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The subject of stylistics. Its definition, its connection with other branches of linguistics.
Expressive means and stylistic devices.
Meaning from stylistic point of view.
Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices (onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance).
Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices (euphony, rhyme, rhythm).
Graphical expressive means and stylistic devices (marks of punctuation, kinds of type).
Graphical expressive means and stylistic devices (graphon, its stylistic function).
Metaphor (trite, genuine, prolonged), personification.
Metonymy (trite, genuine), irony.
Epithets (semantic and structural classification).
Interjection of logical and emotive meanings (interjections and exclamatory words).
Stylistic devices based on polysemantic effect (zeugma, pun).
Oxymoron, antonomasia.
Intensification of a certain feature of phenomenon (simile, hyperbole, understatement).
Intensification of a certain feature of phenomenon (periphrasis, euphemism).
Proverbs and sayings.
Epigrams, paradox, allusion.
Spans of utterance larger than a sentence (supra-phrasal unit, paragraph).
Stylistic inversion, detachment.
Parallel constructions, chiasmus.
Repetition (all cases).
Enumeration, suspense.
Climax, anticlimax, antithesis.
Asyndeton, polysyndeton, the gap-sentence link.
Ellipsis, break-in-the narrative.
Peculiar use of colloquial constructions (uttered represented speech).
Peculiar use of colloquial constructions (unuttered represented speech).
Transferred use of structural meaning (rhetorical question, litotes).
The main peculiarities of belles-lettres style.
The main peculiarities of publicistic style.
The main peculiarities of newspaper style.
The main peculiarities of scientific and official style.
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 lang-ge 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 st-s – 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. Morphl 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.
Expressive means and stylistic devices
Stylistics studies the special media of language which
are called stylistic devices and expressive means.
Expressive means and stylistic devices form three
large groups of phonetic, lexical, syntactical means
and devices. Each group is further subdivided according to the principle, purpose and function of a mean
or a device in an utterance. Stylistics studies the
types of texts which are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication and are called
functional styles of language. Expressive means of
a language are those phonetic, morphological, wordbuilding, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms
which exist in language-as-a-system for the purpose
of logical and/or emotional intensification of the
utterance. These intensifying forms have special
functions in making the utterances emphatic. A stylistic device is a conscious and intentional intensification
of some typical structural and/or semantic property of
a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a
generalized status and thus becoming a generative
model. A stylistic device is an abstract pattern, a
mould into which any content can be poured.
Newspaper style includes informative materials: news
in brief, headlines, ads, additional articles. But not
everything published in the paper can be included in
N.S. we mean publicist essays, feature articles, scient. Reviews are not N.S. to attract the readers
attention special means are used by british & am.
Papers ex: specific headlines, space ordering. We find
here a large proportion of dates, personal names of
countries, institutions, individuals. To achieve an
effect of objectivity in rendering some fact or event
most of info is published anonymously, without the
name of newsman who supplied it, with little or no
subjective modality. But the position of the paper
becomes clear from the choice not only of subj.
matter but also of words denoting international or
domestic issues. Substyles. To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will
be sufficient to analyze the following basic newspaper
features:1) brief news items;2) advertisements and
announcements;3) headlines; Brief items: its function is to inform the reader. It states only facts without giving comments. The vocabulary used is neutral
and common literary. Specific features are: a) special
political and economic terms; b) non-term political
vocabulary; c) newspaper clichés; d) abbreviations;
e) neologisms.
Publicistic style. (oratory, speeches, essays, articles) the style is a perfect ex. Of historical changeability of stylistic differentiation of discourses. In
Greece it was practiced in oral form which was named
P. in accordance with the name of its corresponding
genre. PS is famous for its explicit pragmatic function
of persuasion directed at influencing the reader &
shaping his views in accordance with the argumentation of the author. We find in PS a blend of the rigorous logical reasoning, reflecting the objective state of
things & a strong subjectivity reflecting the authors
personal feelings and emotions towards the discussed
subject. Substyles: The oratory essays, journalistic articles, radio and TV commentary. Oratory. It makes use of a great hummber of expressive
means to arouse and keep the public's interest:
repetition, gradation, antithesis, rhetorical questions,
emotive words, elements of colloquial speech. Radio
and TV commentary is less impersonal and more
expressive and emotional. The essay is very subjective and the most colloquial of the all substyles of the
publicistic style. It makes use of expressive means
and tropes. The journalistic articles are impersonal.
The main peculiarities of belles-lettres style.
