Organization of punctuation in represented written communication

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Organization of punctuation in represented written communication

Ольга Крюкова

The article examines the features of the linguistic peculiarities of the personages' written speech, in particular, its punctuation organization. The aim of the article is to analyze the degree of punctuation saturation and to determine the distribution and frequency of punctuation marks in different types of represented written speech with different communicative focus: letters and diary entries.

In letters, the main element influencing the punctuation organization of a written communicative text is the factor of the addressee. Punctuation in the personages' letters serves to enhance the informational significance of the written text and achieve the adequacy of the message perception. The autocommunicative nature of a diary activity manifests itself in different ways. In the pragmatic situation of keeping a diary, two types of autocommunicative activity are distinguished. In the frame of first one, the entries are based on the syntax of inner speech: the sender in such a situation does not care about the mechanism of text formation and the form of diary entries. With another strategic line, the so-called «writing factor» operates, where the transmission of actions - external and internal - is organized by the communicant according to the laws of written or oral, but not inner speech. The subject of autocommunication in this case seeks not only to name what happened, but also to display it as concretely as possible, in detail. The dominance of the «writing factor» in the diaries is usually accompanied by a higher frequency ofpunctuation marks.

The results of the quantitative analysis indicate that the frequency of the use of punctuation marks depends on the communicative focus of the represented written speech and on the pragmatic strategy of diary entries.

Key words: represented written communication, personages' letters, personages' diary entries, factor of addressee, autocommunication, punctuation marks.

Крюкова О. Пунктуаційна організація зображеної писемної комунікації.

У статті розглядаються особливості лінгвістичної організації писемного мовлення персонажів, зокрема його пунктуаційне оформлення. Мета статті - дослідити пунктуаційну насиченість, визначити дистрибуцію і частоту вживання знаків пунктуації в різних типах зображеного писемного мовлення, а саме в листах і щоденниках персонажів, які відрізняються своєю комунікативною спрямованістю.

В листах основним чинником, що впливає на пунктуаційну організацію писемного комунікативного твору, є фактор адресата. Розділові знаки у листах персонажів служать посиленню інформаційної значущості писемного тексту і досягненню адекватності сприйняття повідомлення.

У прагматичній ситуації ведення щоденникових записів виділяють два типи автокомунікатівної діяльності. В рамках першої - записи будуються на синтаксисі внутрішнього мовлення: адресант в такій ситуації не піклується про механізм текстотворення і зовнішній облік щоденникових записів. При іншій стратегічній лінії діє так званий «фактор писемності», де передача дій - зовнішніх і внутрішніх - організовується комунікантом за законами письмового або усного, а не внутрішнього мовлення. Суб'єкт автокомунікації в цьому випадку прагне не тільки назвати те, що сталося, але і відобразити усі події якомога конкретніше, в деталях. Домінування в щоденниках «фактора писемності», як правило, супроводжується більшою частотністю вживання розділових знаків.

Результати проведеного дослідження свідчать про те, що дистрибуція та частотність вживання розділових знаків залежить від комунікативної спрямованості писемного мовлення персонажів і від прагматичної установки щоденникової діяльності.

Ключові слова: зображена письмова комунікація, листи персонажів, щоденникові записи персонажів, фактор адресата, автокомунікація, розділові знаки.

Problem statement

Written speech, which constitutes the personages' plan in the structure of a literary text, along with dialogue, inner speech and uttered and unuttered represented speech, has its own characteristics of linguistic organization, communicative focus and functioning. However, while the first three types of personages' speech are well enough studied, written communication of personages'has been paid little attention. This is probably due to the fact that personages' written speech or represented written communication is not found in every literary work. But in those literary work, where it is used, this type of personages' speech takes on an important task, acting as a means of personage self-characterization.

Research review. The study of the written form of speech in linguistics has always been accompanied by the «oral - written» dichotomy. Various features of these forms of language realization have been repeatedly noted by researchers and have received their coverage in the works of such linguists as Yu.M. Lotman, K.A. Lazarenko, N.R. Galperin, B.S. Muchnik, G.G. Pocheptsov and others. Written speech as a form of textual activity of the communicative process is also reflected in the works of modern linguists on the theory of communication, textual communication (T.V. Radziievska Радзиевская Т.В. Ведение дневника как вид коммуникативной деятельности. Референция и проблемы текстообразования. М., 1988. С. 95-115., L.V. Nyzhnikova, N.D. Arutiunova2, Belunova N.I.,

Sedova O.N., Darovska I.G.). Unfortunately, written communication, represented by personages' letters and diaries, has not yet been subjected to thorough analysis in the text linguistics. The almost complete absence of fundamental research in the chosen field and the breadth of coverage of the material ensure the relevance and novelty of our work.

