Vladyslava Lisova
Kamianets-Podilskyi Ivan Ohiienko National University
Scientific Supervisor:
Barbaniuk O.O., PhD
THE PHENOMENON OF IMPLICITNESS IN LINGUISTICS
The article is dedicated to the universal category of language and speech, the phenomenon of implicitness, as one of the most important constituents in content of a statement or text, since it serves as an instrument of transmission the latent information, which creates the other side of any text or message.
Keywords: implicitness, explicitness, definition, typology of implicitness.
Today linguistics is showing great interest towards language as a phenomenon of mental activity, which acts as a cognitive tool and reflects the features of human consciousness. In this respect, implicitness is an integral part of speech and a powerful tool for communications.
In recent years, the interest of scientists to the concept of implicitness has increased greatly. The main aspect of nowadays scientific research is to reveal issues on the disclosure of implicitness, the interaction between verbal (explicit) and nonverbal (implicit) forms of knowledge. Many scientific investigations are devoted to the problem of implicitness at this stage of linguistics development (I. Arnold, V. Kukharenko, О. Yermakova, N. Ivanyshyn, M. Nikitin, I. Ivankova, Bruce D. Homer, Jason T. Ramsey) [1, 55], but phenomenon of the hidden remains poorly understood. Today there is no clear definition of this concept, there is no complete classification of the means of implementation of implicitness, its limits and levels.
The term of implicitness is used by many researchers as an indicator of implicit use of language, moreover as the discrepancy between the expression and its transmitted meaning. The term of implicitness was proposed by V. Baghdasarian, who considered explicit as an apparent expression, but implicit as a nonverbal expression, which is expressed and understood by explicit means of expression [2].
In fact, the phenomenon of implicitness has quite wide range of interpretations, as H. Prykhodko notes. Nevertheless, in a broad sense, implicitness is a complex interaction of the linguistic and extralinguistic, that is, the total content of the explicit value of utterances and meaningful speech background.
According to N. Anokhina, implicit meanings ensure the basis of explicit, from their interaction with general knowledge, context and language. Implicit meanings represent important component of verbal communication and the implicit information should be revealed, identified and excluded [1, 56].
Another scientist, A. Erlikhman, proposes own definition of implicitness – that is the phenomenon of the existence of knowledge in the mastered form without transformation of it into a conscious form. In such way, implicitness demonstrates itself as implicit meanings of language units [1, 56].
Generally speaking, the investigations in the field of implicitness were conducted on the basis of morphemes, words, word expressions and texts. Namely, textual implicitness is deeper and more complex as it is closely related to the subtext and the structure of the text and content too. The textual interaction between explicitness and implicitness promotes the division of information in two parts. One is on the surface, based on the level of information, and the other one is deeper, which denotes subconscious level which contains the basic knowledge of individual who has the ability to perceive the diverse kinds of information [2].
An important feature of implicitness is the division into conscious information reproduced by an author and unconscious, which is concentrated onto transmitting additional content. In order to confirm this feature, the scientist M. Nikitin also divides the implicit statements into intentionally used as the design of communication and inadvertently used, being collateral information [1, 57].
Nowadays, in linguistics, there are three main ways to comprehend implicitness:
- the model of text construction is a message, in which the implicit information is either decoded or omitted, but becomes clear from the explicit layer of the message;
- the conceptual and contextual conditions for the implementation of implicit information;
- the limits of implicitness in accordance with the implementation within the text (macro- or micro-context) [2, 105-106].
The similar classification of implicitness divisions is explored by F. Sitdikova. The scientist distinguishes such divisions as contextual and communicative. The main idea of such divisions is a context, which either influences decoding some information or avoiding it at all, deriving from certain syntactic structures (for instance, from an ellipse).
Other classifications of implicitness, presented by such linguists as B. Homer, J. Ramsey and K. Kozhevnikova [2, 107], distinguish three types of implicitness:
- structural;
- functional;
- procedural.
The first type deals with semantics of language, functional relates to context and synonymy, while procedural is determined by concepts and innate knowledge that affect the perception of implicit content [2, 107].
In conclusion, the phenomenon of implicitness is a universal category of language and speech, which has many classifications and definitions, but is still topical today. Nowadays, implicitness is in the process of its development and expansion. Moreover, the diverse classifications of implicitness indicate the wide range of problematic issues, which linguists are still to investigate.
References
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- Ерліхман А. М. Типологія імпліцитності: наукові записки Національного університету “Острозька академія”. Сер. : Філологічна. 2010. Вип. 15.Івана-Франківськ. С. 105–111. URL: Nznuoaf_2010_15_19%20.pdf .
- Поляковська Ю. В. Щодо теорії вираження текстової імпліцитності як лінгвістичної категорії: Дніпропетровськ. 2015р. URL: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/VKhIFL_2015_1152_72_39 .