Chapter VII

7.5. THE PRAGMATIC INTENTION “TO INTEREST THE READER”
The pragmatic intention “to interest the reader” generated as a consequence of the previous one, is aimed to interest the reader, to make
him think over the semantic content of the text, to exert an impact on his intellectual sphere. The significance of this intention is conditioned by the psychological peculiarities of the reader’s perception oriented to “interest” as one of the main categories of human life in general, and literary communication in particular. The phenomenon of “interest” is linguistically grounded in the work by G.G.Molchanova who brings it into correlation with the phenomenon of “the new”; the latter in its turn is characterized by violation of banality, triteness, monotony (Молчанова, 1988:22).
Nothing is so boring as something known and monotonous. It is necessary to keep in mind that in the fi ctional discourse “the new” is linked with subtextual and conceptual information rather than factual information presented by the plot of the text. Therefore various kinds of structural and stylistic transformations, contextual changes of lexical meanings, implicit meanings, connotations and associations are in the foreground. From the linguistic point of view “the new” is based on a peculiar usage of language units, the renewal of their both structural and semantic characteristics. Let’s turn to an example:
For women are as roses
Whose fair fl ower being once displayed
Doth fall that very hour (W. Shakespeare).
The utterance contains a traditional, trite image “women - roses”. Due to its frequent usage this image has become hackneyed. It doesn’t excite any interest on the part of the reader. The perception of this image would not have been effective if it were not for its peculiar usage. In order to attract and interest the reader, the author resorts to “renewal” of this image. It is achieved by the following: a) the trite simile “women are as roses” is included into the structure of an extended metaphor containing several images: – flower, display, fall; b) violation of usual associative links of this image. The simile here is used not to emphasize women’s beauty, but to stress the fact that beauty does not last long; it passes lightly and instantly like a flash.
Hence, the “image renewal” deautamatizes its perception and changes the character of emotional impact. Positive emotions associated with the concept of BEAUTY are transformed into quite opposite negative emotions – sorrow, regret, sadness caused by beauty’s “momentary” life. Such new comprehension of the hackneyed image excites the reader’s interest and heightens the pragmatic effect.