Стилистика английского языка

Т. А. Знаменская

Стилистика английского языка

Основы курса

Т. A. Znamenskay a

Stylistics of the English Language

Fundamentals of the Course

Москва • 2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Допущено УМО по профессионально-педагогическому

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1ЛТМНАЯ ВНБЛИОТ^А

 

УРСС

 

 

 

ББК81.2Англ-5я73

Знаменская Татьяна Анатольевна

Стилистика английского языка: Основы курса: Учебное пособие. М.: Едиториал УРСС, 2002. - 208 с.

ISBN 5-354-00231-1

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. Л. 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, пр-т 60-летия Октября, 9. Лицензия ИД №05175 от 25.06.2001 г. Подписано к печати 27.08.2002 г. Формат 60x84/16. Тираж 960 экз. Печ. л. 13. Зак. № 46.

Отпечатано в типографии ООО «Рохос». 117312, г. Москва, пр-т 60-летия Октября, 9.

f&if5-354-00231-l

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Едиториал УРСС, 2002

Contents

Preface..............................................................................

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics ⁹

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

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

List of Authors and Publications Quoted

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^</l century as functional, decoding and grammatical stylistics.

The material on the wealth of expressive means of English 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 communi­cation with different people. It explains why we adopt different uses of

 

Preface

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 Shinier 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.

1.1. Problems of stylistic research

Units of language on different levels are studied by traditional branches of linguistics such as phonetics that deals with speech sounds and intonation; lexicology that treats words, their mean­ing and vocabulary structure, grammar that analyses forms of words and their function in a sentence which is studied by syn­tax. These areas of linguistic study are rather clearly defined and have a long-term tradition of regarding language phenomena from a level-oriented point of view. Thus the subject matter and the material under study of these linguistic disciplines are more or less clear-cut.

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

It gets more complicated when we talk about stylistics. Some scholars claim that this is a comparatively new branch of linguistics, which has only a few decades of intense linguistic interest behind it. The term stylistics really came into existence not too long ago. In point of fact the scope of problems and the object of stylistic study go as far back as ancient schools of rhetoric and poetics.

The problem that makes the definition of stylistics a curious one deals both with the object and the material of studies. When we speak of the stylistic value of a text we cannot proceed from the level-biased approach that is so logcally described through the hierarchical system of sounds, words and clauses. Not only may each of these linguistic units be charged with a certain stylistic meaning but the interaction of these elements, as wtll as the structure and composition of the whole text are stylistically pertinent.

Another problem has to do with a whole set of special linguistic means that create what we call «style». Style may be belles-letters or scientific or neutral or low colloquial or archaic or pompous, or a combination of those. Style may also be typical of a certain writer-Shakespearean style, Dickensian style, etc. There is the style of the press, the style of official documents, the style of social etiquette and even an individual style of a speaker or writer—his idiolect.

Stylistics deals with styles. Different scholars have defined style differently at different times. Out of this variety we shall quote the most representative ones that scan the period from the 50ies to the 90ies of the20^tt century.

In 1955 the Academician V. V. Vinogradov defined style as «socially recognized and functionally conditioned internally united totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of lingual

■■

1.1. Problems of stylistic research

intercourse in the sphere of one national language or another...» (8, p. 73). In 1971 Prof. I. R. Galperin offered his definition of style «as a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication.» (36, p. 18).

According to Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev, whose book on stylistics was published in 1994, «style is what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts (an individual text) from all other groups (other texts)... Style can be roughly defined as the peculiarity, the set of specific features of a text type or of a specific text.» (47, p. 9). All these definitions point out the systematic and functionally deter­mined character of the notion of style.

The authors of handbooks on German (E. Riesel, M. P. Bran-des), French (Y. S. Stepanov, R. G. Piotrovsky, K. A. Dolinin), En­glish (I. R. Galperin, I. V. Arnold, Y. M. Skrebnev, V. A. Maltsev, V. A. Kukharenko, A. N. Morokhovsky and others) and Russian (M. N. Kozhina, I. B. Golub) stylistics published in our country over the recent decades propose more or less analogous systems of styles based on a broad subdivision of all styles into two classes: literary and colloquial and their varieties. These generally include from three to five functional styles.

