Стилистика английского языка

Т.А.Знаменская

Основы КУРСА

•

Т. A. Znamenskaya

Stylistics of the English Language

Fundamentals of the Course

Допущено Министерством образования Российской Федерации в качестве учебного пособия для студентов высших учебных заведений, обучающихся по специальности 030500 - Профессиональное обучение (по отраслям)

Издание второе, исправленное

Москва • 2004

ББК 81.2Англ-5я73

Знаменская Татьяна Анатольевна

Стилистика английского языка. Основы курса:Учебное пособие. Изд. 2-е, испр. - М.: Едиториал УРСС,2004. - 208 с.

ISBN 5-354-00659-7

Пособие освещает ключевые проблемы стилистики английского языка и включает главы: предмет и задачи курса, выразительные средства языка, грамматическая стилистика, теория функциональных стилей, основы стилистики декодирования, глоссарий стилистических терминов. В каждой главе актуализация теоретических

положений опирается на систему практических заданий, которые могут быть использованы как на семинарских занятиях, так и для самостоятельной работы.

Учебное пособие предназначено для студентов факультетов иностранных языков, а также всех, кто изучает дисциплину "Стилистика английского языка".

Рецензенты:

кандидат филологических наук, доцент В. А. Першикова (Нижегородский государственный лингвистический университет); кандидат филологических наук, доцент Г. В. Андреева (Шадринский педагогический институт); С. Скляр, преподаватель колледжа Шаймер (г. Чикаго, США)

Издательство "Едиториал УРСС". 117312, г. Москва, rrp-т 60-летия Октября, 9. Лицензия ИД №05175 от 25.06.2001 г. Подписано к печати 20.01.2004г. Формат 60x90I16. Тираж 1000 экз. Печ. л. 13. Зак. № 2-1229I427.

Отпечатано в типографии ООО "РОХОС".117312, г. Москва, пр-т 60-летия Октября, 9.

ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО НАУЧНОЙ И УЧЕБНОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ E-mail: [email protected] Каталог изданий вInternet: http://URSS.ru Тел.Iфакс: 7 (095) 135-42-16 Тел.Iфакс: 7 (095) 135-42-46

УРСС ISBN 5-354-00659-7

Contents

Preface................................... 7

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics . . ............... 9

1.1. Problems of stylistic research............. 9

1.2. Stylistics of language and speech........... 15

1.3. Types of stylistic research and branches

of stylistics......................... 16

1.4. Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines....... 19

1.5. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic colouring...... 21

1.6. Stylistic function notion................ 24

Practice Section......................... 28

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language........ 33

2.1. Expressive means and stylistic devices........ 34

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means .... 37

2.2.1. Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system...... 39

2.2.2. Stylistic theory and classification

of expresssive means by G. Leech...... 45

2.2.3. I. R. Galperin's classification of expressive means and stylistic devices........... 50

2.2.4. Classification of expressive means

and stylistic devices by Y. M. Skrebnev ... 57

Practice Section......................... 76

Chapter 3. Stylistic Grammar.................... 87

3.1. The theory of grammatical gradation.

Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures . . 87

3.2. Grammatical metaphor and types

of grammatical transposition.............. 89

3.3. Morphological stylistics. Stylistic potential

of the parts of speech.................. 92

3.3.1. The noun and its stylistic potential..... 92

3.3.2. The article and its stylistic potential..... 95

3.3.3. The stylistic power of the pronoun...... 97

3.3.4. The adjective and its stylistic functions . . . 101

3.3.5. The verb and its stylistic properties..... 103

3.3.6. Affixation and its expressiveness....... 107

3.4. Stylistic syntax...................... 110

Practice Section......................... 116

Chapter 4. The Theory of Functional Styles............ 122

4.1. The notion of style in functional stylistics..... 122

4.2. Correlation of style, norm and function

in the language...................... 124

4.3. Language varieties: regional, social, occupational . 127

4.4. An overview of functional style systems....... 131

4.5. Distinctive linguistic features of the major functional styles of English............... 142

4.5.1. Literary colloquial style............. 143

4.5.2. Familiar colloquial style............ 145

4.5.3. Publicist (media) style............. 148

4.5.4. The style of official documents........ 150

4.5.5. ScientificIacademic style............ 153

Practice Section......................... 156

Chapter 5. Decoding stylistics and Its Fundamental Notions .160

5.1. Stylistics of the author and of the reader.

The notions of encoding and decoding....... 161

5.2. Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis

and types of foregrounding............... 164

5.2.1. Convergence................... 167

5.2.2. Defeated expectancy.............. 169

5.2.3. Coupling...................... 171

5.2.4. Semantic field.................. 174

5.2.5. Semi-marked structures ............ 177

Practice Section......................... 179

Glossary for the Course of Stylistics................. 188

Sources................................... 201

Dictionaries................................ 203

List of Authors and Publications Quoted .............. 204

Preface

The book suggests the fundamentals of stylistic theory that outline such basic areas of research as expressive resources of the language, stylistic differentiation of vocabulary, varieties of the national language and sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors that determine functional styles.

The second chapter will take a student of English to the beginnings of stylistics in Greek and Roman schools of rhetoric and show how

much modern terminology and classifications of expressive means

owe to rhetoric.

An important part of the book is devoted to the new tendencies and schools of stylistics that assimilated advancements in the linguistic science in such trends of the 20^th century as functional, decoding

and grammatical stylistics.

The material on the wealth of expressive means of EngUsh will help a student of philology, a would-be teacher and a reader of literature not only to receive orientation in how to fully decode the message of the work of art and therefore enjoy it all the more but also to improve their own style of expression.

