Znamenskaya Stylistics of The English Language

Т.А.
Знаменская
СТИЛИСТИКА АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА
Основы КУРСА
•
Т. A. Znamenskaya
STYLISTICS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
FUNDAMENTALS OF THE COURSE
Допущено Министерством образования Российской Федерации в качестве учебного
пособия для студентов высших учебных заведений, обучающихся по специальности
030500 - Профессиональное обучение (по отраслям)
Издание второе, исправленное
Москва • 2004
ББК 81.2Англ-5я73
Знаменская Татьяна Анатольевна
Стилистика английского языка. Основы курса: Учебное пособие. Изд. 2-е, испр. -
М.: Едиториал УРСС, 2004. - 208 с.
ISBN 5-354-00659-7
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. А. 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, rrp-т 60-летия Октября, 9.
Лицензия ИД №05175 от 25.06.2001 г. Подписано к печати 20.01.2004 г. Формат
60x90I16. Тираж 1000 экз. Печ. л. 13. Зак. № 2-1229I427.
Отпечатано в типографии ООО "РОХОС".117312, г. Москва, пр-т 60-летия
Октября, 9.
ИЗДАТЕЛЬСТВО НАУЧНОЙ И УЧЕБНОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ E-mail:
URSS@URSS.ru Каталог изданий в Internet: http://URSS.ru
Тел.Iфакс: 7 (095) 135-42-16 Тел.Iфакс: 7 (095) 135-42-46
УРСС ISBN 5-354-00659-7
© Едиториал УРСС, 2004
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Contents
Preface................................... 7
Chapter 1. The Object of Stylistics . . ............... 9
1.1. Problems of stylistic research............. 9
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
Chapter 2. Expressive Resources of the Language........ 33
2.1. Expressive means and stylistic devices........ 34
2.2. Different classifications of expressive means .... 37
2.2.1. Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system...... 39
2.2.2. Stylistic theory and classification
of expresssive means by G. Leech...... 45
2.2.3. I. R. Galperin's classification of expressive means and stylistic devices........... 50
2.2.4. Classification of expressive means
and stylistic devices by Y. M. Skrebnev ... 57
Chapter 3. Stylistic Grammar.................... 87
3.1. The theory of grammatical gradation.
Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures . . 87
3.2. Grammatical metaphor and types of grammatical transposition.............. 89
3.3. Morphological stylistics. Stylistic potential of the parts of speech.................. 92
3.3.1. The noun and its stylistic potential..... 92
3.3.2. The article and its stylistic potential..... 95
3.3.3. The stylistic power of the pronoun...... 97
3.3.4. The adjective and its stylistic functions . . . 101
3.3.5. The verb and its stylistic properties..... 103
3.3.6. Affixation and its expressiveness....... 107
3.4. Stylistic syntax...................... 110
Chapter 4. The Theory of Functional Styles............ 122
4.1. The notion of style in functional stylistics..... 122
4.2. Correlation of style, norm and function
in the language...................... 124
4.3. Language varieties: regional, social, occupational . 127
4.4. An overview of functional style systems....... 131
4.5. Distinctive linguistic features of the major functional styles of English............... 142
4.5.1. Literary colloquial style............. 143
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4.5.2. Familiar colloquial style............ 145
4.5.3. Publicist (media) style............. 148
4.5.4. The style of official documents........ 150
4.5.5. ScientificIacademic style............ 153
Chapter 5. Decoding stylistics and Its Fundamental Notions . 160
5.1. Stylistics of the author and of the reader.
The notions of encoding and decoding....... 161
5.2. Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis
and types of foregrounding............... 164
5.2.1. Convergence................... 167
5.2.2. Defeated expectancy.............. 169
5.2.3. Coupling...................... 171
5.2.4. Semantic field.................. 174
5.2.5. Semi-marked structures ............ 177
Glossary for the Course of Stylistics................. 188
Sources................................... 201
Dictionaries................................ 203
List of Authors and Publications Quoted .............. 204
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.
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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 20th century as
functional, decoding
and grammatical stylistics.
The material on the wealth of expressive means of EngUsh 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 communi-cation with different people. It explains why we adopt different uses
of
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 Shimer College of Chicago, a lecturer in English and
American literature S. Sklar.
CHAPTER1
The Object of Stylistics
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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.
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 logically 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
well 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 the 20th 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
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.
5
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;
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 function 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.
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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.
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
"substandard" 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
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
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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.
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.
1.3. Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics
Literary and linguistic stylistics
According to the type of stylistic research we can distinguish literary stylistics and lingua-
stylistics. They have some meeting points or links in that they have common objects of
research. Consequently they have certain areas of cross-reference. Both study the common
ground of:
1) the literary language from the point of view of its variability;
2) the idiolect (individual speech) of a writer;
3) poetic speech that has its own specific laws.
• Functional styles (in their development and current state).
• The linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language, their systematic character
and their functions.
Literary stylistics is focused on
• The composition of a work of art.
• Various literary genres.
• The writer's outlook.
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
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.
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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-
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
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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.
1.5. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic colouring
Speaking of the notion of style and stylistic colouring we cannot avoid the problem of the
norm and neutrality and stylistic colouring in contrast to it.
Most scholars abroad and in this country giving definitions of style come to the conclusion
that style may be defined as deviation from the lingual norm. It means that what is
stylistically conspicuous, stylistically relevant or stylistically coloured is a departure from
the norm of a given national language. (G. Leech, M. Riffaterre, M. Halliday, R. Jacobson
and others).
There are authors who object to the use of the word "norm" for various reasons. Thus Y. M.
Skrebnev argues that since we acknowledge the existence of a variety of sublanguages
within a national language we should also acknowledge that each of them has a norm of its
own. So the sentence "I haven't ever done anything" (or "I don't know anything") as
juxtaposed to the sentence "I ain't never done nothing" ("I don't know nothing") is not the
norm itself but merely conforms to the literary norm.
The second sentence ("I ain't never done nothing") most certainly deviates from the literary
norm (from standard English) but if fully conforms to the requirements of the uncultivated
part of the English speaking population who merely have their own conception
of the norm. So Skrebnev claims there are as many norms as there are sublanguages. Each
language is subject to its own norm. To reject this would mean admitting abnormality of
everything that is not neutral. Only ABC-books and texts for foreigners would be
considered "normal". Everything that has style, everything that demonstrates peculiarities of
whatever kind would be considered abnormal, including works by Dickens, Twain,
О'Henry, Galsworthy and so on (47, pp. 21-22).
For all its challenging and defiant character this argument seems to contain a grain of truth
and it does stand to reason that what we often call "the norm" in terms of stylistics would be
more appropriate to call "neutrality".
Since style is the specificity of a sublanguage it is self-evident that non-specific units of it
do not participate in the formation of its style; units belonging to all the sublanguages are
stylistically neutral. Thus we observe an opposition of stylistically coloured specific
elements to stylistically neutral non-specific elements.
The stylistic colouring is nothing but the knowledge where, in what particular type of
communication, the unit in question is current. On hearing for instance the above-cited
utterance "I don't know nothing" ("I ain't never done nothing") we compare it with what we
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know about standard and non-standard forms of English and this will permit us to pass
judgement on what we have heard or read.
Professor Howard M. Mims of Cleveland State University did an accurate study of
grammatical deviations found in American English that he terms vernacular (non-standard)
variants (44). He made a list of 20 grammatical forms which he calls relatively common and
some
of them are so frequent in every-day speech that you hardly register them as deviations
from the norm, e.g. They ready to go instead of They are ready to go; Joyce has fifty cent in
her bank account instead of Joyce has fifty cents in her bank account; My brother, he's a
doctor instead of My brother is a doctor, He don't know nothing instead of He doesn't know
anything.
The majority of the words are neutral. Stylistically coloured words-bookish, solemn, poetic,
official or colloquial, rustic, dialectal, vulgar - have each a kind of label on them showing
where the unit was "manufactured", where it generally belongs.
Within the stylistically coloured words there is another opposition between formal
vocabulary and informal vocabulary.
These terms have many synonyms offered by different authors. Roman Jacobson described
this opposition as casual and non-casual, other terminologies name them as bookish and
colloquial or formal and informal, correct and common.
Stylistically coloured words are limited to specific conditions of communication. If you
isolate a stylistically coloured word it will still preserve its label or "trade-mark" and have
the flavour of poetic or artistic colouring.
You're sure to recognise words like decease, attire, decline (a proposal) as bookish and
distinguish die, clothes, refuse as neutral while such units as snuff it, rags (togs), turn down
will immediately strike you as colloquial or informal.
In surveying the units commonly called neutral can we assert that they only denote without
connoting? That is not completely true.
