wasn't»);

« ... `stead of taking to the woods when I run off...» [1, p. 46] (instead of - «instead»); «Up'ards» = «upwards» [1, p. 34].

The reduction in the sounds of some words are graphically expressed as: «'bout» [1, p. 29] instead of «about», «di'monds» (instead of - diamonds»); «.all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard of four hundred soldiers. » [1, p. 34].

There are also some cases of wrong pronunciation of words such as: «julery» [1, p. 34] instead of «jewelry», «jinnies» [1, p. 35] instead of «genies», because of the hero's ignorance. He does not know the correct pronunciation and spelling of the words that he uses in his speech, because he didn't go to school.

The most common types of grammatical deviations from the norm in the child's speech of the researched novel (that makes up 60%) are:

Mismatch of the subject and the predicate (11 %):

«Why, where was you raised?» [1, p. 100], instead of - «Why, where were you raised?»;

«How old is the others?» [1, p. 158] - «is» is used instead of «are»;

«About that time I hears their footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed» [1, p. 147], instead of - «About that time I hear their footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed».

«I rouses up, and rests on my elbow and listens; pretty soon I hears it again» [1, p. 50], instead of - «I rouse up, and rest on my elbow and listen; pretty soon I hear it again»;

Non-standard use (wrong formation) of the tense forms (11%):

«I roused him and says» [1, p. 168] (instead of «said»);

«When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody out in the storm, so I never hunted for no back streets» [1, p. 166], instead of - «When I struck the town I saw there wasn't nobody out in the storm, so I never hunted for no back streets»;

«I eat and talked» [1, p. 93] (instead of - «ate»). Instead of the Past Indefinite Tense the main hero uses the Present Indefinite Tense.

Wrong formation of the past Tense:

«I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep» [1, p. 21], instead of - «. the first thing I knew I was asleep»; «. and didn't know it was sawed. » [MT, 47], instead of - «. and didn't know it was seen . ».

«But you knowed he was running ...» [1, p. 85]; «throwed» instead of «threw» [1, p. 85], «drownded» instead of «drown» [1, p. 105].

The use of the Present tense instead of the Past: «I eat and talked» [1, p. 102].

The use of the 3-rd form of the verb instead of the 2-nd in the Past Indefinite tense: «I took up a book and begun something.» [1, p. 28] (instead of - «began»).

Non-standard usage of the forms of the verb «to be» makes up 14% of the total number of grammatical deviations from norms in the child's speech in the novel: «I is, is I?» [1, p. 88] («is» is used instead of «am»).

In the following examples «ain't» is used instead of the verbs «is» and «are»:

«And ain't it natural and right for a cat and cow to talk different from us?» [1, p .84] instead of «isn't».

«Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't ever going to see each other any more!» [1, p .154],

instead of - «Oh, dear, dear, to think they aren't ever going to see each other any more!».

Wrong formation of the Subjunctive Mood: «...if I was one of them I would see a man...» instead of - «.if I were one of them I would see...» [1, p .23].

Double negation represents 13% of the total number of such type of grammatical deviations in the child's speech:

«I didn't lose no time» [1, p .49], instead of - I didn't lose time; «hadn't no objections», « ... but I couldn't find no way» [1, p .42], instead of - « ... but I couldn't find any way».

The use of singular form of the noun instead of the plural form makes 2% of the total number of grammatical deviations. Some nouns, which denote linear measures, are used in the singular instead of plural form: «Seven mile below» [1, p. 63], instead of - «Seven miles below»; «You've missed it a thousand mile» [1, p. 79], instead of - «You've missed it a thousand miles».

The use of adjectives instead of adverbs (2%): «Jim was awful disappointed» [1, p. 96]; «awful pale and scared» [1, p. 143]; «Considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways» [1, p. 26] instead of - «dismally».

The wrong formation of the comparative and the superlative degree of adjectives is 1% (in most cases, the preferred method of suffix formation of degrees of comparison of adjectives in Huck's speech is the use of the words «more» or «most»): «One of the carelessest and foolishest things» [1, p. 62]; «The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for these fixings, and so don't disturb them» [1, p. 143]. We see that the use of such words as the «carelessest» and «foolishest», «the more homely» and «more pleasanter» is a morphological deviation.

Personal pronouns are sometimes used in the objective case instead of the nominative one (1%): «Him and the duke began to practise» [1, p. 118] instead of «He and the duke began to practise»; «When him and the old lady» [1, p. 108].

Personal pronoun «them» is sometimes used instead of the demonstrative pronoun «those»: «shook the hands of them frauds» [1, p. 165].

Double Subject (the use of the pronoun that duplicates the subject) is 2%:

«Miss Watson she kept pecking at me» [1, p. 27], instead of - «Miss Watson kept pecking at me»; «Tom he made a sign to me.» [1, p. 15]; «The widow she told me» [1, p. 38], instead of - «The widow told me».

