Lecture 6. Lexical stylistic devices / tropes / figures of speech. Irony, humor, pun, parody.
Transferred meaning implies the substitution of the existing names approved by long usage and fixed in the d-s by new occasional ones, prompted by the speaker’s subjective original view and evaluation of things. This act of name-exchange is traditionally referred to as transference, for the name of the object is transferred onto another proceeding from the similarity (of shape, colour, functions etc) or closeness (of material existence, cause/ effect, instrument / result, part / whole relations etc). When the contextual meaning deviates from the acknowledged one to a degree that causes an unexpected turn in the recognized logical meaning, a transposition of the existing model, we register a stylistic device. This term is used in particular, by I. Galperin who analyses lexical stylistic devices in terms of 1) intentional mixing of the stylistic aspect of words (unrelated elements – lofty and colloquial - are brought together as if they were of the same stylistic aspect); 2) the interrelation of different types of lexical meanings; 3) intensification of a certain feature of a thing or phenomenon. The second group of SD may be based a) on the interaction of dictionary and contextual logical meanings maintained along 3 lines: on the principle of affinity or similarity (metaphor), on that of proximity or the same kind of association (metonymy) and on opposition (irony); on the interaction of primary and derivative logical meanings (polysemy, zeugma and pun); on the interaction of logical and emotive meaning (interjections, exclamatory words, epithet, oxymoron); on the interaction of logical and nominal meaning (antonomasia). In the third group of SD one of the qualities of the object in question is made to sound essential: simile, periphrasis, euphemism, hyperbole.
Another term for this phenomenon of transference is a trope. I. Arnold defines it as a lexical descriptively expressive means in which a word or word combination is used in transferred meaning; the nature of the trope consists in contrasting the notion, presented by the traditional use of the lexical unit and the notion presented by the same unit in the artistic speech where it performs a special stylistic function. I. Arnold subdivides tropes into purely lexical ones: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, metonymy, hyperbole, antonomasia, personification and irony; lexical and syntactical one, i.e. epithet (it is lexical because a word used in this function has emotional, expressive and other connotations reflecting the author’s /speaker’s attitude, it is syntactic because it functions as an attribute (silvery smile), adverbial modifier (to smile cuttingly) or appellation (my sweet!); half-marked structures, i.e. structures with violated lexical combinability (once below a time) or grammatical one (chips of when), among them oxymoron and holophrasis, an occasional use of the word combination or a phrase in the function of one sense unit (I-am-not-that-kind-of-girl look).
Yu. Skrebnev who considers the problem from the standpoint of paradigmatic and syntagmatic semasiology also uses the term “trope” as a basic term of paradigmatic semasiology covering all kinds of transfer of denominations”. Paradigmatic semasiology establishes the classification showing semantic types of transfer of names and logical laws underlying them. The multiplicity of concrete acts of renaming can be reduced to a strictly limited number of types that are realized either as a qualitative or as quantitative deviation from the accepted rules of naming. Thus, tropes are generally subdivided into qualitative tropes (outlining the difference between the usual meaning of a linguistic unit and its actual reference) and quantitative tropes (overestimation the dimensions of the object or undervaluing its size, importance etc. Qualitative tropes – metaphor, metonymy, irony; quantitative tropes – hyperbole, meiosis. Yu. Skrebnev calls all tropes figures of replacement because, according to him, every trope is really a replacement: the language user discards the usual name of the object and replaces it with another. Qualitative figures of replacement comprise three types of renaming coinciding with I. Galperin’s classification of SD based on the interaction of dictionary and contextual meanings: based on similarity, contiguity and contrast. Some other tropes are not included but implied in this classification: personification and allegory as types of metaphors, synecdoche as the most primitive kind of metonymy; litotes as a syntagmatic way of expressing meiosis. Epithet doesn’t match the system of paradigmatic semasiology, since it has syntactic limitations. As distinct from paradigmatic semasiology examining the stylistic value of renaming, syntagmatic semasiology deals with stylistic functions of relationship of names in texts, studies types of linear arrangements of meanings and classifies so called “figures of co-occurrence”. The interrelation of semantic units is unique in any individual text. But stylistics aims at generalization and discriminates the most general types of semantic relationships that can be reduced to three. 1) Meanings can be identical (linguistic units co-occuring in the text either have the same meaning or are used as names of the same object (thing etc); 2) meanings can be different (denoting different objects); 3) meanings can be opposite(the meaning of one of correlating units is incompatible with the meaning of another). The three types of semantic interrelations are matched by three groups of figures: figures of identity (simile, synonymic replacement), figures of inequality (climax or gradation), anti-climax (it’s a bloody lie and not quite true), pun, zeugma, tautology), figures of contrast (oxymoron, antithesis).