Belles-lettres style (the style of fiction) embraces:1)poetry; 2)drama; 3)emotive prose. B-l style or
the style of imaginative literature may be called the
richest register of communication: besides its own
lan-ge means which are not used in any other sphere
of communication, b-l st. makes ample use of other
styles too, for in numerous works of literary art we
find elements of scientific, official and other functional
types of speech. Besides informative and persuasive
functions, also found in other functional styles, the b-l
style has a unique task to impress the reader aesthetically. The form becomes meaningful and carries
additional info. Boundless possibilities of expressing
one's thoughts and feelings make the b-l style a
highly attractive field of research for a linguist.
The belles-lettres style, in each of its concrete representations, fulfils the aesthetic function, which fact
singles this style out of others and gives grounds to
recognize its systematic uniqueness, i.e. charges it
with the status if an autonomous functional style.
The Style of Official Documents
1) Language of business letters; 2) Language of legal
documents; 3) Language of diplomacy; 4) Language
of military documents; The aim: 1. to reach agreement between two contracting parties; 2. to state the
conditions binding two parties in an understanding.
Each of substyles of official documents makes use of
special terms. Legal documents: military documents,
diplomatic documents. The documents use set expressions inherited from early Victorian period. This
vocabulary is conservative. Legal documents contain
a large proportion of formal and archaic words used
in their dictionary meaning. In diplomatic and legal
documents many words have Latin and French origin.
There are a lot of abbreviations and conventional
symbols. The most noticeable feature of grammar is
the compositional pattern. Every document has its
own stereotyped form. The form itself is informative
and tells you with what kind of letter we deal with.
Business letters contain: heading, addressing, salutation, the opening, the body, the closing, complimentary clause, the signature. Syntactical features of
business letters are - the predominance of extended
simple and complex sentences, wide use of participial
constructions, homogeneous members. Morphological
peculiarities are passive constructions, they make the
letters impersonal. There is a tendency to avoid
pronoun reference. Its typical feature is to frame
equally important factors and to divide them by
members in order to avoid ambiguity of the wrong
interpretation.
Scientific Prose Style
The style of scientific prose has 3 subdivisions:1) the
style of humanitarian sciences; 2) the style of "exact"
sciences; 3) the style of popular scientific prose. Its
function is to work out and ground theoretically objective knowledge about reality. The aim of communication is to create new concepts, disclose the international laws of existence. The peculiarities are: objectiveness; logical coherence, impersonality, unemotional character, exactness. The scientific prose style
consists mostly of ordinary words which tend to be
used in their primary logical meaning. Emotiveness
depends on the subject of investigation but mostly
scientific prose style is unemotional. Grammar: The
logical presentation and cohesion of thought manifests itself in a developed feature of scientific syntax
is the use of established patterns. - postulatory; formulative; - argumentative; The impersonal and
objective character of scientific prose style is revealed
in the frequent use of passive constructions, impersonal sentences. Personal sentences are more frequently used in exact sciences. In humanities we may
come across constructions but few. Some features of
the style in the text are: - use of quotations and
references; - use of foot-notes helps to preserve the
logical coherence of ideas. Scientific popular style has
the following peculiarities: emotive words, elements
of colloquial style.
The subject of stylistics. Its definition, its connection with other branches of linguistics.
Stylistics deals with styles. The word style is derived
from the Greek word “stylos”, which means a short
and sharp stick people used to write on wax-covered
tablets. Style is a system of interrelated language
means which serves a definite aim in communication
(Galperin). Style is a selection of non-distinctive
features of language (Bloomfield). Arnold defines
stylistics as a branch of linguistics, investigating the
principles and effect of choice and usage of phonetic,
lexical, grammatical and other language means with
the purpose of transmitting thoughts and emotions in
different circumstances of communication. Stylistics
defined as a branch of general linguistics, which
touches upon expressive means, stylistic devices of
the language, their relations to the idea expressed;
the classification of the existing styles of speech.
They are independent and are studied by definite
branches of stylistics. Thus, the branch that deals
with expressive means and stylistic devices of the
language is called linguo-stylistics. Functional styles
are investigated in functional stylistics.
Expressive means and stylistic devices.
There are 3 main styles of speech: neutral, colloquial,
literary. They possess certain layers of the voc. Un
the act of communication people may employ them to
express their thoughts: ▲ Neutral – My father went
away. Colloquial – My dad go out. Literary – My
beloved parent retired. In linguistics different terms
used to denote particular means of foregrounding of
utterances were accepted: expressive of stylistic
means, stylistic devices, stylistic markers, tropes,
figures of speech. All of them are set against neutral
once, because they carry some additional information. Purpose: logical and emotional intensification
of the utterance (emotional coloring). Phonetic expressive means refer pitch of the voice, stress, melody, intonation, and manner of speech (most powerful
as the human voice can indicate a lot of nuances).
