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A Methodological Mechanism 

for Applying the Hermeneutical Approach 

 

Seda Gasparyan  

Yerevan State University 

 

Abstract 

The present paper deals with one of the intricate problems of philology – 

the question of reading and understanding a work of verbal creativity. The 

paper aims at emphasizing the methodological value of the hermeneutical 

approach to the study of literature which comes into being due to the presence 

of three basic components: imagination, language as a code between the writer 

and the reader, and the expected ability of the reader to share the author’s 

emotions and thoughts. Proceeding from the basic statements of hermeneutics 

and Schleiermacher’s theory of hermeneutical circle in particular, as well as 

considering the results of our former investigations we come to the conclusion 

that understanding verbal art is a complex process which is achieved step by 

step. To provide a reliable mechanism for the application of the hermeneutical 

approach the investigator has to take the following steps: 1) reveal the 

correlation of language and speech with the help of the linguostylistic method 

of analysis; 2) understand the aesthetic value of the work built up due to the 

complex relationship of the linguistic elements and the poetics of the work, 

which is brought out by the linguopoetic method of analysis; 3) come up to the 

metametasemiotic level of analysis which, in fact, belongs to the sphere of 

literature studies and helps reveal the intention of the author and the idea of 

the work.    

 

Key words: a work of verbal creativity, understanding, interpretation, 

hermeneutical approach, methodological mechanism, the linguostylistic 

analysis, the linguopoetic analysis, metametasemiotic level. 

 



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Introduction 

This study concerns the all-important question of understanding, which 

has long declared itself to be one of the key problems of philology. Although we 

face this problem at every step of our lives – in the process of perceiving any 

gesture, any element of mimicry, any piece of speech – we are well aware of the 

fact that the essential difficulties are, first and foremost, associated with verbal 

creativity. 

Why is it so important to refer to this ever-lasting question (ever-lasting, in 

fact, for it has been on the agenda of philological discussions for centuries)? 

First, because today, unfortunately, the number of people (especially among the 

younger generation) who fail to develop the ability of reading, understanding 

and appreciating the thesaurus of classical and contemporary literature, is 

increasing daily. They find it enormously difficult to read and adequately 

understand verbal art even in their native tongue, let alone in any of the foreign 

languages they study. 

This unfavourable situation can be accounted for by many different 

reasons, some of which are objective. The first is the disposition of the human 

mind primarily to develop technical sciences and technologies – elements 

vitally important for the growth of the material basis of any society, especially 

in the contemporary period of human life. The second factor lies in the 

profound changes occurring in the cultural and spiritual values of the present-

day world. But there is still another very important circumstance which cannot 

be ignored, and that is the fact that art in general, and verbal art is not an 

exception, is a highly complicated and intricate phenomenon itself (Gasparyan 

2003), requiring awareness of the necessity of going deep into the essence of the 

work, and have our mind’s ear longing for the bells that a work of art, verbal art 

in particular, can ring in our inner speech.  

Thus, a question is bound to arise here. What is literature in fact, and how 

are we to approach the problem of understanding it, for if it is something that 

cannot be understood in the way it is meant to be, what is the use of writing it? 

We know that we have more or less the same problem in any other sphere of 

art. If, by an unfortunate chance, we suddenly faced a situation in which there 



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was nobody who could, say, read musical notes or understand the harmony of 

colours in a piece of painting, those works of art would simply cease to exist for 

their addressees. 

Thank God, the situation is not so grave!  

However, investigations have shown that the question is still there: how do 

we set about the complicated process of reading, understanding and 

interpreting verbal art? 

 

The Basic Preconditions of Creativity 

It is common knowledge that one of the most important preconditions for 

the realization of any work of art is imagination. This, certainly, refers to works 

of fiction as well, since they present a specific field of art, in fact, a fictional 

reproduction of reality realized through a specific and unique use of language.  

For instance, if we are to refer to the following lines taken from The 

Country of Nairi  by Charents «Եվ նորից Բերդի անառիկ ամրություններից, 

որպես երկաթյա ահեղ մի սպառնալիք – կելնե, կհառնե ահասաստ 

նաիրյան ոգին, կորովը, ուժը հազարամյա - նաիրյան աշխարհի…», we 

can say for sure that the image of the awakening, intensifying power lying in 

the basis of this context ensures dynamism, and that it is the choice and  

arrangement of the very language units (namely կելնե - կհառնե, երկաթյա - 

ահեղ, ոգի – կորով - ուժ) that takes this movement to its peak (կհառնե ահա-

սաստ). It is due to the author’s imagination and his unusual use of the 

language units that the context is enriched with the shades of rebirth, typical of 

the rebellious people of Nairi, present in other parts of the work too.  

