1 The subject of stylistics. Its
connection with other disciplines.
Stylistics - branch of general
linguistics. It has mainly with two
tasks: St-s – is regarded as a langge science which deals with the
results of the act of
communication. There are 2 basic
objects of st-s: - stylistic devices
and figures of speech; - functional
styles. Branches of st-s: - Lexical sts – studies functions of direct and
figurative meanings, also the way
contextual meaning of a word is
realized in the text. L.S. deals with
various types of connotations –
expressive, evaluative, emotive;
neologisms, dialectal words and
their behavior in the text. Grammatical st-s – is subdivided
into morphological and syntactical.
Morph-l s. views stylistic potential
of gram-l categories of dif-t parts of
speech. Potential of the number,
pronouns…- Syntactical s. studies
syntactic, expressive means, word
order and word combinations, dif-t
types of sentences and types of
syntactic connections. Also deals
with origin of the text, its division
on the paragraphs, dialogs, direct
and indirect speech, the
connection of the sentences, types
of sentences. - Phonostylistics –
phonetical organization of prose
and poetic texts. Here are included
rhythm, rhythmical structure,
rhyme, alliteration, assonance and
correlation of the sound form and
meaning. Also studies deviation in
normative pronunciation. Functional S (s. of decoding) –
deals with all subdivisions of the
language and its possible use
(newspaper, colloquial style). Its
object - correlation of the message
and communicative situation.
27 Kinds of epithets.
Epithet is the most explicitly
subjective stylistic device
structurally falls into the following
groups:
Word – epithets (a lipsticky
smile)
Two-step epithets (marvelously
radiant smile)
Syntactical epithets (the brute of
a boy)
Phrase- epithets (sunshine-inthe-breakfast-room)
Sentence epithets (Fool!)
In the sentence, epithets are
distributed:
Singly (a dirty look)
In pails (a wonderful & happy
summer)
In strings (a dreamy, gloomy,
friendly trees)
29-32 questions
Syntactical style device (SD) - SD based
on the binary opposition of syntactical
meaning regardless of semantics.
Rhetorical question is a statement in
the form of the question & it
presupposes the possible though not
demanded answer. The positive form
of the rhetorical question predicts the
negative answer & the negative form –
the positive answer. Ex.: Can we fly, my
friends? Why can’t we fly?
Repetition is often used to increase the
degree of emotion
Ordinary repetition offers no fixed
place for the repeated unit (he tore
photo into small bits across and across
and across)
anaphora (a. . ., a. . . ., a. . . . .);The
repetition of the same elements at the
beginning of several sentence
epiphora ( . . .a, a, . .a, . . .a);
We should also distinguish
morphological repetition, when a
morpheme’s repeated usually in order
to create a humorous effect. (She
unchained, unbottled and unknocked
the door)
Chaismus. This term denotes repetition
of the same structure but with the
opposite order of elements. (Down
dropped the breeze, the sails dropped
down)
Climax is repetition of elements of the
sentence, which is combined with
gradual increase in the degree of some
quality or in quantity, or in the
emotional coloring of the sentence.
Polysyndeton is also a kind of
repetition where conjunctions &
connecting words are repeated. ( And
the coach, and the coachman, and the
horses, rattled, and jangled, and
whipped, and cursed, and swore, and
tumbled on together, till they came to
olden Square)
Asyndeton it offers no conjunctions &
connectives for the syntactical
connection. It’s mostly used to indicate
tense energetic, organized activities or
to show the succession of minute
immediately following ach other
action. (People sang. People cried.
People fought. People loved. People
hated... )
Ellipsis is the omission of one of the
main parts of the sentence or both of
them. Here, we must differentiate
6. Stylistic possibilities of English
vocabulary: learned words,
general and special literary words,
foreign words and barbarisms.
Common literary words are chiefly
used in writing and in polished speech.
One can always tell a literary word
from a colloquial words.
Terms are mostly used special words
dealing with the notions of some
branches of science. The function of
term is to indicate the technical
peculiarities of the subject deal with.
Poetic words form a rather insignificant
layer of special literary voc. They are
mostly archaic and called on to sustain
the special, elevated atmosphere of
poetry. (eftsoons (eftsona - again, soon
after)).
