ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 39 (Number 40) Year 2018. Page 23

Textual construction of a learner’s linguistic persona (a case study of Kuzbass university students’ essays)

Construcción textual del aprendizaje lingüístico (Un estudio de caso: ensayos de estudiantes de la Universidad de Kuzbass)

Natalia MELNIK 1; Irina SAVELEVA 2; Olga FELDE 3; Galina KOPNINA 4; Irina EVSEEVA 5

Received: 23/08/2018 • Approved: 30/08/2018

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

3. Results

4. Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Bibliographic references

1. Introduction

The variety of ways we use to express our ideas can determine the diversity of ways we create written texts. The question of variability of personal discourse arises when we, for instance, read students’ essays written as a commentary on a famous novel. The authors of these essays can be socially identical, as they comprise one peer group of university students. The source discourse they evaluate is a fictional invariant and it stimulates their interpreting activity. To create a written commentary, the learners are supposed to use different discourse strategies (Van Dijk, 2008; Muhammad, 2017). Discourse processing results in a cluster of secondary texts, namely essays, which represent certain characteristics  allowing researchers to identify the parameters of variability of textual derivation strategies (Golev, 2007; Riffaterre, 2006; Johnstone, 1996).

In Baggio’s (2016) conception, “texting environment” makes speaker’s personality trait explicit (Baggio, 2016). Discourse interpretation and derivation cannot be seen as definite and constant; it is rather viewed as being temporary and constantly open to reinterpretation (Dontcheva-Navratilova and Povolná, 2012).  When people (learners in our case) are producing discourse they are not only doing writing-presenting ideas in textual form but are also being writers creating a variety of meanings in the writing context (Kuhi and Rahimivand, 2011: 98). As Johnstone (1996) notes, a speaker of a native language owns a linguistic system, which is a repertoire of resources rather than the cause of his or her linguistic behavior (Johnstone, 1996: 11). The researcher also suggests that the close-reading techniques of philologically based discourse analysis are an indispensable tool for linguists.

Yet the present study draws on the deterministic approach to discourse analysis. Within the given framework, we identify text-based and person-based factors, which determine  secondary text creation. Besides, we attempt to investigate derivation potential of linguistic units and consider their salience in view of systematic and anthropological approaches. This work contributes to the integrative tradition of the present day research and philosophical roots of text deconstruction conception, thus, synthesizing seemingly antagonizing ideas. We regard a piece of fiction as a linguistic whole, which stimulates a reader, who acts as a learner, towards textual derivation process, suggesting that its interpretative potential lies within the linguistic ability of an individual.

The objective of the paper is to construct a person-dependent model of textual derivation process. We have carried out a linguistic experiment with a group of 100 university students in order to investigate ways of textual derivation and to disclose the factors that affect them. We used the following variables: texts, participants, experimental tasks. It allowed us to set inferential links between the source text (fictional invariant) and its derived variants (students’ essays). We also applied a descriptive technique, which involves collecting the data, linguistic observation, classification and taxonomy building procedures.

In the present paper, we suggest that text derivational potential is affected by two complex, essential factors. They, in terms of the ontology of knowledge, have different origin. We call them text-centered (system dependent) and persona-centered (personality dependent). Thus, our study aims to construct a persona-centered model, which will clearly represent textual derivation process. To achieve this, we are making several assumptions and doing several tasks:

1) Recognizing the role of modern linguistics and relating to the categories of systematic and anthropological approaches to language, we aim to describe the variability phenomenon. Having variable nature, a derived text enters the relations with the two main groups of determinants underlying its functioning: text-centered, the ones, which are determined by the primary invariant and persona-centered, the ones, which are determined by the individual’s linguistic repertoire and personal traits. 

2) We provide rationale for secondary text’s epistemological potential as well as for its primary invariant.

3) We develop the method of derivational process description and contribute to the methodology of linguistic persona theory, thus, complementing these frameworks with the outcomes of data analysis.

4) Our last objective is to detect persona dependent factors that predetermine text derivation variability, represented in students’ word choice and discourse strategies with discourse categories.