Objectives of the study. The reproduction of personages' written speech in the structure of a literary text has its own characteristics, including punctuation, which is going to be considered in the article. The research focuses on the following tasks:

to identify punctuation saturation in letters and diary entries of personages;

to determine the distribution and frequency of punctuation marks in different types of represented written communication distinguished by their communicative focus.

The literary works of English and American authors of the 20th century served the material for the study. The represented written communication in these works is realized in letters and diary entries.

Subject matter presentation. In a work of fiction, communication between characters can be carried out both orally and in writing. The conditions for the flow of oral and written communication are different.

Communication through oral discourse differs in most cases in the fact that the communicants come into direct contact and perceive each other not only with the help of the organs of hearing, but also visually. Whereas, written speech is a detached, deferred communication carried out only with the help of linguistic means that make up a written message.

The written form of communication is powerless to convey facial expressions, gestures, manner of pronunciation, timbre of voice, and most importantly - intonation. It is the absence of prosodic means that reveals itself in the maximum use and activation of all the techniques and means that the language has in its written forms. And here punctuation is one of the most expressive means of conveying those aspects of the content the plentitude and depth of which cannot be reproduced with the help of words and grammatical expression of the utterance Арутюнова Н.Д. Человеческий фактор в языке: Коммуникация, модальность, дейксис. Москва : Наука, 1992. 281 с. Шапиро А.Б. Основы русской пунктуации. М.: Издательство АН СССР, 1955. С. 71..

Combined with the verbal means of expression, punctuation marks can increase the effectiveness of the message, since they have a whole system of functions. Fulfilling their general purpose to divide the text into meaningful segments, the punctuation marks either separate parts of the text from each other (a separating function), or make prominent some parts inside the text (a highlighting function). However, these functions rarely appear in their pure form, usually, punctuation marks are combined into a system of means that help convey certain meanings, and, therefore, functionally become more complicated and, at the same time, are concretized. Hence, as N.S. Valgina noted, a semantic function, a syntactic and distinctive function, and an expressive or modal function appear Валгина Н.С. Актуальные проблемы современной русской пунктуации. М.: Высш. шк., 2004. С. 150.. Punctuation, as an integral part of writing, along with graphics and spelling, is one of the material elements of the written language and, like all its other elements, serves the purpose of communication between people. A.B. Shapiro rightly noticed that punctuation is a means by which the writer expresses certain meanings and shades, and the reader, on the basis of them, perceives the meanings and shades expressed below Шапиро А.Б. Основы русской пунктуации. 1955. С. 65..

Before proceeding to the study of the punctuation system in the written speech of personages', it is necessary to point that punctuation marks according to the structural and architectonic principle are divided into internal ones, those that go inside the sentence and are used to separate, inclose, or indicate the relation between elements within a sentence (comma, colon, semi-colon, dash, hyphen, parentheses) and external, i.e. those that complete the sentence (an exclamation and a question mark, ellipsis marks, a full stop). According to the quantitative criterion, the punctuation marks are divided into double and single ones, and according to their functioning, they may be separating punctuation marks and highlighting punctuation marks.

Separating punctuation marks are a full stop, a question mark and an exclamation mark, a comma, a semicolon, a colon, a dash, ellipsis marks. Highlighting punctuation marks serve to designate the boundaries of such syntactic constructions that are introduced into a sentence in order to supplement, clarify, reveal the content of one or more of its members or the entire sentence as a whole, as well as syntactic constructions containing the name of a person or object to which speech is directed, or expressing the subjective attitude of the person who is writing to his/her statementШишкина И.С. Знаки препинания как индикаторы эмоционального высказывания в английском и немецком язиках. Вестник Вятского государственного гуманитарного университета. № 2. Ч. 2. 2013. C. 62. URL: //https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/znaki-prepinaniya-kak-indikatory-emotsionalnogo-vyskazyvaniya-v- angliyskom-i-nemetskom-yazykah/viewer.

