Linguistic narratology of ludic literary forms: An idiogenre aspect

Abstract

This article provides theoretical and methodological foundation for linguistic narratology of ludic literary
forms. This new area of research is aimed to (i) characterize ludic models of fictional narrative from a linguistic
perspective; (ii) ascertain the specificity of ludic techniques in contemporary literary narratives; (iii) define a range
of linguistic means producing ludic effects with regard to ludic text- and sense-making in literary text. The paper
clams that ludic literary forms are the result of various fictional games. The research views ludic literary forms
within the bounds of the intentional, immanent, and receptive perspectives of literary text study. In terms
of the intentional viewpoint, ludic literary forms are considered as deconventionalized literary structures which
originate due to breaking-up conventional genre-bound narrative patterns with further elaboration of new ones
through their numerous transformations. According to the immanent approach, ludic literary forms are distinguished
by structural and semantic emergency. From the receptive standpoint, such literary forms are defined by the nonprototypical
interpretation, which results in the reconstruction of new, emergent senses and inferences. In Coetzee's
novels, ludic literary forms are created due to the manifestation of psychofictional, metafictional, and autofictional
games. Narrative gaming reveals itself via two facets – text- and sense-making. Accordingly, in Coetzee's fiction
three types of ludic literary forms were singled out: psychonarrative, metafictional, and autofictional. The paper
performs a linguistic and poetic analysis of such literary forms in terms of the "nodal points" technique and
with reference to a system of linguistic signals of psychofictional, metafictional, and autofictional games.