1.1. Literature Review

Scholarly researches focusing on the variability factors in discourse practices have been numerous for the last few decades. Sociolinguistic studies highlighted the issues of social function of the language and the manifestation of social roles and groups in discourse and communication (Gee, 1996: Jenkins, 1996; Collins and Blot, 2003; Bamberg et al., 2011). From this perspective, “language plays a critical role in categorizing people and further influencing identities related categorizations. Language is a conspicuous label that people can use to show their social/ethnic identities, and works as a factor to draw lines among groups of people” (Lee, 2016). Analyzing digital discourse, Baggio (2016) differentiates the concepts of personal and social identity. Personal identity conception entails self-appraised characteristics of an individual in terms of physical and cognitive abilities, personal traits, motives and a variety of other attributes. Social identity, on the other hand, is derived from membership in a group. It attaches values and emotions arising from the connections and relationships with the collective whole (Baggio, 2016).

In fact, many researchers argue that textual environment is a space, where various linguistic personality types inevitably explicate their linguistic ability of different kind. According to Karasik and Gillespie (2014), a situational approach to discourse makes it possible to take a close look at persons engaged in communication. The researchers underline the significance of psychologically approached classification of language personalities while analyzing personal discourse “Classifications of people are very numerous and may be roughly subdivided as based on temperament (natural qualities), directivity (demands and ideals) and abilities (intellectual, volitional and emotional peculiarities) which correlate with biological, social and spiritual features of personality.” (Karasik and Gillespie, 2014: 25).

In J. Baxter’s (2016) work, we read:

“In these contexts, individuals are shaped by the possibility of multiple (though not limitless) subject positions within and across different and competing discourses. Furthermore, the formation and reformation of identity is a continuous process, accomplished through actions and words rather than through some fundamental essence of character”.

Reader’s commenting on a piece of fiction is also investigated within literary criticism theoretical frameworks and applied linguistics approaches (Mantero, 2007).

Methodologically, this work is based on discourse theory, conceptions of post-modernist discourse and text investigations (Baxter, 2016; Johnstone, 1996; 2002; Jenkins, 1996; Rodgers, 2017; Sapir, 1927). Among these approaches, we mostly draw on the one that describes the personality of discourse participants, an actor and a recipient, as actively engaged into interaction process (Lee, 2016). 

As Karamalak and Peshina (2017) presuppose, the turn of linguistics to a human and a human factor in language indicates essential methodological shift that emerged in cognitive linguistics, namely, the shift from immanent being of linguistics regarding language as an autonomous system (for its own sake) towards anthropological linguistics that provides investigating a language in close interrelation with a human.

The authors also develop and extend theoretical conception of personalism that focuses on an individual that expresses his “Unique Self” in social and psychological existence (Williams and Bengtsson, 2016).

 In Russian scholarship, linguistic and literary criticism approaches, recent studies have encompassed the role of psychological factors that affect the person’s linguistic behavior, the choice of discourse strategies and textual outcomes. Nikolay Trubetskoy was among the first who remarked on the necessity of integrative approach to the studies of personality and language. In the work “On the issue of Russian self-awareness”, he notes that “the personality is indivisible and uniquely whole, thus, it can hardly be comprehended by a human mind. Nevertheless, it must be open to the scientific and philosophical search… The science that should coordinate these explorations, to call it personology (linguistic persona theory), is to be created” (Trubetskoy, 1995: 106-107). 

 Summarizing his postulates and the findings of French personalists, V. Neroznak recognizes the growth of a new linguistic approach. He also calls it linguistic persona theory. Among developing approaches to the studies of personality and language, there appeared two foregrounding views – personality-centered and language-centered (Golev, 2007). Personality-centered approach to language is shaped as an aspectual one within the paradigm of personalism (Mounier, 1999; Trubetskoy, 1995). It encompasses theoretical as well as empirical surveys. According to Yury Karaulov (2017), linguistic persona is a multilevel concept, which can be regarded from different views. Either it can focus on a particular writer’s style, analysis of stylistic nuances in every detail or on the individuality of a well-known figure of a scholar or a scientist, as Sirotinina (1995) puts it, language elite. Yet, in recent years, there have appeared several approaches, which focus on the discourse practices of an ordinary native speaker and reveal personality traits in the discursive domain of human life. This type of linguistic persona should be studied in the aspect of linguistic repertoire and identity construction. In the standard variationist approach, vernacular discourse is defined as the most natural, least self-conscious form of speech. One of the major parameters of identity typology is socially determined, thus, it can be gender, age, profession, belonging to a certain community, etc. (Theodoropoulou, 2018; Torkington and Perdigão Ribeiro, 2018; Woolhiser, 2014). As Fairclough (2001) puts it, “discourses are diverse representations of social life which are inherently positioned; differently positioned social actors see and represent social life in different ways, different discourses. For instance, the lives of poor and disadvantaged people are represented through different discourses in the social practices of government, politics, medicine, and social science, and through different discourses within each of these practices corresponding to different positions of social actors” (Fairclough, 2001: 232).

