Semantic Interpretation of Authorial Modality as a Cognitive-Discursive Category (Case Study of Shakespeare’s Plays and Their Ukrainian Retranslations)

Abstract

The article focuses on the issue of authorial modality as a cognitive-discursive category as addressed in semantics of lexical units, in particular, connotatively loaded ones, which are realised in the texts of time-remote Shakespeare’s plays and their chronologically distant Ukrainian retranslations of the 19th–21st centuries. The article argues that the study of modality as one of an individual’s cognitive faculties in linguistic theories of semantic interpretation is based on the complex mental-speech essence of the category of modality, which is manifested in the ratio of objective and subjective reality reflected in the human mind, together with various means of its expression. The authorial modality is considered a cognitive-discursive category since it reflects the author’s subjective perception of reality embodied in a literary work under the influence of his / her linguistic, cultural, and national values, personal language usage, and individual psychological and aesthetic preferences. The subjectivity of authorial modality in Shakespeare’s plays and their Ukrainian retranslations affects the way Shakespeare conveys his message (information) in the semantics of connotatively loaded lexical units, which are highly entropic, and the way Ukrainian authors interpret them. The creative personalities of translators play a key role in overcoming the information entropy of connotatively loaded lexical units when working with time-remote Shakespeare’s plays. The authorial modality of Shakespeare’s plays and their chronologically distant Ukrainian retranslations of the 19th–21st centuries is manifested in different scope of information presented by Shakespeare and Ukrainian translators. Each translator realises his / her own authorial modality as a reflection of the model of reality and its subjective evaluation under the influence of highly entropic connotatively loaded lexical units.