Morphological: derogatory (-er) and diminutive (-y)
suffixes. ▲ Gangster. Syntactical: inversion, broken
sentences, elliptical. Lexical: slang, vulgarisms, poetic
words.
Meaning from stylistic point of view.
In stylistics a word is treated as a phenomenon which
has a potentiality of acquiring new meanings. 3 types
of lexical meanings play a very important part in
different stylistic devices: logical, emotive, nominal.
Logical (1) meaning is a naming of an object or phenomenon by which we recognize the whole of the
concept. Primary logical meaning is the one most
frequently used, it begins the dictionary article of a
word. Secondary logical meaning is the one derived
from primary. ▲ He is the man of moderate opinions.
“moderate” is realized in its secondary logical meaning derived from primary one. A word used in speech
acquires an accidental meaning which should be
included into semantic structure of the word it denotes – contextual (2) meaning. Difference between
(1) and (2) the first one is materialized in the context, the second is born in the context. Emotive: has
reference to the emotions of the speaker towards
things defined. 2 types of emotive > permanent,
occasional. Nominal meaning denotes proper and
geographical…
Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices
(onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance).
A phoneme has a strong associative and soundinstrumenting power. Due to its articulatory and
acoustic properties certain ideas, feelings, images are
awaken. It’s vivid in poetry. Onomatopoeia (sound
imitation) is a combination of speech sounds which
imitate sounds produced in nature (wind) by things
(tools), by people (laughing), by animals (barking).
▲ plink, plink, fizz.
Direct onomatopoeia: words which imitate natural
sounds. ▲ buzz. Indirect: combination of sounds
which makes the sound of the utterance an echo of
its sense. ▲ Камыши шуршат в тиши. Alliteration:
repetition of similar consonant sounds in close succession. ▲ Functional, fashionable, formidable. Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds, usually in
stressed syllables. ▲ Grace, space,pace.
Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices
(euphony, rhyme, rhythm).
A phoneme has a strong associative and soundinstrumenting power. Due to its articulatory and
acoustic properties certain ideas, feelings, images are
awaken. It’s vivid in poetry. Euphony: produced by
alliteration or assonance. Sense of ease and comfort
in producing or hearing. ▲ Favors unused are favors
abused. Euphony is created by the assonance of the
vowels [ei, u:] and alliteration [zd] frequent in proverbs. Rhyme: repetition of identical or similar terminal sounds or sound combinations in words. ▲ One,
two, three, four, five. I caught a fish alive. Assonance
of vowel [ai]. Rhythm: complex unit defined as a
regular recurrence of stressed and unstressed sylla-
bles (strong and weak elements) which determine the
meter in poetry or the measured flow of words in
prose.
▲ One, two, three, four. Mary at the cottage door.
Graphical expressive means and stylistic devices (marks of punctuation, kinds of type).
They include the use of punctuation, graphical arrangement of phrases, violation of type and spelling.
Marks of punctuation: hyphen, dash, comma, period
(full-stop), colon, semicolon, exclamation, interrogation, series of dots. They are used not only for the
division of speech into its logical parts, but also for
emphatic purposes which suggest a definite semantic
interpretation of the utterance. ▲ Казнить, нельзя,
помиловать. Another group of graphical means is
based on the violation of type: italics, bold type,
capitalization. Not only words but separate syllables,
morphemes may be emphasized by italics (курсив).
Spaced type is also included into this group of graphical means though it is not so frequent as italics. ▲ N
o w! spaced letters are used for…
Graphical expressive means and stylistic devices (graphon, its stylistic function).
Graphical expressive means include the use of punctuation, graphical arrangement of phrases, violation
of type and spelling. Graphon: the intentional violation of the generally accepted spelling used to reflect
peculiarities of pronunciation or emotional state of
the speaker. Types of graphon: multiplication, hyphenation, capitalization, apostrophe. Functions: - to
give the reader an idea about smth (level of education, emotional state, origin). – to attract attention. –
to make smb memorize it. – to show smth, explain.
Graphical means are popular with advertisers. They
individualize speech of the character or advertising
slogan. ▲ A better stain getter.▲ How do you spell
relief? R-O-L-I-P-S – to make reader / listener to
remember it.
Metaphor (trite, genuine, prolonged), personification.