The next level of linguistic persona typology correlates with national identity that reflects ethnical features of a nation, national language persona (Kolesov, 2006; Bashieva et al., 2017). 

It is indisputable that speech is always multivoiced, always drawing on other speech, and that the ways we talk are constrained, shaped, and dictated to us in more ways than we realize (Scollon, 1995). But it is also indisputable that no two individuals always speak with the same voice (Johnstone, 1996: 12).

Linguistics measured from personality perspective aims to describe language, discourse, speech by applying anthropological categories. The use of language, its syntactic and speech characteristics are regarded as an expression of individual feelings, intentions, abilities. The language functions in humankind’s universe or the space of an individual. Accordingly, diversity of writing works and linguistic styles is explained in correlation with the diversity of human beings (Yergaliyeva et al., 2018). We are able to differentiate discursive individuals by collecting and analyzing textual data, individual style markers and products of speaking and writing.

We focus our explorations on the conception of text as creative potential of language that can only be implemented in this linguistic unit as well as creative potential of a linguistic individual expressing the self in it. Such understanding enables us to regard text as persona-text. This phenomenon is the central subject of linguistic personology, a new approach to discourse analysis, which is gaining ground these days.

Traditionally, text has been studied from the perspectives that examined its ontological characteristics. Structuralist approach to text and discourse studies focuses on vital features such as cohesion and coherence, the characteristics that primarily contribute to the existence of text as a linguistic unity (Gal’perin, 2006).

The development of the structuralist approaches allows researchers to establish the concept of the inner form of text regarding it as a means that expresses the message of the text. Functional approach encompasses the exploration of expressive stylistic means and other linguistic devices that shape how “meanings are made and interpreted through linguistic and semiotic performance” (Mortensen et al, 2017).

 Communicative approach understands text as a vital component in humans’ interaction process, giving an important part to a subject of communication, a recipient and a sender of a message (Bolotnova, 2016). Thus, we can presuppose, that the tendency to integrate approaches to text and discourse and to embody structural and anthropological research fields in the study of language dictated the emergence of numerous researches that highlight the role of an individual in text production.

The processes of speech and thinking including reading, referencing, translating, annotating, summarizing, making a parody, etc. are applied to a secondary text production. Strong interrelation indicating heterogeneous (the form, meaning and function of the text) and multilevel transformation of an object can be detected between generated (secondary) and generating (primary) textual units.

It is for that reason that a secondary text is positioned as a mirror of language personality view, as it allows matching many diverse reproduced texts with the source one. Variability of secondary texts proves the broadness and variation of linguistic ability of their authors (Prud’homme and Guilbert, 2006).

The novel by Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky “The Idiot” has been taken as a source discourse and, correspondingly, as a thematic stimulus for creative writing. The researchers’ choice is determined by several reasons. Firstly, the ontological nature of literary discourse makes it potentially open to the interpretation by readers, to their response. It is characterized by author’s deliberate word choice and his attention meaning-making and discourse-structuring proccesses. 

Besides, fictional discourse has twofold referencing. Secondly, epistemological perspective of this type of discourse shows that its coherence and cohesion provide considerable extent for scholarly interest. This research project is mostly concerned with the study of secondary (meta-) discourse variable functioning. The third reason is that a fiction story is more attractive to readers and it is beneficial for the purposes of education. The degree of readers’ engagement proves to be high. The students comprehend it more easily, being readily captured by real and imaginary events described in the novel.

The abovementioned assumptions justify the researchers’ focus on secondary texts and reasonability of results representation based on the type of metatexts written upon a single work of fiction – Fedor Dostoyevsky’s novel “The Idiot”. Above all, the source discourse represents a precedent text by several factors: the complexity of implied author phenomenon, authorial individual style, historical background, etc. As Sousa (2017) notes, “the literary text, in which several registers, voices, modes blend and clash, challenges the reader with unfamiliar features, from graphology, semantics, lexis, syntax, coherence, cohesion and register (discourse) to pragmatics” (Sousa, 2017: 390). Besides, it can also allow readers to interact with creative uses of language (Crystal and Davy, 1985).

