Cliches for Stylistic Analysis

 

 

1. The title of the story... by (the name of the author).

2. The action takes place in....

3. The story is told in the first (third) person singular.

4. The main characters of the story are....

5. The author masterfully describes....

6. The author starts by telling....

7. The author begins with the event...

8. The knot of the intrigue in the story....

9. We understand the relation between the characters (their problems, emotional state, etc) when the author tells (describes the event...).

10. The events of the story are developing very swiftly (slowly).

11. The author continues by telling....

12. The story continues with the developing events of...

13. The story reaches its climax....

14. The peak of the conflict is the event (situation, etc).

15. The most emotional point of the story is....

16. This episode presents the climax of the story.

17. In depicting... the author resorts to a number of stylistic devices.

18. To make the language of the story more vivid the author uses the following SD.

19. Here we have 3 cases of simile.

20. Here the author employs a very picturesque epithet.

21. The author enhances the desired effect with the help of oxymoron (pun, etc).

22. This effect is strengthened with the epithet (periphrasis, etc).

23. This SD is used to represent the facts of reality more vividly.

24. Through the usage of these expressive means the writer reveals his own attitude to the main characters (tragedy of the situation).

25. The repetition of this phrase... carries a heavy stylistic weight.

26. This parallel construction emphasizes the dynamism of the actions.

27. The author leaves it to the reader to draw the final conclusions.

28.The message of this extract, to my mind, is....

29.I think the main idea of the story is....

30.Having read the story, we understand, that the author wanted to show (say)...

Приложение 6

 

Stylistic Devices

 

 

1. Metaphor - this term denotes expressive renaming on the basis of similarity of two objects: the real object of speech and the one whose name is actually used.

ex: The mind is an ocean. The city is a jungle

2. Personification – a metaphoric transference of meaning, concerning the cases where the author attributes human qualities to inanimate objects.

ex: "It was the lovely moon - she lifted slowly her wide brow"

3. Hyperbole - a purpose exaggeration of the meaning.

ex.: "I told you thousand times"

4. Litotes - a purpose understatement of the meaning

ex.: Not bad! (= very good)

5. Metonymy - is applying the name of an object to another object that is in some way connected with the first.

ex.: I like Pushkin.

6. Irony - is a stylistic device in which dictionary and contextual meaning stand in opposite to each other.

ex.: "How clever of you!" (we mean the opposite)

7. Zeugma - is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words in the context.

ex.: "She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief."

8. Pun - "play upon words" - is an amusing use of a word or a word phrase which has several meanings or which sounds like another word.

ex.: - Is life worth living?  - It depends on the liver.

9. Epithet - is an expressive attribute or adverbial modifier

ex.: "heart-burning smile", "wild wind"

10. Oxymoron-is a combination of 2 words in which the meaning of 2 words is opposite in sense.

ex.: "terribly beautiful", "sweet sorrow"

11. Antonomasia - is a stylistic device the basis of which is the usage of a proper name in the function of a common name. We also call these names token names or telling names.

ex.: This man is a real Don Juan.

12. Simile-is a stylistic device based on likeness between 2 things belonging to different classes.

ex.: "My brother looked like a funny puppy"

13. Periphrasis - denotes the use of a longer phrasing in place of possible shorter and plainer form of expression.

14. ex.: "My better half (my wife)

15. Inversion-is a change in the word order of the English sentence.

ex.: Down came the storm, and smote again.

16. Detached construction-is the placement of the secondary parts of the sentence so that they seem formally independent.

ex.: Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale and with fury in his eyes.

17. Parallel construction-is the placing of identical or similar syntactical structure in two or more sentences or parts of a sentence in close succession.

18. ex.: "There were real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real China cups to drink it out, and plates of the same to hold the cakes and toasts in."

19. Enumeration - is a stylistic device by which separate things, objects, phenomena, properties, actions are named one by one so that they produce a chain the links of which, being syntactically in the same position (homogeneous parts of speech) are forced to display some kind of semantic homogeneity.

ex. "The Harold gazed on a work divine

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells

Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine

And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells

From grey, but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells"

(Byron)

20. Repetition - is a general term to represent a group of stylistic devices, characterized by the use of the same word or a word group within one syntactical structure.

21. Suspense - is a compositional device which begins with the main word, then the subordinate parts are amazed at the beginning after it, the main idea is withheld till the end of the sentence.

ex.: "Mankind, says Chinese manuscript, which my friend was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first 70000 ages ate their meat raw.

22. Antithesis - is a name given to stylistic opposition. It is based on relative opposition, which arises out of the context through the expansion of objectively contrasting pairs.

ex.: “It was the best of times it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity …”

23. Asyndeton - is a grammatical structure, when the parts of the sentence, or between sentences are connected without any formal signs. It becomes a stylistic device if there is a deliberate omission of the connective where it is generally expected to be according to the norms of the literary language.

ex.: "Soams turned away: he had an utter disinclination for talk; like one standing before an open grave, watching a coffin slowly lowered."

24. Polysyndeton - is a stylistic device of connecting sentences, phrases,  syntagms or words by using connectives (mostly conjunctions and prepositions)  before each component part.

ex.: "The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect."

25. Ellipsis - is the omission of one or more members of the sentence, ex.: "So Justice Oberwaltzer - solemnly and didactically from his high seat to the jury."

26. Aposiopesis (Break-in-the Narrative) - is a stopping shot for rhetorical effect.

ex.: "You just came home or I'll..."

27. Rhetorical Question - is a special stylistic device the essence of which consists in reshaping the grammatical meaning of the interrogative sentences. In other words, the question is no longer a question, but a statement expressed in the form of an interrogative sentence. Thus there is an interplay of 2 structural meanings:

a. that is of the question

b. that is of the statement Both are realized simultaneously

ex.: "Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace?"

28. Onomatopoeia-is a combination of speech sounds which aims at imitating sounds in nature by things, people or animals.

ex.: wow-wow, mew-mew, too-too, etc

29. Alliteration-is a phonetic stylistic device the essence of which lies in the repetition of similar sounds.

ex.: "The possessive instincts never stand still. Through florescence and feud, frost and fires it follows the laws of progression."

30. Rhyme-is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words.

31. Rhythm-a strong pattern of sounds or words which is usually used in poetry.

 

 

Учебно-практическое издание

 

Прокудина Светлана Владимировна