Metaphor is used to denote the transference of meaning from one word to another, and to designate the
process in which a word acquires a derivative meaning. Two phenomena of life are brought to mind by
the imposition of some (or all) the properties of one
object on the other, deprived of them. Trite (fixed) –
predictable, fixed in dictionaries. ▲ legs of the table;
winter comes. Genuine: (fresh) unique, unexpectable.
▲ The house was a white elephant but he couldn’t
conceive of his father in a smaller place. - describes
the size and enigma of the house. Prolonged: if a
sentence contains a group of metaphors; consists of
principal and contributory images. Metaphors may be
prolonged through a group of other lexical stylistic
devices. Personification: attribution of personal nature or character to inanimate objects or abstract
notions. A thing is presented as a human being. ▲
I’m the Daughter of Earth and Water.
Metonymy (trite, genuine), irony.
Metonymy is based on some kind of association
connecting the two concept which the dictionary and
contextual meaning represent. Trite (fixed) metonymy represents derivative logical meaning of a word
and is fixed in dictionaries. ▲ Nothing comes between
me and my Calvins (Calvin Klein Jeans). Contextual
m. – unexpected substitution of one word to another.
▲ She married into conversation > very talkative
man. Synecdoche – m. based on the relation between
the part and the whole. ▲ He had five months to
feed. Irony: based on simultaneous relation of primary dictionary and contextual logical meanings of a
words which stay in opposition to each other. ▲ It
must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country
without a penny in one’s pocket. It isn’t logical but
evaluative meaning is foreground. It isn’t humor –
not always make humorous effect but negative.
Epithets (semantic and structural classification).
Epithet is a stylistic device based on the interplay of
emotive and logical meanings in an attributive word,
emotionally colored attitude of the speaker to the
object he describes. Semantic class: 1) associated
with the noun it refers and 2) unassociated with it. 1
– refer the mind to the concept due to some quality
of the object it is attached to. ▲ careful attention. 2 –
attributes used to characterize the object by adding a
feature unexpected in it. ▲ heart-burning smile.
Structurally:
Composition
1) simple 2) compound 3) phrase 4) sentence
ordinary adj. are built like is shown is shown by
▲rosy dreams. comp. adj. by phrase. sentence.
▲blue eyed girl ▲ The cat had don’t-you-touch-me-or-I’ll-kill
-you expression of his face.
Another structural variety of epithet is called reversed
– two nouns liked in an of-phrase. The evaluating,
emotional element is in the noun described. ▲ A doll
of the baby.
Interaction of logical and emotive meanings
(interjections and exclamatory words).
There are words with the function of arousing emotions in the reader. In such words emotiveness prevails over intellectuality. There are also words in
which logical meanings is almost entirely lost. These
words express feelings which have passed trough out
mind. Emotiveness is a category of our minds, feelings are expressed indirectly. That’s why it is natural
that some emotive words have become symbols of
emotions. Interjections are words which we use to
express our feelings strongly and which exist in language in the form of conventional symbols of human
emotions. Derivative interjections retain some degree
of logical meaning suppressed by emotive one. ▲
Hush! Alas! Gosh! These interjections had once their
logical meanings and the shades of them are presented. Primary interjections. They don’t have logical
meaning. ▲ Oh! Ah! Wow! There are neutral interjections (bah, oh) and colloquial ones (well). Exclamatory words – words that don’t lose their logical meaning
and thus function as interjections. ▲ Heavens! Look
out!
Stylistic devices based on polysemantic effect
(zeugma, pun).
The word is the most changeable of all language
units. In the result of the gradual development of the
meaning of the word new meanings appear alongside
the primary one – derivative meanings. All of them
are interconnected with the primary one and create a
network – polysemantic effect. Zeugma is the use of
a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words in the context, the
semantic relations being literal and transferred.
Zeugma always creates a humorous effect. ▲ Have a
Coke and a smile! “Have” is realized in two different
meanings: in the word combination “have a Coke” it’s
direct (literal), in “have a smile” it’s transferred. Pun
– it has a humorous effect which may be based on
misinterpretation of the speaker’s utterance by the
other or by the result of the speaker’s intended violation of the listener’s expectation. ▲ When are true
words – sweet words? When they are candid. Pun is
also a play on words of the same sound, it may be
based on homonymy, polysemy.
Oxymoron, antonomasia.