This study entails qualitative analysis of 1000 students’ essays based on a single fragment excerpted from the novel “The Idiot” by Fedor Dostoyevsky. The method applied is rooted within discourse-based approaches. The discourse analysis (DA) method has been modified according to the hypothesized interplay between the linguistic behavior of individual in discourse and the text typical structural and semantic characteristics. More than that, the authors detected the main strategies, using which the university students modified and personified their essays.

On the one hand, we are concerned with variously organized potential of language units that assume different routes of interpretation. On the other, the choice of one or another discourse variant signals the omnipotence of the human factor, for instance, individual’s linguistic preferences, the quality of individual’s language skill and resourcefulness, the choice of an individual style, etc. Following these assumptions, the present study focuses on the analysis of a large number of secondary texts, in which the source text is likely to display in diverse discursive forms. To interpret their contents and form from the perspective of linguistic personology, to build their taxonomy basing on the essential parameters, which primarily refer to an individual’s linguistic behavior is the goal of our study. Thus, self-positioning in textual commentary may be multilayered and ambiguous, because they can be seen to project several positions at once and they may be interpreted differently by various actors; furthermore, positions are dynamic, emergent, and possibly subject to change over the course of an interactional episode (Muhammad, 2017).

Data analysis allowed us to detect text generating and text perceiving strategies of two types: onomasiological and semasiological. Secondary text produced by onomasiological strategy prolongs the semantics of the source on macro level; it has no direct connection with the primary text structure and language forms, thus being novel on formal and semantic levels. Secondary text produced by semasiological strategy also extends the meaning of the source text. At the same time, it constructs the unity with the form of primary text (the novel), thus, it extends the structure, constraints the semantic innovations.

In the first case, the major role is played by the author of an essay who does not take into consideration the structure of the novel. In the second case, the crucial role is given to the novel itself, its form predetermines the form of the secondary text. So, in these models of secondary text generation, there is a difference of correlation between objective and subjective factors. Each model contains them but in different proportion, in onomasiological, subjectivity dominates, and semasiological model observes more subjectivity.

Thus, having fulfilled the in-depth analysis of empirical data (various types of secondary texts), we detected two broad groups of parameters from the perspective of linguistic behavior in discourse. The first group comprises discourse-based parameters: creative – copying, meaning-based – structure-based, automatic – conscious, in-text – out-text, personal – objective. The second group of parameters can be named person-based and they comprise the following: rational (logical) –irrational (artistic), sophisticated – vernacular, professional – naïve. Let us examine in detail the first group or discourse-based parameters of discourse variation.

3.1. Creative vs imitative types of secondary texts.

The ground for classifying secondary texts is detecting their inferential links with the source discourse (fictional in our study). The ways of correlation between a primary text and a derived one can relate to the degree to which secondary texts are similar to the primary source in terms of their semantic, structural and pragmatic aspects. The derivation directions are either complicating (extension) or simplifying (reduction) a source discourse or the dominating role of person-based or discourse-based factor during the metalinguistic processing. The opposition of creative and imitative types can account for the existence of the two tendencies that appear when an individual undertakes discourse (writing) processing. These factors are personifying (disposition) and impersonating (obscurity) an identity in text.

When a person is not likely to express his or her opinions and beliefs in a written text, he (she) mechanically rewrites certain fragments from the source text or copies them. The use of depersonalizing discourse strategy allows us to identify this type of linguistic behavior as a copying type thus resulting in an appropriate secondary text. 

The linguistic identity of the reader who is creative in writing is observed through the other kinds of discursive highlights due to a different goal. The pragmatics of creative type of secondary text is representing an individual’s sense of self. It may obtain the form of a discoursal self or displaying authoritativeness and as well as personal values and views relating to a literary fragment in writing. Thus, we receive a type of discourse as a means by which these goals have been achieved. 

3.2. Structure-based vs meaning-based types.

If a reader’s willingness to express a discoursal self is connected with explicit evaluation of the message or the language structure of a source text, it results in the next two types of secondary texts. They correlate with the two discourse strategies, which we define as onomasiological and semasiological. Importantly, both types of secondary texts preserve their identity revealing potential. Thus, they may be regarded as the discursive space where readers embodied their identities, though the former focused on the message and the latter on the language use.