Since functional styles will be further specially discussed in a separate chapter at this stage we shall limit ourselves to only three popular viewpoints in English language style classifications. Prof. I. R. Galperin suggests 5 styles for the English language.

1) belles-lettres style: poetry, emotive prose, and drama;

2) publicist style: oratory and speeches, essay, articles;

■■

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

1.1. Problems of stylistic research

 

3) newspaper style: brief news items, headlines, advertisements,
editorial;

4) scientific prose style;

5) official documents style.

Prof. I. V. Arnold distinguishes 4 styles:

1) poetic style;

2) scientific style;

3) newspaper style;

4) colloquial style.

Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev suggests a most unconventional viewpoint on the number of styles. He maintains that the number of sublanguages and styles is infinite (if we include individual styles, styles mentioned in linguistic literature such as telegraphic, oratorical, reference book, Shakespearean, short story, or the style of literature on electronics, computer language, etc.).

Of course the problem of style definition is not the only one stylistic research deals with.

Stylistics is that branch of linguistics, which studies the principles, and effect of choice and usage of different language elements in rendering thought and emotion under different conditions of communication. Therefore it is concerned with such issues as

1) the aesthetic function of language;

2) expressive means in language;

3) synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea;

 

4) emotional colouring in language;

5) a system of special devices called stylistic devices;

6) the splitting of the literary language into separate systems called
style;

7) the interrelation between language and thought;

8) the individual manner of an author in making use of the language
(47, p. 5).

These issues cover the overall scope of stylistic research and can only be representative of stylistics as a discipline of linguistic study taken as a whole. So it should be noted that each of them is concerned with only a limited area of research:

1. The aesthetic Junction of language is an immanent part of works
of art—poetry and imaginative prose but it leaves out works of
science, diplomatic or commercial correspondence, technical
instructions and many other types of texts.

2. Expressive means of language are mostly employed in types of
speech that aim to affect the reader or listener: poetry, fiction,
oratory, and informal intercourse but rarely in technical texts or
business language.

3. It is due to the possibility of choice, the possibility of using
synonymous ways of rendering ideas that styles are formed. With
the change of wording a change in meaning (however slight it
might be) takes place inevitably.

4. The emotional colouring of words and sentences creates a certain
stylistic effect and makes a text either a highly lyrical piece of
description or a satirical derision with a different stylistic value.
However not all texts eligible for stylistic study are necessarily
marked by this quality.

Chapter 1, The Object of Stylistics

5. No work of art, no text or speech consists of a system of stylistic
devices but there's no doubt about the fact that the style of
anything is formed by the combination of features peculiar to it,
that whatever we say or write, hear or read is not style by itself
but has style, it demonstrates stylistic features.

6. Any national language contains a number of «sublanguages» or
microlanguages or varieties of language with their own specific
features, their own styles. Besides these functional styles that are
rooted in the norm of the language there exist the so-called «sub­
standard» types of speech such as slang, barbarisms, vulgarisms,
taboo and so on.

7. Interrelation between thought and language can be described in
terms of an inseparable whole so when the form is changed
a change in content takes place. The author's intent and the
forms he uses to render it as well as the reader's interpretation
of it is the subject of a special branch of stylistics—decoding
stylistics.

8. We can hardly object to the proposition that style is also above
other things the individual manner of expression of an author in

his use of the language. At the same time the individual manner can only appear out of a number of elements provided by the common background and employed and combined in a specific manner.

Thus speaking of stylistics as a science we have to bear in mind that the object of its research is versatile and multi-dimensional and the study of any of the above-mentioned problems will be a fragmentary description. It's essential that we look at the object of stylistic study in its totality.

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

One of the fundamental concepts of linguistics is the dichotomy of «language and speech» (langue—parole) introduced by F. de Saussure. According to it language is a system of elementary and complex signs: phonemes, morphemes, words, word combinations, utterances and combinations of utterances. Language as such a system exists in human minds only and linguistic forms or units can be systematised into paradigms.

So language is a mentally organised system of linguistic units. An individual speaker never uses it. When we use these units we mix them in acts of speech. As distinct from language speech is not a purely mental phenomenon, not a system but a process of combining these linguistic elements into linear linguistic units that are called syntagmatic.