Thus, imagination and language are viewed as the most underlying and 

necessary elements for the realization of any work of fiction which, however, 

will not yield any fruits without the ability of the readers to share the emotions 

and feelings of the author.  

If we take, say, T.S. Eliot’s well known lines in his “The Love Song of 

Alfred Prufrock” – “Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out 

against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table” – would the reader be 

ever able to understand them if he/she were not endowed with the power of 



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perceiving reality imaginatively, a fragment reality of which a piece of 

literature is a specific reverberation.  When T.S. Eliot compares evening with a 

patient lying on the surgical table, anaesthetized, it is obvious that here we deal 

with a scene of reality reproduced by the author imaginatively. Will the reader 

be able to share the author’s feelings and interpret this product of his 

imagination as adequately as possible, to understand the depth and subtleties of 

the image and appreciate its aesthetic value in this very piece of poetic work if 

he is unable to work his imagination into the process of understanding and if 

there is absolutely nothing in common between his knowledge and that of the 

author, i.e. if there is no “common horizon” between them (in Gadamer’s 

terms)? This, in fact, is not one of the easiest questions to be answered 

straightforwardly. 

Or if we look into a passage by Lawrence Durrell where the gradual 

appearing of the first light of the day is compared to the peeling of a fruit (the 

clouds peel the morning like a fruit), shall we be able to understand an original 

image like that, an image which is based on the comparison of absolutely 

incompatible phenomena (the appearing of the morning and the peeling of an 

exotic fruit), an image which is absolutely devoid of any conceptual coherency, 

if we exclude our emotional-evaluative attitude to this linguistic invention of 

the writer, if we “close the doors” of our imaginative perception? Surely not!   

It is quite natural to admit that the borders of the imaginative perception of 

the reader and the author can never be the same since the differences between 

time, space, culture, age and sex, let alone those of personal experience are 

often, if not always, inevitable. Just as the author cannot create his piece of 

literature without having his fantasy worked into his creative process, without 

the ability of reprocessing the world by passing real facts through the 

kaleidoscope of his imagination, so the reader is unable to understand a work of 

literature adequately if he lacks the ability to experience objective facts 

imaginatively, to envisage the world creatively. However rich and manifold the 

reader’s imagination may be, it is subjective, just as subjective as the writer’s. 

On the other hand, it would not be unjust to think that any text, let alone a 

piece of literature, is never a closed, self-contained structure, but an open 



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system which avails the reader of the opportunity to introduce his 

understanding and his interpretation into the text. 

In this connection it would be appropriate to refer to the works of L. 

Shcherba, who puts forward the idea of “freedom of interpretation” (Shcherba 

1957), but this is valid only to a certain extent: the freedom he speaks of is not 

infinite. Otherwise we should have to agree with the interpretation of a screen 

version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in which the main character is pictured as a 

sexual maniac. 

It follows, that perception and interpretation can never be absolute. This is 

impossible also because imagination and the ability to share the author’s 

feelings are rather wide and abstract notions.  

All this comes to prove that even if the above-mentioned preconditions 

ensuring the realization of a piece of work are there, even if there exist the 

necessary imaginativeness and the “common horizon” establishing a close 

contact between the author and the reader, and the shared language code is also 

present, all the same, to perceive, understand and interpret a piece of literature 

is rather a hard task, a complex and complicated process since there are a 

number of other questions that are of no less importance, among them – the 

relation between the author and the reader, the correlation of thought and 

language,  speech activity and communicative intention and many others.  

Thus, the key to perceiving, understanding and interpreting a piece of 

fiction lies at the crossroads of not only linguistics and literary studies, but also 

other spheres of knowledge. Hence, it is not accidental that these issues have 

been in the focus of the thinkers’ attention since ancient times, in almost all the 

stages of the history of literature.  

 

A Historical View of the Question of Understanding and Interpretation 

It is well known that the ancient thinkers were more attracted by the 

analysis of the eternal clashes between the heavenly, the earthly and their 

complicated interrelations, whereas the thinkers of the early medieval periods 

were predominantly concerned with the interpretation of theological works. 

The interpretation and explanation of the allegorical works dating from the late 



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medieval period required even more efforts.  It should be noted however that 

there was unfortunately no agreement in adopting these efforts. Not 

infrequently the above-mentioned three preconditions, as well as the 

personality of the writer were ignored. A literary text was examined as a 

phenomenon, separate from the author. However, this approach was overcome 

in the age of romanticism when a piece of literature was viewed as a means of 

expressing the self of the author, his own interpretation of reality, a means of a 

unique reproduction of the author’s  own impressions, emotions and feelings 

rather than a direct and “mirror reflection” of reality.  

