Reader’s Identification with the Character’s Image: Integrative Approach Mechanisms

Abstract

The article summarizes theoretical ideas from several areas of knowledge in order to form a comprehensive view of the mechanisms underlying the reader’s identification with the character’s image. By the example of the prose by B.Y. Poplavsky, the constructive importance of the deictic shift in the narrator’s narrative is emphasized, which leads to the reader’s immersion in the processes of processing explicable information, loss of self-perception. Another approach focuses on the processes of constructing the author’s message: when perceiving the narrative, the reader is stimulated to use background knowledge necessary for comparison with the state of affairs described in the text at the moment. The relationship between these sequentially activated processes is conceptualized: the deictic shift and immersion in the narrative becomes the basis for the relevant interpretation of the narrative, which precedes its impact on the reader’s emotional and volitional sphere and imagination. It is concluded that the deictic shift observed in the narrative turns out to be one of the basic mechanisms of reader text processing, explication of the mental model of interpersonal relationships between characters, fixed by the narrator. The authors believe that the processes underlying the deictic shift and the mental reconstruction of the storyline together determine the reader’s sense of immersion in the literary text. The study establishes clear relationships between the linguistic originality of a literary text and various kinds of reactions of the reader perceiving this text. The reader’s going beyond his psychological and intellectual «Self», his immersion in the text provides an alternative experience that feels as if it unfolds in the format of real everyday life. It is established that changing the character’s point of view to the interlocutor character provides a relevant understanding of the narrative scenario, functions as a simulation controlled by the author in a recreated imaginary world. Fixing attention on deictic transitions in the perception of the characters’ images by the narrator entails the reader’s experiences of strong emotions similar to those experienced as a spontaneous reaction to similar situations in everyday reality.