Most often, the readers’ response concerns the semantic structure and the subject of the source discourse. The human factor effect produces several options of this model. For example, the secondary texts’ authors can discuss a variety of discourse subjects, such as murder, suffering, punishment, hope, etc. The level of the personal insight into the subject can also differ: from ordinary view to philosophical and scientific. However, there is no attention to the structural nuances of the fictional discourse. Hence, the structural aspect of the source text has no influence on the reader’s written response and we call this secondary text model (approach) onomasiological.

If the reader focuses on the formal, structural characteristics of the source discourse it often concerns stylistic features of the novel, the author’s choice of words, the narrative style, specifics of a single word use, for example, naverno (probably). The reflection can be explicit if the reader discusses Fedor Dostoyevsky’s exclusive style as well as implicit if the reader simply imitates it. Then we can identify the discursive strategy, which results in semasiological model.

3.3. Automatic – conscious types.

The following opposition of secondary text types is revealed through the degree of derivative component of linguistic ability exploitation. This component is responsible for decoding / encoding procedures of speech reception and production. It also relates to the universal linguistic binary of production/ reproduction.

There have been a considerable number of student’s essays that contained passages purely copied from the source text, and thus the level of reader’s insight into the subject of the excerpt could hardly be discovered. The large number of quotes used to support readers’ argument (in readers’ view) upon one or another statement makes it unavailable to detect the level of comprehension of the problem discussed.

This strategy results in secondary texts that virtually corrupt the contents of the source text due to the imperfect language derivation ability of a reader. Otherwise, some of the readers express their opinion in explicit way and this allows us to judge whether the reader’s comprehension of the novel has a unique character. To sum it up, we assume that automatic type of a secondary text is of impersonal type, it can hardly disclose a discoursal identity of a reader. The possible explanation is the low level of literacy, which can result in depersonalising tendency or obscuring the writer identity in discourse.

3.4. In-text – out-text types.

The readers’ response to a literary fragment may address the textual meanings as well as extend to the outside meanings or the contextual background. In the first case the authors of secondary texts base their commentary on the source discourse, focus on certain components of it. This strategy is steadily accompanied by quoting the primary source; students use them in order to construct argumentation.

In-text type reveals the discourse strategy that reflects certain categories of primary text, thus, it strengthens semiotic component but weakens identity construction point, obscuring the discursive Self of a writer. Otherwise, out-text type reveals a strategy, which aims at inclusion of the contextual elements, the world outside the novel into discussion. For instance, the readers may narrate facts from the writer’s biography, historical background, social and political settings of the past and the present. Consequently, applying this strategy leads to strengthening of identity construction component rather than to semiotic aspect of discourse production.

3.5. Subjective – objective types.

The subjective (interactional) type usage is aimed to strongly express reader’s position. Its evidentials are clearly constructed statements and a set of argumentation techniques. Personal pronouns I and We and the corresponding possessives are among discursive markers used to express reader’s explicit points on the subject of the novel. Alongside with them, the type of narrative is likely to be first person narrative and the typical constructions, such as I think, I suppose, I mean and subjective markers In my view, I can hardly say, etc. are chosen for commenting.

The narration of You-type or the second-person narrative also signals a subjective type of a secondary text. In metadiscourse, this can be represented through the usage of emphatic constructions, exclamatory and interrogative sentences (as the question itself can only come from the person it can indicate discoursal self-expression).

By contrast, third-person narrative may signal the objectivity-based approach to secondary text production. The authorial attitudes and impressions receive no manifestation in this type of secondary texts. The commentary of the objective type is based on precise referencing and its discursive markers detect no self-expression. Hence, we may assume that subjective secondary texts are more personalized.

The next broad group of linguistic identity types correlates with personal traits of a speaker. These are directly connected with the quality of linguistic ability, which becomes represented in secondary texts. The literacy factor and the mental ability of the person affect his (her) writing and can be revealed by careful analysis of secondary texts. These variables are primarily regarded as personal but in discourse, they are considered as linguistic because they become actualized through interaction and language use.