The result of this process is the linear or syntagmatic combination of vowels and consonants into words, words into word-combinations and sentences and combination of sentences into texts. The word «syntagmatic» is a purely linguistic term meaning a coherent sequence of words (written, uttered or just remembered). Stylistics is a branch of linguistics that deals with texts, not with the system of signs or process of speech production as such. But within these texts elements stylistically relevant are studied both syntagmatically and paradigmatically (loosely classifying all stylistic means paradigmatically into tropes and syntagmatically into figures of speech).

Eventually this brings us to the notions of stylistics of language and stylistics of speech. Their difference lies in the material studied.

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

1.3. Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics

 

The stylistics of language analyses permanent or inherent stylistic properties of language elements while the stylistics of speech studies stylistic properties, which appear in a context, and they are called adherent.

Russian words like толмач, штудировать, соизволять or English words prevaricate, comprehend, lass are bookish or archaic and these are their inherent properties. The unexpected use of any of these words in a modern context will be an adherent stylistic property.

So stylistics of language describes and classifies the inherent stylistic colouring of language units. Stylistics of speech studies the composi­tion of the utterance—the arrangement, selection and distribution of different words, and their adherent qualities.

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

1.4. Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

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 Morphology is 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 Syntax is 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 disci-

i \

Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics

1.5. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic colouring

 

plines 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.

Positive/elevated

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 Negative/degraded

colloquial; neologisms;

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

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

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.

 

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

E. g. Ladies and the worser halves; I never call a spade a spade, I 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.

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

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.

 

 

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

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 mockery», 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 offish!

— 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!

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

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)

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

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, never flitting, 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.).

ШШ

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

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 o/-phrase (the plays of Shakespeare) and an attributive noun (Shakespeare plays) as «elegant variation» of style.

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

Syntagmatic lexicology studies 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 sor of stylistic mixture in a passage from O'Henry provided by Skrebnev:

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

Syntagmatic syntax deals 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).

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

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)

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

 

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 numberless prizes. He told his mother countless stories. (Thackeray)

E. g. / was trembly and shaky from 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).

Mm

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

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 best of times, it was the worst of 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*^л century that allows to explore and explain the linguistic nature of the stylistic function. This contribution into stylistic theory made by modern 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?

Practice Section

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 insouciant eyes.

Is it? she said. Do you really think so, Lucille? How perfectly awful for

them, poor things! (Lawrence)

She was an honest little thing, but perhaps her honesty was too rational. (Lawrence)

So they were, this queer couple, the tiny, finely formed little Jewess with her big, resentful, reproachful eyes, and her mop of carefully-barbed black, curly hair, an elegant little thing in her way; and the big, pale-eyed young man, powerful and wintry, the remnant, surely of some old uncanny Danish stock... (Lawrence)

3. How do the notions of expressive means and stylistic devices
correlate? Provide examples to illustrate your point.

4. Compare the principles of classifications given in chapter 2.
Which of them seem most logical to you? Sustain your view.

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

Practice Section

 

Draw parallels between Leech's paradigmatic and syntagmatic deviations and Skrebnev's classification. Apply these criteria to the analysis of the use of brethren and married in the following examples. Consider the grammatical category of number in A and the nature of semantic transfer in B. Supply the kind of tables suggested by Leech to describe the normal and deviant features of similar character.

Comment on the kind of deviation in the nonce-word sistern in A and the effect it produces.

A. Praise God and not the Devil, shouted one of the Maker's male shills
from the other side of the room.

The criminal lowered his eyes and muttered at his shoes:

Ah cut anybody who bruise me with Latin, goddammit.

Listen to him take the Mighty name in vain, brethren and sistern! said

Reinhart. (Berger)

B. My father was still feisty in 1940— he was thirty years old and
restless, maybe a little wild beneath the yoke of my mother's family. He
truly had married not only my mother but my grandmother as well, and
also the mule and the two elderly horses and the cows and chickens and
the two perilous-looking barns and the whole rocky hundred acres of
Carolina mountain farm. (Chappel)

5. What kind of syntagmatic deviation (according to Leech) is observed in the following instance? What is the term for this device in rhetoric and other stylistic classifications? Where does it belong according to Galperin and Skrebnev?

