N.Zhinkin’s thesis for candidate’s degree: content and its place in his scientific career

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to analyze and provide an overview of unpublished thesis of a well-known psychologist and linguist Nikolay Zhinkin, titled "Intonation in connection with general issues of expression" (1944–1947). The author deploys the circumstances of Zhinkin’s biography related to writing the thesis, its purpose and objectives, its role in experimental study of intonation, planned by the scientist. The author describes the structure of the thesis and outlines principal content of its chapters. Special attention is given to Zhinkin’s analysis of theoretical approaches applied by psychologists, logicians, linguists and art experts while studying the expression phenomena. The author explains the importance of multidisciplinary approach towards understanding expression, repeatedly highlighted by Nikolay Zhinkin in his study. Apart from special comments on proportion of chapters devoted to expression and intonation in the thesis, the author provides Zhinkin’s arguments for more in-depth expression research aiming to clarify the role of intonation in a variety of expressive means. Special attention is given to the concept of "speech action" introduced by N.Zhinkin to explain the phenomena of expression and intonation. The author briefly describes the structure of action as a general concept to highlight the suggestion made by the linguist and psychologist about expression as the essential means of accomplishing an action. The author emphasizes Zhinkin’s applying both psychological and linguistic approaches, concepts and terminology for describing the phenomena of intonation serving as one of expressive means in the action structure. The author briefly outlines the role of Nikolay Zhinkin’s unpublished thesis in creating his later, currently widely-known works. Basing on particular significance of the study, firstly fully combining his experience in psychology and theory of art for examining a linguistic object, the hypothesis presented is that the thesis forms a transfer and link between two periods of Zhinkin’s scientific career: psychological and linguistic.