According to A.B. Shapiro, highlighting punctuation marks, by virtue of their indicated function, are always double; while the separating punctuation marks are single. Highlighting punctuation marks are commas (i.e. two commas), two dashes, brackets, and quotation marks.

In linguistic literature, there are three main approaches to the study of punctuation - grammatical, intonation and logico-semantic.

Most researchers prefer the grammatical one (V.L. Kaushanska Каушанская В.А. Грамматика английского языка. Учебное пособие для вузов. 2008. М., 384 с., M.A. Ganshina, L. N. Sklar), the second place takes the intonation approach (B.A. Ilish), the least popular in theoretical works is the logico-semantic approach.

Our research work is based on the classification of punctuation marks developed by V.L. Kaushanska. The following punctuation marks are included in the classification: a full stop, a comma, an exclamation mark, a question mark, a semicolon, a colon, a dash, brackets Ibid.. The ellipsis marks are not included into this classification. However, as the results of the study show, this punctuation mark is occasionally used in the written speech of personages and performs certain functions, which indicates the need to include it in the punctuation network.

To determine the degree of punctuation mark saturation of personages' written speech messages, we introduced the coefficient of the use of punctuation marks (Q) which was first proposed in the dissertation research by I.A. VavryshchukВаврищук И.А. Пунктуационная подсистема драматургического текста (на материале англоязычной драмы конца 19 и начала 20 вв.): дисс... канд. филол. наук:10.02.04; Одесса, 1997. С. 53.. In our work, the calculation of this coefficient was determined by the number of times each individual punctuation mark was used for the entire text array of the investigated type of represented written speech. To do this, we carried out a continuous sample of letters and diary entries, and also determined their text length. Thus, the text array of personages' letters in the analyzed literary works is 4,518 sentences, in diary entries it makes up 7,125 sentences. Thus, the coefficient of the use of a particular punctuation mark is calculated by the formula: Q = N / 4 518 (in letters) and Q = N / 7 125 (in diary entries), where N = the number of a single mark use. On the base of the obtained data, Table 2 and Table 3 were compiled.

Assuming that the different communicative focus of letters and diary entries will have their own characteristics, both in qualitative and quantitative use, we have determined the average Q in each type of personages' written messages.

The research results are presented in Table 1.

According to the data in Table 1, the coefficient of the use of punctuation marks in personages' letters and diary entries differs slightly, which is presented in the following quantitative ratio: 1,95 : 1,9. This circumstance, at first glance, refutes our assumption about the influence of the communicative focus of written messages on their punctuation organization.

However, it is commonly known that, the average indicator does not always reflect the true results of the investigation.

Close and more detailed examination of the distribution of punctuation marks in the personages' diary entries, proves the fact that the coefficient of the use of punctuation marks in the diary entries of personages varies significantly. So, for example, we find the highest indicator of this coefficient in the works of «All the King's Men» by R. P. Warren (Q = 2,41), «The Devil in Vienna» by Doris Orgel (Q = 2,11), the lowest indicator is observed in the works of fiction «Acceptable Risk» by Robin Cook (Q = 1,1), «Fast Forward» by Judy Mercer (Q = 1,16), «Teddy» by J. Salinger (Q = 1,2).

Table 1

The Distribution of Punctuation Marks in Represented Written Speech

The results of this quantitative analysis indicate that the autocommunicative nature of a diary activity is heterogeneous and manifests itself in different ways.

Considering the pragmatic situation of keeping a diary, there are two possible strategic lines in the autocomminicative activity of the subject. Their choice depends on the specific circumstances of the initiation of autocommunication and the personal qualities of the person who is writing. Within the frame of the first one, the entries are based on the syntax of inner speech: the sender in such a situation does not care about the mechanism of text formation and the form of diary entries. With another strategic line, the so-called «writing factor» operates Арутюнова Н.Д. Человеческий фактор в языке. 1992. С.103. Salinger J.D. Nine Stories. Franny and Zooey. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. M., 1982. P. 160., where the transmission of actions - external and internal - is organized by the communicant according to the laws of written or oral, and not inner speech. The subject of autocommunication in this case tries not only to name what happened, but also to display it as concretely as possible, in detail.

The story «Teddy» [Q = 1 2] can serve as an example of the first strategy, where diary entries are characterized by convolution, abstractive and associative character of the speech chain. In terms of their syntactic organization, these self-addressed messages resemble a notebook and are characterized by weak punctuation of sentences: Write condolence letter to Dr. Wokawara about his nephritis. Get his new address from mother.