If we take stylistically neutral words separately, we may call them neutral without doubt.
But occasionally in a certain context, in a specific distribution one of many implicit
meanings of a word we normally consider neutral may prevail. Specific distribution may
also create unexpected additional colouring of a generally neutral word. Such stylistic
connotation is called occasional.
Stylistic connotations may be inherent or adherent. Stylistically coloured words possess
inherent stylistic connotations. Stylistically neutral words will have only adherent
(occasional) stylistic connotations acquired in a certain context.
A luxury hotel for dogs is to be opened at Lima, Peru a city of 30.000 dogs. The. furry
guests will have separate hygienic kennels, top medical care and high standard cuisine,
including the best bones. (Mailer)
Two examples from this passage demonstrate how both stylistically marked and neutral
words may change their colouring due to the context:
cuisine -> inherently formal (bookish, high-flown);
-> adherent connotation in the context - lowered/humorous; bones -> stylistically
neutral;
-> adherent connotation in the context - elevated/humorous.
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1.6. Stylistic function notion
Like other linguistic disciplines stylistics deals with the lexical, grammatical, phonetic and
phraseological data of the language. However there is a distinctive difference between
stylistics and the
other linguistic subjects. Stylistics does not study or describe separate linguistic units like
phonemes or words or clauses as such. It studies their stylistic function. Stylistics is
interested in the expressive potential of these units and their interaction in a text.
Stylistics focuses on the expressive properties of linguistic units, their functioning and
interaction in conveying ideas and emotions in a certain text or communicative context.
Stylistics interprets the opposition or clash between the contextual meaning of a word and
its denotative meaning.
Accordingly stylistics is first and foremost engaged in the study of connotative meanings.
In brief the semantic structure (or the meaning) of a word roughly consists of its
grammatical meaning (noun, verb, adjective) and its lexical meaning. Lexical meaning can
further on be subdivided into denotative (linked to the logical or nominative meaning) and
connotative meanings. Connotative meaning is only connected with extra-linguistic
circumstances such as the situation of communication and the participants of
communication. Connotative meaning consists of four components:
1) emotive;
2) evaluative;
3) expressive;
4) stylistic.
A word is always characterised by its denotative meaning but not necessarily by
connotation. The four components may be all presentat once, or in different combinations
or they may not be found in the word at all.
1. Emotive connotations express various feelings or emotions. Emotions differ from
feelings. Emotions like joy, disappointment, pleasure, anger, worry, surprise are more
short-lived. Feelings imply a more stable state, or attitude, such as love, hatred, respect,
pride, dignity, etc. The emotive component of meaning may be occasional or usual (i.e.
inherent and adherent).
It is important to distinguish words with emotive connotations from words, describing or
naming emotions and feelings like anger or fear, because the latter are a special vocabulary
subgroup whose denotative meanings are emotions. They do not connote the speaker's state
of mind or his emotional attitude to the subject of speech.
Thus if a psychiatrist were to say You should be able to control feelings of anger,
impatience and disappointment dealing with a child as a piece of advice to young parents
the sentence would have no emotive power. It may be considered stylistically neutral.
On the other hand an apparently neutral word like big will become charged with emotive
connotation in a mother's proud description of her baby: He is a BIG boy already!
2. The evaluative component charges the word with negative, positive, ironic or other types
of connotation conveying the speaker's attitude in relation to the object of speech. Very
often this component is a part of the denotative meaning, which comes to the fore in a
specific context.
The verb to sneak means "to move silently and secretly, usu. for a bad purpose" (8). This
dictionary definition makes the evaluative component bad quite explicit. Two derivatives a
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sneak and sneaky have both preserved a derogatory evaluative connotation. But the negative
component disappears though in still another derivative sneakers (shoes with a soft sole). It
shows that even words of the same root may either have or lack an evaluative component in
their inner form.
3. Expressive connotation either increases or decreases the expressiveness of the message.
Many scholars hold that emotive and expressive components cannot be distinguished but
Prof. I. A. Arnold maintains that emotive connotation always entails expressiveness but not
vice versa. To prove her point she comments on the example by A. Hornby and R. Fowler
with the word "thing" applied to a girl (4, p. 113).
When the word is used with an emotive adjective like "sweet" it becomes emotive itself:
"She was a sweet little thing". But in other sentences like "She was a small thin delicate
thing with spectacles", she argues, this is not true and the word "thing" is definitely
expressive but not emotive.
Another group of words that help create this expressive effect are the so-called
"intensifiers", words like "absolutely, frightfully, really, quite", etc.
4. Finally there is stylistic connotation. A word possesses stylistic connotation if it belongs
to a certain functional style or a specific layer of vocabulary (such as archaisms, barbarisms,
slang, jargon, etc). stylistic connotation is usually immediately recognizable.
Yonder, slumber, thence immediately connote poetic or elevated writing.
Words like price index or negotiate assets are indicative of business language.
This detailed and systematic description of the connotative meaning of a word is suggested
by the Leningrad school in the works of Prof. I. V. Arnold, Z. Y. Turayeva, and others.
Gaiperin operates three types of lexical meaning that are stylistically relevant - logical,
emotive and nominal. He describes the stylistic colouring of words in terms of the
interaction of these types of lexical meaning. Skrebnev maintains that connotations only
show to what part of the national language a word belongs - one of the sub-languages
(functional styles) or the neutral bulk. He only speaks about the stylistic component of the
connotative meaning.
Practice Section
1. Comment on the notions of style and sublanguages in the national language.
2. What are the interdisciplinary links of stylistics and other linguistic subjects such as
phonetics, lexicology, grammar, and semasiology? Provide examples.
How does stylistics differ from them in its subject-matter and fields of study?
3. Give an outline of the stylistic differentiation of the national English vocabulary: neutral,
literary, colloquial layers of words;
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areas of their overlapping. Describe literary and common colloquial stratums of vocabulary,
their stratification.
4. How does stylistic colouring and stylistic neutrality relate to inherent and adherent
stylistic connotation?
5. Can you distinguish neutral, formal and informal among the following groups of words.
A В С
1. currency money dough
2. to talk to converse to chat
3. to chow to eat to dine
down
4. to start to commence to kick off
5. insane nuts mentally ill
6. spouse hubby husband
7. to leave to withdraw to shoot off
geezer senior citizen old man
9. veracious opens sincere
10. mushy emotional sentimental
6. What kind of adherent stylistic meaning appears in the otherwise neutral word feeling?
I've got no feeling paying interest, provided that it's reasonable. (Shute) I've got no feeling
against small town life. I rather like it. (Shute)
7. To what stratum of vocabulary do the words in bold type in the following sentences
belong stylistically? Provide neutral or colloquial variants for them:
I expect you've seen my hand often enough coming out with the grub. (Waugh)
She betrayed some embarrassment when she handed Paul the tickets, and a hauteur which
subsequently made her feel very foolish. (Gather)
I must be off to my digs. (Waugh)
When the old boy popped off he left Philbrick everything, except a few books to Gracie.
(Waugh)
He looked her over and decided that she was not appropriately dressed and must be a fool
to sit downstairs in such togs. (Cather)
It was broken at length by the arrival of Flossie, splendidly attired in magenta and green.
(Waugh)
8. Consider the following utterances from the point Of view of the grammatical norm. What
elements can be labelled as deviations from standard English? How do they comply with
the norms of colloquial English according to Mims and Skrebnev?
Sita decided that she would lay down in the dark even if Mrs. Waldvogel came in and bit
her. (Erdrich)
Always popular with the boys, he was, even when he was so full he couldn't hardly fight.
(Waugh)
...he used to earn five pound a night... (Waugh)
I wouldn't sell it not for a hundred quid, I wouldn't. (Waugh)
There was a rapping at the bedroom door. "I'll learn that Luden Sorrels to tomcat."
(Chappel)
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9. How does the choice of words in each case contribute to the stylistic character of the
following passages? How would you define their functional colouring in terms of technical,
poetic, bookish, commercial, dialectal, religious, elevated, colloquial, legal or other style?
Make up lists of words that create this tenor in the texts given below.
Whilst humble pilgrims lodged in hospices, a travelling knight would normally stay with a
merchant. (Rutherfurd)
Fo' what you go by dem, eh? W'y not keep to yo'self? Dey don' want you, dey don' care fo'
you. H' ain' you got no sense? (Dunbar-Nelson)
They sent me down to the aerodrome next morning in a car. I made a check over the
machine, cleaned filters, drained sumps, swept out the cabin, and refuelled. Finally I took
off at about ten thirty for the short flight down to Batavia across the Sunda straits, and
found the aerodrome and came on to the circuit behind the Constellation of K. L. M.
