Gender peculiarities of functioning of precious stones nominations in author’s tales (based on the works by A. Carter and O. Wilde)

• Main Authors: Н. В. Долусова, Л. В. Строченко
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Odessa I. I. Mechnykov National University 2015-04-01
• Series: Записки з романо-германської філології
• Subjects: гендер; казка; номінація
• Online Access: http://rgnotes.onu.edu.ua/article/view/41492

The article studies peculiarities of functioning of precious stones nominations in author’s tales. Direct, indirect and symbolic meanings of the investigated nominations are being viewed in the article. The purpose of this paper is to study the use of gender-specific nominations of precious stones in fairy tales written by British authors. The material of our study is based on two tales by two great authors of English literature: O. Wilde, the writer of the nineteenth century, and A. Carter, the writer of the twentieth century. Both are known for their stories, striving to speak about the reality in a different language. The nominations of precious stones in folk fairy tales are exclusively anthropocentric, i.e. they are used to describe man and his life in literal and figurative senses. The literary sources use the nominations of precious stones to depict other objects - cities, plants, drinks and more. All the recorded cases of the names of precious stones in the analized works can be subdivided into two groups: 1) the nominations of precious stones used in the direct meaning; 2) the nominations of precious stones used figuratively. The nominations of precious stones in the direct meaning are mainly of anthropocentric nature. These nominative units are mostly used to describe various jewelry. In the figurative meaning the nominations of precious stones are employed in stylistic devices of metaphor, simile and epithet. Oscar Wilde describes a variety of things both abstract and concrete, including other precious stones. Unlike male texts, the nominations of precious stones in female prose obtain an important symbolic value for the realization of the author's message. Thus, in fairy tale "The Bloody Chamber" by A. Carter jewelry made of ruby and opal are a gift of the French Marquis (whose prototype is Bluebeard) to his young wife, and the nominations ruby and opal obtain the meaning of "imminent death" and realize a prospective function. In the texts of both authors the nominations of precious stones are used both in the direct and figurative meanings. In the direct meaning these nominations denote jewelry - here we do not establish differences in use. However, the functioning of the vocabulary in denoting precious stones in the figurative meaning was found to have some discrepancies connected with the gender of the author. Thus, in the fairy tales by O. Wilde the nominations of precious stones are mainly used to describe objects and events, and serve as a powerful tool of imagery. By contrast, the main function of the nominations of precious stones in the fairy tales by A. Carter is the realization of textual categories: prospection and concept of the text. In the text the nominations expand their semantic structure through a series of contextual meanings.