The chapter on functional styles highlights the importance of «time and place» in language usage. It tells how the same language differs when used for different purposes on different occasions in communi-cation with different people. It explains why we adopt different uses of

language as we go through our day. A selection of distinctive features of each functional style will help to identify and use it correctly whether you deal with producing or analysing a text of a certain functional type.

Chapters on grammar stylistics and decoding stylistics are intended to introduce the student to the secrets of how a stylistic device works. Modern linguistics may help to identify the nature and algorithm of stylistic effect by showing what kind of semantic change, grammatical transposition or lexical deviation results in various stylistic outcomes.

This book combines theoretical study and practice. Each chapter is supplied with a special section that enables the student and the teacher to revise and process the theoretical part by drawing conclusions and parallels, doing comparison and critical analysis. Another type of practice

involves creative tasks on stylistic analysis and interpretation, such as identifying devices in literary texts, explaining their function and the principle of performance, decoding the implications they create.

The knowledge of the theoretical background of stylistic research and the experience of integrating it into one's analytical reading skills will enhance the competence and proficiency of a future teacher of English. Working with literary texts on this level also helps to develop one's cultural scope and aesthetic taste. It will also enrich the student's linguistic and stylistic thesaurus.

The author owes acknowledgements for the kindly assistance in reading and stylistic editing of this work to a colleague from the Shimer College of Chicago, a lecturer in English and American literature S. Sklar.

Chapter 1

The Object of Stylistics

Problems of stylistic research. Stylistics of language and speech. Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics. Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic coloring. Stylistic function notion.

Comparative stylistics

Comparative stylistics is connected with the contrastive study of more than one language.

It analyses the stylistic resources not inherent in a separate language but at the crossroads of two languages, or two literatures and is obviously linked to the theory of translation.

Decoding stylistics

A comparatively new branch of stylistics is the decoding stylistics, which can be traced back to the works of L. V. Shcherba, B. A. Larin, M. Riffaterre, R. Jackobson and other scholars of the Prague linguistic circle. A serious contribution into this branch of stylistic study was also made by Prof. I.V. Arnold (3, 4). Each act of speech has the performer, or sender of speech and the recipient. The former does the act of encoding and the latter the act of decoding the information. If we analyse the text from the author's (encoding) point of view we should consider the epoch, the historical situation, the personal political, social and aesthetic views of the author. But if we try to treat the same text from the reader's angle of view we shall have to disregard this background knowledge and get the maximum information from the text itself (its vocabulary, composition, sentence arrangement, etc.). The first approach manifests the prevalence of the literary analysis. The second is based almost exclusively on the linguistic analysis. Decoding stylistics is an attempt to harmoniously combine the two methods of stylistic research and enable the scholar to interpret a work of art with a minimum loss of its purport and message.

Functional stylistics

Special mention should be made of functional stylistics which is a branch of lingua-stylistics that investigates functional styles, that is special sublanguages or varieties of the national language such as scientific, colloquial, business, publicist and so on.

However many types of stylistics may exist or spring into existence they will all consider the same source material for stylistic analysis-sounds, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and texts. That's why any kind of stylistic research will be based on the level-forming branches that include:

Stylistic lexicology

Stylistic Lexicology studies the semantic structure of the word and the interrelation (or interplay) of the connotative and denotative meanings of the word, as well as the interrelation of the stylistic connotations of the word and the context.

Stylistic Phonetics(or Phonostylistics)is engaged in the study of style-forming phonetic features of the text. It describes the prosodic features of prose and poetry and variants of pronunciation in different types of speech (colloquial or oratory or recital).

Stylistic grammar

Stylistic Morphologyis interested in the stylistic potentials of specific grammatical forms and categories, such as the number of the noun, or the peculiar use of tense forms of the verb, etc.

Stylistic Syntaxis one of the oldest branches of stylistic studies that grew out of classical rhetoric. The material in question lends itself readily to analysis and description. Stylistic syntax has to do with the expressive order of words, types of syntactic links (asyndeton, polysyndeton), figures of speech (antithesis, chiasmus, etc.). It also deals with bigger units from paragraph onwards.

1.4.Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines

As is obvious from the names of the branches or types of stylistic studies this science is very closely linked to the linguistic disciplines philology students are familiar with: phonetics, lexicology and grammar due to the common study source.

Stylistics interacts with such theoretical discipline as semasiology. This is a branch of linguistics whose area of study is a most complicated and enormous sphere - that of meaning. The term semantics is also widely used in linguistics in relation to verbal meanings. Semasiology in its turn is often related to the theory of signs in general and deals with visual as well as verbal meanings. Meaning is not attached to the level of the word only, or for that matter to one level at all but correlates with all of them - morphemes, words, phrases or texts. This is one of the most challenging areas of research since practically all stylistic effects are based on the interplay between different kinds of meaning on different levels. Suffice it to say that there are numerous types of linguistic meanings attached to linguistic units, such as grammatical, lexical, logical, denotative, connotative, emotive, evaluative, expressive and stylistic.

Onomasiology (or onomatology) is the theory of naming dealing with the choice of words when naming or assessing some object or phenomenon. In stylistic analysis we often have to do with a transfer of nominal meaning in a text (antonomasia, metaphor, metonymy, etc.)

The theory of functional styles investigates the structure of the national linguistic space - what constitutes the literary language, the sublanguages and dialects mentioned more than once already.

Literary stylistics will inevitably overlap with areas of literary studies such as the theory of imagery, literary genres, the art of composition, etc.

