LINGUISTIC RHETORIC OF DIALOGUE IN NARRATIVE: LUDIC EFFECTS

Abstract

This research addresses linguistic rhetoric of dialogical literary forms manifested in three novels authored by John Maxwell Coetzee – “The Childhood of Jesu”, “The Schooldays of Jesus” and “The Death of Jesus”. The paper adopts a ludic approach to interpreting the rhetorical features of such literary forms. Coetzee’s Jesus trilogy can serve as an example of dialogicalized fictional narrative. This article argues that Coetzee’s novels that make up the Jesus trilogy are dialogue-driven rather than plot-driven stories. A dialogue-driven narrative is a type of narrative in which the characters’ conversations are the primary means of narrative advancement. The research findings show that in Coetzee’s Jesus trilogy the dialogical narrative is manifested through three semantic and rhetorical models of the dialogue – explanatory dialogue, argumentative dialogue, and confrontational dialogue. The explanatory dialogue encompasses a number of tenacious questions aiming at clearing up important issues. The argumentative dialogue entails the discussion of debatable questions designed to convince the interlocutor of the correctness of one viewpoint over another by way of logical reasoning. In turn, the confrontational dialogue is based on a conflict thus highlighting a clash between opposing opinions. The paper reveals the rhetorical specificity of the dialogical narrative in Coetzee’s Jesus trilogy with regard to two ludic principles – the agonal principle and the principle of ludic imitation of the Socratic dialogues. Dialogical gaming, both agonal and imitative, brings about the ludic effect of “semantic clash”. Such effect is derived from the semantics of contradiction and disagreement embedded in the characters’ statements that foreground a particular controversial issue. Inserted into the plot and composition structure of the novel, dialogical narratives cause its fragmentation. However, the semantic unity is provided by the thematic affinity achieved by the similarity of themes developed in the discussions of the characters. The research considers the linguistic rhetoric of dialogue in Coetzee’s novels via a variety of deictic expressions and with regard to fictional meaning-making and text-building.