The hermeneutical approach to text interpretation was gradually taking on 

more significance in this very period, especially in the 18th century when 

German philosophy started to examine language-related issues (Schleiermacher 

1998; Dilthey 1977, 1987; Humboldt 1984, etc.). Comparative linguistics and 

historical investigation date back to this very period. Questions concerning the 

nature of language, its etymological background, as well as the historical 

circumstances of its formation soon appeared in the focus of linguists’ attention, 

and the scientific achievements in the field of language studies proved 

preconditions for the elaboration of the theory of hermeneutics, and later also 

of philological hermeneutics as an approach to the study of particularly a 

literary text (Humboldt 1984:47):  in a short period of time the key aim of this 

approach, which, largely speaking, was the interpretation of any piece of text, 

became one of the central issues of the historical and philosophical 

methodology of investigating texts and attached paramount importance to the 

study of both the external and the internal factors of the text. The form and the 

content of a text were soon viewed as an indivisible integrity. A lot of attention 

was paid to the idea of text perception as a threefold process made up of 

historical perception in terms of the content of the work, grammatical 

perception with regard to the language of the text and psychological perception 

aimed at considering the inner world of the given writer (Ast 1808:177):   

Interestingly enough, according to von Humboldt who also regarded the 

role of language in a text as decisive, words did not represent the features of the 

physical world, but rather of the very person who spoke about that world. 



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Humboldt was convinced that language helped express the inexpressible, and 

that was the reason why a piece of text used to give rise to so many different 

interpretations (Humboldt 1984:80, 392).  

Sharing this viewpoint, F. Schlegel claimed that any true work of art 

contained numerous meanings (Schlegel 1963:81), and that the meaning of each 

work of fiction could be found in the diversity of possible interpretations. The 

concept of the close correlation of the part and the whole was considered to be 

the cornerstone of the theory of hermeneutics. In fact, it is of tremendous 

significance for the perception and understanding of any work since it is due to 

the constant interaction and supplementation of the parts and the whole that 

the piece of work is formed. Indeed, true is the idea that any piece of work is a 

huge net with established relations between its elements. The essence of poetic 

speech can be revealed by the fact that each element in it becomes relevant and 

necessary and is closely connected with the global whole of the work.  

This statement of the interrelation of the part and the whole acquires even 

more importance in the context of Schleiermacher’s theory of hermeneutical 

circle (1998) according to which, the interpreter proceeds from the intuitively 

perceived meaning of the whole text, then comes down to the semantic level of 

the text, perceives and understands the  preliminary meaning of the text. i.e. 

the separate meanings of its elements (the parts) and goes up again and putting 

together the results obtained due to the analysis of the parts re-forms and re-

evaluates the global meaning of the work. The attention of the interpreter 

moves from the part to the whole through comparisons and intuition and vice 

versa from the whole to the part to re-interpret it. Therefore, an interpretation 

always calls for a re-interpretation. However, when the reader returns to the 

parts they are no longer the same, for they are re-perceived and re-understood 

through the prism of the whole. It follows, that the famous hermeneutical 

circle, in fact, is a hermeneutical spiral, as identified by I. Maclean (Maclean 

1986). Hence, one can conclude that there can be no complete and absolutely 

final interpretation of any piece of text since a spiral is an endless curve and, 

unlike a circle, its ends never meet at any point (Spitzer 1967:35).  



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In terms of the examination of the linguistic peculiarities of the text, F. 

Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics offered its own approach attaching a lot of 

importance to the perception of the meaning of not only certain words and 

expressions, but also their place in the whole context and in the composition of 

the whole work. This too proceeds from the core principle of hermeneutics, 

namely, understanding the text as a whole and perceiving the meaning of each 

word in relation with the other parts, since the meaning of words is defined in a 

certain context, owing to their relation with the text as a whole 

(Schleiermacher 1838:69).  

F. Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics can be considered the basis of 

philological hermeneutics since the idea of language is basic in his theory.  He 

claims perception to be the perception of the language itself as the mentality 

and worldview of a person are formed and expressed through language.  His 

approaches to subjectivity are of great interest. He regards speech as the result 

of the work of a separate subject. All language processes take place in the con-

sciousness of a separate subject and despite common linguistic peculiarities, the 

linguistic activity is always individual. Hence, one can conclude that it is the 

language that is individual; language is the objective basis of the subjective 

speech (Schleiermacher 1998, Vossler 1905:14). F. Schleiermacher believes that 

perceiving means reproducing the mental processes taking place in the author’s 

mind, of course in a reversed order. The process of the perception starts the 

moment you take a ready and complete piece of work and proceed towards its 

initial, original meaning (Schleiermacher 1838:78). Still, if it is the unconscious 

that prevails in the author’s creative mind, the interpreter has to yield to the 

dominance of consciousness.  