Decoding stylistics in many ways borders culture studies in the broad sense of that word including the history of art, aesthetic trends and even information theory.

Stylistic function notion

Like other linguistic disciplines stylistics deals with the lexical, grammatical, phonetic and phraseological data of the language. However there is a distinctive difference between stylistics and the other linguistic subjects. Stylistics does not study or describe separate linguistic units like phonemes or words or clauses as such. It studies their stylistic function. Stylistics is interested in the expressive potential of these units and their interaction in a text.

Stylistics focuses on the expressive properties of linguistic units, their functioning and interaction in conveying ideas and emotions in a certain text or communicative context.

Stylistics interprets the opposition or clash between the contextual meaning of a word and its denotative meaning.

Accordingly stylistics is first and foremost engaged in the study of connotative meanings.

In brief the semantic structure (or the meaning) of a word roughly consists of its grammatical meaning (noun, verb, adjective) and its lexical meaning. Lexical meaning can further on be subdivided into denotative (linked to the logical or nominative meaning) and connotative meanings. Connotative meaning is only connected with extra-linguistic circumstances such as the situation of communication and the participants of communication. Connotative meaning consists of four components:

1) emotive;

2) evaluative;

3) expressive;

4) stylistic.

A word is always characterised by its denotative meaning but not necessarily by connotation. The four components may be all presentat once, or in different combinations or they may not be found in the word at all.

1. Emotiveconnotations express various feelings or emotions. Emotions differ from feelings. Emotions like joy, disappointment, pleasure, anger, worry, surprise are more short-lived. Feelings imply a more stable state, or attitude, such as love, hatred, respect, pride, dignity, etc. The emotive component of meaning may be occasional or usual (i.e. inherent and adherent).

It is important to distinguish words with emotive connotations from words, describing or naming emotions and feelings like anger or fear, because the latter are a special vocabulary subgroup whose denotative meanings are emotions. They do not connote the speaker's state of mind or his emotional attitude to the subject of speech.

Thus if a psychiatrist were to say You should be able to control feelings of anger, impatience and disappointment dealing with a child as a piece of advice to young parents the sentence would have no emotive power. It may be considered stylistically neutral.

On the other hand an apparently neutral word like big will become charged with emotive connotation in a mother's proud description of her baby: He is a BIG boy already!

2. The evaluativecomponent charges the word with negative, positive, ironic or other types of connotation conveying the speaker's attitude in relation to the object of speech. Very often this component is a part of the denotative meaning, which comes to the fore in a specific context.

The verb to sneak means "to move silently and secretly, usu. for a bad purpose" (8). This dictionary definition makes the evaluative component bad quite explicit. Two derivatives a sneak and sneaky have both preserved a derogatory evaluative connotation. But the negative component disappears though in still another derivative sneakers (shoes with a soft sole). It shows that even words of the same root may either have or lack an evaluative component in their inner form.

3. Expressiveconnotation either increases or decreases the expressiveness of the message. Many scholars hold that emotive and expressive components cannot be distinguished but Prof. I. A. Arnold maintains that emotive connotation always entails expressiveness but not vice versa. To prove her point she comments on the example by A. Hornby and R. Fowler with the word "thing" applied to a girl (4, p. 113).

When the word is used with an emotive adjective like "sweet" it becomes emotive itself: "She was a sweet little thing". But in other sentences like "She was a small thin delicate thing with spectacles", she argues, this is not true and the word "thing" is definitely expressive but not emotive.

Another group of words that help create this expressive effect are the so-called "intensifiers", words like "absolutely, frightfully, really, quite", etc.

4. Finally there is stylisticconnotation. A word possesses stylistic connotation if it belongs to a certain functional style or a specific layer of vocabulary (such as archaisms, barbarisms, slang, jargon, etc). stylistic connotation is usually immediately recognizable.

Yonder, slumber, thence immediately connote poetic or elevated writing.

Words like price index or negotiate assets are indicative of business language.

This detailed and systematic description of the connotative meaning of a word is suggested by the Leningrad school in the works of Prof. I. V. Arnold, Z. Y. Turayeva, and others.

Gaiperin operates three types of lexical meaning that are stylistically relevant - logical, emotive and nominal. He describes the stylistic colouring of words in terms of the interaction of these types of lexical meaning. Skrebnev maintains that connotations only show to what part of the national language a word belongs - one of the sub-languages (functional styles) or the neutral bulk. He only speaks about the stylistic component of the connotative meaning.

Practice Section

1. Comment on the notions of style and sublanguages in the national language.

2. What are the interdisciplinary links of stylistics and other linguistic subjects such as phonetics, lexicology, grammar, and semasiology? Provide examples.

How does stylistics differ from them in its subject-matter and fields of study?

3. Give an outline of the stylistic differentiation of the national English vocabulary: neutral, literary, colloquial layers of words;

areas of their overlapping. Describe literary and common colloquial stratums of vocabulary, their stratification.

4. How does stylistic colouring and stylistic neutrality relate to inherent and adherent stylistic connotation?

5.Can you distinguish neutral, formal and informal among the following groups of words.

