THE IMAGE OF THE “UNCONVENTIONAL POLICEMAN” IN THE FRENCH DETECTIVE NOVEL: A LINGUOSTYLISTIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of lexical and syntactic stylistic devices that construct Commissioner Adamsberg’s image in the detective novel «L’homme aux cercles bleus» by contemporary French writer Fred Vargas. The study aims to identify linguistic instruments that contribute to the character’s individualization and serve as markers of the French police novel’s genre transformation. The research draws on linguostylistic, contextual, and interpretive-analytical methods. Fred Vargas is shown to create a multilayered image of police Commissioner, which transcends the traditional type of police investigator. The study reveals that the commissioner’s intuitive investigative method, unconventional personality, profound inner world, and distinctive worldview are conveyed through a variety of stylistic devices: epithets, metaphors, comparisons, hyperbole, irony, antitheses, parallel constructions, lexical and syntactic repetitions. The image of the police commissioner, both external and internal portraits, is largely defined by paradoxicality: disharmonious appearance combines with attractiveness, detachment with vulnerability, and a non-systematic, intuitive investigative method with effective results. Such a construction of the character through diverse stylistic techniques provides integrity and originality to his image and distinguishes him among other detective figures. The analysis argues that stylistic devices indicate the genre transformation of the French crime novel contributing to shifts in the image of the investigator, one of the key characteristics of the detective genre. The psychological expressiveness and literary multidimensionality of the novel bring it closer to “serious” artistic prose, attesting to its hybrid nature as a combination of the traditional detective scheme with elements of psychological and philosophical fiction. The findings may be used for further study on the function of linguistic means in the genre transformations of the modern French detective.