Try the sports deck for meditation tomorrow morning before breakfast but do not lose consciousness. Also do not lose consciousness in the dining room if that waiter drops that big spoon again. Daddy was quite furious.

Words and expressions to look up in the library tomorrow when you return the books -

nephritis

myriad

gift horse

cunning

triumvirate

Be nicer to librarian. Discuss some general things with him when he gets kittenish11.

In our sample, the manifestation of the peculiarities of inner speech is also revealed in personages' diary entries with zero punctuation, that is, the absence of punctuation marks necessary to formalize semantic relations within the utterance.

So, in the work «Acceptable Risk» we observe the «voluntary»12 nature of the construction of the entry, namely, the absence of internal punctuation marks: Father says it is for me to decide but that I should know the gentleman has offered most graciously to move us all to Salem Town where my father shall work in his company and my dear sister should go to school

The dominance of the «writing factor» in the diaries is usually accompanied by a higher frequency of punctuation marks. This strategy of autocommunication can be illustrated by the personage's diary in the novel «All the King's Men» (Q = 2.41), where the entries are of a confessionary nature and are intended for secondary reference: I write this down, he said in the journal, with what truth fulness a sinner may attain unto, that if ever pride is in me, of flesh or spirit, I can peruse these pages and know with shame what evil has been in me, and may be in me, for who knows what bruze may blow up on the charred log and fan up flame again?¹² Арутюнова Н.Д. Человеческий фактор в языке. 1992. C. 106.

¹³ Robin Cook. Acceptable Risk. Reader's digest condensed books. Vol. 4. N.Y. 1995. P. 102.

¹⁴ Warren R. P. All the King's Men. M., 1992. P. 157..

Undoubtedly, the prevalence of the «memorial function»¹⁵ Радзиевская Т.В. Ведение дневника как вид коммуникативной деятельности. 1988. С. 112. over the autocommunicative one affects the form of the entry and its punctuation organization.

The "writing factor" is also revealed in those diary entries where a «fictitious addressee» becomes the recipient of information. For instance, such written messages can be addressed to the diary book or to God.

So, in the story «The Devil in Vienna» (Q = 2,11), the personage, a 13-year-old girl, Inge Dornenwald, due to the current life circumstances, is far from the constant communicant. This situation generates psychological discomfort and forces the sender of the written message to turn her thoughts and feelings to the diary book - «a fictitious addressee» of the given communication: Dear Book O.O. gave me for Chanukah, nearly three weeks have passed since I last wrote in your pages. No, that 's dumb. This book is not alive, and I won't pretend it is. I've missed it, though...¹⁶ Doris Orgel. The Devil in Vienna. Heinemann New Windmills, 1978. P. 63.

The reliance on a «fictitious» addressee allows the subject of a «diary activity» to use samples of the addressed communicative genres, which provides a diary entry with a detailed, consistent presentation of events and semantic completeness.

Keeping a diary, as it was rightly noted by T.V. Radziievska, is a special autonomous branch of human communicative activity. It is not designed for external perception and involves a free form of writing. This is its difference from the addressed written communication, which, as a rule, «serves as a continuation of direct communication between the two communicants and reproduces its forms»¹⁷ Радзиевская Т.В. Ведение дневника как вид коммуникативной деятельности. 1988. С. 95. In letters, the main element influencing the punctuation organization of a written communicative work is the factor of the addressee. Punctuation in personages' letters serves to enhance the informational significance of the written text and achieve the adequacy of perception of the message. That is why the sender actively uses external means of organizing the written text, including punctuation.

The results of the conducted quantitative analysis indicate that the frequency of the use of punctuation marks depends on the different communicative focus of personages' written speech and on the pragmatic setting of autocommunicative written messages.

Let's consider the frequency of the use and functioning of punctuation marks in letters and diaries of personages.

Table 2

Ranks of Punctuation Marks in Personages' Letters.

punctuation letter personages

According to Table 2, the most common external punctuation mark in personages' letters is a full stop (Q = 0,95). Question and exclamation marks are widely represented. They are ranked the fifth and sixth respectively. The high frequency of their use is due to the ability of the latter to give the written form of communication certain tones of stylistic coloring, sharpening the perception of meaning and the effectiveness of the utterance.