	A	В	С
1.	currency	money	dough
2.	to talk	to converse	to chat
3.	to chow down	to eat	to dine
4.	to start	to commence	to kick off
5.	insane	nuts	mentally ill
6.	spouse	hubby	husband
7.	to leave	to withdraw	to shoot off
	geezer	senior citizen	old man
9.	veracious	opens	sincere
10.	mushy	emotional	sentimental

6. What kind of adherent stylistic meaning appears in the otherwise neutral word feeling?

I've got no feeling paying interest, provided that it's reasonable. (Shute) I've got no feeling against small town life. Irather like it. (Shute)

7. To what stratum of vocabulary do the words in bold type in the following sentences belong stylistically? Provide neutral or colloquial variants for them:

I expect you've seen my hand often enough coming out with the grub.(Waugh)

She betrayed some embarrassment when she handed Paul the tickets, and a hauteurwhich subsequently made her feel very foolish. (Gather)

I must be off to my digs.(Waugh)

When the old boy popped offhe left Philbrick everything, except a few books to Gracie. (Waugh)

He looked her over and decided that she was not appropriately dressed and must be a fool to sit downstairs in such togs.(Cather)

It was broken at length by the arrival of Flossie, splendidly attiredin magenta and green. (Waugh)

8. Consider the following utterances from the point Of view of the grammatical norm. What elements can be labelled as deviations from standard English? How do they comply with the norms of colloquial English according to Mims and Skrebnev?

Sita decided that she would lay down in the dark even if Mrs. Waldvogel came in and bit her. (Erdrich)

Always popular with the boys, he was, even when he was so full he couldn't hardly fight. (Waugh)

...he used to earn five pound a night... (Waugh)

I wouldn't sell it not for a hundred quid, I wouldn't. (Waugh)

There was a rapping at the bedroom door. "I'll learn that Luden Sorrels to tomcat." (Chappel)

9. How does the choice of words in each case contribute to the stylistic character of the following passages? How would you define their functional colouring in terms of technical, poetic, bookish, commercial, dialectal, religious, elevated, colloquial, legal or other style?

Make up lists of words that create this tenor in the texts given below.

Whilst humble pilgrims lodged in hospices, a travelling knight would normally stay with a merchant. (Rutherfurd)

Fo' what you go by dem, eh? W'y not keep to yo'self? Dey don' want you, dey don' care fo' you. H' ain' you got no sense? (Dunbar-Nelson)

They sent me down to the aerodrome next morning in a car. I made a check over the machine, cleaned filters, drained sumps, swept out the cabin, and refuelled. Finally I took off at about ten thirty for the short flight down to Batavia across the Sunda straits, and found the aerodrome and came on to the circuit behind the Constellation of K. L. M. (Shute)

We ask Thee, Lord, the old man cried, to look after this childt. Fatherless he is. But what does the earthly father matter before Thee? The childt is Thine, he is Thy childt, Lord, what father has a man but Thee? (Lawrence)

- We are the silver band the Lord bless and keep you, said the stationmaster in one breath, the band that no one could beat whatever but two indeed in the Eisteddfod that for all North Wales was look you.

I see, said the Doctor; I see. That's splendid. Well, will you please go into your tent, the little tent over there.

To march about you would not like us? Suggested the stationmaster, we have a fine flaglook you that embroidered for us was in silks. (Waugh)

The evidence is perfectly clear. The deceased woman was unfaithful to her husband during his absence overseas and gave birth to a child out of wedlock.

Her husband seemed to behave with commendable restraint and wrote nothing to her which would have led her to take her life... The deceased appears to have been the victim of her own conscience and as the time for the return of her husband drew near she became menially upset. I find that the deceased committed suicide while the balance of her mind was temporarily deranged. (Shute)

I say, I've met an awful good chap called Miles. Regular topper. You know, pally.That's what I like about a really decent party - you meet such topping fellows. I mean some chaps it takes absolutely years to know, but a chap like Miles I feel is a pal straight away. (Waugh)

She sang first of the birth of love in the hearts of a boy and a girl. And on the topmost spray of the Rose-tree there blossomed a marvellous rose, petal following petal, as song followed song. Pale was it, at first as the mist that hangs over the river - pale as the feet of the morning. (Wilde)

He went slowly about the corridors, through the writing - rooms, smoking-rooms, reception-rooms, as though he were exploring the chambers of an enchanted palace, built and peopled for him alone.

When he reached the dining-room he sat down at a table near a window.

The flowers, the white linen, the many-coloured wine-glasses, the gay toilettes of the women, the low popping of corks, the undulating repetitions of the Blue Danubefrom the orchestra, all flooded Paul's dream with bewildering radiance. (Cather)

Chapter 2

Stylistic devices

A stylistic device is a literary model in which semantic and structural features are blended so that it represents a generalised pattern.

Prof. I. R. Galperin calls a stylistic device a generative model when through frequent use a language fact is transformed into a stylistic device. Thus we may say that some expressive means have evolved into stylistic devices which represent a more abstract form or set of forms. A stylistic device combines some general semantic meaning with a certain linguistic form resulting in stylistic effect. It is like an algorithm employed for an expressive purpose. For example, the interplay, interaction, or clash of the dictionary and contextual meanings of words will bring about such stylistic devices as metaphor, metonymy or irony.

The nature of the interaction may be affinity (likeness by nature), proximity (nearness in place, time, order, occurrence, relation) or contrast (opposition).

Respectively there is metaphor based on the principle of affinity, metonymy based on proximity and irony based on opposition.

The evolution of a stylistic device such as metaphor could be seen from four examples that demonstrate this linguistic mechanism (interplay of dictionary and contextual meaning based on the principle of affinity):

1. My new dress is as pink as this flower: comparison (ground for comparison - the colour of the flower).

2. Her cheeks were as red as a tulip: simile (ground for simile - colour/beauty/health/freshness)

3. She is a real flower: metaphor (ground for metaphor - frail/ fragrant/tender/beautiful/helpless...).

My love is a red, red rose: metaphor (ground for metaphor - passionateIbeautifulIstrong...).