(Shute)
We ask Thee, Lord, the old man cried, to look after this childt. Fatherless he is. But what
does the earthly father matter before Thee? The childt is Thine, he is Thy childt, Lord, what
father has a man but Thee? (Lawrence)
- We are the silver band the Lord bless and keep you, said the stationmaster in one breath,
the band that no one could beat whatever but two indeed in the Eisteddfod that for all
North Wales was look you.
I see, said the Doctor; I see. That's splendid. Well, will you please go into your tent, the
little tent over there.
To march about you would not like us? Suggested the stationmaster, we have a fine
flaglook you that embroidered for us was in silks. (Waugh)
The evidence is perfectly clear. The deceased woman was unfaithful to her husband during
his absence overseas and gave birth to a child out of wedlock.
Her husband seemed to behave with commendable restraint and wrote nothing to her which
would have led her to take her life... The deceased appears to have been the victim of her
own conscience and as the time for the return of her husband drew near she became
menially upset. I find that the deceased committed suicide while the balance of her mind
was temporarily deranged. (Shute)
I say, I've met an awful good chap called Miles. Regular topper. You know, pally. That's
what I like about a really decent party - you meet such topping fellows. I mean some chaps
it takes absolutely years to know, but a chap like Miles I feel is a pal straight away.
(Waugh)
She sang first of the birth of love in the hearts of a boy and a girl. And on the topmost spray
of the Rose-tree there blossomed a marvellous rose, petal following petal, as song followed
song. Pale was it, at first as the mist that hangs over the river - pale as the feet of the
morning. (Wilde)
He went slowly about the corridors, through the writing - rooms, smoking-rooms,
reception-rooms, as though he were exploring the chambers of an enchanted palace, built
and peopled for him alone.
When he reached the dining-room he sat down at a table near a window.
The flowers, the white linen, the many-coloured wine-glasses, the gay toilettes of the
women, the low popping of corks, the undulating repetitions of the Blue Danube from the
orchestra, all flooded Paul's dream with bewildering radiance. (Cather)
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CHAPTER 2
Expressive Resources of the Language
Expressive means and stylistic devices. Different classifications of expressive means
and stylistic devices from antique to modern times.
In my reading of modern French novels I had acquired the habit of underlining expressions,
which struck me as aberrant from general usage, and it often happened that the underlined
passages taken together seemed to offer a certain consistency. I wondered if it would be
possible to establish a common denominator for all or most of these deviations, could we
find a common spiritual etymon or the psychological root of 'several' individual 'traits of
style' in a writer.
Leo Spitzer: Linguistics and Literary History
2.1. Expressive means and stylistic devices Expressive means
Expressive means of a language are those linguistic forms and properties that have the
potential to make the utterance emphatic or expressive. These can be found on all levels -
phonetic, graphical, morphological, lexical or syntactical.
Expressive means and stylistic devices have a lot in common but they are not completely
synonymous. All stylistic devices belong to expressive means but not all expressive means
are stylistic devices. Phonetic phenomena such as vocal pitch, pauses, logical stress, and
drawling, or staccato pronunciation are all expressive without being stylistic devices
Morphological forms like diminutive suffixes may have an expressive effect: girlie, piggy,
doggy, etc. An unexpected use of the author's nonce words like: He glasnosted his love
affair with this movie star (People) is another example of morphological expressive means.
Lexical expressive means may be illustrated by a special group of intensifiers - awfully,
terribly, absolutely, etc. or words that retain their logical meaning while being used
emphatically: It was a very special evening/event/gift.
There are also special grammatical forms and syntactical patterns attributing
expressiveness, such as: I do know you! I'm really angry with that dog of yours! That you
should deceive me! If only I could help you!
Stylistic devices
A stylistic device is a literary model in which semantic and structural features are blended
so that it represents a generalised pattern.
Prof. I. R. Galperin calls a stylistic device a generative model when through frequent use a
language fact is transformed into a stylistic device. Thus we may say that some expressive
means have evolved into stylistic devices which represent a more abstract form or set of
forms. A stylistic device combines some general semantic meaning with a certain linguistic
form resulting in stylistic effect. It is like an algorithm employed for an expressive purpose.
For example, the interplay, interaction, or clash of the dictionary and contextual meanings
of words will bring about such stylistic devices as metaphor, metonymy or irony.
The nature of the interaction may be affinity (likeness by nature), proximity (nearness in
place, time, order, occurrence, relation) or contrast (opposition).
Respectively there is metaphor based on the principle of affinity, metonymy based on
proximity and irony based on opposition.
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The evolution of a stylistic device such as metaphor could be seen from four examples that
demonstrate this linguistic mechanism (interplay of dictionary and contextual meaning
based on the principle of affinity):
1. My new dress is as pink as this flower: comparison (ground for comparison - the colour
of the flower).
2. Her cheeks were as red as a tulip: simile (ground for simile -
colour/beauty/health/freshness)
3. She is a real flower: metaphor (ground for metaphor - frail/
fragrant/tender/beautiful/helpless...).
My love is a red, red rose: metaphor (ground for metaphor - passionateIbeautifulIstrong...).
4. Ruby lips, hair of gold, snow-white skin: trite metaphors so frequently employed that
they hardly have any stylistic power left because metaphor dies of overuse. Such metaphors
are also called hackneyed or even dead.
A famous literary example of an author's defiance against immoderate use of trite
metaphors is W. Shakespeare's Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
The more unexpected, the less predictable is the ground for comparison the more expressive
is the metaphor which in this case got a special name of genuine or authentic metaphor.
Associations suggested by the genuine metaphor are varied, not limited to any definite
number and stimulated by the individual experience or imagination.
2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

In spite of the belief that rhetoric is an outmoded discipline it is in rhetoric that we find
most of the terms contemporary stylistics generally employs as its metalanguage. Rhetoric
is the initial source of information about metaphor, metonymy, epithet, antithesis, chiasmus,
anaphora and many more. The classical rhetoric gave us still widely used terms of tropes
and figures of speech.
That is why before looking into the new stylistic theories and findings it's good to look back
and see what's been there for centuries. The problems of language in antique times became
a concern of scholars because of the necessity to comment on literature and poetry. This
necessity was caused by the fact that mythology and lyrical poetry was the study material
on which the youth was brought up, taught to read and write and generally educated.
17
Analysis of literary texts helped to transfer into the sphere of oratorical art the first
philosophical notions and concepts.
The first linguistic theory called sophistry appeared in the fifth century 3. C. Oration played
a paramount role in the social and political life of Greece so the art of rhetoric developed
into a school.
Antique tradition ascribes some of the fundamental rhetorical notions to the Greek
philosopher Gorgius (483-375 В. C). Together with another scholar named Trasimachus
they created the first school of rhetoric whose principles were later developed by Aristotle
(384-322 В. C.) in his books "Rhetoric" and "Poetics".
Aristotle differentiated literary language and colloquial language. This first theory of style
included 3 subdivisions:
• the choice of words;
• word combinations;
• figures.
1. The choice of words included lexical expressive means such as foreign words, archaisms,
neologisms, poetic words, nonce words and metaphor.
2. Word combinations involved 3 things:
a) order of words;
b) word-combinations;
c) rhythm and period (in rhetoric, a complete sentence).
3. Figures of speech. This part included only 3 devices used by the antique authors always
in the same order:
a) antithesis;
b) assonance of colons;
c) equality of colons.
A colon in rhetoric means one of the sections of a rhythmical period in Greek chorus
consisting of a sequence of 2 to 6 feet.
Later contributions by other authors were made into the art of speaking and writing so that
the most complete and well developed antique system, that came down to us is called the
Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system.
It divided all expressive means into 3 large groups: Tropes, Rhythm (Figures of Speech)
and Types of Speech.
A condensed description of this system gives one an idea how much we owe the antique
tradition in modern stylistic studies.
2.2.1. Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system
Tropes:
1. Metaphor - the application of a word (phrase) to an object (concept) it doesn't literally
denote to suggest comparison with another object or concept.
E. g. A mighty Fortress is our God.
2. Puzzle (Riddle) - a statement that requires thinking over a confusing or difficult problem
that needs to be solved.
3. Synecdoche - the mention of a part for the whole.
E.g. A fleet of 50 sail, (ships)
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4. Metonymy - substitution of one word for another on the basis of real connection.
E.g. Crown for sovereign; Homer for Homer's poems; wealth for rich people.
5. Catachresis - misuse of a word due to the false folk etymology or wrong application of a
term in a sense that does not belong to the word.
E.g. Alibi for excuse; mental for weak-minded; mutual for common; disinterested for
uninterested.