The term “figure” is used in the book on stylistics by I. Morokhovskiy, though he substitutes “figures of replacement and co-ocurrence” by “figure of convergence and substitution”.
Irony is also a SD / trope based on the simultaneous actualization of 2 logical meaning but these meanings stand in opposition to each other.. The subjectivity in metaphors, metonymies etc relies on the new and fresh look on the object, showing this object from new and unexpected side. In irony subjectivity lies in the evaluation of the phenomenon named. It is a foregrounding not of the logical but of the evaluative meaning. The ironical context is arranged in such a way that the word with a positive meaning is understood as negative qualification and sometimes vice versa. So irony is a SD in which the contextual evaluative meaning of the word is directly opposite to its dictionary meaning. Irony does not exist outside the context which varies from the minimum – a word combination (“She turned with the sweet smile of an alligator” – to the context of the whole text or extralingual situation. Sometimes irony represents utterances the ironical sense of which is evident to any native speaker, utterances that may have only ironical meaning. This types of irony is called antiphrasis: e.g. That’s a pretty kettle of fish! A fine friend you are! However the overwhelming majority of utterances can be understood either literally or ironically. The general situation, sometimes, inverted commas or italics, makes the reader guess the viewpoint of the author.
If it is possible to indicate the exact word whose contextual meaning diametrically opposes its dictionary meaning this is so called verbal irony. To translate verbal irony one should find the best equivalent to the word that shapes the contradiction. If the translated variant does not have an immediate antonym the translation looses the ironical effect and is considered unsuccessful. But in general this type of irony causes no particular problems for translation. To simplify the translator’s task, verbal irony can be overaccentuated by the repetition of an ironical word that strikes the reader’s eye. There are, though, cases when the opposition of evaluation is felt but we cannot put our finger on the exact word in whose meaning we can trace the contradiction between what is said and what is implied. The effect is created by a number of statements, by the whole text – sustained irony. It is formed by the contradiction of the speaker’s (writer’s) ideas and the generally accepted truth.
Both types of irony are characteristic of British and American (though not to the same degree) style. In particular, British quality papers favor both verbal and sustained metaphors but often give preference to the latter because it is more sophisticated and subtle. Nevertheless, cases of simple verbal irony are not rare.
However, even verbal irony is sometimes more complicated than a standard one. Verbal irony is not always based on the direct inner contradiction, when the reader feels an undercurrent with the opposite meaning behind an ironical word. The word just does not match with its surrounding as if it were from a wrong list. A word (or expression) may create an ironical effect because it adds a new unexpected shade to the generally accepted, even cliché phrase.
The ironical word is sometimes recognized only in a wider context, when the second sentence points out an ironical word in the first.
In rare cases the verbal irony is based on the negatively charged word that implies a positive meaning.
The sustained irony is one of the most important elements of the “readability formula” of the British newspaper. It often covers the whole article beginning with a headline and a lead. The sustained irony can be accentuated by the absurdity of the situation described, a word that is simultaneously used in two incompatible meanings, an untypical (marked) combination of words.
All substructures of the article including the headline can be ironical. However sometimes the sustained irony is understood only in the very article while a headline seems highly positive and a lead seemingly bans the ironical attitude towards the thing or person described.