Among the internal punctuation marks, a comma has the second rank number. Quotation marks are a fairly representative punctuation mark in personages' letters. This punctuation mark is used to quote, mainly, the speech of other personages in order to convey a subjective assessment of the people around, facts and events. The ellipsis marks in this type of written communication take the fourth place and is used as an external and internal sign. A dash in the letters of the personages is used in accordance with the grammatical norm, and is also actively involved in the design of the compositional frame of letters to detach direct addresses. This use of a dash has a certain stylistic meaning. Brackets, as well as dashes, are effective punctuation marks for the introduction of parenthetical words and phrases. The colon having the penultimate ranking number is used in accordance with the grammatical norm, and is also placed after the direct address in a business letter. The semicolon is rarely used in personages' letters. This punctuation mark is typical for written speech with a complex and flowery syntactic structure.

A somewhat different punctuation organization of the written text can be observed in the diary entries of personages.

Obviously, the autocommunicative nature of diary activity predetermines the choice and functioning of various linguistic means, including punctuation.

Table 3

Ranks of Punctuation Marks in Personages' Diaries

According to the results of Table 3, the most frequently used punctuation mark is a full stop (Q = 0,93), a comma is the second rank number. However, in comparison with the letters of personages, the frequency of the use of a comma here decreases (0,57: 0,66), which is a consequence of the simplification of the syntactic structure of the sentence in autocommunication. Just like in letters, quotation marks take the third position and are used to quote and convey someone else's speech. Among the punctuation marks that implement an external function, question and exclamation marks are quite representative. However, while in the letters of personages these punctuation marks serve to enhance the perlocutionary effect of the message, in diary entries they contribute to the exteriorization of the psychological state of the subject of egocentric communication. A dash strengthens its position and occupies the seventh rank number. As well as brackets, dashes in the diaries of personages carry out the function of highlighting and separating. The use of the colon and semicolon, which operate as separating marks, remains persistently insignificant. The ellipsis marks position is significantly weakened. In the diary entries of the personages, the ellipsis marks are mainly used as an external sign.

Conclusions

The results of the study prove that different types of written communication of personages vary in the degree of saturation of punctuation marks and the character of their use. In personages' letters, punctuation marks are more represented, because it is in the letters that the desire to influence the addressee is most fully and vividly manifested. Differences in the addressability of different types of written communication cause dissimilarity in the functioning of some punctuation marks. Thus, in diaries, where communication is self- addressed and more process-oriented than result-oriented, punctuation does not have a clearly defined pragmatic goal. In letters, on the contrary, punctuation has a strongly marked focus on the addressee and, in addition to the main functions, it also performs a phatic one.

The continuation of the research can be seen in determining the stylistic potential of external punctuation marks in the represented written communication.

Джерела та література

Doris Orgel. The Devil in Vienna. Heinemann New Windmills, 1978. P. 63.

Salinger J.D. Nine Stories. Franny and Zooey. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. M., 1982. P. 160.

Warren R. P. All the King's Men. M., 1992. P. 157.

Арутюнова Н.Д. Человеческий фактор в языке. 1992. C. 106.

Robin Cook. Acceptable Risk. Reader's digest condensed books. Vol. 4. N.Y. 1995. P.

102.

Арутюнова Н.Д. Человеческий фактор в языке: Коммуникация, модальность, дейксис. Москва : Наука, 1992. 281 с.

Ваврищук И.А. Пунктуационная подсистема драматургического текста (на материале англоязычной драмы конца 19 и начала 20 вв.): дисс... канд. филол. наук: 10.02.04; Одесса, 1997. С. 53.

Валгина Н.С. Актуальные проблемы современной русской пунктуации. М.: Высш. шк., 2004. С. 150.

Каушанская В.А. Грамматика английского языка. Учебное пособие для вузов. 2008. М., 384 с.

Радзиевская Т.В. Ведение дневника как вид коммуникативной деятельности. Референция и проблемы текстообразования. М., 1988. С. 95-115.

Шапиро А.Б. Основы русской пунктуации. М.: Издательство АН СССР, 1955. С.71.

Шишкина И.С. Знаки препинания как индикаторы эмоционального высказывания в английском и немецком язиках. Вестник Вятского государственного гуманитарного университета. № 2. Ч. 2. 2013. C. 62. URL: //https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n7znaki- prepinaniya-kak-indikatory-emotsionalnogo-vyskazyvaniya-v-angliyskom-i-nemetskom- yazykah/viewer

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