Oxymoron is a combination of 2 words in which the
meanings of the 2 clash, being opposite in sense. ▲
terribly beautiful. One of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature observed while the other
one offers a purely subjective individual perception of
the object. In it the primary logical meaning of the
adj. or adverb is capable of resisting the power of
semantic change which words undergo in combination. It can be realized in several models: adj. +
noun, adverb + adj. Antonomasia is a stylistic device
based on the interplay between the logical and nominal meanings of a word realized simultaneously. It has
the purpose of pointing but the leading, most characteristic or
important trait of the person or event, inning it as a proper name of
this person or event. Antonomasia categorizes the person and
indicates both the general and the particular. It gives us information
about the bearer of the name. ▲ Mr. Snake. Antonomasia is
mostly created by nouns, seldom by attributive combinations or phrases.
Intensification of a certain feature of phenomenon (simile, hyperbole, understatement).
The feature of the object which is picked out seems
unimportant and frequently transitory. But for a
special reason it’s elevated to the greatest importance and made into a telling feature. Simile:
imaginative comparison of two unlike objects which
belong to different classes. It excludes all the properties of the compared objects except one which is
made common to them. ▲ The girl is like a bird. Trite
simile points out the analogy between the human
being and the animals which have stereotyped traits
of character, states. ▲ As wet as a fish. Hyperbole: is
a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of a
feature of a thing or phenomenon. If it is used frequently it may become trite hyperbole. ▲ I’ve told
you thousand times! Understatement: when the
quality or quantity is underrated. It is deliberate
underrating of a feature or property of an object. ▲
Мальчик-с-пальчик. It’s used in Britain in every-day
speech as it symbolizes politeness.
Intensification of a certain feature of phenomenon (periphrasis, euphemism).
The feature of the object which is picked out seems
unimportant and frequently transitory. But for a
special reason it’s elevated to the greatest importance and made into a telling feature. Periphrases:
is a process which realizes the power of language to
coin new names for objects by disclosing some quality of the object. Periphrases is the renaming of an
object by a phrase that brings out some particular
feature of this object. ▲ The ship of the desert –
camel. Language periphrases are trite as it is seen: ▲
He spoke as the father of the nation. Speech periphrases is understandable in a particular context, it is
genuine. Euphemism: a word or phrase used to
replace an unpleasant word or expression by a more
acceptable one. ▲ golden-ager – an elderly person.
Dysphemism is quite opposite to euphemism. ▲
nipper – a young child. Euphemisms groups: 1)
religious 2) moral 3) medical 4) parliamentary.
Proverbs and sayings.
They are brief statements which show in condensed
form the accumulated life experience of the community and serving as symbols for abstract ideas. They
are facts of language collected in dictionaries. There
are some features typical for proverbs and sayings:
rhythm, rhyme and /or alliteration/ assonance. ▲
Wealth is nothing without health. In this proverb the
effect of euphony is achieved through assonance and
alliteration, which create rhyme and rhythm. ▲ It is
enough to make a cat laugh. No pains, no gains.
Proverbs and sayings will never lose their freshness
and vigour because they are revived in their modifications which will be commented later on.
Epigrams, paradox, allusion.
An epigram is a stylistic device akin to a proverb, the
only difference between them is that epigram is
created by people whose names are well known. They
have a bookish air about them which differs them
from proverbs. They can be fixed in dictionaries. ▲
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. (J. Milton) A paradox is a statement which is contrary to
generally accepted opinion, but which expresses
some kind of truth. ▲ Men marry because they are
tired, women – because they are curious. Both are
disappointed. An allusion is an indirect reference, by
word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythological,
biblical fact or to a fact of everyday life made in the
course of speaking or writing. ▲ It’s no use pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. In this sentence
reference to “R and J” achieved by the repetition of
names.
Spans of utterance larger than a sentence (supra-phrasal unit, paragraph).
It is important to single out certain elements which
constitute any text. Phonemes are the smallest language units which function within morphemes and
depend on them; morphemes function within words,
words – within sentences. Sentences function in
larger structural elements – supra-phrasal units. They
consist of a number of sentences which are independent structurally and semantically. Often a supraphrasal unit coincides with a paragraph – a graphical
term used to name a group of sentences marked off
by indentation at the beginning and sometimes a
break in the line at the end. A supra-phrasal unit and
a paragraph have much in common: they both have a
topic sentence which shows their main idea. It may
be placed at the beginning, end, and middle. Paragraph may contain several SPU…
Stylistic inversion, detachment.