3.6. Rational (logical) vs irrational (intuitive) personality.

A clear example of this personality is a text pragmatically constructed as a critical one. Highlights of this discourse are binaries and oppositions of various kinds. The reader’s response is expressed by text paragraphing, certain discursive connectives demonstrating a sense of logical sequence such as firstly, secondly, finally, etc. This is also enclosed rhetorical elements and composition of the commentary in general. Unlike rational type of a narrator, an irrational identity of a reader student can present discoursal self through artistic type of an insight, for instance, the author’s stance can follow poetic pattern and be structured as a piece of lyrics.

The fundamentals of differing text comprehension models entail types of cognitive activity: artistic, irrational and rational cognition types, which are investigated in psychology, and explained by the role of dominating cerebral hemisphere.

3.7. Sophisticated vs vernacular personality.

Many secondary texts written by respondents represent the outcome of literacy education, we call this “sophisticated” discursive evidentials (for instance, its negative representation is reader’s criticism of the novel without reading the novel). “Sophistication” can be detected from reader’s aim to criticize the text and typical structure of a school essay with certain analytical parts, clichés, syntax and quotes embedded in text. By contrast, other secondary texts represent free style and break genre norms. They contain reader’s first impression and are far from being composed according to creative writing norms. Unlike “sophisticated” type of secondary text the “vernacular” type demonstrates more identity features, thus, personalizing tendency is dominating.

3.8. Professional vs naïve personality.

We can correlate this opposition to the previous one, and regard professional (literate) and naive types of secondary texts as a particular way sophisticated vs vernacular personality represents oneself in written commentary, but it is apocryphal as there are no direct links between the second and the third text-groups. Here we can observe the crucial rope of social group. Linguistic individual represents the social role in discourse and this discourse function tends to obscure the other functions of discourse: cognitive, communicative, aesthetic, etc.

Intertextuality plays a crucial role in professional (socially-engaged) type of secondary text as well as professional lexicon (terminology), stylistic devices. More than that, specifics of text structuring approaches that are acquired by  university students is another evidential of linguistic identity construction in personal discourse. Naïve texts reflect learners’ naïve thinking  represented through argumentation techniques, for instance, quoting folklore and old Russian sayings.

Identified parameters correlate to linguistic categories that are represented in secondary texts. They, in fact, mirror the personality traits. To illustrate all said we shall quote several essays:

Essay 1

Po moemu, `etot otryvok naibolee yavno pokazyvaet nam filosofiyu F. M. Dostoevskogo. Kak izvestno, Dostoevskij - religioznyj pisatel', on - filosof hristianstva, gumanist. Osnovnaya tema `etogo otryvka - gumannost' i miloserdie, sostradanie, vernee, otsutstvie vsego `etogo v mire i v tozhe vremya vazhnost', neobhodimost' `etogo dlya mira i lyudej. (Ved' `eti zapovedi - glavnaya otlichitel'naya cherta hristianstva). Primerom antigumanizma i antimiloserdiya F. M. Dostoevskij schitaet kazn', "ubijstvo po prigovoru" (underlined by the author of the essay). On vyvodit paradoksal'nuyu teoriyu: "ubijstvo po prigovoru nesorazmerno uzhasnee, chem ubijstvo razbojnich'e". Paradoks zaklyuchaetsya v tom, chto ubijstvo, kakoe ono ni bylo, vse-taki ubijstvo, i ono ne mozhet byt' bolee uzhasnee ili menee. Tak schitaet hristianstvo. Uzhas, po Dostoevskomu, v tom, chto ubijstvo po prigovoru lishaet cheloveka nadezhdy na spasenie, i `eto zastavlyaet cheloveka stradat' esche sil'nee, ne tol'ko fizicheski, no i duhovno: "Kto skazal, chto chelovecheskaya priroda v sostoyanii vynesti `eto bez sumasshestviya?". V itoge F. M. Dostoevskij, podvodya chertu pod svoej teoriej gumannosti, govorit slovami svoego geroya: "Net, s chelovekom tak postupat' nel'zya!" (In my view, this excerpt most clearly shows us the philosophy of Fedor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky is known for having been a religious writer, a philosopher of Christianity, a humanist. The main idea of the excerpt is humanism and loving-kindness, sympathy, to be more exact, the lack of these values in the real world, but at the same time the importance of them, their necessity for the world of people (as these commandments are essential and distinguishing feature of Christianity). F. Dostoyevsky believes an execution, “a murder on verdict” to symbolize non-humanistic and non-merciful behavior. He makes a paradoxical inherence: “a murder on verdict is inadequately more awful than an assault related to murder”. The paradox is seen in the fact, that murder is murder, any case of it is awful, that is why no comparison can be made between the two. This is Christian morality. Horribleness, by Dostoyevsky, is in understanding that “a murder on verdict leaves no hope for escape, and this brings even greater misery, hurts body and soul: Who said that human nature can endure such a pain without getting insane?” In conclusion, Dostoyevsky, summing up his humanism theory, puts the words into his hero’s mouth, “No way you can do that to a human being!”).