A later term for it is malapropism that became current due to Mrs. Malaprop, a character
from R. Sheridan's The Rivals (1775). This sort of misuse is mostly based on similarity in
sound.
E. g. 77гаI young violinist is certainly a child progeny (instead of prodigy).
6. Epithet - a word or phrase used to describe someone or something with a purpose to
praise or blame.
E. g. It was a lovely, summery evening.
7. Periphrasis - putting things in a round about way hi order to bring out some important
feature or explain more clearly the idea or situation described.
E.g. I got an Arab boy... and paid him twenty rupees a month, about thirty bob, at which he
was highly delighted. (Shute)
8. Hyperbole - use of exaggerated terms for emphasis.
E. g. A 1000 apologies; to wait an eternity; he is stronger than a lion.
9. Antonomasia - use of a proper name to express a general idea or conversely a common
name for a proper one.
E. g. The Iron Lady; a Solomon; Don Juan.
Figures of Speech that create Rhythm
These expressive means were divided into 4 large groups:
Figures that create rhythm by means of addition
1. Doubling (reduplication, repetition) of words and sounds.
E.g. Tip-top, helter-skelter, wishy-washy; oh, the dreary, dreary moorland.
2. Epenalepsis (polysyndeton) conjunctions: use of several conjunctions.
E. g. He thought, and thought, and thought; I hadn't realized until then how small the
houses were, how small and mean the shops. (Shute)
3. Anaphora: repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more clauses,
sentences or verses.
E. g. No tree, no shrub, no blade of grass, not a bird or beast, not even a fish that was not
owned!
4. Enjambment: running on of one thought into the next line, couplet or stanza without
breaking the syntactical pattern.
E.g. In Ocean's wide domains Half buried in the sands Lie skeletons in chains With
shackled feet and hands.
(Longfellow)
5. Asyndeton: omission of conjunction.
E. g. He provided the poor with jobs, with opportunity, with self-respect.
Figures based on compression
1. Zeugma (syllepsis): a figure by which a verb, adjective or other part of speech, relating to
one noun is referred to another.
E. g. He lost his hat and his temper, with weeping eyes and hearts.
19
2. Chiasmus-a reversal in the order of words in one of two parallel phrases.
E. g. He went to the country, to the town went she.
3. Ellipsis-omission of words needed to complete the construction or the sense.
E.g. Tomorrow at 1.30; The ringleader was hanged and his followers imprisoned.
Figures based on assonance or accord
1. Equality of colons-used to have a power to segment and arrange.
2. Proportions and harmony of colons.
Figures based on opposition
1. Antithesis - choice or arrangement of words that emphasises a contrast.
E. g. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, wise men use them; Give me
liberty or give me death.
2. Paradiastola - the lengthening of a syllable regularly short (in Greek poetry).
3. Anastrophe - a term of rhetoric, meaning, the upsetting for effect of the normal order of
words (inversion in contemporary terms).
E. g. Me he restored, him he hanged. Types of speech
Ancient authors distinguished speech for practical and aesthetic purposes. Rhetoric dealt
with the latter which was supposed to answer certain requirements, such as a definite choice
of words, their assonance, deviation from ordinary vocabulary and employment of special
stratums like poetic diction, neologisms and archaisms, onomatopoeia as well as appellation
to tropes. One of the most important devices to create a necessary high-flown or dramatic
effect was an elaborate rhythmical arrangement of eloquent speech that involved the
obligatory use of the so-called figures or schemes. The quality of rhetoric as an art of
speech was measured in terms of skilful combination, convergence, abundance or absence
of these devices. Respectively all kinds of speech were labelled and represented in a kind of
hierarchy including the following types: elevated; flowery IfloridI exquisite; poetic;
normal; dry; scanty; hackneyed; tasteless.
Attempts to analyse and determine the style-forming features of prose also began in ancient
times. Demetrius of Alexandria who lived in Greece in the 3d century ВС was an Athenian
orator, statesman and philosopher. He used the ideas of such earlier theorists as Aristotle
and characterized styles by rhetoric of purpose that required certain grammatical
constructions.
The Plain Style, he said, is simple, using many active verbs and keeping its subjects (nouns)
spare. Its purposes include lucidity, clarity, familiarity, and the necessity to get its work
done crisply and well. So this style uses few difficult compounds, coinages or qualifications
(such as epithets or modifiers). It avoids harsh sounds, or odd orders. It employs helpful
connective terms and clear clauses with firm endings. In every way it tries to be natural,
following the order of events themselves with moderation and repetition as in dialogue.
The Eloquent Style in contrast changes the natural order of events to effect control over
them and give the narration expressive power rather than sequential account. So this style
may be called passive in contrast to active.
As strong assumptions are made subjects are tremendously amplified without the activity of
predication because inherent qualities rather than new relations are stressed. Sentences are
lengthy, rounded, well balanced, with a great deal of elaborately connected material. Words
can be unusual, coined; meanings can be implied, oblique, and symbolic. Sounds can fill the
mouth, perhaps, harshly.
20
Two centuries later a Greek rhetorician and historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus who lived
in Rome in the 1st century ВС characterized one of the Greek orators in such a way: "His
harmony is natural, stately, spacious, articulated by pauses rather than strongly polished and
joined by connectives; naturally off-balance, not rounded and symmetrical." (43, p. 123).
Dionyssius wrote over twenty books, most famous of which are "On Imitation",
"Commentaries on the Ancient Orators" and "On the Arrangement of Words". The latter is
the only surviving ancient study of principles of word order and euphony.
For the Romans a recommended proportion for language units in verse was two nouns and
two adjectives to one verb, which they called '<the golden line".
Gradually the choices of certain stylistic features in different combinations settled into three
types - plain, middle and high.
Nowadays there exist dozens of classifications of expressive means of a language and all of
them involve to a great measure the same elements. They differ often only in terminology
and criteria of classification.
Three of the modern classifications of expressive means in the English language that are
commonly recognized and used in teaching stylistics today will be discussed further in
brief.
They have been offered by G. Leech, I. R. Galperin and Y. M. Skreb-
nev.
2.2.2. Stylistic theory and classification of expresssive means by G. Leech
One of the first linguists who tried "to modernize" traditional rhetoric system was a British
scholar G. Leech. In 1967 his contribution into stylistic theory in the book "Essays on Style
and Language" was published in London (39). Paying tribute to the descriptive linguistics
popular at the time he tried to show
how linguistic theory could be accommodated to the task of describing such rhetorical
figures as metaphor, parallelism, alliteration, personification and others in the present-day
study of literature.
Proceeding from the popular definition of literature as the creative use of language Leech
claims that this can be equated with the use of deviant forms of language. According to his
theory the first principle with which a linguist should approach literature is the degree of
generality of statement about language. There are two particularly important ways in which
the description of language entails generalization. In the first place language operates by
what may be called descriptive generalization. For example, a grammarian may give
descriptions of such pronouns as I, they, it, him, etc. as objective personal pronouns with the
following categories: first/third person, singular/plural, masculine, non-reflexive,
anunate/inanimate.
Although they require many ways of description they are all pronouns and each of them
may be explicitly described in this fashion.
The other type of generalization is implicit and would be appropriate in the case of such
words as language and dialect. This sort of description would be composed of individual
events of speaking, writing, hearing and reading. From these events generalization may
cover the linguistic behaviour of whole populations. In this connection Leech maintains the
importance of distinguishing two scales in the language. He calls them "register scale" and
"dialect scale". "Register scale" distinguishes spoken language from written language, the
language of respect from that of condescension, advertising from science, etc. The term
21
covers linguistic activity within society. "Dialect scale" differentiates language of people of
different age, sex, social strata, geographical area or individual linguistic habits (ideolect).
According to Leech the literary work of a particular author must be studied with reference
to both - "dialect scale" and "register scale".
The notion of generality essential to Leech's criteria of classifying stylistic devices has to do
with linguistic deviation.
He points out that it's a commonplace to say that writers and poets use language in an
unorthodox way and are allowed a certain degree of "poetic licence". "Poetic licence"
relates to the scales of descriptive and institutional delicacy.
Words like thou, thee, thine, thy not only involve description by number and person but in
social meaning have "a strangeness value" or connotative value because they are charged
with overtones of piety, historical period, poetics, etc.
The language of literature is on the whole marked by a number of deviant features. Thus
Leech builds his classification on the principle of distinction between the normal and
deviant features in the language of literature.
Among deviant features he distinguishes paradigmatic and syntagmatic deviations. All
figures can be initially divided into syntagmatic or paradigmatic. Linguistic units are
connected syntagmatically when they combine sequentially in a linear linguistic form.