Since any idea in the text is embodied and materialized through its 

language, it is the linguistic concept in any piece of literary work that calls for 

utmost attention. However, no interpretation can be regarded complete and full 

if it is limited to the analysis of the language material of the text only. This is 

the reason why Schleiermacher in his search for maximum perception, 

understanding and interpretation of a text puts forward the idea of the necessity 

of the so called grammatical and psychological interpretations which aim at 



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examining the objective and subjective concepts of a piece of text and revealing 

the relation between the two (Schleiermacher 1838).    

Thus, we can see that the objective truth we are looking for in a piece of 

literature can be found in language, and only in language, which is an 

intermediary link between our inner world and objective reality. It is language 

that is capable of bringing the reader’s understanding into contact with the 

writer's, irrespective of the time and distance between them, in fact, bridging 

their visions of the objective world and making the understanding of a work 

possible. 

This, we believe, is supported by the grand idea expressed by Humboldt, 

who defines perception as the basic function of language and thought. He insists 

that the existence of language is not accounted for only by the necessity of the 

external, actual communication, but also by an inner demand for 

communication with which a human being is endowed by nature. For him the 

functioning of language is connected with understanding and mutual 

understanding, for it is the latter that accounts for the purpose of linguistic 

activity (Humboldt 1984). 

It is known that the basic feature of any piece of speech consists in the 

possibility of combining linguistic elements according to the established 

conventions of the language, and the rules of collocation and colligation of the 

given language play an essential and guiding role here. Research work along 

these lines has already established that in a piece of imaginative writing, 

however constrained the latter may be by the publicly recognized norms of 

language, the author never confines his writing to those norms. He finds it not 

only possible but also necessary to use the same language material in quite an 

unusual way, inventing original combinations of linguistic elements, “playing” 

with them in order to arouse emotions in his readers, to challenge them. 

When, for instance, John Galsworthy uses the metaphoric word 

combination “passionate dusk” in his description of a London Park in “The 

Forsyte Saga”, or Somerset Maugham coins a combination like “ambiguous 

monotony” in his short story “The Force of Circumstance”, it is obvious that 

these anomalous combinations of words have not occurred in their contexts at 



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random. They carry out an aesthetic task and are also closely connected with 

the global purport of the works in which they are used. Thus it is the peculiar, 

original way in which language elements are chosen and strung together that 

intensifies ordinary language, introducing all kinds of deviations from its 

recognized norms, and it is not by chance that literature is described as a kind 

of writing which represents “organized violence committed on ordinary speech” 

(Jakobson 1956).  

From what has been said it becomes clear that in a work of verbal 

creativity, form plays an important role in the complex correlation and unity of 

form and content, for it is the “how” of the literary piece that, to a great extent, 

guarantees the aesthetic value of a work. More than that, it is the “how” that 

ensures the invented, fictive nature of literature rather than the “what”, for the 

latter never goes beyond human experience or human consciousness. 

 

Understanding as a Step by Step Process 

Following the results of our research we have arrived at the idea that 

owing to the importance of these general and basic concepts of the hermeneutic 

approach to text interpretation and considering the efficiency of the application 

of various methods of text analysis elaborated and effectively carried out during 

the last decades, it is necessary to have a certain methodological mechanism in 

order to achieve a possible comprehensive interpretation of a piece of literary 

text. We srongly believe that the complex process of perceiving, understanding 

and interpreting a literary text should be carried out step by step. It would not 

be unjust to say that the first step in cognizing a work of verbal creativity is the 

axiological estimation of it – evaluation that is based on the perception of the 

text through senses. However, investigations have shown that perception at the 

axiological level is impregnated with enormous difficulties and is unable to 

serve as safe and reliable methodological grounds for the interpretation of the 

work (Gasparyan 2009), at least because there can never be a one-to-one 

correspondence between the reader’s experience and the writer’s. How can the 

reader, who probes into the author’s mind, understand and interpret his or her 

personal experience, private associations, feelings and impressions? Next comes 



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the stage of the linguistic perception and understanding. Research has revealed 

that the linguistic perception can be achieved through a linguostylistic 

examination which is carried out on two levels – semantic and metasemiotic. At 

the semantic level all the possible language units that make up the text are 

studied as elements of the language system. On the meta-semiotic level, which 

does not have an expression plane of its own, the united whole of the form and 

content of the semantic level acts as a means to express this or that meta-

content. On this level the analysis aims at revealing the stylistically coloured 

uses of language units, the existence of additional emotive-expressive nuances 

and various uses of different stylistic devices.  

