TSE LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF TAMAR NIKURADZE’S “TSIGRIT”

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the language and style of the grotesque work Tsigrit (“A Real Fairy Tale”) by poet and prosaist from Batumi −Tamar Nikuradze, highlighting the mechanisms through which the author constructs a powerful social satire. The article is based on a systematic analysis of the work’s thematic structure, linguistic experimentation (including neologisms such as occasional verbs, compounds, and onomastic units), lexical features (particularly the replacement of foreign terms with neologisms), as well as original artistic devices and stylistic figures.

Life in the text is presented metaphorically: individuals seemingly paint it with their own hands, as both choices  depend on them. However, this process is obstructed by Tsigrit −a rapidly progressing, metaphorically depicted social malady that deforms consciousness; as a result, desires are detached from reality, emotional freedom is fictional, and responsibility is constantly deferred. The central idea of the work emphasizes the urgent need to “treat” the malady of Tsigrit, as its prognosis is fatal.

The author constructs a refined stylistic framework in which word-formation innovations function as instruments of social critique. This bold linguistic experimentation is not merely an aesthetic choice; rather, it may also be interpreted as a strategy for the active utilization of native language resources in the context of globalization.

The work demonstrates how occasional word formation can be effectively employed as a means of social criticism. It contributes to the study of the creative potential of the Georgian language as well as to the analysis of the author’s individual style.

The text exhibits distinctive features of postmodernism, including the fusion of the real and the unreal, surrealism, symbolism, genre hybridity, linguistic experimentation, irony, and grotesque. This combination produces a narrative that is fantastical, allegorical, expressive, and socio-culturally relevant.

The findings of the study may be applied in courses on stylistics, as well as in the study of an author’s language and style, and can support further linguistic and discourse-based research on occasionalisms and language experimentation.

Keywords: modern Georgian prose; social diagnosis; style; satire; irony; grotesque; occasionism.