Lexico-syntactical stylistic devices: simile, periphrases, litotes.
Simile.This is a stylistic device consisting in partial imaginative comparison of two objects belonging to different classes. It consists of two components, the one which is compared is called the tenor, the one with which it is compared is called the vehicle. The two parts of simile are linked by such words as like, as...as, as though, such, etc. E.g. His flesh was like a blister you could prickle with a needle. (Gr.Gr.) Simile should not be confused with a logical comparison. The latter uses the notions belonging to the same class, in simile objects belonging to different classes are compared. Here the unimportant properties of the compared objects are not taken into account, only the quality which is essential for the speaker is taken. This feature is called the foundation of a simile. It may be mentioned explicitly, e.g. His muscles are hard as rock. (T.C.) In other cases it is not named directly, and it enriches the simile, because it involves the reader's imagination. When the foundation of the simile is not quite clear from the context, the author may give a key in which he explains what similarities led him to liken two different entities, e.g. The singing woman shut down — like a wireless set, the last sound was a wail and a vibration. (Gr.Gr.)
As time goes on, many similes lose their originality and become trite. This is observed in some traditional similes based on comparing various features of people's character or activities with the animals to which the given quality is attributed, e.g. sly as a fox, faithful as a dog, to swim like a duck, to work like a horse.
In some cases the link between the tenor and the vehicle is expressed by notional verbs such as toresemble, to remind, to appear,etc. Here we deal with a disguisedsimile, because the likeness between the objects seems less evident, and needs some effort to understand it, e.g. The ball appeared to the batter to be a slow spinning planet looming toward the earth. (B.M.)
Simile differs from metaphor: metaphor aims at identifying two unlike objects on the grounds of possessing one common characteristic, in simile two objects are compared on the grounds of similarity of some quality, while the objects are kept apart. E.g. She is a beautiful rose (metaphor) -she is like a beautiful rose (simile).
Litotes.This device makes use of negative constructions. Though one negation plus a noun or an adjective serves to establish a positive feature in a person or thing, this positive feature is a little diminished in quality as compared with a synonymous expression. Compare: He is no coward.— He isa brave man.These two phrases are not exactly the same, the construction with litotes is weaker in meaning. At the same time they possess additional connotation and admit of special interpretation.
A variant of litotes is a construction with two negations. In this case litotes is presented as a two-component structure in which these two negations are joined together to give evaluation, e.g. Heis not unkind.Such constructions are more definitive in meaning than the previous ones. But though they make the assertion more logically apparent, they lack precision. They may be regarded as deliberate understatements, whereas the structures that have only one negative are more categorical in stating the positive quality of a person or thing.
In stylistics litotes is mainly used to weaken the positive characteristic of the object, e.g. Julia was not dissatisfied with herself. (S.M.) In personages' speech it is used for conveying a reserved statement or ironical attitude to the object, e.g. "Suppose, "he said, "someone had got a line on him, forced him into this racket, as you forced Harbin to douhlecross... ". -"It'spossible". - "And they murdered him in case he talked when he was arrested". - "It's not impossible"(S.M.).
In scientific prose style it is used to convey carefulness in the expression of thought, e.g. // is not uncommon for grammarians to distinguish between these phenomena. ("Language") In poetry it is sometimes used to suggest that language fails to convey the poet's feelings and so he uses negations to express the inexpressible, as in the well-known Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare.
Periphrasis.This is a stylistic device consisting in replacing an object or phenomenon by the description of its most essential features. Periphrasis reinforces the expressiveness of speech, because it not only names the object, but also describes it in a round-about way. It is common knowledge that one and the same object may be identified in different ways and so have different appellations. A certain person may be denoted in different situations as "his benefactor", "this bore", "the miserable wreck", etc. These names will become clear only in a definite context, e.g. / understand you are poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my son, who has been so prematurely deprived of what can never be replaced. (D.) Here the underlined expression is a periphrasis for the word "mother". This is easily understood by the reader with the help of the given context.
Original periphrases created by writers can be divided into logical and figurative. Logical periphrasis is based on the logical connection of the round-about phrase with a specific feature of an object. In this case either a characteristic feature of an object is used instead of the name of the whole object (strong sex)or a wider notion is used for naming the concrete object or person (instrument of destruction - pistol, themost pardonable of humanweaknesses - love).Figurative periphrasis is based on the sustained metaphor or metonymy, e.g. the root of all evil- money; to tie the knot- to marry.
Both logical and figurative periphrases may be original, genuine and hackneyed, trite. In the latter case they become periphrastic synonyms to the words denoting the same object, e.g. the fairsex (women), my better half(wife). Periphrasis as a stylistic device is a new, genuine nomination of an object, it is an individual feature of the author's style. This is the process which realizes the power of language to coin new names for objects by disclosing some quality of the object, even though it may be passing, and making it alone to represent the object, e.g. / kept still and close to the tree, like a hunted piece of naturewilling myself to be the colour of bark and leaves and rain. (M.Sp.) Here the author vividly describes any wild animal in the forest by an image-bearing periphrasis, which conveys a purely individual perception of the described object.