UDC

81´37; 81´42

Authors

Palkevich Olga Yazepovna
Irkutsk State Linguistic University, Branch of Moscow State Linguistic University (Irkutsk, Russia)
e-mail: palkevich@yandex.ru

Abstract

It is generally accepted that anthropocentrism as a paradigmatic feature of modern linguistics focuses on the study of human inner world phenomena, including aesthetic categories. Numerous investigations have highlighted various features of the comic as an aesthetic category. The main problem, however, is the linguistic approach to the conceptual mechanism of the comic. This paper aimed to investigate the comic on modern Russian TV. The author analysed TV-sketches from the viewpoint of incongruity theory, using the methods of mental space modelling, developed by G. Fauconnier and M. Turner. Incongruity is interpreted as a sudden blending of two or more mental spaces, which disrupt anticipations of the addressee and which the addressee has to interpret. The author proves that incongruity consists of a number of stages: description of the situation, forming of anticipations, emergence of incongruity, combination of incongruities, dissolving of incongruities. It was found that in comic TVsketches incongruity emerges through and is supported by lingual and audiovisual means. Lingual markers of incongruity are ambiguous words and ellipses. Conceptual marker of incongruity is a multiple conceptual blending of different mental spaces. The presented framework can be used to evaluate other aesthetic phenomena from the conceptual point of view. The author’s further investigations will focus on incongruity mechanisms at repeated perception of jokes, humoresques and sketches.

Keywords

incongruity, comic, mental space, conceptual blending, sketch

References

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