Inversion is certain changes in the word order of an
utterance. It can by grammatical and stylistic. The
first one involves the structure of the utterance. It’s a
norm in interrogative constructions. ▲ He is leaving
for London tomorrow morning. – Is he leaving for
London tomorrow? In this example no emphases is
added, so it’s a grammatical inversion. Stylistic inversion doesn’t change the structural meaning of an
utterance it aims at attaching logical stress or additional emotional coloring to the meaning of the utterance. ▲ In shabby shubra lived another people: to
them, and them only he felt related. Detachment is a
variety of stylistic inversion. It takes place when
some secondary parts of the utterance are placed. So
that they seem formally independent of words they
logically refer to. ▲ You weren’t-ever-going to get out
of this… not ever. Detachment of ever wit…
Parallel constructions, chiasmus.
A parallel construction is the stylistic device which
represents identical or similar syntactical structures in
two or more sentences or parts of a sentence. Pure
parallelism depends on the repetition of syntactical
arrangement of the sentence. ▲ He was not comfortable. He was not happy. These 2 sentences have
identical structure. Parallel construction may be
complete (maintains the principle of identical structures in the corresponding sentence) and partial
(based on the repetition of some parts of successive
sentences). ▲ I was growing up, he was growing old.
Parallelism may carry the role of semantic equality of
the parts, emotive, uniting functions. Chiasmus (reversed parallel construction) is a stylistic device
based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern but
with a cross order of word or phrases. ▲ Better a
witty fool than I foolish wit. In this saying chiasmus is
realized through different parts of speech with the
same roots. It’s a syntactical not lexical stylistic
device as…
Repetition (all cases).
Repetition aims at logical emphasis in order to fix the
reader’s attention on the key-words of the utterance.
There are: 1) Anaphora – when the repeated unit
comes at the beginning. ▲ Your cheek, your gluttony,
your obstinacy impose respect on me. 2) Epiphora –
the repeated units is at the end of a sentence. ▲ To
get into the best society one has either to feed people, amuse people. 3) Framing repetition – the initial
word is repeated at the end of the unit. ▲ Please
don’t tie me down, please. 4) Linking repetition – the
last word of one part is repeated at the beginning of
the following one. ▲ If you have nothing to say, say
it. 5) Chain repetition – a group of linking repetition
used in the same utterance. ▲ Now he understood.
He understood many things. 6) Synonymic repetition
– repetition of the same idea with the help of synonyms. 7) Pleonasm – the use of more words than are
necessary. Usually the fault of style. 8) Tautology –
repetition of the same statement. Usually in other
words the fault of style.
Enumeration, suspense.
Enumeration is a stylistic device by which separate
things are named one by one. So that they produce a
chain, the links of which, being syntactically in the
same position, are forced to display some kinds of
semantic homogeneity. It’s frequently used to depict
the scenery through a tourist’s eyes. It units both
homogeneous and heterogeneous objects. If the
united objects are homogeneous, enumeration is not
a stylistic device. Example of simple enumeration: ▲
Kings, emperors, conquerors, pontiffs and all the
other idols are swept away sooner or later. Suspense
is a compositional stylistic device which consists in
arranging the matter of communication in such a way
that the less important, descriptive, subordinate parts
are amassed at the beginning, and the main idea is
withheld till the end of the sentence. ▲ Swinging his
cane (which he found to short) in his left hand (which
he should have cut off long ago since it was constantly offending him), he began walking slowly down the
avenue. Suspense aim at helping the reader in uncertainty and expectation, at creating constant emotional tension.
Climax, anticlimax, antithesis.
Climax (gradation) is a stylistic device representing a
gradual increase in significance, importance or emotional tension in the utterance. Logical climax – is
based on the relative importance of the component
parts looked at from the point of view of the concepts
embodied in them. ▲ You’re a pig and a beast and a
Bolshevik. Logical climax here implies political view of
the character. Emotional climax is based on the
relative emotional tension produced by words with
emotive meaning. Quantitative climax is an evident
increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts
or simple numerical increase. Anticlimax: is a sudden
drop from the different or important in thought or
expression to the commonplace or trivial, sometimes
for humorous effect. Anticlimax is represented by an
unexpected turn of the thought which ends in complete semantic reversal of the emphasized idea. It
results in defeated expectancy of the reader. Antithesis: is based on relative opposition which arises out of
the context trough the expansion of contrasting pairs.
▲ Every white has its black, and every sweet its …
Asyndeton, polysyndeton, the gap-sentence
link.