Paradigmatic items enter into a system of possible selections at one point of the chain.
Syntagmatic items can be viewed horizontally, paradigmatic - vertically.
Paradigmatic figures give the writer a choice from equivalent items, which are contrasted to
the normal range of choices. For instance, certain nouns can normally be followed by
certain adverbs, the choice
dictated by their normal lexical valency: inches/feet/yard + away, e. g. He was standing
only a few feet away.
However the author's choice of a noun may upset the normal system and create a
paradigmatic deviation that we come across in literary and poetic language: farmyards
away, a grief ago, all sun long. Schematically this relationship could look like this
inches normal away
feet
yards
farmyar devian away
d t
The contrast between deviation and norm may be accounted for by metaphor which
involves semantic transfer of combinatory links.
Another example of paradigmatic deviation is personification. In this case we deal with
purely grammatical oppositions of personalI impersonal; animateIinanimate;
concreteIabstract.
This type of deviation entails the use of an inanimate noun in a context appropriate to a
personal noun.
As Connie had said, she handled just like any other aeroplane, except that she had better
manners than most. (Shute). In this example she stands for the aeroplane and makes it
personified on the grammatical level.
22
The deviant use of she in this passage is reinforced by the collocation with better manners,
which can only be associated with human beings.
aeropla normal inanimate it
ne train neuter
car
aeropla deviant animate she
ne female
This sort of paradigmatic deviation Leech calls "unique deviation" because it comes as an
unexpected and unpredictable choice that defies the norm. He compares it with what the
Prague school of linguistics called "foregrounding".
Unlike paradigmatic figures based on the effect of gap in the expected choice of a linguistic
form syntagmatic deviant features result from the opposite. Instead of missing the
predictable choice the author imposes the same kind of choice in the same place. A
syntagmatic chain of language units provides a choice of equivalents to be made at different
points in this chain, but the writer repeatedly makes the same selection. Leech illustrates
this by alliteration in the furrow followed where the choice of alliterated words is not
necessary but superimposed for stylistic effect on the ordinary background.
This principle visibly stands out in some tongue-twisters due to the deliberate overuse of the
same sound in every word of the phrase. So instead of a sentence like "Robert turned over a
hoop in a circle" we have the intentional redundancy of "r" in "Robert Rowley rolled a
round roll round".
Basically the difference drawn by Leech between syntagmatic and paradigmatic deviations
comes down to the redundancy of choice in i lie first case and a gap in the predicted pattern
in the second.
This classification includes other subdivisions and details that cannot all be covered here
but may be further studied in Leech's book.
This approach was an attempt to treat stylistic devices with reference to linguistic theory
that would help to analyse the nature of stylistic function viewed as a result of deviation
from the lexical and grammatical norm of the language.
2,2.3. I. R. Galperin's classification of expressive means and stylistic devices
The classification suggested by Prof. Galperin is simply organised and very detailed. His
manual "Stylistics" published in 1971 includes the following subdivision of expressive
means and stylistic devices based on the level-oriented approach:
1. Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices.
2. Lexical expressive means and stylistic devices.
3. Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices".
1. Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices To this group Galperin
refers such means as:
1) onomatopoeia (direct and indirect): ding-dong; silver bells... tinkle, tinkle;
2) alliteration (initial rhyme): to rob Peter to pay Paul;
* To avoid repetition in each classification definitions of all stylistic devices are given in
the glossary
3) rhyme (full, incomplete, compound or broken, eye rhyme, internal rhyme. Also, stanza
rhymes: couplets, triple, cross, framingIring);
4) rhythm.
23
2. Lexical expressive means and stylistic devices
There are three big subdivisions in this class of devices and they all deal with the semantic
nature of a word or phrase. However the criteria of selection of means for each subdivision
are different and manifest different semantic processes.
I. In the first subdivision the principle of classification is the interaction of different types of
a word's meanings: dictionary, contextual, derivative, nominal, and emotive. The stylistic
effect of the lexical means is achieved through the binary opposition of dictionary and
contextual or logical and emotive or primary and derivative meanings of a word.
A. The first group includes means based on the interplay of dictionary and contextual
meanings:
metaphor: Dear Nature is the kindest Mother still. (Byron) metonymy:
The camp, the pulpit and the law For rich man's sons are free.
(Shelly)
irony: It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one's
pocket.
B. The second unites means based on the interaction of primary and derivative meanings:
polysemy: Massachusetts was hostile to the American flag, and she would not allow it to be
hoisted on her State Bouse;
zeugma and pun: May's mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot's mother never stood
on anything but her active little feet. (Dickens)
C. The third group comprises means based on the opposition of logical and emotive
meanings:
interjections and exclamatory words:
All present life is but an interjection
An 'Oh' or 'Ah' of joy or misery,
Or a 'Ha! ha!' or 'Bah!'-a yawn or 'Pooh!'
Of which perhaps the latter is most true.
(Byron)
epithet: a well-matched, fairly-balanced give-and-take couple. (Dickens)
oxymoron: peopled desert, populous solitude, proud humility. (Byron)
D. The fourth group is based on the interaction of logical and nominal meanings and
includes:
antonomasia: Mr. Facing-Both-Ways does not get very far in this world. (The Times)
II. The principle for distinguishing the second big subdivision according to Galperin is
entirely different from the first one and is based on the interaction between two lexical
meanings simultaneously materialised in the context. This kind of interaction helps to call
special attention to a certain feature of the object described. Here belong:
simile: treacherous as a snake, faithful as a dog, slow as a tortoise.
periphrasis: a gentleman of the long robe (a lawyer); the fair sex. (women)
euphemism: In private I should call him a liar. In the Press you should use the words:
'Reckless disregard for truth'. (Galsworthy)
hyperbole: The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in and the sun and the moon
were made to give them light. (Dickens)
III. The third subdivision comprises stable word combinations in their interaction with the
context:
24
cliches: clockwork precision, crushing defeat, the whip and carrot policy.
proverbs and sayings: Come! he said, milk's spilt. (Galsworthy)
epigrams: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. (Keats)
quotations: Ecclesiastes said, 'that all is vanity'. (Byron)
allusions: Shakespeare talks of the herald Mercury. (Byron)
decomposition of set phrases: You know which side the law's buttered. (Galsworthy)
3. Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices
Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices are not paradigmatic but syntagmatic or
structural means. In defining syntactical devices Galperin proceeds from the following
thesis: the structural elements have their own independent meaning and this meaning may
affect the lexical meaning. In doing so it may impart a special contextual meaning to some
of the lexical units.
The principal criteria for classifying syntactical stylistic devices are:
- the juxtaposition of the parts of an utterance;
- the type of connection of the parts;
- the peculiar use of colloquial constructions;
- the transference of structural meaning.
Devices built on the principle of juxtaposition
inversion (several types): A tone of most extravagant comparison Miss Tox said it in.
(Dickens)
Down dropped the breeze. (Colerigde)
detached constructions: She was lovely: all of her - delightful. (Dreiser)
parallel constructions:
The seeds ye sow - another reaps, The robes ye weave - another wears The arms ye forge -
another bears.
(Shelley)
chiasmus:
In the days of old men made manners Manners now make men.
(Byron)
repetition: For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a
letter. (Byron)
enumeration: The principle production of these towns... appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews,
chalk, shrimps, officers, and dock-yard men. (Dickens)
suspense:
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle... Know ye the land of the cedar and vine...
'Tis the clime of the East - 'tis the land of the Sun.
(Byron)
climax: They looked at hundred of houses, they climbed thousands of stairs, they inspected
innumerable kitchens. (Maugham)
antithesis: Youth is lovely, age is lonely; Youth is fiery, age is frost. (Longfellow)
Devices based on the type of connection include
Asyndeton: Soams turned away; he had an utter disinclination for talk, like one standing
before an open grave... (Galsworthy)
25
polysyndeton: The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the
advantage over him in only one respect. (Dickens) gap-sentence link: It was an afternoon to
dream. And she took out Jon's letters. (Galsworthy)
Figures united by the peculiar use of colloquial constructions Ellipsis:
Nothing so difficult as a beginning, how soft the chin which bears his touch. (Byron)
Aposiopesis (break-in-the-narrative): Good intentions but -; You just come home or I'll...
Question in the narrative: Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be
otherwise? (Dickens)
Represented speech (uttered and unuttered or inner represented speech):
Marshal asked the crowd to disperse and urged responsible diggers to prevent any
disturbance... (Prichard) Over and over he was asking himself: would she receive him?
