Linguistic imagology: origin and application

Abstract

The article dwells on the origin and development of linguistic imagology, a new field of research which studies the linguistic aspect of foreign image representation in fiction literature, mass media and other types of discourse, as well as the linguistic means of reflecting the relations between the auto-image (image of “the self”) and the hetero-image (image of “the other”). The specific approach offered in the paper is based on the analysis of nine multicultural novels about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict written in English. It consists in singling out two degrees of estrangement between the auto- and the hetero-image, with alienation and the image of an alius making an accent on differences and misunderstanding, and alterity together with the image of an alter, on similarities and propinquity. Lexico-semantic and stylistic analysis of the novels, carried out in the article, reveals linguistic tools which are employed to represent the hetero-image as either an alius or an alter.