Asyndeton is connection between parts of a sentence
or between sentences without any formal sign. It
becomes a stylistic if there is a deliberate omission of
the connective where it is generally expected to be
according to the norms of the literary language. ▲
The boys all hated him, he was so good. In this sentence the conjunction “because” is omitted. Polysyndeton is connection between parts of a sentence or
between sentences by using connectives (mostly
conjunctions and prepositions) before each component part. ▲ She stirred the fire, and shut the door,
and sat as near to it as she could, quite on the edge
of her chair. Another function of this type is disintegrating. Gap-sentence link is a way of connecting two
sentences seemingly unconnected and leaving it to
the reader’s imagination to grasp the idea implied. ▲
She says nothing but it’s clear that she is harping on
this engagement, and …
Ellipsis, break-in-the narrative.
Ellipsis is deliberate omission of at least one member
of the sentence. It is typical in conversation, but in
direct intercourse it’s not a stylistic device, but a
norm of the spoken language. Ellipsis is the basis of
the telegraphic style, which presupposes omission of
connectives and redundant words. A kind of ellipsis, a
construction in which the subject of one sentence is
at the same time the subject of the second, is called
apokoinu construction. ▲ Everyone found him attractive. It was his temper let him down. The noun “temper”, being the subject of the first sentence, is also
the subject of second one. Break-in-the narrative is a
stylistic device based on a sudden breaking off in the
midst of a sentence as if from inability for private
communication. ▲ – Martin didn’t shoot himself. –
Martin didn’t - . – Of course, he didn’t. I shoot him.
Expresses the surprise of the character.
Peculiar use of colloquial constructions (uttered
represented speech).
Emotional syntactical structures typical of the spoken
language are often very effectively used by authors to
depict the emotional state of the character. They are
also used in the narrative of the author. Represented
speech is that form of utterance which conveys the
actual words of the speaker through the mouth of the
writer but which retains the peculiarities of the
speaker’s mode of expression. Uttered represented
speech demands that the tense should be switched
from present to past and that the personal pronouns
should be changed from the 1st and 2nd person to 3rd
person as in indirect speech, but the syntactical
structure of the utterance isn’t changed. ▲ Why was
she nervous? What was there about a toy to make
her grow pale? Why should she be so nervous? uttered represented speech is shown in the Past Indefinite…
Peculiar use of colloquial constructions (unuttered represented speech).
Emotional syntactical structures typical of the spoken
language are often very effectively used by authors to
depict the emotional state of the character. They are
also used in the narrative of the author. Represented
speech is that form of utterance which conveys the
actual words of the speaker through the mouth of the
writer but which retains the peculiarities of the
speaker’s mode of expression. Unuttered represented
speech is the thoughts and feelings going on in one’s
mind and reflecting some previous experience. It has
no communicative function and is very fragmentary,
incoherent, isolated and consists of separate units
which hint at the content of the utterance but do not
word it explicitly. This type of represented speech is
often introduced by verbs of mental perception, as
think, feel, wonder, occur, ask, tell oneself, understand…
Transferred use of structural meaning (rhetorical question, litotes).
Every syntactical structure has a definite function,
which is also called its structural meaning. Sometimes syntactical structures are used in meanings
which differ from their usual ones. In this case a
structure assumes a new meaning which is very much
alike a lexical transferred meaning. Rhetorical question may be defined as an utterance in the form of a
the question which pronounces judgments and also
expresses different kinds of modal shades of meaning
(irony, doubt). ▲ And yet, where was the Jane Eyre
yesterday? Where was her life? Where were her
prospects? Litotes is a stylistic device which consists
of a peculiar use of negative construction. It’s negation which includes affirmation. ▲ It is not bad; she is
not unkind. The function of it: weaken the effect of
the utterance. There is double negative…
The main peculiarities of belles-lettres style.
Aim: to give possible interpretation of the phenomena
of life. Words in more than one dictionary meaning
genuine imagery, stylistic devices, individual selection
of phonetic, lexical and syntactical means by writer,
colloquial language. The main peculiarities of belleslettres style. Belles-lettres style (the style of fiction)
em-braces:1)poetry; 2)drama; 3)emotive prose. B-l
style or the style of imaginative literature may be
called the richest register of communication: besides
its own language means which are not used in any
other sphere of communication, b-l st. makes ample
use of other styles too, for it numerous works of
literary art we find elements of scientific, official and
other functional types of speech. Besides informative
and persuasive functions, also found in other functional styles, the b-l style has a unique task to impress the reader aesthetically. The form becomes
meaningful and carries additional info. Boundless
possibilities of expressing one's thoughts and feelings
make the b-l style a highly attractive field of research
for a linguist. The belles-lettres style, in each of its
concrete representations, fulfils the aesthetic function, which fact singles this style out of others and
gives grounds to recognize its systematic uniqueness,
i.e. charges it with the status if an autonomous functional style.