And in the manner of the Anglo-Saxon poetry that was its inspiration, he ended his sermon resoundingly:

High on the hill in sight of heaven,

Our Lord was led and lifted up.

That willing warrior came while the world wept,

And a terrible shadow shaded the sun

For us He was broken and gave His blood

King of all creation Christ on the Rood.

(Rutherfurd)

6. What types of phonographic expressive means are used in the sentences given below? How do different classifications name and place them?

Стоп, now. I'm not bringing this up with the idea of throwing anything back in your teeth—my God. (Salinger)

Little Dicky strains and yaps back from the safety of Mary's arms. (Erdrich)

Why shouldn't we all go over to the Metropole at Cwmpryddygfor dinner one night?* (Waugh)

I hear Lionel's supposeta be runnin' away. (Salinger) Who's that dear, dim, drunk little man? (Waugh) No chitchat please. (O'Hara)

/ prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New York prayer... (Salinger)

* Here Cwmpryddyg is an invented Welsh town, an allusion to the difficult Welsh language.

 

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

Practice Section

 

Sense of sin is sense of waste. (Waugh)

Colonel Logan is in the army, and presumably «the Major» was a soldier at the time Dennis was bom. (Follett)

7. Comment on the types of transfer used in such tropes as metaphor, metonymy, allegory, simile, allusion, personification, antonomasia. Compare their place in Galperin's and Skrebnev's systems. Read up on the nature of transfer in a poetic image in terms of tenor, vehicle and ground: И. В.Арнольд Стилистика современного английского языка. М., 1990. С. 74-82. Name and explain the kind of semantic transfer observed in the following passages.

The first time my father met Johnson Gibbs they fought like tomcats. (Chappel)

/ love plants. I don't like cut flowers. Only the ones that grow in the ground. And these water lilies... Each white petal is a great tear of milk. Each slender stalk is a green life rope. (Erdrich)

/ think we should drink a toast to Fortune, a much-maligned lady. (Waugh)

...the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and potent spirit within him; something that struggled there like the Genius in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman. (Cather)

But he, too, knew the necessity of keeping as clear as possible from that poisonous many-headed serpent, the tongue of the people. (Lawrence)

Lily had started to ask me about Eunice. «Really, Gentle Heart», she said, «what in the world did you do to my poor little sister to make her skulk away like a thief in the night?» (Shaw)

The green tumour of hate burst inside her. (Lawrence)

She adjusted herself however quite rapidly to her new conception of people. She had to live. It is useless to quarrel with your bread and butter. (Lawrence)

...then the Tudors and the dissolution of the Church, then Lloyd George, the temperance movement, Non-conformity and lust stalking hand in hand through the country, wasting and ravaging. (Waugh)

When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see?

(Blake)

8. As distinct from the above devices based on some sort of affinity, real or imaginary, there are a number of expressive means based on contrast or incompatibility (oxymoron, antithesis, zeugma, pun, malapropism, mixture of words from different stylistic strata of vocabulary). Their stylistic effect depends on the message and intent of the author and varies in emphasis and colouring. It may be dramatic, pathetic, elevated, etc. Sometimes the ultimate stylistic effect is irony. Ironic, humorous or satiric effect is always built on contrast although devices that help to achieve it may not necessarily be based on contrast (e.g. they may be hyperbole, litotes, allusion, periphrasis, metaphor, etc.)

Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language

Some of the basic techniques to achieve verbal irony are:

• praise by blame (or sham praise) which means implying the
opposite of what is said;

• minimizing the good qualities and magnifying the bad ones;

• contrast between manner and matter, i. e. inserting irrelevant
matter in presumably serious statements;

• interpolating comic interludes in tragic narration;

• mixing formal language and slang;

• making isolated instances seem typical;

• quoting authorities to fit immediate purpose;

• allusive irony: specific allusions to people, ideas, situations, etc.
that clash discordantly with the object of irony;

• connotative ambivalence: the simultaneous presence of incom­
patible but relevant connotations.

Bearing this in mind comment on the humorous or ironic impact of the fo