4. Ruby lips, hair of gold, snow-white skin: trite metaphors so frequently employed that they hardly have any stylistic power left because metaphor dies of overuse. Such metaphors are also called hackneyed or even dead.

A famous literary example of an author's defiance against immoderate use of trite metaphors is W. Shakespeare's Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

The more unexpected, the less predictable is the ground for comparison the more expressive is the metaphor which in this case got a special name of genuine or authentic metaphor. Associations suggested by the genuine metaphor are varied, not limited to any definite number and stimulated by the individual experience or imagination.

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

In spite of the belief that rhetoric is an outmoded discipline it is in rhetoric that we find most of the terms contemporary stylistics generally employs as its metalanguage. Rhetoric is the initial source of information about metaphor, metonymy, epithet, antithesis, chiasmus, anaphora and many more. The classical rhetoric gave us still widely used terms of tropes and figures of speech.

That is why before looking into the new stylistic theories and findings it's good to look back and see what's been there for centuries. The problems of language in antique times became a concern of scholars because of the necessity to comment on literature and poetry. This necessity was caused by the fact that mythology and lyrical poetry was the study material on which the youth was brought up, taught to read and write and generally educated. Analysis of literary texts helped to transfer into the sphere of oratorical art the first philosophical notions and concepts.

The first linguistic theory called sophistry appeared in the fifth century 3. C. Oration played a paramount role in the social and political life of Greece so the art of rhetoric developed into a school.

Antique tradition ascribes some of the fundamental rhetorical notions to the Greek philosopher Gorgius (483-375 В. C). Together with another scholar named Trasimachus they created the first school of rhetoric whose principles were later developed by Aristotle (384-322 В. C.) in his books "Rhetoric" and "Poetics".

Aristotle differentiated literary language and colloquial language. This first theory of style included 3 subdivisions:

• the choice of words;

• word combinations;

• figures.

1. The choice of words included lexical expressive means such as foreign words, archaisms, neologisms, poetic words, nonce words and metaphor.

2. Word combinations involved 3 things:

a) order of words;

b) word-combinations;

c) rhythm and period (in rhetoric, a complete sentence).

3. Figures of speech. This part included only 3 devices used by the antique authors always in the same order:

a) antithesis;

b) assonance of colons;

c) equality of colons.

A colon in rhetoric means one of the sections of a rhythmical period in Greek chorus consisting of a sequence of 2 to 6 feet.

Later contributions by other authors were made into the art of speaking and writing so that the most complete and well developed antique system, that came down to us is called the Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system. It divided all expressive means into 3 large groups: Tropes, Rhythm (Figures of Speech) and Types of Speech.

A condensed description of this system gives one an idea how much we owe the antique tradition in modern stylistic studies.

Paradigmatic stylistics

(Stylistics of units)

<- 1. Phonetics <- 2. Morphology <- 3. Lexicology <- 4. Syntax <- 5. Semasiology

-> Syntagmatic -> stylistics

-> (Stylistics of -> sequences)

Paradigmatic stylistics

Looking closer into this system we'll be able to distinguish specific units and their stylistic potentials or functions. Thus paradigmatic stylistics (stylistics of units) is subdivided into five branches.

Paradigmatic phoneticsactually describes phonographical stylistic features of a written text. Since we cannot hear written speech but in our "mind" writers often resort to graphic means to reproduce the phonetic peculiarities of individual speech or dialect. Such intentional non-standard spelhng is called "graphons" (a term borrowed from V. A. Kucharenko).

I know these Eye-talians! (Lawrence) - in this case the graphon is used to show despise or contempt of the speaker for Italians.

In Cockney speech whose phonetic peculiarities are all too well known you'll hear [ai] in place of [ei], [a:] instead of [au], they drop "h's" and so on. It frequently becomes a means of speech characterisation and often creates a humorous effect.

The author illustrates it with a story of a cockney family trying to impress a visitor with their "correct" English:

"Faiher, said one of the children at breakfast. - I want some more 'am please".-You mustn't say 'am, my child, the correct form is 'am, - retorted his father, passing the plate with sliced ham on it. "But I did say 'am, pleaded the boy". "No, you didn't: you said 'am instead-of 'am". The mother turned to the guest smiling: "Oh, don't mind them, sir, pray. They are both trying to say 'am and both think it is 'am they are saying" (47, p. 41).

Other graphic means to emphasise the "unheard" phonetic charecter-istics such as the pitch ofvoice, the stress, and other melodic features are italics, capitalisation, repetition of letters, onomatopoeia (sound imitation).

E.g. I AM sorry; "Аррееее Noooooyeeeeerr" (Happy New Year); cock-a-doodle-doo.

Paradigmatic morphologyobserves the stylistic potentials of grammar forms, which Leech would describe as deviant. Out of several varieties of morphological categorial forms the author chooses a less predictable or unpredictable one, which renders this form some stylistic connotation. The peculiar use of a number of grammatical categories for stylistic purposes may serve as an ample example of this type of expressive means.

The use of a present tense of a verb on the background of a past-tense narration got a special name historical present in linguistics.

E. g. What else do I remember? Let me see.

There comes out of the cloud our house... (Dickens)

Another category that helps create stylistic colouring is that of gender. The result of its deviant use is personification and depersonification. As Skrebnev points out although the morphological category of gender is practically non-existent in modern English special rules concern whole classes of nouns that are traditionally associated with feminine or masculine gender. Thus countries are generally classed as feminine (France sent her representative to the conference.) Abstract notions associated with strength and fierceness are personified as masculine while feminine is associated with beauty or gentleness (death, fear, war, anger - he, spring, peace, kindness - she). Names of vessels

and other vehicles (ship, boat, carriage, coach, car) are treated as feminine.