Archaic words - words, which are no
longer in use in present day English
Galperin names the following groups of
archaic words, these are:
1) obsolescent (thou and its forms
thee, thy and thine)
2) obsolete (methinks (=it seems to
me); nay (=no);)
3) archaic proper - words which are no
longer recognizable in modern English
since of were in use in old English
(troth (=faith); a losel (=a worthless,
lazy fellow))
Barbarism – these are words of foreign
origin which have not entirely
assimilated into the English language.
(chic (=stylish); bon mot (=a clever
witty saying); en passant (= in passing);
ad infinitum (= to infinity). )
Neologisms – the words, specially
coined according to the productive
models of word-building. (tomatorama,
bananarama (a sensational sale of
bananas, tomatoes); - blends such as
avigation (aviation+navigation),
rockoon (rocket+balloon))
Nonce-words – these are words
coined to secure one particular
occasion. They rarely pass into
language as legitimate units of the voc.
("sevenish" (around seven o'clock);
"morish" (a little more))
2. A cognitive style
The term “cognitive style” – the
German word DENKSTIL – was first
used by D. Waber and S. Aulwin
(1985, 1989) in their
psychoanalytical investigations. As
a psychological term “cognitive
style” means ways of using the
mind, that is special means or
methods of problem solving,
thinking, perceiving and
remembering, which characterize
behavior irrelevant of competence;
some scholars call it “a thinking
style”, or “style of thought”.
In text linguistics (Leech, Short,
Beaugrande, Dressler) cognitive
style is associated with a special
choice of mental operations and
their application in the process of
text interpretation.
Cognitive style determines our
ability to use and analyse such
speech procedures as narration,
description, argumentation,
explication and instruction. The
author (or the producer) of the text
is also included in this “circle”, as
his cognitive style manifests his
individual work of mind, his mindset. A cognitive style is also defined
as an aesthetic reading of a verbal
work of art, that is as a reader’s
ability to reorganize a literary
discourse. The information
withdrawn from the text may be
presented 1) first in the form of
diagrams or formulas (holistic
presentation); 2) second – in words
or verbal forms (verbalized
presentation); 3) third – by dividing
information into distinct parts
(analytical presentation); 4) in the
form of pictures or vivid context
such as metaphors (image
presentation).
So the definition of a cognitive
style in stylistics may come down
to the following: a cognitive style
means a complex of verbalized
procedures and assessment
strategies used by an individual in
examining information in the text.
between the ellipsis used in the
author’s narration in order to change
its tempo & condense its structure &
second – which is used in the heroes
speech to reflect the oral norms &
create the effect of the naturalness &
affectivity of the dialogue. Ex.: A poor
boy! (неполный) No father, no
mother, no any one (полный). And if
his feelings about the war got known,
he’d be nicely in the soup. Arrested.
Perhaps – got rid of, somehow.
Aposiopesis It is the sudden break of
the narration. It’s the norm of the oral
excited speech or the character’s
deliberate stop in the utterance to
conscal its meaning. Certain phrases
often repeated with the intonation of
the non-finished sentence become trite
aposiopesis, they indicate that the
speaker’s idea of the possible
continuation of the utterance exists in
a very general non-detailed vague
form. Ex.: Well, I never! (trite) “She
must leave – or – or, better yet –
maybe drown herself – make away
with herself in some way – or – “
(original)
Parallelism consists in the repetition of
the whole structure of the sentence
Complete parallelism – the
presents identical structures of two or
more successive clauses or sentence
(Ex.: He was a sallow man – all cobblers
are; and had a strong bristly beard – all
cobblers have)
Partial parallelism – the repeated
sentence pattern may vary. Ex.: What is
it? Who is it? When was it? Where was
it? How was it? (ex.: Passage after
passage did he explore; room after
room did he peep into )
3 informal functional style
Informal vocabulary is used in
personal two-way everyday
communication. It is in the form of
dialogue where the speaker has
the qualities of voice, gesture, the
speaker has an opportunity to
know whether he is understood,
the listener can always interrupt
him and demand additional
information.
Informal words and word-groups
are divided into three types:
colloquial, slang and dialect words
and word-groups.