Transferred use of structural meaning involves such figures as Rhetorical
questions: How long must we suffer? Where is the end? (Norris)
Litotes: He was no gentle lamb (London); Mr. Bardell was no deceiver. (Dickens)
Since "Stylistics" by Galperin is the basic manual recommended for this course at
university level no further transposition of its content is
deemed necessary. However other attempts have been made to classify all expressive means
and stylistic devices because some principles applied in this system do not look completely
consistent and reliable. There are two big subdivisions here that classify all devices into
either lexical or syntactical. At the same time there is a kind of mixture of principles since
some devices obviously involve both lexical and syntactical features, e. g. antithesis,
climax, periphrasis, irony, and others.
According to Galperin there are structural and compositional syntactical devices, devices
built on transferred structural meaning and the type of syntactical connection and devices
that involve a peculiar use of colloquial constructions. Though very detailed this
classification provokes some questions concerning the criteria used in placing the group
'peculiar use of colloquial constructions' among the syntactical means and the group called
'peculiar use of set expressions' among the lexical devices. Another criterion used for
classifying lexical expressive means namely, 'intensification of a certain feature of a thing
or phenomenon' also seems rather dubious. Formulated like this it could be equally applied
to quite a number of devices placed by the author in other subdivisions of this classification
with a different criteria of identification, such as metaphor, metonymy, epithet, repetition,
inversion, suspense, etc. It does not seem quite just to place all cases of ellipsis, aposiopesis
or represented speech among colloquial constructions.
2.2.4. Classification of expressive means and stylistic devices by Y. M. Skrebnev
One of the latest classifications of expressive means and stylistic devices is given in the
book "Fundamentals of English Stylistics" by Y. M. Skrebnev published in 1994 (47).
Skrebnev's approach
demonstrates a combination of principles observed in Leech's system of paradigmatic and
syntagmatic subdivision and the level-oriented approach on which Galperin's classification
is founded. At the same time it differs from both since Skrebnev managed to avoid
mechanical superposition of one system onto another and created a new consistent method
of the hierarchical arrangement of this material.
Skrebnev starts with a holistic view, constructing a kind of language pyramid.
26
He doesn't pigeonhole expressive means and stylistic devices into appropriate layers of
language hke Leech and Galperin. Skrebnev first subdivides stylistics into paradigmatic
stylistics (or stylistics of units) and syntagmatic stylistics (or stylistics of sequences).
Then he explores the levels of the language and regards all stylistically relevant phenomena
according to this level principle in both paradigmatic and syntagmatic stylistics.
He also uniquely singles out one more level. In addition to phonetics, morphology,
lexicology and syntax he adds semasiology (or semantics).
According to Skrebnev the relationship between these five levels and two aspects of
stylistic analysis is bilateral. The same linguistic material of these levels provides stylistic
features studied by paradigmatic and syntagmatic stylistics. The difference lies in its
different arrangement.
Paradigmatic stylistics
(Stylistics of units)
<- 1. Phonetics <- 2. Morphology <- 3. Lexicology <- 4. Syntax <- 5. Semasiology
-> Syntagmatic -> stylistics
-> (Stylistics of -> sequences)
->
Paradigmatic stylistics
Looking closer into this system we'll be able to distinguish specific units and their stylistic
potentials or functions. Thus paradigmatic stylistics (stylistics of units) is subdivided into
five branches.
Paradigmatic phonetics actually describes phonographical stylistic features of a written
text. Since we cannot hear written speech but in our "mind" writers often resort to graphic
means to reproduce the phonetic peculiarities of individual speech or dialect. Such
intentional non-standard spelhng is called "graphons" (a term borrowed from V. A.
Kucharenko).
I know these Eye- talians! (Lawrence) - in this case the graphon is used to show despise or
contempt of the speaker for Italians.
In Cockney speech whose phonetic peculiarities are all too well known you'll hear [ai] in
place of [ei], [a:] instead of [au], they drop "h's" and so on. It frequently becomes a means
of speech characterisation and often creates a humorous effect.
The author illustrates it with a story of a cockney family trying to impress a visitor with
their "correct" English:
"Faiher, said one of the children at breakfast. - I want some more 'am please".-You mustn't
say 'am, my child, the correct form is 'am, - retorted his father, passing the plate with sliced
ham on it. "But I did say 'am, pleaded the boy". "No, you didn't: you said 'am instead-of
'am". The mother turned to the guest smiling: "Oh, don't mind them, sir, pray. They are
both trying to say 'am and both think it is 'am they are saying" (47, p. 41).
Other graphic means to emphasise the "unheard" phonetic charecter-istics such as the pitch
of voice, the stress, and other melodic features are italics, capitalisation, repetition of
letters, onomatopoeia (sound imitation).
E.g. I AM sorry; "Аррееее Noooooyeeeeerr" (Happy New Year); cock-a-doodle-doo.
Paradigmatic morphology observes the stylistic potentials of grammar forms, which Leech
would describe as deviant. Out of several varieties of morphological categorial forms the
author chooses a less predictable or unpredictable one, which renders this form some
27
stylistic connotation. The peculiar use of a number of grammatical categories for stylistic
purposes may serve as an ample example of this type of expressive means.
The use of a present tense of a verb on the background of a past-tense narration got a
special name historical present in linguistics.
E. g. What else do I remember? Let me see.
There comes out of the cloud our house... (Dickens)
Another category that helps create stylistic colouring is that of gender. The result of its
deviant use is personification and depersonification. As Skrebnev points out although the
morphological category of gender is practically non-existent in modern English special
rules concern whole classes of nouns that are traditionally associated with feminine or
masculine gender. Thus countries are generally classed as feminine (France sent her
representative to the conference.) Abstract notions associated with strength and fierceness
are personified as masculine while feminine is associated with beauty or gentleness (death,
fear, war, anger - he, spring, peace, kindness - she). Names of vessels
and other vehicles (ship, boat, carriage, coach, car) are treated as feminine.
Another deviant use of this category according to Skrebnev is the use of animate nouns as
inanimate ones that he terms "depersonification" illustrated by the following passage:
"Where did you find it?" asked Mord Em'ly of Miss Gilliken with a satirical accent.
"Who are you calling "it"?" demanded Mr. Barden aggressively. "P'raps you'll kindly call
me 'im and not it". (Partridge)
Similar cases of deviation on the morphological level are given by the author for the
categories of person, number, mood and some others.
Paradigmatic lexicology subdivides English vocabulary into stylistic layers. In most works
on this problem (cf. books by Galperin, Arnold, Vinogradov) all words of the national
language are usually described in terms of neutral, literary and colloquial with further
subdivision into poetic, archaic, foreign, jargonisms, slang, etc.
Skrebnev uses different terms for practically the same purposes. His terminology includes
correspondingly neutral, positive (elevated) and negative (degraded) layers.
Subdivision inside these categories is much the same with the exclusion of such groups as
bookish and archaic words and special terms that Galperin, for example, includes into the
special literary vocabulary (described as positive in Skrebnev's system) while Skrebnev
claims that they may have both a positive and negative styUstic function depending on the
purpose of the utterance and the context. The same consideration concerns the so-called
barbarisms or foreign
words whose stylistic value (elevated or degraded) depends on the kind of text in which
they are used. To illustrate his point Skrebnev gives two examples of barbarisms used by
people of different social class and age. Used by an upper-class character from John
Galsworthy the word chic has a tinge of elegance showing the character's knowledge of
French. He maintains that Itahan words ciao and bambino current among Russian
youngsters at one time were also considered stylistically 'higher' than their Russian
equivalents. At the same time it's hard to say whether they should ah be classified as
positive just because they are of foreign origin. Each instance of use should be considered
individually.
Stylistic differentiation suggested by Skrebnev includes the following stratification
PositiveIelevated
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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
NegativeIdegraded
colloquial; neologisms;
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
Completeness of sentence structure
ellipsis; aposiopesis;
one-member nominative sentences.
Redundancy: repetition of sentence parts, syntactic tautology (prolepsis), polysyndeton.
Word order
Inversion of sentence members. Communicative types of sentences
Quasi-affirmative sentences: Isn't that too bad? - That is too bad.
Quasi-interrogative sentences: Here you are to write down your age and birthplace - How
old are you? Where were you born?
Quasi-negative sentences: Did I say a word about the money (Shaw) = I did not say...
Quasi-imperative sentences: Here! Quick! = Come here! Be quick!
In these types of sentences the syntactical formal meaning of the structure contradicts the
actual meaning implied so that negative sentences read affirmative, questions do not require
answers but are in fact declarative sentences (rhetorical questions), etc. One communicative
meaning appears in disguise of another. Skrebnev holds that "the task of stylistic analysis is
to find out to what type of speech (and its sublanguage) the given construction belongs."