The main peculiarities of publicistic style.
Publicistic style. (oratory, speeches, essays, articles)
the style is a perfect ex. Of historical change-ability of
stylistic differentiation of discourses. In Greece it was
practiced in oral form which was named P. in accordance with the name of its corresponding genre. PS is
famous for its explicit pragmatic function of persuasion directed at influencing the reader & shaping his
views in accordance with the argumentation of the
author. We find in PS a blend of the rigor-ous logical
reasoning, reflecting the objective state of things & a
strong subjectivity reflecting the authors personal
feelings and emotions towards the discussed subject.
Substyles: The oratory essays, journalistic articles,
radio and TV commentary. Oratory. It makes use of a
great humbler of expressive means to arouse and
keep the public's interest: repetition, gradation,
antithesis, rhetorical questions, emotive words, elements of colloquial speech. Radio and TV commentary
is less impersonal and more expressive and emotional. The essay is very subjective and the most colloquial of the all substyles of the publicistic style. It
makes use of expressive means and tropes. The
journalistic articles are impersonal.
The main peculiarities of newspaper style.
Newspaper style includes informative materials: news
in brief, headlines, ads, additional articles. But not
everything published in the paper can be included in
N.S. we mean publicist essays, feature articles, scient. Reviews are not N.S. to attract the readers
attention special means are used by British & am.
Papers ex: specific headlines, space ordering. We find
here a large proportion of dates, personal names of
countries, institutions, individuals. To achieve an
effect of objectivity in rendering some fact or event
most of info is published anonymously, without the
name of newsman who supplied it, with little or no
subjective modality. But the position of the paper
becomes clear from the choice not only of subj.
matter but also of words denoting international or
domestic issues. Substyles. To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will
be sufficient to analyze the following basic newspaper
features:1) brief news items;2) advertisements and
announcements;3) headlines; Brief items: its function is to inform the reader. It states only facts without giving comments. The vocabulary used is neutral
and common literary. Specific features are: a) special
political and economic terms; b) non-term political
vocabulary; c) newspaper clichés; d) abbreviations;
e) neologisms.
The main peculiarities of scientific and official
style.
The Style of Official Documents
1) Language of business letters; 2) Language of legal
documents; 3) Language of diplomacy; 4) Language
of military documents; The aim: 1. to reach agreement between two contracting parties; 2. to state the
conditions binding two parties in an understanding.
Each of substyles of official documents makes use of
special terms. Legal documents: military documents,
diplomatic documents. The documents use set expressions inherited from early Victorian period. This
vocabulary is conservative. Legal documents contain
a large proportion of formal and archaic words used
in their dictionary meaning. In diplomatic and legal
documents many words have Latin and French origin.
There are a lot of abbreviations and conventional
symbols. The most noticeable feature of grammar is
the compositional pattern. Every document has its
own stereotyped form. The form itself is informative
and tells you with what kind of letter we deal with.
Business letters contain: heading, addressing, salutation, the opening, the body, the closing, complimentary clause, the signature. Syntactical features of
business letters are - the predominance of extended
simple and complex sentences, wide use of participial
constructions, homogeneous members. Morphological
peculiarities are passive constructions, they make the
letters impersonal. There is a tendency to avoid
pronoun reference. Its typical feature is to frame
equally important factors and to divide them by
members in order to avoid ambiguity of the wrong
interpretation.
Scientific Prose Style
The style of scientific prose has 3 subdivisions:1) the
style of humanitarian sciences; 2) the style of "exact"
sciences; 3) the style of popular scientific prose. Its
function is to work out and ground theoretically objective knowledge about reality. The aim of communication is to create new concepts, disclose the international laws of existence. The peculiarities are: objectiveness; logical coherence, impersonality, unemotional character, exactness. The scientific prose style
consists mostly of ordinary words which tend to be
used in their primary logical meaning. Emotiveness
depends on the subject of investigation but mostly
scientific prose style is unemotional. Grammar: The
logical presentation and cohesion of thought manifests itself in a developed feature of scientific syntax
is the use of established patterns. - postulatory; formulative; - argumentative; The impersonal and
objective character of scientific prose style is revealed
in the frequent use of passive constructions, impersonal sentences. Personal sentences are more frequently used in exact sciences. In humanities we may
come across constructions but few. Some features of
the style in the text are: - use of quotations and
references; - use of foot-notes helps to preserve the
logical coherence of ideas. Scientific popular style has
the following peculiarities: emotive words, elements
of colloquial style.