The article considers an asymmetric pair of terms “text” and “work”, which can be in different relations to each other. At the same time, there is a correlation between the solution of the issue in the “text — literary work” and “text — discourse” pairs. The text as a total identifier of the Humanities and Social Sciences cannot be defined completely within the framework of one science. When we define a text, we inevitably create a deeply transformed model of it from one perspective or another. Therefore, both the set and number of main textual categories and the terminology series are variable and debatable. For example, the frequent opposition of text as an ordered and hierarchical system to the flow of discourse is conducted on different grounds and with different results. Both the text and the discourse can be understood in the procedural aspect, which gives rise to opposite interpretations. When taking into account the broad “language plan”, it is more relevant not to contrast the text and discourse, but to compare them, which leaves more opportunities for scholarly description of complex phenomena and allows us to understand the text as a cognitive and communicative event. As a work, a literary text is discursive in essence of the cognitive-pragmatic relations implemented in it between different instances. The traditional use of the word “text of a literary work” not only denotes the material substratum of the latter, but also implies that the “work” is larger and more polysemantic than the “text”. Poststructuralists interpret this relationship in reverse order. These approaches are compatible if we imagine the “printed text” as a frozen “speech work”, a base of interpretation from which we can move in opposite directions to the instances of the “total author” or “total reader”.
Key words: text, literary work, discourse, procedural, cognitive, interpretation
Reference to article:
Lakerbay D. L. On the terms “text” and “literary work” // Ivanovo State University Bulletin. Series «The Humanities». 2020. No.1. P. 22-33.