Polysemantic allusion in a polycultural dimension: Definition, structure and semantics (based on Pratchett’s Discworld)

Abstract

The paper introduces the notion of polysemantic allusion in a polycultural dimension, explored in its semantic, structural and functional facets, based on intertextual contextual interpretative, structural, taxonomic, archetypal analyses added by some inferential pragmatics tools. Polysemantic allusion (PA) is defined as an intertextuality device, which combines two and more facultatively decoded meanings due to their association with more than one precedent source situations, texts or phenomena. The markers of PA include the modified and altered precedential names, designating the literary text or extra-textual sphere of denotation, symbolic or archetypal references of precedential situation or text; a science-associated terms or their structural part, which must satisfy the ambiguity and optional decoding of the precedential sources triggered by the PA. The markers of polysemantic allusion may be one, two- and multicomponent with each structural part capable of creating additional allusive connotations in its unfolding in further context. PA involves several levels of semantic interpretation, which correlate with various precedent texts and differ in degrees of implicitness of the allusive meanings, interpreted with an attraction of the optimally relevant context, implicating, strengthening, confirming or contradicting the hypothetic allusive assumptions. Semantic components of PA may encompass hypertextual references providing coherent relations between Pratchett’s novels, and architextual meanings associated with parodying various genres