The author of this text primarily focuses on the subject of the source discourse, he (she) highlights the idea of humanism discussed by F. Dostoyevsky. However, the style and the language choice received no commentary, thus we can assume the usage of onomasiological discourse strategy and a similar strategy of text perception. As for the contextual opposition in-text / out-text, they are equally represented in the example. The first component of this opposition ca n be seen in the beginning while the second in the end. The discussion of Dostoyevsky’s work comprises the first part of the excerpt, general view on philosophy and Christianity and, subsequently, the author supports the ideas with quotations from the primary source.

The logic of reasoning supports rational approach to text comprehension and the criticism strategy. The cognitive schemata does not seem to be surface reading, it is rather in-depth analysis, the author of the essay gives an insightful account, expressing his (her) intimate attitude towards the subject. However, this secondary text is not an unconsciously expressed response to a piece of fiction, there is a sample of a learner’s writing skill, so called “sophistication”. In spite of several mistakes, this essay presents a “sophisticated” type of a secondary text.

The focus on professional component of the essay indicates the following points: genre features are present in this unit (it is a formally structured argument-essay, containing certain clichés, compulsory discursive connectives, quotations from the primary source). The author of the essay gives the argument supporting the point of Dostoyevsky, he (she) appeals to the Christian philosophy postulates, struggles to reason and judge writer’s ideas most objectively. Building the argument the student refers to the original work. Besides, there is a decent number of citations in the essay. All mentioned points prove this piece to represent a copying type of a secondary text. Thus, the sample seen as a persona text is classified as semantic-based, in-text, rational type of secondary text. The linguistic identity of the author is characterized by sophistication, professional (literary) awareness, copying and objective disposition.

Essay 2

Smert' - chast' zhizni ili ee prodolzhenie, bezumstvo, nelepost' ili prigovor? Chto ya znayu? Chto ya mogu znat' o tom, chto nepostizhimo? Kto ya? Chto ya? Sila, kotoraya dala mne zhizn', ubivaet menya naravne s lyud'mi. Zavtra menya ne stanet… Da est' li komu-to do `etogo delo? Chto sil'nee: skrezhet lezviya po tvoej shee, ili … po tvoej dushe? Nado vykinut' mysli sejchas, nemedlenno, no ne dumat' nel'zya. Potomu chto imenno sejchas nado chto-to ponyat', chto-to osmyslit', chto-to preodolet', chto-to perezhit', ... chto-to ochen' vazhnoe… No chto? Chto mozhno ponyat', esli logika uzhe ne rabotaet, esli strah paralizuet kazhduyu kletochku tela i ne daet dyshat'? Hotya i ponimaesh', chto boyat'sya bespolezno, esli vse ravno nichego ne izmenish'. Ponimaesh', no ne boyat'sya ne mozhesh'. Holod uzhe ne oschuschaetsya, slezy uzhe ne obzhigayut. Chto-to teplitsya vnutri… zhivoe, to, chto hochetsya sohranit' i ne otpuskat', to, chto znachit dlya tebya vse, no `eto "vse" ischeznet s pervymi luchami solnca. Otnyato poslednee - nadezhda, bez kotoroj ty napolovinu uzhe mertv. (Death – is it only a part of life or its continuation, insanity, trick or verdict? What do I know? What can I know of something that can’t be perceived? Who am I? What am I? That power, which brought me to life, kills me the same way as people do. Tomorrow I won’t be alive. Does anyone care about it? What is hurting more? The razor on your neck or on your heart? Stop, throw all the thoughts off your head right now, but I can’t help thinking. It is just the time to understand, to make the sense of it, to overcome something, that is essential… What is that something? What can one understand when logic stops, and the fear paralyzes every muscle of your body, makes it hard to breathe? Although you realize, it is no use having fear, you know you can change nothing. Yes, you realize that, but still can’t help terrible fear. No cold you feel, no tears burn your face. There is something warm inside you… that you want to keep, not to let it go, this is all that matters for you. But this “all” will disappear with daylight. The last hope has been taken from you, without it, you are half dead).