Another deviant use of this category according to Skrebnev is the use of animate nouns as inanimate ones that he terms "depersonification" illustrated by the following passage:

"Where did you find it?" asked Mord Em'ly of Miss Gilliken with a satirical accent.

"Who are you calling "it"?" demanded Mr. Barden aggressively. "P'raps you'll kindly call me 'im and not it". (Partridge)

Similar cases of deviation on the morphological level are given by the author for the categories of person, number, mood and some others.

Paradigmatic lexicologysubdivides English vocabulary into stylistic layers. In most works on this problem (cf. books by Galperin, Arnold, Vinogradov) all words of the national language are usually described in terms of neutral, literary and colloquial with further subdivision into poetic, archaic, foreign, jargonisms, slang, etc.

Skrebnev uses different terms for practically the same purposes. His terminology includes correspondingly neutral, positive (elevated) and negative (degraded) layers.

Subdivision inside these categories is much the same with the exclusion of such groups as bookish and archaic words and special terms that Galperin, for example, includes into the special literary vocabulary (described as positive in Skrebnev's system) while Skrebnev claims that they may have both a positive and negative styUstic function depending on the purpose of the utterance and the context. The same consideration concerns the so-called barbarisms or foreign

words whose stylistic value (elevated or degraded) depends on the kind of text in which they are used. To illustrate his point Skrebnev gives two examples of barbarisms used by people of different social class and age. Used by an upper-class character from John Galsworthy the word chic has a tinge of elegance showing the character's knowledge of French. He maintains that Itahan words ciao and bambino current among Russian youngsters at one time were also considered stylistically 'higher' than their Russian equivalents. At the same time it's hard to say whether they should ah be classified as positive just because they are of foreign origin. Each instance of use should be considered individually.

Stylistic differentiation suggested by Skrebnev includes the following stratification

PositiveIelevated

poetic;

official;

professional.

Bookish and archaic words occupy a peculiar place among the other positive words due to the fact that they can be found in any other group (poetic, official or professional).

Neutral

NegativeIdegraded

colloquial; neologisms;

jargon; slang;

nonce-words; vulgar words.

Special mention is made of terms. The author maintains that the stylistic function of terms varies in different types of speech. In non-professional spheres, such as literary prose, newspaper texts, everyday speech special terms are associated with socially prestigious occupations and therefore are marked as elevated. On the other hand the use of non-popular terms, unknown to the average speaker, shows a pretentious manner of speech, lack of taste or tact.

Paradigmatic syntax has to do with the sentence paradigm: completeness of sentence structure, communicative types of sentences, word order, and type of syntactical connection.

Paradigmatic syntactical means of expression arranged according to these four types include

Word order

Inversion of sentence members. Communicative types of sentences

Quasi-affirmative sentences: Isn't that too bad? - That is too bad.

Quasi-interrogative sentences: Here you are to write down your age and birthplace - How old are you? Where were you born?

Quasi-negative sentences: Did I say a word about the money (Shaw) = I did not say...

Quasi-imperative sentences: Here! Quick! = Come here! Be quick!

In these types of sentences the syntactical formal meaning of the structure contradicts the actual meaning implied so that negative sentences read affirmative, questions do not require answers but are in fact declarative sentences (rhetorical questions), etc. One communicative meaning appears in disguise of another. Skrebnev holds that "the task of stylistic analysis is to find out to what type of speech (and its sublanguage) the given construction belongs." (47, p. 100).

Type of syntactic connection

detachment;

parenthetic elements;

asyndetic subordination and coordination.

Paradigmatic semasiology deals with transfer of names or what are traditionally known as tropes. In Skrebnev's classification these

expressive means received the term based on their ability to rename: figures of replacement.

ALL figures of replacement are subdivided into 2 groups: figures of quantity and figures of quality.

Figures of quantity. In figures of quantity renaming is based on inexactitude of measurements, in other words it's either saying too much (overestimating, intensifying the properties) or too little (underestimating the size, value, importance, etc.) about the object or phenomenon. Accordingly there are two figures of this type.

Hyperbole

E. g. You couldn't hear yourself think for the noise.

Meosis (understatement, litotes).

E.g. It's not unusual for him to come home at this hour.

According to Skrebnev this is the most primitive type of renaming.

Figures of quality comprise 3 types of renaming:

• transfer based on a real connection between the object of nomination and the object whose name it's given.

This is called metonymy in its two forms: synecdoche and periphrasis. E. g. I'm all ears; Hands wanted.

Periphrasis and its varieties euphemism and anti-euphemism.

E. g. Ladies and the worser halves; Inever call a spade a spade, 1 call it a bloody shovel.

" transfer based on affinity (similarity, not real connection): metaphor.

Skrebnev describes metaphor as an expressive renaming on the basis of similarity of two objects. The speaker searches for associations in his mind's eye, the ground for comparison is not so open to view as with metonymy. It's more complicated in nature. Metaphor has no formal limitations Skrebnev maintains, and that is why this is not a purely lexical stylistic device as many authors describe it (see Galperin's classification).

This is a device that can involve a word, a part of a sentence or a whole sentence. We may add that whole works of art can be viewed as metaphoric and an example of it is the novel by John Updike "The Centaur".

As for the varieties there are not just simple metaphors like She is a flower, but sustained metaphors, also called extended, when one metaphorical statement creating an image is followed by another linked to the previous one: This is a day of your golden opportunity, Sarge. Don't let it turn to brass. (Pendelton)

Often a sustained metaphor gives rise to a device called catachresis (or mixed metaphor) - which consists in the incongruity of the parts of a sustained metaphor. This happens when objects of the two or more parts of a sustained metaphor belong to different semantic spheres and the logical chain seems disconnected. The effect is usually comical.

