Contro tutto e contro tutti: The linguistic pragmatics of protest in the Italian futurists’ manifestoes

Abstract

The speech act theory by J. L. Austin and the conception of the degree of strength of illocutionary force (point) by J. R. Searle and D. Vanderveken underlies the study of exercitive speech act as the act of objection/protest expressed by prepositions contro and against ‘против’. Historically, protest as a genre goes back to the Ancient rhetorical tradition, but in the 20th century, it has also become an aesthetic foundation of the Avant-garde poetic discourse. The expression of protest and a critical attitude towards the dominant discourse become one of the grounds for the interaction of the Avant-garde poetic and political discourses. Discourse and linguopragmatic analysis of the Italian Futurists’ manifestos is carried out from the standpoint of the linguistic creativity that manifests itself in the form of the Avant-garde linguistic experiment. Further, the Italian Neo-avant-garde (Neoavanguardia, Gruppo ‘63) develops the idea of confronting linguistic and cultural norms in its poetical texts and manifestoes like Linguaggio e opposizione (1961) by Nanni Balestrini or Ideologia e linguaggio (1965) by Edoardo Sanguineti. The markers of adversative semantics include such grammatical and lexico-grammatical means as но, однако, впрочем, против, напротив, вопреки, наперекор; ma, anzi, mentre, però, bensì, pure, eppure, contro, piuttosto, etc. The paper focuses on the pragmatic and semantic features of the preposition contro as one of the most frequent opposition markers in the Italian Futurists’ manifestos. The study distinguishes methods of deviation from standard use, aimed at increasing the illocutionary force and the performative potential of the message.