Thus, the method of linguostylistic analysis helps reveal the relationship 

between language and speech lying in the basis of any text, including a literary 

one. This is an important, though not a sufficient stage for the process of 

perception, understanding and interptetaion (Gasparyan 2008:27-35).   

It is known, however, that the ultimate goal of this process, i.e. the 

revelation of the ideologial basis of the work, the discovery of the authorial 

intention cannot be achieved by a quick “jump” from the level of speech (i.e. 

the level of style) to the level of ideas and the global purport of the work. It 

follows that the researcher has to cover a long way which goes through the field 

of the author’s poetics, to be more exact, the field of the aesthetic impact 

ensured by the close interaction and interplay of the composition of the work 

and the language used by the author. This suggests a higher level of 

investigation which can be realized by the application of the method of 

linguopoetic analysis (Gasparyan 2008:36-41). 

It is however evident that both these methods – the linguostylistic method 

and the linguopoetic one aim at investigating the peculiar properties of the form 

of the literary piece. The possibly adequate understanding and interpretation 

calls for a united perception of both the form and the content and the authorial 

intention which can be be achieved through the examination of the text on the 

meta-meta level which is in the domain of literature studies.   

We are convinced that this scheme of realizing the process of perceiving, 

understanding and interpreting a work of fiction is justified. On the one hand, it 



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puts an emphasis of the effective cooperation of linguistics and literature studies 

in the field of philology, on the other hand, it ensures an accurate and sound 

methodological mechanism for the application of the hermeneutical approach.  

We shall now try to demonstrate the linguostylistic and the linguopoetic 

analyses in action. As has already been mentioned, the underlying 

methodological basis we proceed from is that adequate understanding of a work 

of literature can be achieved step by step as the process of cognition of any 

object is a gradual one. 

The first acquaintance with a work of verbal art brings the investigator to 

the conclusion that first and foremost it is an ordinary piece of speech just like 

any other speech event which is based on the dialectical unity of language and 

speech. To reveal this correlation of language and speech is possible, as already 

mentioned, by applying the method of linguostylistic analysis which starts on 

the semantic level, i.e. with the study of the linguistic units in their direct, 

nominative meanings. To begin the analysis of a text from the semantic level is 

particularly important when what we deal with is a piece of literature in a 

foreign language, for we cannot even try to appreciate the expressive-

emotional-evaluative overtones present in this or that element unless we have 

clearly understood the direct, nominative meanings of every word, word-

combination or grammatical construction. 

When we have done this, we then pass on to the metasemiotic level where 

the same linguistic units are studied from the point of view of their functioning 

in the given context.  

The linguistic units can acquire a new connotative (metaphoric) content 

which is superimposed over their linguistic meanings proper. This “meta-

content” becomes the object of investigation on the metasemiotic level. 

We should hasten to add however that although the metasemiotic level is 

of paramount importance in a work of verbal art, it cannot be completely 

ignored in other varieties of human communication. It has been established, for 

example, that metasemiotic elements, i.e. words and word-combinations with 

inherent and adherent connotations, tropes and figures of speech not 

infrequently appear in the scientific register as well. The use of these elements 



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in an informative text is accounted for by the great wish of the author to 

sometimes look extraordinary, sometimes express his attitude towards the 

subject he has chosen to speak about. Overstepping of the stylistically neutral, 

informative narration very often appears when the author tends to clarify his 

point of view and convince his readers in the righteousness of his approach to 

the problem or stand out in defense of his doctrine. 

On the other hand, in works of verbal art we may come across different 

informative insertions which acquire a specific value under the influence of the 

general purport of the given literary work. For an example of a kind of 

intertwinement of the aesthetic and the informative functions of speech in a 

work of verbal art one may be referred to Hemingway’s writings, say “The Old 

Man and the Sea” where there are quite a number of encyclopedic, informative 

words and word-combinations, even some terms and terminological 

combinations particularly in the description of the shark. These elements are, 

certainly, not included in his text to give the reader exact and detailed 

information on how the shark looked, but to convey the idea about how 

devoted to the sea the old man was and indicate the profundity of his 

knowledge of the sea.  

If we take these statements for granted, it will be justified to conclude that 

whatever the text, it is based on the dialectical correlation and unity of 

semantics and metasemiotics which can be revealed with the help of the 

linguostylistic method of analysis. This method is universal and can be applied 

to any kind of text irrespective of its register. 

When we turn to imaginative writing, particularly to a piece of verbal art, 

we face a completely different picture, for here what we are after is the general 

intention of the writer and the aesthetic content he tries to convey to his 

readers. In this case we cannot confine our study to linguostylistic analysis only. 

