Liliia Boichuk
(Vinnytsia State M. Kotsyubynskyi Pedagogical University)
Scientific Supervisor: I.E. Hrachova, PhD
FEATURES OF THE FAIRY TALE DISCOURSE
The study of fairy tale discourse has been conducted by scientists not so long. Jack David Zipes, a professor of German at the University of Minnesota, was one of the first to introduce the term “fairy tale discourse”, believing that fairy tales perform an important social function [1, p. 34].
For the first time, the term “fairytale discourse” was introduced in domestic linguistics by M.M. Mironova to denote a type of linguistic communication conditioned by a critical consideration of the values and norms of social life. This is a distinctive set of symbols that serves as a means of cultural communication [4, p. 23]. Fairy tale discourse exhibits typological features that are influenced by cultural factors such as mentality, historical period, daily life, religion, and cultural identity of various societies. Under the influence of mental, historical, cultural, ethnopsychological, ethnographic, and other extra-linguistic factors, fairy tale discourse implements axiological macro-strategies. In simpler terms, as a part of literary discourse, fairy tale discourse reflects the communicative purpose of the fairy tale text between the author of the tale (people) and the reader. [3, p. 39]. In other words, fairy-tale discourse as a part of literary discourse reflects the communicative function of the fairy-tale text between the author of the tale (people) and the reader.
According to N.A. Akymenko’s analysis, fairy tale discourse is manifested within a specific mental realm formed by the imagination of hypothetical worlds or mental domains where the characters and events of the fairy tale exist in a virtual environment of discourse, which in turn makes them real within this context.[2]. The core of fairy-tale discourse is represented by specific connected texts and traditionally selected fairy-tale genres (“animalistic, magical, and domestic”). Myths, legends and their folkloric varieties are assigned to the peripheral zone of fairy-tale discourse. According to the researcher, this structuring of fairy-tale discourse allows “to establish the originality of the English fairy-tale system” [2]. The fairy-tale discourse contains the entire historical, cultural and social experience of the people and, thus, reflects, in a certain sense, history, folk wisdom, knowledge of the surrounding world, and also carries a kind of ethical and aesthetic code of rules. The core of the fairy-tale discourse is formed by the folk tale in its genre varieties (magical, everyday, fairy tales, etc.), the periphery is formed by non-fairy tale genres – fairy tales, legends, tales (mainly etiological and mythological).
In the discursive development of a fairy-tale work, the relationship between the sender of information (creator of the text, collective author), the text itself, and the receiver of information (reader, interpreter) acquire special importance. It should be noted that the bidirectional multivariate process of interpretation, on the one hand, is aimed at restoring the author’s intention, which is characterized by the reader’s desire to decode the text through analysis while extracting the original meanings. The meaningful polylogue of the collective author, reader and text reveals the interaction of the author’s intentions and the complex of possible interpretations of the text by the reader.
Fairytale discourse is deeply connected with artistic discourse (and is its special kind), but artistic discourse (if we understand it as the discourse of fiction) is in many ways an individual creation in which individual personal meanings are realized. Collective meanings are always realized in fairy-tale discourse. In other words, fairy tale discourse is a discourse with a “double” bottom.
Going back to mythological ideas, a fairy tale is not necessarily born directly from myths; it can arise from a short story about an unusual event that happened to some member of the community. In the fairy tale, ancient customs, rites, and ritual actions are reflected in a changed way: riddles to the bridegroom, announcement of vows at the birth of a child [4].
Thus, we can conclude that the plot of English fairy tales reflected not only the social and everyday side of people’s lives in different eras, but also their beliefs.
References
- Космеда Т. А., Карпенко Н. А., Осіпова Т. Ф., Сіліонович Л. М., Халіман О. В. Гендерна Лінгвістика в Україні : історія, теоретичні засади, дискурсивна практика : колект. моногр. / за ред. Т. А. Космеди. Харків: ХНПУ імені Г. С. Сковороди ; Дрогобич : Коло, 2014. 472 с.
- Єфименко В. Сучасні підходи до аналізу казок [Електронний ресурс]. Наукові записки Національного університету «Острозька академія». Серія «Філологічна». Вип. 48. С. 186-188. URL: http://nbuv.gov.ua/UJRN/Nznuoaf_2014_48_59
- Романенко В. Гендерні стереотипи в українських та англійських народних чарівних казках. Філологічні студії: збірник наукових статей студентів філологічного факультету / ОНУ ім. І.І. Мечникова, Філол. фак. – Одеса: ОНУ ім. 1.1. Мечникова, 2013. Вип. 4. С. 114-118. URL: http://dspace.onu.edu.ua:8080/bitstream/123456789/5083/1/114-118.pdf.pdf|.
- Andrew Lang «The Blue Fairy» [Електронний ресурс]. URL :https://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Andrew_Lang_fairy_books/Blue_fairy_book/East_of_the_Sun_and_West_of_the_Moon.html#gsc.tab=0