‘Pursuing’ Meanings. Investigating Semantic and Pragmatic Features of some Controversial Novels
‘Pursuing’ Meanings. Investigating Semantic and Pragmatic Features of some Controversial Novels

Summary/Abstract: Censorship entails control, i.e. identifying and suppressing anything that does not fit political ideology or social views. In order to maintain power and control or to avoid controversy, the meanings of words are often ‘pursued’ by censors. This phenomenon pervades many fields, including literature, both in totalitarian societies and in the democratic ones. The present paper focuses on a double pursuit of meanings: the censoring of literary works (due to their subversive-like, satirical or ‘obscene’ language) and the analysis of meanings from a linguistic point of view. Special attention will be paid to the levels of semantics and pragmatics inasmuch as these are particularly important within literary discourse that used to risk (or still risks) to be deciphered and considered sin of the cerebrum.

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