Colloquial words informal words
that are used in everyday
conversational speech both by
cultivated and uneducated people
of all age groups. Dialect words
Dialect is a variety of a language
which prevails in a district, with
local peculiarities of vocabulary,
pronunciation and phrase. is
characterized by a number of
intensifiers that is a rather
standard set of words which
increase expressiveness; terribly
sorry, absolutely fabulous, dead
right, Intensifiers are used
according to some standards, to
the norms of com bin ability:
severe winter, thorough
knowledge, stone deaf?dead tired,
dead slow driver. Another group of
intensifiers are adverbs ever, even,
just. E.g. He’s ever such a clever
man. · The use of emotional words.
In literary colloquial they are more
refined, in fc they are rude, vulgar,
obscene. Emotional words are
shouldn’t be confused with words
naming emotions, though in some
context such words can be
emotional: I looked a perfect fright
yesterday, · The presence of empty
words, time-fillers, hesitators.They
don’t convey any special meaning
but are used for the sake of
rhythm, or not to end the sentence
abruptly, or to conceal one’s
embarrassment or hesitation.
4 formal style
Formal style(a lecture, a speech in
court, an official letter, professional
communication)
Learned words
In general, formal words fall into two
main groups: words associated with
professional communication and a less
exclusive group of so-called learned
words. We find here numerous words
that are used in scientific prose and can
be identified by their dry, matter-offact flavour (e.g. comprise,
experimental, heterogeneous,
homogeneous, conclusive, divergent,
etc). To this group also belongs socalled ‘officialese’ (канцеляризмы).
These are the words of the official,
bureaucratic language. They should be
avoided in speech and in print, e.g.
assist (for help), endeavour (for try),
proceed (for go), approximately (for
about), sufficient (for enough), inquire
(for ask). ‘literary’ words also have a
particular flavour of their own, usually
described as ‘refined’. They are mostly
polysyllabic words drawn from the
Romance language and, though fully
adapted to the English phonetic
system, some of them continue to
sound singularly foreign. Here are
some examples: solitude=loneless,
lonely place (уединение,
одиночество), sentiment=feeling
(чувство), fascination=strong attraction
(очарование, обаяние). There is one
further subdivision of learned words:
modes of poetic diction. poetic words
have a further characteristic – a lofty,
sometimes archaic, colouring: “Alas!
(увы) Archaic and obsolete words
Archaic – are old and no longer used
words; obsolete – no longer used
because something new was invented.
Obsolete words have completely gone
out of use.
Thou [θаu] – (ты)- archaic
examples of archaisms are: morn (for
morning), eve (for evening), errant (for
wandering, e.g. errant knights), etc.
Professional terminology
Term, as traditionally understood, is a
word or a word-group which is
specifically employed by a particular
branch of science, technology, trade or
the arts to convey a concept peculiar to
his particular activity. court, lawyer,
civil law are legal terms
5 The basic distinction of
literature from non-literature
may be comprehended under
the concept of foregrounding.
According to Michael Halliday,
“foregrounding … is prominence
that is motivated”. “True
foregrounding should be
differentiated from a statistical
or an absolute kind of
foregrounding when regularities
of words or structures may lead
to the so-called “new insight”. A
feature is foregrounded only if
it relates to the meaning of the
text as a whole.
7 Archaic and poetic words
Archaic words - words, which
are no longer in use in present
day English
Galperin names the following
groups of archaic words, these
are:
1) obsolescent (thou and its
forms thee, thy and thine)
2) obsolete (methinks (=it
seems to me); nay (=no);)
3) archaic proper - words which
are no longer recognizable in
modern English since of were in
use in old English (troth (=faith);
a losel (=a worthless, lazy
fellow)) Poetic words form a
rather insignificant layer of the
special literary vocabulary. They
are mostly archaic or very rarely
used highly literary words which
aim at producing an elevated
effect. They have a marked
tendency to detach themselves
from the common literary
word-stock and gradually
assume the quality of terms
denoting certain definite
notions and calling forth poetic
diction. Poetic words and
expressions are called upon to
sustain the special elevated
atmosphere of poetry.
8 The semantics of the image.
Imageless poetry.
