The use of literary devices employed in the story in regard to the structure of complex sentences 


Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!



ЗНАЕТЕ ЛИ ВЫ?

The use of literary devices employed in the story in regard to the structure of complex sentences



In this subparagraph we will analyze the complex sentences stylistically on the syntactic level taking into account their structure and different kinds of relations that function between subordinate and matrix clauses.

There is a distinct correlation between the stylistic devices employed and different syntactic means by which they are expressed:

syntactic means of expression stylistic devices
reduction of the initial sentence model ellipsis, aposiopesis, nominative sentences, asyndeton, anapodoton
extension of the initial sentence model repetition, enumeration, amplification, tautology, polysyndeton, parenthesis
change of word-order inversion, detachment
interaction of syntactic structures in context parallel constructions, antithesis
transposition of meaning and connection of constituent parts rhetoric questions, parceling

 

Let us recount the peculiarities of the stylistic devices in regard to sentence structure in O'Henry's short story “The Gift of the Magi”.

Tautology is a stylistic repetition of language units [23]. For example:

1) You don't know what a nicewhat a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you. Here tautology is found within the object clause that carries a strong emotional charge.

2) She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. In this sentence, the repetition occurs within the attributive clause and also functions as an attribute to its antecedent. The tautology is used to describe that dull and insipid reality Della lived in.

Parenthesis is a phrase or clause of explanatory character that is inserted within a sentence to provide additional information [23]. For example:

1) For there lay The Combs - the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell, with jewelled rims – just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair.

This is an example of appositive parenthetic phrases expressed by noun and adjective phrase in the first and second sentences respectively.

2) The magi, as you know, were wise men - wonderfully wise men - who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger.

Polysyndeton is stylistically motivated redundant repetition of conjunctive words that modifies rhythmical organization of the sentence to highlight the most important information [23], for example:

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!" And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!" In this passage the coordinating conjunction and is used to dynamically recount the quick course of actions and the change in emotional state.

Inversion is an intentional diversion from the natural word-order of the sentence [23], as in these examples:

1) They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. This sentence opens with the object clause referring to the predicate of one of the coordinate clauses expressed by the verb of saying, while in the typical English sentence the object would always follow the predicate it modifies.

2) But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. According to the right word-order, secondary members of the sentence should follow, and not precede, the predicative line, which in this case is expressed by passive imperative form of a verb and pronoun “it”.

In both cases inversion helped to put a logical stress on certain parts of the sentences.

Rhetoric questions

A rhetoric question is a syntactical stylistic device based on the stylistic use of structural meaning. Although it is put in interrogative form, a rhetoric question poses no question per se; it is only used for the sake of dramatical effect rather than to elicit an actual answer (because it is obvious), for example: Eight dollars a week or a million a year - what is the difference?

Parallel constructions

As a stylistic device, parallelism represents two or more syntactic structures that have the same syntactic pattern [23]. The examples from the short story are:

1) In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. This isa complex sentence that includes two attributive clauses with parallel subordination.

2) Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. These are two complex sentences with adverbial clauses of condition that follow the same syntactical and logical pattern.

Parceling is intentional splitting of sentences into smaller parts separated by full stops [23].

There have been found three cases of parceling in the text:

1) But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

2) She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends - a mammoth task.

3) So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

In the examples given above the second sentences are, in fact, continuative clauses that refer to the first sentences as a whole.

Conclusion

In the chapter 2 there were outlined syntactic characteristics of complex sentences presented in O' Henry's style of writing. We've chosen “The Gift of the Magi” as a short story for our in-depth analysis.

The first paragraph characterized O' Henry's writing style in general.

In the subsection 2.1.1 we've briefly touched upon the main biographical facts

that may provide us with certain insight as to how the social environment shaped O'Henry's writing. The list of most prominent O' Henry's literary works is also included along with the topics he addressed.

In the subparagraph 2.1.2 there were represented the main features of O'Henry's writing style. We've outlined and exemplified six aspects typical of O'Henry's writing, namely: 1) a “surprise ending”; 2) attention to details combined with minimalism; 3) use of humor; 4) allusions; 5) slang; 6) puns & wordplay. Finally, we've defined a pattern which almost any of the writer's short stories seems to follow.

Subsection 2.1.3. is dedicated to the sentence structure peculiarities observed in O' Henry's short stories. It's been determined that many of the sentences don't have a very complicated structure which is explained by verbal economy of words due to the very nature of the genre. Different types of clauses and other syntactic features used in O' Henry's writing were also under consideration.

