Transdiscursivity in contemporary English fiction: a world-modelling approach

This article explores the cognitive and pragmatic potential of transdiscursivity in fiction, taking The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods (2023) and Orbital by Samantha Harvey (2023) as case studies. In a narrow sense, transdiscursivity is defined as a linguistic and narrative phenomenon that, when manifested in a literary text through multilevel linguistic, plot-building, and narrative means, reveals the semantics and functioning of different discourse types in their interaction. In a broader sense, it constitutes a cognitiveaesthetic principle of literary text construction, involving the transformation of the onto-epistemological properties of the discourses incorporated into the text, which results in their re-functionalization, that is, a change in their semantic-stylistic and narrative-pragmatic status. Cognitive-pragmatic modeling of transdiscursivity draws on Text World Theory, stylistic, narrative, discursive, and inferential analyses, as well as elements of prototype-based analytical methodology. The text world is understood as a cognitivemental construct, built upon the linguistic and narrative means of its representation, along with the ways it is perceived and interpreted by the reader. The study demonstrates that the dominant models of transdiscursivity in the novels under investigation are horizontal and vertical, distinguished by the way discourses develop within the text world and the characteristics of their hierarchy. The vertical model is marked by hierarchical relationships between discourses, in which one discourse holds a foundational status, directing the construction of the text world, while the others are integrated as subordinate, performing specifying, elaborative, emotional, cognitive, and other functions. In contrast, the horizontal model reflects the semantic and functional equality of discourses, which interact in various ways, creating a multidimensional representation of the narrative events.