LINGUISTIC PECULIARITIES OF THE CATEGORY OF TIME (ON THE BASIS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STORIES BY M. SPARK)

Abstract

The present paper is devoted to the study of linguistic peculiarities of the category of time in the literary text. Particular interpretation of time, complex interweaving of various time layers, breaking up the chronological order of events, interruption of their sequence are especially significant for the literary texts of the XX century. Artistic time is a representation of actual time from different points of view; it is a peculiar aspect of the artistically depicted reality and at the same time a constructive element of the text. The course of time in the literary work is different from real time, since the author can select those events that, from his/her point of view, are the most significant and, on the contrary, compress less important ones. The research is carried out on the basis of psychological stories of the English writer Muriel Spark. In the centre of Muriel Spark’s stories is the inner world of a person which is revealed by means of time shifts, compression or extension of time frames. All sorts of time deviations, time shifts, violations of real sequence of events arouse interest of scholars who examine time relations in the literary text. In our research of the category of time we use methods of textual and structural analysis which show that storyplot order of events does not coincide. It creates an effect of mystery, enigma that a reader should solve. Artistic time in the analyzed psychological stories is being represented by means of lexical and stylistic devices, different repetitions and parallel constructions. The most important role in the formation of the category of time belongs to the text structure. The basic means for expressing time in the studied texts are flashback and flashforward.