On the syntactic level we can note the following deviations (10%):

Wide use of elliptical sentences:

«Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch» [1, p. 14], instead of - «It seemed.»;

«Said he come to take the sea baths - that's what I said» [1, p. 144], instead of - «I said he come to take the sea baths ... »;

Absence of inversion in the question (where the word order must be inverted):

«I thought he lived in London?» [1, p. 144] (instead of - «Did he live in London?»).

Wrong formation of the disjunctive question:

«Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?» [1, p. 49] (instead of - «Well, you must be most starved, mustn't you?»).

So, the dominant deviation in the child's speech is observed on grammatical level, it presents 60 %. On the second place there are deviations on the phonetic level, they represent 30 %, the syntactic level that represents 10 % of all deviations takes the third place is.

The difference between the novels from teenager's point of view is that Jean Webster's novel «Daddy-Long-Legs» presents written speech, while Jerome Salinger's novel «The Cather in the Rye» presents oral speech.

Written teenager's speech happens when the person has an opportunity to think what he writes and correct the text while the speaker in his oral speech has no such an opportunity [2, p. 9].

In Jean Webster's novel «Daddy-Long-Legs» we have found such phenomena as: italics and capitalization on the phonetic level in Jerusha's speech.

The frequency of using italics is 16%. Capitalization can be found in the novel in 25% of

cases.

Jean Webster's novel «Daddy Long-Legs» is characterized by high poetic style. On the lexical level we can find: biological and medical terms (22%), mathematical terms (13%), facts from history (13%), words and phrases in French (26%), old English vocabulary (9%), bookish words (17%).

Peculiarities on the phonetic level represent in 33% of cases in our research. It can be explained by the fact that the girl-teenager's speech is represented more emotionally.

The protagonist of Jerome Salinger's novel «The Cather in the Rye» widely uses school jargons and vulgarisms, but in his dialogues there is a lack of courtly words. The usage of colloquial style is a certain characteristic of the main character.

Deviation on the grammatical level gives a special characteristic to Holden: usage of the incorrect Past Form of the verbs, incorrect use of personal pronouns in objective case, incorrect use of «double negation».

On the lexical level in teenager' s speech we can find:

evaluative epithets: «old», which serves to express positive feelings and emotions, but which also represents negative feelings and gives a negative mark; «phony» meaning artifitial; «lousy» meaning disgusting; «terrific» meaning good, wonderful, and, at the same time meaning bad or awful;

slang: «damn near» unstead of almost; «to give smb a buzz» and its synonymic expressions, such as «shoot the bull», «chewed the rag», «shot the breeze»;

blasphemy: «for Chrissake», «J esus», «J esus Christ», «Jesus H. Christ»;

vulgarisms: «stink», «ass», «hell» and its euphemism «heck», «goddam», «damn» and its euphemism «darn».

On the syntactical level we can find in teenager's speech ellipsis:

«On the strength of that impertinent paper, he has offered to send you to college. - To college?» [4, p. 10]

«He believes that you have originality, and he is planning to educate you to become a writer. - A writer?» [4, p. 10]

«Where on earth were you brought up? - In a village.» [4, p. 99]

Holden's speech amounts Parceling structures:

«Their bumpy old chests are always showing. And their legs». [3, p. 32]

«The thing that was descriptive about it, though, was that he had poems written all over the fingers and the pocket and everywhere. In green ink». [3, p. 59]

«Even though it was so late, old Ernie's was jam-packed. Mostly with prep school jerks and college jerks». [3, p. 99]

«Anyway, that's where I lived at Pencey. Old Ossenburger Memorial Wing, in the new dorms». [3, p. 41]

The amount of syntactical deviations in Holden's speech is 13%, the amount of grammatical deviations is 16%, deviations on these two levels show the conscientious linear organization of the speech, his focus on the listener. The quantity of phonetic deviations, which is 24%, shows that Holden's speech is spontaneous and rapid. The sum of lexical deviations prevails (47%), it shows thoughts of the main character, explains his actions and shows his attitude towards the society.

Having compared the written speech of girl-teenager Jerusha in Jean Webster's novel «Daddy-Long-Legs» with oral speech of boy-teenager Holden in Jerome Salinger's novel «The Catcher in the Rye» we may be conclude that Holden's speech has much more deviations than the written speech of the girl-teenager. Holden's speech helps not just to picture the portrait of the boy, but with the aid of linguistic means to give the detailed characterization of his thoughts and actions. Jerusha's speech is stylistically rich, which is caused by her frankness, openness and strong desire to tell about new events and acquired knowledge, and her wish to justify her trustee's expectations.

The prospects of investigation are to describe the peculiarities of the narrator's speech in literature of other countries.

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