Abstract and socially marked lexems functioningas synecdoches in Ivan Franco’s journalistic writings
In the article the author examines the functional and stylistic properties of abstract and socially marked lexemes in the journalistic writings from 1878–1907 of the well-known Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko. The author focuses on the functional capabilities of abstract and socially marked lexemes that revealed their semantic potential in terms of figurative meaning — synecdoche. The author has found 53 synecdochic lexemes in Franko’s works. The article deals with types of synecdoche already recognised by scholars as well as examples of the type of rhetoric called contextual synec-doche, where quantitative semantic shifts are seen in a broader syntactic context, not just with regard to individual words or groups of words.
Abstract notions are represented in Franko’s writings by means of lexemes like thought, step, act of parliament, law, word, bureaucracy, capital, labour. Socially marked vocabulary is used more often and is represented by lexemes indicating the social standing of the individual, his or her profession etc.: monarch, clerk, tyrant, capitalist, emperor, scout, kulak, nobleman, feudal lord, slave kripak, bumpkin, worker, proletarian, sociologist, writer, recruit, savage, entrepreneur, servant, poor, rich, factory owner, craftsman.
Franko uses mainly two models of meaning transfer: “the singular denoting the plural,” and grouping notions and objects according to their collocations “replacing the genre with the kind.” The author of the paper examines the numerous and varied collocations in which synecdoche functions, collocations testifying to its great contamination capacity, which is conducive to the optimal linguistic organisation of a piece of journalistic writing as well as a detailed description of a given theme or problem.