Comment on the types and forms of speech used. Supply the language material to prove your point.

1. He walked hands in pockets across the River Grane and up towards the school where he remembered going to some tedious ceremony years ago. The place hadn’t changed at all. Nor had the ill-kept river bank with its row of shabby dwellings, nor the clumps of trees they so proudly called Barna Woods (Maeve Binchy “ The Copper Beech ”)

 

2. Nessa began to look at other people in a new light after this. Perhaps everyone had a huge love in their life, or something they thought was a huge love. Maybe Mr Kelly up at the school had fancied a night-club singer before he settled for Mrs Kelly. Maybe Nellie Dunne had once been head over heels in love with some travelling salesman who had come many years ago to Ryan’s Commercial Hotel, but who had married someone else. Maybe one of those old men in the commercial room had been Nellie’s heart’s desire.

It wasn’t so impossible (Maeve Binchy “ The Copper Beech”)

 

3. The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessary immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ. (O.Wilde “ The Picture of Dorian Gray ”)

 

4. It was true that Walter Streeter was interested in cathedrals. Lincoln cathedral had been the subject of one of his youthful fantasies and he had written about it in a travel book. And it was also true that he admired mere size and was inclined to under-value parish churches. But how could W.S. have known that? And was it really a sign of megalomania? And who was W.S. anyhow?

For the first time it struck him that the initials were his own. No, not for the first time. He had noticed it before, but they were such commonplace initials; they were Gilbert’s, they were Maugham’s, they were Shakespeare’s – a common possession. Anyone might have them. Yet now it seemed to him an odd coincidence; and the idea came into his mind – suppose I have been writing postcards to myself? People did such things, especially people with split personalities. Not that he was one, of course. <…>

 

The police found Walter Streeter slumped across the dining-table. His body was still warm, but he was dead. It was easy to tell how he died; for it was not his hand that his visitor had shaken, but his throat. Walter Streeter had been strangled. Of his assailant there was no trace. On the table and on his clothes were flakes of melting snow. But how it came there remained a mystery, for no snow was reported from any district on the day he died. (L.P.Hartley “ W.S. ”)

 

5. The boys at first were polite about the medals and asked me what I had done to get them. I showed them the papers, which were written in a very beautiful language and full of fratellanza and abnegazione, but which really said, with the adjectives removed, that I had been given the medals because I was an American. After that their manner changed a little toward me, although I was their friend against outsiders. I was a friend but I was never really one of them after they had read the citations, because it had been different with them and they had done different things to get their medals. I had been wounded, it was true; but we all knew that being wounded, after all, was really an accident. I was never ashamed of the ribbons, though, and sometimes, after the cocktail hour, I would imagine myself having done all the things they had done to get their medals; but walking home at night through the empty streets with the cold wind and all the shops closed, trying to keep near the street lights, I knew that I would never have done such things, and I was very much afraid to die, and often lay in bed at night by myself, afraid to die and wondering how I would be when I went back to the front again. (E.Hemingway “ In Another Country ”)

 

6. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, about last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in the forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.

(“What does ‘under the name’ mean?” asked Christopher Robin.

“It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it.”

“Winnie-the-Pooh wasn’t quite sure,” said Christopher Robin.

“Now I am,” said a growly voice.

“Then I will go on,” said I.)

One day when he was out walking, he came to an open place in the middle of the forest, and in the middle of this place was a large oak-tree, and, from the top of the tree, there came a loud buzzing-noise. (A.Miln “ Winnie-the-Pooh ”)

 

7. If you really to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they got me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all – I'm not saying that – but they're also touchy as hell. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. I mean that's all I told D.B. about, and he's my brother and all (J.Salindger. The Catcher in the Rye).

 

SEMINAR 13

PRACTICAL CLASS: STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE TEXT

SUGGESTED PATTERN OF LINGUO-STYLISTIC ANALYSIS

 

1. Information about the author which should provide a deeper insight into the message and style of the text under analysis.

 

2. The contents of the text in brief, main thematic lines and turns of the plot.

3. Composition of the text (and its partitioning into episodes and logical parts):

– exposition

– beginning of the plot/complication

– climax

– denouement

– concluding part (ending).

 

General character of the text

1) its slant/ vein/ tone (humorous, tragic, dramatic, ironical, satirical, romantic, poetic, matter-of-fact etc.);

 

2) type of narrative and narrator.

 

2) the choice of the point of view: the narrator’s;

the character’s (chief character’s or onlooker’s).

 

3) form of presentation (or the combination of forms):

a) the author’s plane: narration;

expository speech (meditations, digressions);

description: panoramic, general view, close up.

 

b) character’s plane: direct speech: conversation;

monologue;

dialogue.

 

c) reported (represented, non-personal direct speech): inner (unuttered).

outer (uttered).

 

5. Characters and type of characterization:

Direct (through description by the author or another character),

Indirect (through action and speech characteristics).

 

 

6. Stylistic effect and means employed:

Each compositional part, logical part, episode, form of presentation, form of characterization should be characterized from the point of view of its stylistic colouring and the means used to achieve it – choice of the vocabulary, syntactic constructions, tropes (metaphor, metonymy, simile etc) used.

Summing up – synthesis of the text.

Message of the text and leading stylistic means which are employed.

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