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

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.