Equivalence principle in structural theory by R. Jacobson and C. Lévi-Strauss: ontological aspect

Abstract

Introduction . The aim of the study is to analyze the meaning and function of the principle of equivalence in the ontological aspect, which involves comparing it with the logical‑substantialist non‑equivalence of the subject and the world as a predicate. If in one case the verbal symbolization of the world is balanced by a transcendent principle with a limit in the name of God, then in the other case the point of assembly of discursive representation is the universality of the pronoun as the source of conceptual universalization. Materials and methods . The article examines the experience of K. Levi-Strauss and R. Jacobson's disclosure of the equivalence function in a poetic work as «a system of equivalences embedded in one another» (using the example of a poem by Sh. Baudelaire's «Cats»). Theoretically, the study addresses the basic body of philosophical classics, as well as modern interdisciplinary research in the field of poetic trope analysis. The methodological basis of the research is the linguo-ontological and hermeneutic approaches. Results . The contribution of the structural poetics of Jakobson and Levi-Strauss lies in the description of the equivalence between plot-semantic variability and compositional-syntactic invariance, which is common, for example, both to a poetic work and to the fairy‑tale genre. In a generalized form, the plot of a work of art with a ritual origin is established at the stage of the suffering-redemptive metaphorization of reality into a sacrificial object-image, and is resolved at the stage of the joyfuleucharistic metonymization of the hero-subject. Discussion and conclusions . In a poetic work, due to the equivalence of phonetic, morphological, and grammatical units, speech reaches the ontological level of equivalence between the metaphorization of the world and the metonymization of the subject. The metaphorization of reality transforms the world into an image that reveals its existential integrity in the unity of the heavenly and the earthly. Metonymization shifts the subject to the periphery of contemplation, overcoming its substantiality. From a practical standpoint, an analysis of the functions of the principle of equivalence outlines the prospects for an ontological-poetic analysis of artistic phenomena.