The theory of image has been
elaborated by St. Petersburg
school of stylistics, particularly
by prof. I.V. Arnold. It is
recommended, therefore, that a
student should consult – mainly
– the text-book in stylistics
belonging to the author
mentioned. Special stress is to
be laid upon the following
points.
Every image may be analysed
into its component parts: 1) the
tenor, 2) the vehicle and 3) the
ground (the scheme is
suggested by I.A. Richards). The
overall effect of the image
depends on the kind of vehicle
the author chooses. Images may
be of single nature and
extended, developed in various
ways.
Imageless poetry in its basis has
an assumption that figurative
language though very essential
is not the only property of
verbal art.
9 Every image may be analysed into its
component parts: 1) the tenor, 2) the
vehicle and 3) the ground (the scheme
is suggested by I.A. Richards). The
overall effect of the image depends on
the kind of vehicle the author chooses.
Images may be of single nature and
extended, developed in various ways.
More generally, a metaphor is a
rhetorical trope that describes a first
subject as being or equal to a second
subject in some way. Thus, the first
subject can be economically described
because implicit and explicit attributes
from the second subject are used to
enhance the description of the first.
The metaphor, according to I.A.
Richards in The Philosophy of Rhetoric
(1936), consists of two parts: the tenor
and vehicle. The tenor is the subject to
which attributes are ascribed. The
vehicle is the subject from which the
attributes are borrowed. Other writers
employ the terms ground and figure to
denote what Richards identifies as the
tenor and vehicle. Consider:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely
players;
A simile is a figure of speech in which
two essentially dissimilar objects or
concepts are expressly compared with
one another through the use of “like”
or “as.” Simile is used as a literary
device to assert similarity with the help
of like or as, which are language
constructs that establish equivalency. A
proper simile creates an explicit
comparison between two things that
are different enough from each other
such that their comparability appears
unlikely.
10 morphological transposition
(transfer of grammatical
meaning, the
use of a word not in its primary
function but for the purpose of
creating a certain stylistic effect).
Transposition is the usage of
certain forms of different parts of
speech in non
-conventional grammatical or
lexica
l meanings. In most cases the
stylistic function is observed as a
result of violation of traditional
grammatical valencies, which
helps the speakers express their
emotions and attitudes to the
subject. 1. The use of singular noun
instead of an appropriate plural f
orm creates a generalized, elevated
effect
bordering on symbolization:
The faint fresh flame of the young
year flushes
From leaf to flo
wer and from flower to fruit
And fruit and leaf are as gold and
fire (Swineburn).
И слышно было до рассвета, как
ликовал француз!
And on the wave a deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue.
2. The abstract noun (normally
uncountable) used in the plural
for
m (hyperbolic plural) makes the
narration more expressive and
brings about aesthetic semantic
growth, e.g.:
Still waters run deep. When
sorrows come they come not single
spies but in battalions.
11 Sound imitation (onomatopoeia)
may be direct: “a hard rit-rat on the
hobbit’s beautiful green door”. In the
direct onomatopoeia we come across
words imitating natural sounds. In the
indirect onomatopoeia the effect of
orchestration is created by the
combination of sounds in the text. As a
result the sound of the utterance
acquires its sense bringing to mind the
needed associations. E.A. Poe’s “The
Raven” is a classical example of the
author’s efficient exploiting the
phonetic qualities of words: … “And the
silken sad uncertain rustling of each
purple curtain” – the repetition of the
[s] sound in a number of words
definitely contributes to the idea of
“rustling”.
Alliteration is generally regarded as a
musical accompaniment of the author's
idea, supporting it with some vague
emotional atmosphere which each
reader interprets for himself. Thus the
repetition of the sound Id] in the lines
quoted from Poe's poem "The Raven"
prompts the feeling of anxiety, fear,
horror, anguish or all these feelings
simultaneously.
Rhyme is the repetition of identical or
similar terminal sound combination of
words. Rhyming words are generally
placed at a regular distance from each
other. In verse they are usually placed
at the end of the corresponding lines.
Identity and similarity of sound
combinations may be relative. For
instance, we distinguish between full
rhymes and incomplete rhymes. The
full rhyme presupposes identity of the
vowel sound and the following
consonant sounds in a stressed
syllable, including the initial consonant
of the second syllable (in polysyllabic
words), we have exact or identical
rhymes.