E. g. "For somewhere", said Poirot to himself indulging an absolute riot of mixed metaphors "there is in the hay a needle, and among the sleeping dogs there is one on whom I shall put my foot, and by shooting the arrow into the air, one will come down and hit a glass-house!" (Christie)

A Belgian speaking English confused a number of popular proverbs and quotations that in reality look like the following: to look for a needle in a haystack; to let sleeping dogs lie; to put one's foot down; I shot an arrow into the air (Longfellow); people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Other varieties of metaphor according to Skrebnev also include

Allusion defined as reference to a famous historical, literary, mythological or biblical character or event, commonly known.

E. g. It's his Achilles heel (myth of vulnerability).

Personification - attributing human properties to lifeless objects.

E.g. How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year! (Milton)

Antonomasia defined as a variety of allusion, because in Skrebnev's view it's the use of the name of a historical, literary, mythological or biblical personage applied to a person described. Some of the most famous ones are Brutus (traitor), Don Juan (lady's man).

It should be noted that this definition is only limited to the allusive nature of this device. There is another approach (cf. Galperin and others) in which antonomasia also covers instances of transference of common nouns in place of proper names, such as Mr. Noble Knight, Duke the Iron Heart.

Allegory expresses abstract ideas through concrete pictures.

E. g. The scales of justice; It's time to beat your swords into ploughshares.

It should be noted that allegory is not just a stylistic term, but also a term of art in general and can be found in other artistic forms: in painting, sculpture, dance, and architecture.

• transfer by contrast when the two objects are opposed implies irony.

Irony (meaning "concealed mоскеrу", in Greek eironeia) is a device based on the opposition of meaning to the sense (dictionary and contextual). Here we observe the greatest semantic shift between the notion named and the notion meant.

Skrebnev distinguishes 2 kinds of ironic utterances:

- obviously explicit ironical, which no one would take at their face value due to the situation, tune and structure.

E. g. A fine friend you are! That's a pretty kettle of fish!

- and implicit, when the ironical message is communicated against a wider context like in Oscar Wilde's tale "The Devoted Friend" where the real meaning of the title only becomes obvious after you read the story. On the whole irony is used with the aim of critical evaluation and the general scheme is praise stands for blame and extremely rarely in the reverse order. However when it does happen the term in the latter case is astheism.

E. g. Clever bastard! Lucky devil!

One of the powerful techniques of achieving ironic effect is the mixture of registers of speech (social styles appropriate for the occasion): high-flown style on socially low topics or vice versa.

Syntagmatic stylistics

Syntagmatic stylistics (stylistics of sequences) deals with the stylistic functions of linguistic units used in syntagmatic chains, in linear combinations, not separately but in connection with other units. Syntagmatic stylistics falls into the same level determined branches.

Syntagmatic phonetics deals with the interaction of speech sounds and intonation, sentence stress, tempo. All these features that characterise suprasegmental speech phonetically are sometimes also called prosodic.

So stylistic phonetics studies such stylistic devices and expressive means as alliteration (recurrence of the initial consonant in two or more words in close succession). It's a typically English feature because ancient English poetry was based more on alliteration than on rhyme. We find a vestige of this once all-embracing literary device in proverbs and sayings that came down to us.

E. g. Now or never; Last but not least; As good as gold.

With time its function broadened into prose and other types of texts.

It became very popular in titles, headlines and slogans.

E. g. Pride and Prejudice. (Austin)

Posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club. (Dickens)

Work or wages!; Workers of the world, unite!

Speaking of the change of this device's role chronologically we should make special note of its prominence in certain professional areas of modern English that has not been mentioned by Skrebnev. Today alliteration is one of the favourite devices of commercials and advertising language.

E. g. New whipped cream: No mixing or measuring. No beating or bothering.

Colgate toothpaste: The Flavor's Fresher than ever - It's New. Improved. Fortified.

Assonance (the recurrence of stressed vowels).

E.g. ...Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden; I shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore. (Рое)

Paronomasia (using words similar in sound but different in meaning with euphonic effect).

The popular example to illustrate this device is drawn from E. A. Poe's Raven.

E. g. And the raven, neverflitting, still is sitting, still is sitting Rhythm and meter.

The pattern of interchange of strong and weak segments is called rhythm. It's a regular recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables that make a poetic text. Various combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables determine the metre (iambus, dactyl, trochee, etc.).

Rhyme is another feature that distinguishes verse from prose and consists in the acoustic coincidence of stressed syllables at the end of verse lines.

Here's an example to illustrate dactylic meter and rhyme given in Skrebnev's book

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care, Fashion'd so slenderly Young and so fair.

(Hood)

Syntagmatic morphology deals with the importance of grammar forms used in a paragraph or text that help in creating a certain stylistic effect.

We find much in common between Skrebnev's description of this area and Leech's definition of syntagmatic deviant figures. Skrebnev writes: "Varying the morphological means of expressing grammatical notions is based... upon the general rule: monotonous repetition of morphemes or frequent recurrence of morphological meanings expressed differently..." (47, p. 146).

He also indicates that while it is normally considered a stylistic fault it acquires special meaning when used on purpose. He describes the effect achieved by the use of morphological synonyms of the genetive with Shakespeare - the possessive case (Shakespeare's plays), prepositional of-phrase (the plays of Shakespeare) and an attributive noun (Shakespeare plays) as "elegant variation" of style.