The reflection on form, style, narrative techniques is an essential characteristics of semasiological strategy. In the quoted essay, the author gives a feedback on the narrative style as well as the subject. This feedback has no explicit features, but the manner of narration is imitation of Dostoyevsky authentic style (repetitions, the technique of the stream of consciousness applied by the prominent writer, demonstrating the hero’s search for the truth). This imitative manner of the student signals irrational type of the secondary text.

In contrast to the previous essay, the present text has no evidence of professional writing skill. It lacks the elements of linguistic, stylistic and philology analytical tools. Hence, we are able to detect naïve type of production. Commentary of the type can also reveal the aspiration of the author to intentionally avoid following school essay writing rules, therefore, it has been produced due to the “natural” type model (we should note, meanwhile, that the parameters of linguistic identity do not involve axiological aspect). Subjective view of the given commentary can be found by regarding the second and third person narration, interrogative sentences. The essay can boast a genuinely creative argument. Hence, the text type can be defined as a form-based, out-text, artistic, conscious, vernacular, naive, subjective, creative models.

The analysis of empirical data allowed us to conclude that variability of text derivation outcomes correlates with the diversity of linguistic individuals. Such diversity is grounded at the quality of their language capacity that is projected on their speech and discourse. Varying the experiment conditions allowed to detect the determinants of various linguistic identity potential is not affected by the style of the primary and secondary texts, experiment constraints, reproduction discourse. Therefore, we observe that derivation potential implementation is predetermined by pure linguistic as well as personality factors, which intersect within discourse, being often of binary nature.

Text-centered and persona-centered analyses reveal consistent interplay between personal discourse structure and semantics and identity factors (persona-centered) or the manifestation of a linguistic individual in a secondary text. This kind of analysis has certain implications. 

Literature review has shown the essential role of human factor in discourse studies, especially investigation of personal discourse and personal texts. University students, who are seen as discourse participants, are regarded as active creators of texts, the effect of discourse on its recipient is considered to be of much interest. Thus, the emergence of linguistic approach that puts learner’s linguistic persona in the center of the study of language signals the shift from addressing a language as an autonomous system to anthropologically approached linguistic data.

The data analyzed qualitatively come from higher school student’s essays, written as a commentary to a fictional discourse, namely, “The Idiot” by Dostoyevsky. Secondary in-depth analysis of text indicates that the factors determining text derivation process (personal discourse production) mostly form two broad groups – text-centred and persona-centred.

From the point of view of theoretical framework studying linguistic identity, any secondary text (essay, commentary, etc.) possesses certain parameters, which indicate identity features, linguistic preferences of the author. Interpreting the data obtained has helped to reveal text and person-based parameters of metadiscource variability and thus allowed to construct linguistic identity perspective of textual analysis. Conducted experiment resulted in conceptualizing the methodology of linguistic persona theory. Besides, it is argued, that textual derivation depends on systematic as well as persona-centered determinants. This type of analysis has practical value and can be applied to discourse studies as well as to L1, L2 teaching. The results also have implications in the sphere of literary criticism and reader’s response theory development.

The typology the authors offer to the scholarship observes certain correlation with binary linguistic categories or linguistic dichotomies.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grant No. 18-412-420003 р_а "Kuzbass: Complex Cognitive-discursive Study of the Regional Image" from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the government of Kemerovo region, Russian Federation.

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1. Department of Russian Language. Kemerovo State University. The Institute of Philology, Foreign Languages and Media Communication. Contact e-mail: n4taliemelnik@yandex.ru

2. Department of Foreign Languages. Kemerovo State University. The Institute of Philology, Foreign Languages and Media Communication

3. Department of Russian Language, Literature and Speech Communication. Siberian Federal University. The Institute of Philology and Communication.

4. Department of Russian Language, Literature and Speech Communication. Siberian Federal University. The Institute of Philology and Communication.

5. Department of Russian Language, Literature and Speech Communication. Siberian Federal University. The Institute of Philology and Communication.