It is only a preliminary step in our attempt to perceive   a piece of verbal art as a 

global artistic whole. It is here that to make the next step towards possibly 

complete and adequate understanding of a work of literature we turn to the 

linguopoetic analysis which is aimed at revealing the complex correlation of the 

verbal texture of the given work and its composition which results in a certain 



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aesthetic impact. The linguopoetic analysis is applicable only to verbal art. In 

this case the investigation of a work begins from “above”, i.e. from 

understanding the general purport of the work towards the study of the verbal 

texture. 

In other words, linguopoetics deals with the complex correlation of the 

language and poetics of the work of verbal creativity. To be more exact, this 

method aims to reveal the sum total of different linguistic means with the help 

of which the writer’s intention is conveyed and the aesthetic effect is achieved. 

It is an important step towards the hermeneutical interpretation of a literary 

work.  

Now let’s look into the text: 

On Saturday, October 5, the sky had been blue all day 

deepened after sunset to the bloom of grapes. There 

was no moon, and a clear dark, like some velvety 

garment, was wrapped around the trees, whose 

thinned branches, resembling plumes, stirred not in 

the still, warm air. All London had poured into the 

park, draining the cup of summer to its dregs. 

Couple after couple, from every gate, they streamed 

along the paths and over the burnt grass, and one after 

another, silently out of the lighted spaces, stole into the 

shelter of the feathery trees, where, blotted against 

some trunk, or under the shadow of shrubs, they were 

lost to all but themselves in the heart of the soft 

darkness.  

To fresh-comers along the paths, these forerunners 

formed but part of that passionate dusk, whence only a 

strange murmur, like the confused beating of hearts, 

came forth. But when that murmur reached each 

couple in the lamp-light their voices wavered, and 

ceased, their arms enlaced, their eyes began seeking 

searching probing the blackness. Suddenly, as though 

drawn by invisible hands, they, too, stepped over the 



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railing, and silent as shadows, were gone from the 

light. 

The stillness, enclosed in the far, inexorable roar of the 

town, was alive with the myriad passions, hopes, and 

lives of multitudes of struggling human atoms; for in 

spite of the disapproval of that great body of Forsytes, 

the Municipal Council – to whom love had long been 

considered, next to the Sewage Questions, the gravest 

danger to the community – a process was going on that 

night in the Park, and in a hundred other parks, 

without which the thousand factories, churches, shops, 

taxes, and drains, of which they were custodians, were 

as arteries without blood, a man without a heart. 

The instincts of self-forgetfulness, of passion, and of 

love, hiding under the trees, away from the trustees of 

their remorseless enemy, the “sense of property”, were 

holding a stealthy revel, and Soames, returning from 

Bayswater – for he had been alone to dine at Timothy’s 

– walking home along the water, with his mind upon 

that coming lawsuit, had the blood driven from his 

heart by a low laugh and the sound of kisses. He 

thought of writing to the Times the next morning, to 

draw the attention of the Editor to the condition of our 

parks. He did not, however, for he had a horror of 

seeing his name in print”.                 

(Galsworthy 2001:193-194) 
 

Starting our linguostylistic analysis of the text we look up words like 

“plume”, “inexorable” (անխռով), “myriad” (անթիվ, անհամար), “custodians” 

(հովանավորներ, պաշտպաններ), etc. in the dictionary. It is also important 

to understand the difference between “seek” and “search”, “dark” and 

“darkness”, etc. 

After this the stylistic differences between different words should be estab-

lished,  for side by side with stylistically neutral words like “Saturday”, “sky”, 



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“blue”, “sunset”, etc. there are also emotionally coloured ones in the text such as 

“clear”, “velvet”, “soft”, “passionate”, “danger”, “ disapproval”, “remorseless”, etc. 

The word “whence” deserves attention because it is an archaic one. The 

highflown word “multitude” and the bookish element “inexorable” add to the 

stylistic atmosphere of the text. It should also be noted that there are 

semantically close words in the extract such as “love”-“passion”; “soft”-

“velvety”; “seek”-“search”; as well as antonymous pairs like “light”- “darkness”. 

The words “fresh-comers” and “forerunners” are interesting from the point 

of view of their morphological structure. If the latter can be found in the 

dictionary in the meaning of “predecessor”, in the case of “fresh-comer” which 

is an occasional coinage, the meaning may be derived from the meaning of its 

components. 

The semantic analysis on the level of minor syntax shows that the number 

of attributive word-combinations (purple grapes, clear dark, velvety garment, 

still, warm air) is prevailing, whereas further on we come across predicative 

constructions (murmur reached; voices wavered and ceased; arms enlaced; etc.). 

There is also an idiom proper in the text (to drain sth. to its dregs). 

