LET’S PUT SOME FLOWERS ON ALGERNON’S GRAVE: SYNTACTIC GESTALT-MARKERS FOR SPEAKERS’ PROFILING

Abstract

The research deals with the problem of inner links existing between the processes taking place in human mentality and their objectivisation on the level of speech. The conception platform for the investigation undertaken consists in the lingual iconism as a phenomenon property of language and text in general and basic principles of classic Gestalt analysis. The latter was introduced into linguistics by G. Lakoff, who claimed it to be an effective instrument for linguistic investigation. We believe the multi-dimensional Gestalt of any phenomenon to reflect in a sum of its functional projections, although representing a unity bigger than their sum. The obtained results ground on a thorough investigation of speech samples taken from the virtual characters’ dialogue as represented in the outer and inner monologue of the main character and narrator of D. Keyes’ novel “Flowers for Algernon”. In the process of work the general speech Gestalt of the main character of the novel was considered at three stages of his intellectual development. The present paper looks at the surface structure of the speaker’s utterances and analyses the Gestalt-centre shifts only in the structural projections of Charlie Gordon’s speech. In accordance with the criterion of syntactic complication, there were studied three basic structural sentence types, i.e. simple, compound & complex and complicated sentences. We shall argue that the Gestalt-centre shit in the projections of the speech figure reflect changes in the general speech organisation of the character under study. The research undertaken demonstrates that on the level of syntax, the speaker’s mental development is manifested in the use frequency of complicated sentences in his / her speech. Complicated elements here are represented by the secondary predication structure(s) and, thus, represent the units of a higher level of abstraction than the primary subject-predicate nuclei. The tendency for employing complicated sentences more frequently testifies to the speaker’s growing ability to process abstract notions and ideas and to the rise of his / her abstract thinking skills. High intellectual development allows the speaker to perceive and process several elementary processes, taking place in the surrounding world, at the same time and to render them in his / her message, using primary or secondary predication structures with an aim to foreground the information of more importance. Hence, in the process of analysis, a conclusion has been made about complicated sentences serving as a syntactic marker for profiling the speaker according to the level of their intellectual development.