Abstract:

The paper deals with language studies in the literature classroom at linguistics faculties. Research into the language exponents of the literary text’s content and structure, such as its socially and culturally conditioned lexis, as well as its communicative types is usually left beyond the scope of literary analysis. The objective of this paper is to prove that the study of the literary text’s content should go hand in hand with the study of its language. The research conducted by the authors of the paper proves that the integral approach to the study of the literary text is optimal for the purpose.
The integral approach in linguistics is defined as an approach which combines different perspectives of one and the same object of research to give its global, multiaspective, and comprehensive interpretation, with all the elements of the integral approach being not a mere sum total but sharing a common core which helps uncover their interrelation and interdependence in exploring and explaining the research object. Thus, from the integral perspective, a literary text is an integral dispersed object, a unity of four fragments: a fragment of knowledge, a fragment of national culture, a fragment of language and a fragment of social space which are verbalized in their global interrelation and interconnection.
We have applied this approach to the study of a university novel in the literature classroom with students who major in linguistics. A university novel is a type of discourse that reflects cognitive, social and cultural reality in a university context. To prove that language studies should be part and parcel of literature studies a survey among students of linguistics who are currently taking a course in British and American literature was conducted. The results of this survey revealed the neglected linguistic exponents of the university novel’s cognitive, cultural and social space that need attention. These include:
• Lexical exponents of students' and professors' discourse;
• Syntax of the characters' discourse;
• Pragmatics of the discourse;
• Topical content;
• Culturally conditioned stylistic exponents of characters' discourse.
The abovementioned linguistic exponents were thoroughly attended to in the course of literature studies of the university novel “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt. The evaluation of the results obtained against the results of the traditional approach proved that applying an integral approach to teaching literature at linguistics faculties is productive as it covers all the aspects of the literary text (cognitive, social, cultural and linguistic ones), thus giving the students who major in linguistics an opportunity to assess not only the literary, cultural and social features of the text studied, but their linguistic exponents and the language itself.