The study of the major syntax shows that the majority of sentences in the 

passage are long, compound sentences with a lot of homogeneous parts. There 

are some parenthetical insertions like “however”; “for he had been alone to dine 

at Timothy’s”; etc., the role of which is decisive in the prosodic organization of 

some parts of the passage. 

Passing on to the metasemiotic level, we shall now try to see what 

additional content is acquired by the linguistic units in the context of the 

extract. Our attention is immediately attracted by the metaphoric word-

combinations like “passionate dusk”, “soft darkness”, “feathery trees” with the 

help of which the mysterious, romantic atmosphere of the night park is created. 

In the word-combination “clear dark” two completely incompatible words are 

brought together which results in an oxymoron. Besides the mentioned devices 

the writer also makes use of other tropes, such as personification as in “instincts 

of self-forgetfulness … were holding a stealthy revel” , and metonymy as in “all 

London had poured into the Park”. 



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Being a skillful master of deforming idiomatic expressions here as well 

Galsworthy presents the idiom “drain sth. to its dregs” as “drains the cup of 

summer to its dregs”  thus reviving it. The word “cup” used metaphorically is 

usually associated with “bitterness”, “sorrow”, etc. But here its combination 

with the word “summer” endows the idiomatic expression with positive 

connotations. 

The word “love” is very unusually used in the passage in plural, perhaps in 

the analogy with “passions” and “hopes”. 

There are quite a few figures of speech which appear in the context with 

very little changes: lexical repetitions (a process was going on that night in the 

Park, and in a hundred other parks; myriad passions, hopes, and lives of 

multitudes of struggling human atoms; the instincts of self-forgetfulness, of 

passion, and of love) and parallel constructions (were as arteries without blood, 

a man without a heart). 

 The best effect of the use of semantically close words is achieved in the so-

called synonymic condensation in the line “their eyes began seeking searching 

probing the blackness”. 

 It is not difficult to notice that almost all the stylistic devices are 

concentrated in the first three paragraphs where the lovers in the night park are 

described. In the last two paragraphs which presents Soames’ pondering over 

what was going on, on the contrary, the number of ready-made phrases (“had 

long been considered”, “to draw the attention of”, “in print”, “the next 

morning”, etc.), usually characteristic of an informative and everyday speech, 

increases. In this part of the extract we also find words (process, lawsuit, 

condition of our parks, Municipal Council, Sewage Question, etc.) more 

appropriate for a businessman’s speech rather than for a poetic description. 

Thus, the analysis presented shows the mechanism of the linguostylistic 

analysis. But it is not difficult to see that, however detailed and scrupulous it 

may be, it merely acquaints us with the text of the extract without revealing its 

aesthetic value. This, in fact, is the task of the linguopoetic analysis which first 

and foremost begins with identifying the place and role of the extract in the 



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context of the whole novel and then develops, all the time modifying the 

investigator’s understanding of its parts. 

Our research has shown that throughout the novel Galsworthy opposes 

two ways of perceiving the world, or rather two attitudes to life. One of them is 

characteristic of the Forsytes and the like and is described in the novel as “the 

sense of property”, whereas the other is based on the ideals of beauty and love 

embodied by Irene and Bossinie in the novel. In the presented extract this 

opposition can be traced on all the levels. In this sense the role of the extract is 

indispensible in revealing the real purport of the novel. 

The first half of the text, i.e. paragraphs from 1 to 3 must be clearly kept 

apart from the second one (paragraphs 4 & 5) as far as the rhythmic, phonetic 

and timbral characteristics are concerned. 

This poetic description requires an appropriate, “lyrical” timbre which is 

characterized by a decreased volume of voice, breathiness and slowing down of 

the tempo in such elements as “velvety garment”, “still, warm air”; “passionate 

dusk”. The fact that the author feels sympathetic about what is going on in the 

dark of the park is borne out not only by the prosody but also the specific 

balanced rhythm achieved by the repetitions in the first three paragraphs 

(“their voices wavered and ceased, their arms enlaced, their eyes began seeking 

searching probing …”), also the parallel constructions (“couple after couple”; 

“one after another”) and by the alliteration of the stressed and unstressed 

syllables (“couple after couple,  from every gate, they streamed along the paths 

and blotted against some trunk, or under the shadow of shrubs”). The 

alliterations and the assonances in “blue-bloom-moon; shadow of shrubs; heart-

dark-darkness-park” add to the rhythmical unity of the extract. 

In paragraph 4 where the author arrives at certain conclusions against the 

general poetic background of the narration some elements of facetious 

intonation are introduced. The author mocks the Forsytes who think that love, 

next to the Sewage Question, is the gravest danger to the community. 

