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The IUP Journal of English Studies

Fractal Theory in Linguistic Analysis of a Literary Text

Article Details

Pub. Date	: Sep, 2022
Product Name	: The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type	: Article
Product Code	: IJES030922
Author Name	: Morozkina E, Z Safina and Y Morozkin
Availability	: YES
Subject/Domain	: Arts & Humanities
Download Format	: PDF Format
No. of Pages	: 07

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Abstract

The paper deals with the fractal structure issues of a literary text. The property of self-similarity, or scaling, is one of the central features of fractal structures. Besides, fractals are also characterized by irregularity, fractal dimension, scalar relativity and formal consistency. All the basic properties of a fractal are manifested in the language, which allows us to consider the language as a fractal structure. In this paper, the fractal form of Francis Scott Fitzgerald' s novel Tender Is the Night is analyzed. The authors make an attempt to prove that this literary work is compositionally a kind of a fractal, both at the level of the plot development and lexical organization.

The fractal form of the novel resembles a heterogeneous and discontinuous structure, which contains a dominant idea capable of developing and adopting any configuration. This idea is represented by the main characters of the novel and by linguistic means representing the concept of "money". Semantic elements adjacent to the dominant idea of the fractal organization are expressed by verbs and nominal phrases which form a self-similar structure of the whole novel.

Introduction

Traditionally, linguistic research proceeded from the assumption that language is best viewed as a linear or one-dimensional entity, defined by lists of words, rules for linking such words, and schemes of one kind or another designed to illustrate these rules. However, the theory of fractal linguistics that recently began to develop proposes that languages are similar to random fractals in nature, that is, language exhibits some fractal features. In this study, the fractal properties of a literary text structure are examined, and the supplied illustrative examples are based on an analysis of the famous American writer F S Fitzgerald' s novel Tender Is the Night (1995). The authors have made an attempt to prove that this literary work is compositionally a kind of a fractal, which reflects some fractal properties both at the level of the plot development and at the level of lexical organization of the text.