Syntagmatic lexicologystudies the "word-and-context" juxtaposition that presents a number of stylistic problems - especially those connected with co-occurrence of words of various stylistic colourings.

Each of these cases must be considered individually because each literary text is unique in its choice and combination of words. Such phenomena as various instances of intentional and unintentional lexical mixtures as well as varieties of lexical recurrence fall in with this approach.

Some new more modern stylistic terms appear in this connection-stylistic irradiation, heterostylistic texts, etc. We can observe this sort of stylistic mixture in a passage from O'Henry provided by Skrebnev:

Jeff, says Andy after a long time, quite unseldom I have seen Jit to impugn your molars when you have been chewing the rag with me about your conscientious way of doing business... (47, p. 149).

Syntagmatic syntaxdeals with more familiar phenomena since it has to do with the use of sentences in a text. Skrebnev distinguishes purely syntactical repetition to which he refers

parallelism as structural repetition of sentences though often accompanied by the lexical repetition

E. g. The cock is crowing, The stream is flowing...

(Wordsworth)

and lexico-syntactical devices such as

anaphora (identity of beginnings, initial elements).

E. g. If only little Edward were twenty, old enough to marry well and fend for himself, instead often. If only it were not necessary to provide a dowary for his daughter. If only his own debts were less. (Rutherfurd)

Epiphora (opposite of the anaphora, identical elements at the end of sentences, paragraphs, chapters, stanzas).

E. g. For all averred, I had killed the bird. That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!

(Coleridge)

Framing (repetition of some element at the beginning and at the end of a sentence, paragraph or stanza).

E.g. Never wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, settle everything somehow, and never wonder. (Dickens)

Anadiplosis (the final element of one sentence, paragraph, stanza is repeated in the initial part of the next sentence, paragraph, stanza. E. g. Three fishers went sailing out into the West. Out into the West, as the sun went down.

(Kingsley)

Chiasmus (parallelism reversed, two parallel syntactical constructions contain a reversed order of their members).

E. g. That he sings and he sings, and for ever sings he - I love my Love and my Love loves me!

(Coleridge)

Syntagmatic semasiology or semasiology of sequences deals with semantic relationships expressed at the lengh of a whole text. As distinct from paradigmatic semasiology which studies the stylistic effect of renaming syntagmatic semasiology studies types of names used for linear arrangement of meanings.

Skrebnev calls these repetitions of meanings represented by sense units in a text figures of co-occurrence. The most general types of semantic relationships can be described as identical, different or opposite. Accordingly he singles out figures of identity, figures of inequality and figures of contrast.

Figures of identity

Simile (an explicit statement of partial identity: affinity, likeness, similarity of 2 objects).

E. g. My heart is like a singing bird. (Rosetti)

Synonymous replacement (use of synonyms or synonymous phrases to avoid monotony or as situational substitutes).

E.g. He brought home numberlessprizes. He told his mother countlessstories. (Thackeray)

E.g. I was tremblyand shakyfrom head to foot. Figures of inequality

Clarifying (specifying) synonyms (synonymous repetition used to characterise different aspects of the same referent).

E. g. You undercut, sinful, insidious hog. (O'Henry)

Climax (gradation of emphatic elements growing in strength).

E. g. What difference if it rained, hailed, blew, snowed, cycloned? (O'Henry).

Anti-climax (back gradation - instead of a few elements growing in intensity without relief there unexpectedly appears a weak or contrastive element that makes the statement humorous or ridiculous).

E. g. The woman who could face the very devil himself or a mouse - goes all to pieces in front of a flash of lightning. (Twain)

Zeugma (combination of unequal, or incompatible words based on the economy of syntactical units).

E. g. She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief. (Dickens)

Pun (play upon words based on polysemy or homonymy).

E. g. What steps would you take if an empty tank were coming toward you ? - Long ones.

Disguised tautology (semantic difference in formally coincidental parts of a sentence, repetition here does not emphasise the idea but carries a different information in each of the two parts).

E.g. For East is East, and West is West... (Kipling) Figures of contrast

Oxymoron (a logical collision of seemingly incompatible words).

E. g. His honour rooted in dishonour stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

(Tennyson)

Antithesis (anti-statement, active confrontation of notions used to show the contradictory nature of the subject described).

E. g. It was the bestof times, it was the worstof times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,it was the epoch of belief, it was the era of incredulity,it was the season of light,it was the season of Darkness... Hope... Despair.(Dickens)

His fees were high,his lessons were light.(O'Henry)

An overview of the classifications presented here shows rather varied approaches to practically the same material. And even though they contain inconsistencies and certain contradictions they reflect the scholars' attempts to overcome an inventorial description of devices. They obviously bring stylistic study of expressive means to an advanced level, sustained by the linguistic research of the 20^th century that allows to explore and explain the linguistic nature of the stylistic function. This contribution into stylistic theory made by modem linguistics is not contained to classifying studies only. It has inspired exploration of other areas of research such as decoding stylistics or stylistic grammar that will be discussed in further chapters.

Practice Section

1. What is the relationship between the denotative and connotative meanings of a word?

Can a word connote without denoting and vice versa?

What are the four components of the connotative meaning and

how are they represented in a word if at all?

2. Expound on the expressive and emotive power of the noun thing in the following examples:

Jennie wanted to sleep with me - the sly thing! But I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night alone. (Gilman)

- I believe, one day, I shall fall awfully in love.

- Probably you never will, said Lucille brutally. That's what most old

maids are thinking all the time.

Yvette looked at her sister from pensive but apparently insou