(47, p. 100).
Type of syntactic connection
detachment;
parenthetic elements;
asyndetic subordination and coordination.
Paradigmatic semasiology deals with transfer of names or what are traditionally known as
tropes. In Skrebnev's classification these
29
expressive means received the term based on their ability to rename: figures of
replacement.
ALL figures of replacement are subdivided into 2 groups: figures of quantity and figures of
quality.
Figures of quantity. In figures of quantity renaming is based on inexactitude of
measurements, in other words it's either saying too much (overestimating, intensifying the
properties) or too little (underestimating the size, value, importance, etc.) about the object
or phenomenon. Accordingly there are two figures of this type.
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.
E. g. Ladies and the worser halves; I never call a spade a spade, 1 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.
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.
30
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.
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 mоскеrу", 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 of fish!
- 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!
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
31
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)
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.).
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 of-phrase (the plays of Shakespeare) and an attributive
noun (Shakespeare plays) as "elegant variation" of style.
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.
32
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 sort of stylistic mixture in a passage from
O'Henry provided by Skrebnev:
Jeff, says Andy after a long time, quite unseldom I have seen Jit 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).
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)
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
33
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. I 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).
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 20th century that allows to explore and explain the
linguistic nature of the stylistic function. This contribution into stylistic theory made by
modem linguistics is not contained to classifying studies only. It has inspired exploration of
34
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?
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.
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)
35
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?
С'топ, 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 Cwmpryddyg for 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)
I 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.
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 born. (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)
I 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)
I 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)
36
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.)
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 incompatible but relevant
connotations.
Bearing this in mind comment on the humorous or ironic impact of the following examples.
Explain where possible what stylistic devices effect the techniques of verbal irony.
- Have you at any time been detained in a mental home or similar institution ? If so, give
particulars. I was at Scone College, Oxford, for two years, said Paul. The doctor looked up
for the first time. - Don't you dare to make jokes here, my man, he said, or I'll have you in
the strait-jacket in less than no time. (Waugh)
I like that. Me trying to be funny. (Waugh)
I drew a dozen or more samples of what I thought were typical examples of American
commercial art. ...I drew people in evening clothes stepping out of limousines on opening
nights - lean, erect, super-chic couples who had obviously never in their lives inflicted
suffering as a result of underarm carelessness - couples, in fact, who perhaps didn't have
any underarms. ...I drew laughing, high-breasted girls aquaplaning without a care in the
37
world, as a result of being amply protected against such national evils as bleeding gums,
facial blemishes, unsightly hairs, and faulty or inadequate life insurance. I drew
housewives who, until they reached for the right soap flakes, laid themselves wide open to
straggly hair, poor posture, unruly children, disaffected husbands, rough (but slender)
hands, untidy (but enormous) kitchens. (Salinger)
I made a Jell- O salad. - Oh, she says, what kind? - The kind full of nuts and bolts, I say,
plus washers of all types. I raided Russel's toolbox for the special ingredients. (Erdrich)
Was that the woman like Napoleon the Great? (Waugh)
They always say that she poisoned her husband... there was a great deal of talk about it at
the time. Perhaps you remember the case? - No, said Paul - Powdered glass, said Flossie
shrilly, - in his coffee. - Turkish coffee, said Dingy. (Waugh)
You folks all think the coloured man hasn't got a soul. Anythin's good enough for the poor
coloured man. Beat him, put him in chains; load him with burdens... Here Paul observed a
responsive glitter in Lady Circumference's eye. (Waugh)
In the south they also drink a good deal of tequila, which is a spirit made from the juice of
the cactus. It has to be taken with a pinch of salt. (Atkinson)
<>They could have killed you too, he said, his teeth chattering. If you had arrived two
minutes earlier. Forgive me. Forgive all of us. Dolce Italia. Paradise for tourists." He
laughed eerily. (Shaw)
He was talking very excitedly to me, said the Vicar... He seems deeply interested in Church
matters. Are you quite sure he is right in the head? I have noticed again and again since I
have been in the Church that lay interest in ecclesiastical matters is often a prelude to
insanity. (Waugh)
So you're the Doctor's hired assassin, eh? Well, I hope you keep a firm hand on my toad of
a son. (Waugh)
9. Explain why the following sentences fall into the category of quasi-questions, quasi-
statements or quasi-negatives in Skrebnev's classification. What's their actual meaning?
- I wish I could go back to school all over again. - Don't we all, he said. (Shaw)
Are all women different? Oh, are they! (O'Hara)
I don't think no worse of you for it, no, darned if I do. (Lawrence) If it isn't diamonds all
over his fingers! (Caldwell) Devil if 1 know what to make of these people down here.
(Christie) Contact my father again and I'll strangle you. (Donleavy) Don't you ever talk to
Rose?
Rose? Not about Mildred. Rose misses Mildred as much as I do. We don't even want to see
each other. (O'Hara)
10. Why are instances of repetition in the sentences given below called disguised tautology?
How does it differ from regular tautology? What does this sort of repetition imply?
Life is life.
There are doctors and doctors.
A small town's a small town, wherever it is, I said. (Shute)
I got nothing against Joe Chapin, but he's not me. I'm me, and another man is still another
man. (O'Hara)
Well, if it can't be helped, it can't be helped, I said manfully. (Shaw)
38
Milan is a city, which cannot be summed up in a few words. For Italian speakers, the old
Milanese dialect expression "Milan l'e Milan" (Milan is just Milan) is probably the best
description one can give. (Peroni)
Beer was beer, too, in those days - not the gassy staff in bottles. (Dickens)
11. Does the term anti-climax (back-gradation) imply the opposite of climax (gradation)?
What effect does each of these devices provide? How is it achieved in the following cases:
- Philbrick, there must be champagne-cup, and will you help the men putting up the
marquee? And Flags, Diana!... No expense should be spared... And there must be flowers,
Diana, banks of flowers, said the Doctor with an expensive gesture. The prizes shall stand
among the banks of flowers...
Flowers, youth, wisdom, the glitter of jewels, music, said the Doctor. There must be a band.
- I never heard of such a thing, said Dingy. A band indeedI You'll be having fireworks next.
- Andfireworks, said the Doctor, and do you think it would be a good thing to buy Mr.
Prendergast a new tie? (Waugh)
We needed a kind rain, a blessing rain, that lasted a week. We needed water. (Erdrich)
At first there were going to be forty guests but the invitation list grew larger and the party
plans more elaborate, until Arthur said that with so many people they ought to hire an
orchestra, and with an orchestra there would be dancing, and with dancing there ought to
be a good sized orchestra. The original small dinner became a dinner dance at the
Lantenengo Country Club. Invitations were sent to more than three hundred persons...
(O'Hara)
Even the most hardened criminal there - he was serving his third sentence for blackmail -
remarked how the whole carriage seemed to be flooded with the detectable savour of
Champs-Elysee in early June. (Waugh)
Hullo, Prendy, old wine-skin! How are things with you?
Admirable, said Mr. Prendergast. I never have known them better. I
have just caned twenty-three boys. (Waugh)
CHAPTER 3
Stylistic Grammar
The theory of grammatical gradation. Marked, semi-marked and unmarked
structures. Grammatical metaphor. Types of grammatical transposition.
Morphological stylistics. Stylistic potential of the parts of speech. Stylistic syntax.
3.1. The theory of grammatical gradation.
Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures
One of the least investigated areas of stylistic research is the stylistic potential of the
morphology of the English language. There is quite a lot of research in the field of
syntagmatic stylistics connected with syntactical structures but very little has been written
about the stylistic properties of the parts of speech and such grammatical categories as
gender, number or person. So it seems logical to throw some light on these problems.
An essentially different approach of modern scholars to stylistic research is explained by a
different concept that lies at the root of this approach. If ancient rhetoric mostly dealt in
registering, classifying
and describing stylistic expressive means, modern stylistics proceeds from the nature of the
stylistic effect and studies the mechanism of the stylistic function. The major principle of
39
the stylistic effect is the opposition between the norm and deviation from the norm on
whatever level of the language. Roman Jacobson gave it the most generalized definition of
defeated expectancy; he claimed that it is the secret of any stylistic effect because the
recipient is ready and willing for anything but what he actually sees. Skrebnev describes it
as the opposition between the traditional meaning and situational meaning, Arnold
maintains that the very essence of poetic language is the violation of the norm. These
deviations may occur on any level of the language - phonetic, graphical, morphological,
lexical or syntactical. It should be noted though that not every deviation from the norm
results in expressiveness. There are deviations that will only create absurdity or linguistic
nonsense. For example, you can't normally use the article with an adverb or adjective.
