Ways of expressing attitude to the named person in B. Akunin’s novel “The Black City”: Morphology and word-formation

   The article deals with ways of expressing attitude to the named person in the novel “The Black City” by Boris Akunin. The article focuses on the proper names as the most informative lexical units in the space of a literary text. A poetic proper name is known to perform a characterizing function, even used without any special means of expressiveness. If it is supplemented by any of these means, they increase its characterizing possibilities and power of influence on the reader. Consequently, the proper name in a fiction text performs not only a distinctive, but also a meaningful role. So to better understand the author’s intention, it is important to interpret onyms in a fiction text in terms of poetics and linguistics. In this regard, we have chosen the syncretic approach, including literary and linguistic methods of research, to fully and comprehensively analyze the issue of interest. Taking into account the fact that each level of language has a certain set of ways and means of expressing attitude to the object of speech, the studied material was divided into parts, depending on the level of language the named object manifests its characteristic features at. In this work, we identify the groups belonging to the morphological and word-formation levels and analyze the means, used to characterize the object, within each group. In some cases, the analysis is supplemented with extra-linguistic and literary information. At the end of the article, we make conclusions, allowing us to evaluate in fiction the role of characterizing elements used mainly in relation to proper nouns.

1. Berezovich, E. L. (2000). Russkaya toponimiya v etnolingvisticheskom aspekte [Russian Toponymy in Ethnolinguistic Terms]. 532 p. Ekaterinburg, izd-vo Ural'skogo universiteta. (In Russian)

2. Rylov, Iu. A. (2006). Aspekty yazykovoi kartiny mira: ital'ianskii i russkii yazyki [Aspects of the Language Picture of the World: Italian and Russian]. 304 p. Moscow, Gnozis. (In Russian)

3. Privalova, I. V. (2005). Interkul'tura i verbal'nyi znak (lingvokognitivnye osnovy mezhkul'turnoi kommunikatsii) [Interculture and the Verbal Sign (linguistic and cognitive foundations of intercultural communication)]. 472 p. Moscow, Gnozis. (In Russian)

4. Tynyanov, Iu. N. (1977). Literaturnyi fakt [A Literary Fact]. Tynyanov, Iu. N. Poetika. Istoriya literatury. Kino. 574 p. Pp. 255 – 270. Moscow, Nauka. (In Russian)

5. Fomin, A. A. (2004). Literaturnaya onomastika v Rossii: itogi i perspektivy [Literary Onomastics in Russia: Outcomes and Prospects]. Voprosy onomastiki. Ekaterinburg, izd-vo Ural'skogo universiteta. No. 1, pp. 108–120. (In Russian)

6. Salikhova, O. K. (2021). Osobennosti tekstoobrazuiushchei funktsii onimov vo frantsuzskom komikse [Peculiarities of the Text-Forming Function of Onyms in French Comics]. Filologicheskie nauki. Voprosy teorii i praktiki. No. 2, pp. 465 – 469. (In Russian)

7. Akunin, B. (2012). Chernyi gorod [The Black City]. 368 p. Moscow, Zakharov. (In Russian)

8. Gafurov, A. (1987). Imya i istoriya: ob imenakh arabov, persov, tadzhikov i tyurkov [Name and History: About Names of Arabs, Persians, Tajiks and Turks]. Slovar'. 224 p. Moscow, Nauka. (In Russian)

9. Drevnetiurkskii slovar' (1969) [Ancient Turkic Dictionary]. Borovkov, A., Nedeliaev, V., Nasilov, D., Tenishev, E., Shcherbak, A. 677 p. Leningrad, Nauka, Leningradskoe otdelenie. (In Russian)

10. Alpatov, V. M. (2016). Zametki o perevodakh s iaponskogo yazyka i na yaponskii yazyk [Notes on Translations from and into Japanese]. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriia 22. Teoriya perevoda. No.1, pp. 93–99. (In Russian)

11. Alpatov, V. M. (2008). O yazykovoi kartine mira yapontsev [On the Japanese Language Picture of the World]. Istoricheskaia psikhologiia i sotsiologiia istorii. No. 1, pp. 133 – 141. (In Russian)

12. Tsybenova, M. S. (2003). Upotreblenie suffiksov vezhlivosti v yaponskom yazyke [The Use of Politeness Suffixes in Japanese]. Vestnik Cheliabinskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. No. 1, pp. 238 – 242. (In Russian)

13. Sycheva, E. S. (2015). Problema perevoda obrashchenii i imennykh suffiksov v sovremennoi massovoi kul'ture Yaponii (na primere anime i manga) [The Problem of Translating Addresses and Noun Suffixes in Contemporary Japanese Mass Culture (Using Anime and Manga as Examples)]. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 22. Teoriya perevoda. No. 1, pp. 46–55. (In Russian)