The second paragraph of the chapter focuses mainly on the syntactic analysis of the complex sentences represented in the short story "The Gift of the Magi" from the point of view of their type, structure, connective devices and semantical relations employed, as well as stylistic their value.

Subparagraph 2.2.1 makes a review of all of the sentence types that occur within the story. Subsection 2.2.2. is dedicated only to the analysis of complex sentences in the literary work. These two subparagraphs contain statistical data, which is represented in the form of pie charts. Our findings concerning the stylistic value of the complex sentences in connection to their structure are described in the last sebsection (2.2.3).

 

 

GENERAL CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE COURSE PAPER

 

Complex sentences constitute a huge part of our daily communication. Moreover, they can present such types of relations between clauses that simple or compound sentences simply cannot convey. The semantical relations of subordination are far more diverse than that of coordination.

Although a complex sentence is a polypredicative stucture that is organized on the basis of subordination with one clause playing the dominating role, the semantycal relations between the two clauses are far too complicated and depend on many factors.

These semantical features of complex sentences, which manifest themselves structurally, also create conditions for employing differet stylistic devices.

The present paper doesn't claim to be exhaustive concerning the ways the complex sentences function in modern English. However, we have taken a fresh perspective on different explanations of this grammatical phenomenon, its typology and the peculairities of its stylistic function in the narration. To sustain our theoretical assumptions we have carried out linguistical analysis of the short story "The Gift of the Magi" by O' Henry.

All these assumptions take us to one of the most important conclusions that can be drawn from this paper. It is that complex sentences are structurally, semantically and logically, one of the most flexible sentence types that is capable of conveying almost any kind of relation existent in language or human mind, which proves its highly polyfunctional nature.

Upon conducting the present research we fulfiled the following aims:

1) to give a survey of the most important aspects of the complex sentence as polypredicative structure;

2) to analyze and systematize different types of complex sentences;

3) to research the short story "The Gift of the Magi" by O' Henryin regard to the syntactic characteristics of complex sentences;

4) To identify main features typical of O' Henry's complex sentences which pertain to his style of writing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

1. Воронцова Г. Н. Очерки по грамматике английского языка. М., 1960.

2. Есперсен О. Философия грамматики. - М., 1958.

3. Иванова И. П., Бурлаклва В. В., Почепцов Г. Г. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка. - М., 1981

4. Потапенко С. І., Харитонов І. К. Сучасний англійський синтаксис. - Ніжин, 2005.

5. Почепцов Г. Г. Конструктивный анализ структуры предложения. - К., 1971.

6. Раевская Н. Н. Очерки по стилистической грамматике современного английского языка. - К., 1973.

7. Смирницкий А. И. Синтаксис английского языка. - М., 1957.

8. Харитонов І. К. Теоретична граматика сучасної англійської мови. - Ніжин, 1992, с. 64-65.

9. Шишкина Т. Н. Предисловие // О. Henry. Selected Stories. -М: Progress Publishers, 1977.-С. 3-26.

10. Aklile Alemu. Stylistic Analysis of Selected Short Stories By O. Henry: Master's Thesis / Addis Ababa University. - 2015.

11. Assefa Zeru. Style and Historical Meaning of Three Amharic Historical Novels: MA thesis. - Addis Ababa, 1996.

12. Blokh M.Y. A Course in English Theoretical Grammar. - M.: 1983, pp.303-311.

13. Bloom H. O.Henry: Comprehensive Research and Study Guide. Philadelphia, Penn: Chelsea House, 1999. - 63 p.

14. Brooks V. W. New York: O. Henry // The Confident Years: 1885-1915. -N. Y.: E. P. Dutton & Co, 1952.

15. Celce-Murcia М., Larsen-Freeman D. The Grammar Book. Boston, 1983. - 583 p. 156.

16. Cerf В., Cartmell V. Introduction // Best Stories of O. Henry. Garden City, N. Y.: The Sun Dial Press, 1945. - P. Vii-x.

17. Chalker S. English Guides 9: Linking Words. Harper Collins Publishers, 1996. - 214 p.

18. Clarkson P. S. A Bibliography of William Sydney Porter (О. Henry). Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1938.-161 p.

19. Collins COBUILD English Grammar. London and Glasgow, 1990. 485 p.

20. Current-Garcia E. О. Henry: A Study of the Short Fiction. - N. Y.: Twayne, 1993.

21. Current-Garcia E. O. Henry: A Study of the Short Fiction. N. Y.: Twayne, 1993. - xv, 189 p.

22. Davis R. H., Maurice A. B. The Caliph of Bagdad: Being Arabian Nights Flashes of the Life, Letters, and Work of O. Henry. N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, 1931. -xi, 411 p.