Irony can be based on some words and expressions that have acquired the evident ironical connotation even taken out of the context: orate, oratorize, politico, speechify, speechification, speechifier, speechmaker, too clever by half, a young hopeful, mutual admiration society, to be left to the tender mercy of sb. These words and expressions have an inner ironical semantic component in their structure and form opposition to their neutral synonyms.
Irony and sarcasm, though both are ways of saying one thing and meaning another , go about their job differently. Sarcasm is broader and more deliberate in its reversal of meanings; Irony may be, and in literature is, rather fine. The patriarch Job is bitterly sarcastic when he replies to his comforters: (12.2) “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you”. On the other hand, Jane Austen, in the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice is dryly ironic when she writes, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.
Irony should not be confused with parody and imitation which are devices by which a literary work assumes an attitude towards its own predecessor. Parody lowers the level of the original, its stylistic register; it is a device of ridicule, though sometimes of self-ridicule. When Joyce parodies ancient Irish legends (as in the “Cyclops” chapter of “Ulysses”), he doesn’t separate ridicule of the past from contempt for the present. Parody, or a spoof, is a distinctive mark of a post-modernistic literature. Post-modernists use plays by other playwrights as launching pads for their own. E.g. Tom Stoppard: in his play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead” these two minor characters step out of the shadow of hamlet; the plot of his “Travesties” is entwined with that of O. Wilde’s “The Importance of being Earnest”; and “The Real Inspector Hound” parodies the classic country house murder-mystery play. The life of the very author can project a sad parody to his work: like his phantom character Earnest O. Wilde dies in the hotel in Paris, his body being discovered by the manager.
Irony cannot be confused with humor, because the latter always causes laughter while the former rather expresses feeling of irritation, displeasure, pity or regret.
The perception of English humour requires lot of knowledge, social competence and performance of numerous intellectual operations. English has many devices for rendering humour. There are a lot of humourous items in English, e.g. certain sound clusters (clank, squelch); some words of extraordinary form (skullduggery); even some small items of the English grammar (notwithstanding, whomsoever). Such elements have no humourous effect in themselves, but are extremely funny if they take a colouring from repeated use in jokes and comic narrative.
Prof. G. Pocheptsov in his monograph The Linguistic Foundations of Humour draws the borderline between situational and linguistic humour and defines pun as a stylistic device resulting in linguistic humour, i.e. nondiscrimination or confusion of certain linguistic items. In most general terms puns are the items of language that express wit and humour in a concise way. “Puns are language on vacation” (Ch. Morley); “To pun is to torture one poor word ten thousand ways”. As any other stylistic device it must depend on the context, though this context may be of a very expanded character, sometimes even as large as the whole work of emotive prose (the title of O. Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest” – seriously minded and a name). Devices of simultaneous realizing the various meanings are of a very subtle character and are extremely difficult for translating. Puns imply ironical attitude of the speaker towards the subject discussed or imaginary misunderstanding of the people who perceive only the direct meaning of the word. It is worth discriminating terms “pun” and ‘play on words”. In the case of puns we often deal not with a play on words but with a play on meanings of a single word, on collocations and even sentences. Puns can be roughly subdivided into the following types: 1) based on polysemantic words; 2) based on homonyms: a) homonyms proper – the same in sound and spelling; b) homographs – the same in spelling but different in sound; c) homophones – the same in sound but different in spelling. The former and the latter groups are sources of punning. Homophonic puns are pairs of words having the same sound but different meanings, e.g. rain /rein; need / knead. The homophonic pun is a form above all loved and practiced in the 19th c. Back to Shakespearian times, many comedies, histories and tragedies were full of homophonic puns. A typical sample is the phrase “and thereby hangs a tale” (Shakespeare “As you like it”), compare “And a Long Tale”, a fable of Mouse from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice”; 3) based on homophonoids or paronyms; 4) based on the violation of collocations; 5) based on the violations of phraseological units; 6) based on the figurative usage of words versus literal; 7) based on proper names; 8) bilingual puns; 9) structural puns.