The cognitive potential of antithesis: ‘To be, or not to be’ in Hamlet’s signature soliloquy

Shurma, Svitlana and Lu, Wei-lun (2018) The cognitive potential of antithesis: ‘To be, or not to be’ in Hamlet’s signature soliloquy English Text Construction, 11 (1). pp. 141-168. ISSN 1874-8767

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Abstract

This paper investigates the working of antithesis in Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy “To be, or not to be” and its three Ukrainian translations. In cognitive poetics, antithesis is often viewed as a verbal variety of concep- tual oxymoron. However, this paper argues for distinguishing antithesis from conceptual oxymoron based on consideration of the different processes at work behind their creation and reading. Significantly, in antithesis the emer- gent meaning retains the dichotomy of two input spaces rather than creating a new one, as happens in conceptual oxymoron. In this context, we consider antithesis in English-Ukrainian translations against the backdrop of Kaluża’s (1984) reflection on asymmetry and irreversibility in antithesis. As will be seen, renditions into Ukrainian change the perception of the original antithesis prompted by structural and semantic changes in the translations.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	antithesis; blend; conceptual oxymoron; mapping; parallel texts
Subjects:	Це архівна тематика Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Статті у наукометричних базах > Scopus Це архівна тематика Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Статті у наукометричних базах > Web of Science
Divisions:	Це архівні підрозділи Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Кафедра англійської філології та перекладу
Depositing User:	Доцент Світлана Григорівна Шурма
Date Deposited:	23 Nov 2020 10:39
Last Modified:	23 Nov 2020 10:39
URI:	https://elibrary.kubg.edu.ua/id/eprint/32897

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