23. Dupriez B. M., Halsall A. W. A Dictionary of Literary Devices: Gradus, A-Z, Virginia.: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.

24. Evans W. "A Municipal Report": O. Henry and Postmodernism // Tennessee Studies in Literature. Vol. XXVI. - 1981. - P. 101 -116.

25. Forman H. J. O. Henry's Short Stories // O. Henry. Waifs and Strays: Twelve Stories by O. Henry. Together with a Representative Selection of Critical and Biographical Comment. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1925. - P. 275-278.

26. Forrest Lunn, Complex Sentences. An Analytical Grammar for Advanced ESL Students, - Florida.: 1995.

27. Fusco R. Maupassant and O. Henry // Maupassant and the American Short Story: The Influence of Form at the Turn of the Century. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.-P. 118-137.

28. Gates W. В. O. Henry and Shakespeare // Shakespeare Association Bulletin. Vol. XDi. - 1944. - January. - P. 20-25.

29. Iofic L. L., Chakhoyan L. P., Pospelova A. G. Readings in the Theory of English Grsmmar. - L., 1981.

30. Kramer D. The Heart of O. Henry. N. Y.: Rinehart, 1954. - 323 p.

31. Leech, G. and Short, M.H.Style in Fiction, London: Pearson Education Limited, 2007.

32. LongE. H. O. Herny. The Man and His Work. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949. - xi, 158 p.

33. LongE. H. O.Henry as a Regional Artist // Essays on American Literature. -Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1967. P. 229-240.

34. Luedtke, Luther S., and Keith Lawrence, "William Sydney Porter," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 78: American Short-Story Writers, 1880-1910, edited by Bobby Ellen Kimbel, Gale Research, 1989, pp. 288-307.

35. Marcus S. The Legacy of O. Henry: His Contribution to Popular Culture // Commentaiy. - 1954. - № 1 (Jan.) - P. 72-74.

36. MonteneiroG. Hemingway, O.Henry, and the Surprise Ending // Prairie Schooner. -Vol. XLVII. 1973-1974. -№ 4 (Winter). - P. 296-302.

37. Nolan J. O. Henry: The Story of William Sydney Porter. -N. Y.: J. Messner, 1943. vii, 263 p.

38. O'Connor R. O. Henry. The Legendary Life of William S. Porter. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1970. - x, 252 p.

39. O'Quinn Т. E., Porter J. L. Time to Write: How William Sidney Porter Became O. Henry. - Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1986.-х, 207 p.

40. Pattee F. L. O. Henry and the Handbooks // The Development of the American Short Story: An Historical Survey. N. Y.: Harper and Row, 1923. - P. 357-376.

41. Peel D. F. A Critical Study of the Short Stories of O. Henry // The Northwest Missouri State College Studies. Vol. XXV. - 1961. - № 4 (November 1). - P. 3-24.

42. Poupard D. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 19, 1986.

43. Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Svartvik J. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London, 1972. - 778 p.

44. Seelye J. William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) // GelfantB. H. The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story. N. Y.: Columbia University Press: 2000.-P. 462-468.

45. Smith А. С. O. Herny. Biography. N. Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1916. - ix, 258 p.

46. StuartD. O.Henry: A Biography of William Sydney Porter. Chelsea, Michigan: Scarborough House, 1990. - 267 p.

47. The Complete Works of О. Henry. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1953. -xvi, 1692 p.

48. VanDorenC. O.Henry // The Texas Review. Vol.11. - 1917. — №3 (January).1. P. 248-259.

49. Williams В. C. William Sidney Porter ("O. Henry") // Our Short Story Writers. - N. Y.: Dodd, Mead and Co, 1929. P. 200-222.

50. Woodward V. S. О. Henry's Use of the Malapropos and Related Devices: Master's Thesis / Stetson University. - DeLand, 1935.

51. Wren P.C., Martin H. High School English Grammar and Composition. S. Chand & Company Limited, 1995.



Поделиться:


Последнее изменение этой страницы: 2017-02-10; просмотров: 415; Нарушение авторского права страницы; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!

infopedia.su Все материалы представленные на сайте исключительно с целью ознакомления читателями и не преследуют коммерческих целей или нарушение авторских прав. Обратная связь - 44.222.104.49 (0.039 с.)