At the end of the passage the solemn tone is substituted for a neutral one 

because Soames appears and the emotionality of the narrative gives way to the 

businesslike manner. However the author’s voice does not submerge in Soames’ 



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voice and hardly notable irony creeps in (he thought of writing to the Times 

the next morning, to draw the attention of the Editor to the condition of our 

parks). 

The strength of the aesthetic impact of this extract consists in the fact that 

the author does not simply inform of the existence of the opposing attitudes 

towards life, but makes the reader feel the contradiction with the help of the 

specific choice and arrangement of words, stylistic devices and particularly by 

means of the change in the tone of the narration. 

 

Conclusion 

Thus, we can conclude that the linguostylistic and liguopoetic analyses are 

completely different from the point of view of their ontology. However, as far 

as the study of a work of verbal art is concerned, they appear to be very closely 

interconnected. The linguopoetic analysis is based on the results of the 

linguostylistic one and usually follows it. The linguopoetic analysis depends, to 

a great extent, on the background knowledge and the intuition of the reader. It 

necessarily includes the analysis of the prosodic features of the text, for a 

philological perception of a work of literature is impossible without hearing the 

“bell” it rings in the inner speech of the reader.  

 

References: 

1. Ast, F.  (1808) Grundlinien der Grammatik, Hermeneutik und Kritik. 
Landshut, Germany: Jose. 

2. Dilthey, W. (1977) Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding. 
The Hague: Springer Netherlands. 

3. Dilthey, W. (1987) Vvedenie v nauki o dukhe. // Zarubezhnaya estetika i 
teoriya literatury XIX i XX vv. (Traktaty, statyi, esse). M.: MSU Press. 

4. Gasparyan, S. (2003) Concerning the Problem of Understanding Verbal 
Art. // Gitelik, No10, Yerevan. 

5. Gasparyan, S. (2008) Linguopoetika obraznogo sravneniya. Yerevan: 
Lusakn. 



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6. Gasparyan, S. (2009) The Recreation of Symbolic Images in Literature. // In 
Search of (Non)Sense. / Ed. by E. Chrzanowska-Kluczewska, G. Szpila. 

Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publ. 

7. Humboldt, W. (1984) Izbrannye Trudy po yazykoznaniyu. M.: Progress. 
8. Jakobson, R. (1956) Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic 

Disturbances. // Jakobson R. and Halle M. Fundamentals of Language. The 

Hague: Mouton & Co. Printers. 

9. Maclean, I. (1986) Reading and Interpretation. // A. Jefferson and D. Robey 
(eds.) Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction. London: B. T. 

Batsford, pp.122-144. 

10. Shcherba L. V. (1957) Izbrannye raboty po russkomu yazyku. Moscow: 
Uchpedgiz. 

11. Schlegel, A.W. (1963) Kritische Schriften und Briefe. Stuttgard: 
Kohlhammer. 

12. Schleiermacher, F. (1838) Hermeneutik und Kritik mit besonderer 
Beziehung auf das Neue Testament. Berlin: Reimer. 

13. Schleiermacher, F. (1998) Hermeneutics and Criticism and Other Writings. 
Cambridge: CUP. 

14. Spitzer, L. (1967) Linguistics and Literary History. Essays in Stylistics. New 
York: Princeton Legacy Library. 

 

Source of Data: 

1. Galsworthy, J. (2001) The Man of Property. // The Forsyte Saga. Vol. 1, part 
3. UK, Kent: Mackays of Chatham plc. 

 

Հերմենևտիկական մոտեցման կիրառության 

մեթոդաբանական մեխանիզմ 

 

Հոդվածում շեշտադրվում է գեղարվեստական ստեղծագործության 

ուսումնասիրության հերմենևտիկական մոտեցման կարևորությունն ու 

կիրառման արդյունավետությունը: Հենվելով հերմենևտիկայի հիմնարար 

դրույթների և մասնավորապես Ֆրիդրիխ Շլայերմախերի հեմենևտիկա-



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կան շրջանի տեսության վրա, նաև հաշվի առնելով հեղինակի նախորդ 

ուսումնասիրությունների արդյունքները՝ հոդվածում առաջ է քաշվում 

լեզվաոճական և լեզվաբանաստեղծական մեթոդների հաջորդական 

կիրառությամբ և գրականագիտական արժևորումներով ձեռք բերվող 

արդյունքների համադրումը որպես ստեղծագործության հնարավոր 

լիարժեք հասկացման ու մեկնաբանության հասնելու հուսալի մեխանիզմ: 

 
Received by the Editorial Board 12.12.2018 

Recommended for publication by the reviewers 22.03.2019  

Accepted for print 22.04.2019