Noam Chomsky, an American scholar and founder of the generative linguistic school,
formulated this rule in grammar that he called grammatical gradation (27). He constructed
a scale with two poles - grammatically correct structures at one extreme point of this scale
and grammatically incorrect structures at the other. The first he called grammatically
marked structures, the second - unmarked structures.
The latter ones cannot be generated by the linguistic laws of the given language, therefore
they cannot exist in it. If we take the Russian sentence that completely agrees with the
grammatical laws of this language Решил он меня обмануть and make a word for word
translation into English we'll get a grammatically incorrect structure " Decided
* In Chomsky's theory grammatically incorrect (unmarked) structures are labeled with an
asterisk.
he me to deceive, A native speaker cannot produce such a sentence because it disagrees with
the basic rule of word order arrangement in English. It will have to be placed at the extreme
point of the pole that opposes correct or marked structures. This sentence belongs to what
Chomsky calls unmarked structures.
Between these two poles there is space for the so-called semi-marked structures. These
are structures marked by the deviation from lexical or grammatical valency. This means that
words and grammar forms carry an unusual grammatical or referential meaning. In other
terms this is called transposition", a phenomenon that destroys customary (normal, regular,
standard) valences and thus creates expressiveness of the utterance.
3.2. Grammatical metaphor and types of grammatical
transposition
Some scholars (e. g. Prof. E. I. Shendels) use the term grammatical metaphor for this kind
of phenomena (30, 31). We know that lexical metaphor is based on the transfer of the name
of one object on to another due to some common ground. The same mechanism works in
the formation of a grammatical metaphor.
Linguistic units, such as words, possess not only lexical meanings but also grammatical
ones that are correlated with extra-linguistic reality. Such grammatical categories as
plurality and singularity reflect the distinction between a multitude and oneness in the real
world. Such classifying grammatical meanings as the noun, the verb or the adjective
represent objects, actions and qualities that exist in this world. However this extra-linguistic
reality may be represented in different languages
in a different way. The notion of definiteness or indefiniteness is grammatically expressed
in English by a special class of words - the article. In Russian it's expressed differently.
40
Gender exists as a grammatical category of the noun in Russian but not in English and so
on.
A grammatical form, as well as a lexical unit possesses a denotative and a connotative
meaning. There are at least three types of denotative grammatical meanings. Two of these
have some kind of reference with the extra-linguistic reality and one has zero denotation, i.
e. there is no reference between the grammatical meaning and outside world.
1. The first type of grammatical denotation reflects relations of objects in outside reality
such as singularity and plurality.
2. The second type denotes the relation of the speaker to the first type of denotation. It
shows how objective relations are perceived by reactions to the outside world. This type of
denotative meaning is expressed by such categories as modality, voice, definiteness and
indeflniteness.
3. The third type of denotative meaning has no reference to the extra-linguistic reality. This
is an intralinguistc denotation, conveying relations among linguistic units proper, e.g. the
formation of past tense forms of regular and irregular verbs.
Denotative meanings show what this or that grammatical form designates but they do not
show how they express the same relation. However a grammatical form may carry
additional expressive information, it can evoke associations, emotions and impressions. It
may connote as well as denote. Connotations aroused by a grammatical form are adherent
subjective components, such as expressive or intensified meaning, emotive or evaluative
colouring. The new connotative meaning of grammatical forms appears when we observe a
certain clash between
form and meaning or deviation in the norm of use of some forms. The stylistic effect
produced is often called grammatical metaphor.
According to Shendels we may speak of grammatical metaphor when there is a
transposition (transfer) of a grammatical form from one type of grammatical relation to
another. In such cases we deal with a redistribution of grammatical and lexical meanings
that create new connotations.
Types of grammatical transposition
Generally speaking we may distinguish 3 types of grammatical transposition,
1. The first deals with the transposition of a certain grammar form into a new syntactical
distribution with the resulting effect of contrast. The so-called 'historical present' is a good
illustration of this type: a verb in the Present Indefinite form is used against the background
of the Past Indefinite narration. The effect of vividness, an illusion of "presence", a lapse in
time into the reality of the reader is achieved.
Everything went as easy as drinking, Jimmy said. There was a garage just round the corner
behind Belgrave Square where he used to go every morning to watch them messing about
with the cars. Crazy about cars the kid was. Jimmy comes in one day with his motorbike
and side-car and asks for some petrol. He comes up and looks at it in the way he had.
(Waugh)
2. The second type of transposition involves both - the lexical and grammatical meanings.
The use of the plural form with a noun whose lexical denotative meaning is incompatible
with plurality (abstract nouns, proper names) may serve as an apt example.
The look on her face... was full of secret resentments, and longings, and fears. (Mitchell)
41
3. Transposition of classifying grammatical meanings, that brings together situationally
incompatible forms - for instance, the use of a common noun as a proper one.
The effect is personification of inanimate objects or antonomasia (a person becomes a
symbol of a quality or trait - Mr. Know-All, Mr. Truth, speaking names).
Lord and Lady Circumference, Mr. Parakeet, Prof. Silenus, Colonel MacAdder. (Waugh)
3.3. Morphological stylistics.
Stylistic potential of the parts of speech
3.3.1. The noun and its stylistic potential
The stylistic power of a noun is closely linked to the grammatical categories this part of
speech possesses. First of all these are the categories of number, person and case.
The use of a singular noun instead of an appropriate plural form creates a generalized,
elevated effect often bordering on symbolization. The faint fresh flame of the young year
flushes From leaf to flower and from flower to fruit And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire.
(Swinburn)
The contrary device - the use of plural instead of singular - as a rule makes the description
more powerful and large-scale.
The clamour of waters, snows, winds, rains... (Hemingway)
The lone and level sands stretch far away. (Shelly)
The plural form of an abstract noun, whose lexical meaning is alien to the notion of number
makes it not only more expressive, but brings about what Vinogradov called aesthetic
semantic growth.
Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side
flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meannesses, that elsewhere people so cleverly
hushed up. (Green)
Thus one feeling is represented as a number of emotional states, each with a certain
connotation of a new meaning. Emotions may signify concrete events, happenings, doings.
Proper names employed as plural lend the narration a unique generalizing effect:
If you forget to invite somebody's Aunt Millie, I want to be able to say I had nothing to do
with it.
There were numerous Aunt Millies because of, and in spite of Arthur's and Edith's triple
checking of the list. (O'Hara)
These examples represent the second type of grammatical metaphor formed by the
transposition of the lexical and grammatical meanings.
The third type of transposition can be seen on the example of personification. This is a
device in which grammatical metaphor appears due to the classifying transposition of a
noun, because nouns
are divided into animate and inanimate and only animate nouns have the category of person.
Personification transposes a common noun into the class of proper names by attributing to it
thoughts or qualities of a human being. As a result the syntactical, morphological and
lexical valency of this noun changes:
England's mastery of the seas, too, was growing even greater. Last year her trading rivals
the Dutch had pushed out of several colonies... (Rutherford)
The category of case (possessive case) which is typical of the proper nouns, since it denotes
possession becomes a mark of personification in cases like the following one:
Love's first snowdrop Virgin kiss!
42
(Burns)
Abstract nouns transposed into the class of personal nouns are charged with various
emotional connotations, as in the following examples where personification appears due to
the unexpected lexico-gramrnatical valency:
The woebegone fragment of womanhood in the corner looked a little less terrified when she
saw the wine. (Waugh)
The chubby little eccentricity, (a child)
The old oddity (an odd old person). (Arnold)
The emotive connotations in such cases may range from affection to irony or distaste.
So, although the English noun has fewer grammatical categories than the Russian one, its
stylistic potential in producing grammatical metaphor is high enough.
3.3.2. The article and its stylistic potential
The article may be a very expressive element of narration especially when used with proper
names.
For example, the indefinite article may convey evaluative connotations when used with a
proper name:
I'm a Marlow by birth, and we are a hot-blooded family. (Follett)
It may be charged with a negative evaluative connotation and diminish the importance of
someone's personality, make it sound insignificant.
Besides Rain, Nan and Mrs. Prewett, there was a Mrs. Kingsley, the wife of one of the
Governors. (Dolgopolova)
A Forsyte is not an uncommon animal. (Galsworthy)
The definite article used with a proper name may become a powerful expressive means to
emphasize the person's good or bad qualities.
Well, she was married to him. And what was more she loved him. Not the Stanley whom
everyone saw, not the everyday one; but a timid, sensitive, innocent Stanley who knelt down
every night to say his prayers... (Dolgopolova)
You are not the Andrew Manson I married. (Cronin)
In the first case the use of two different articles in relation to one person throws into relief
the contradictory features of his character.
The second example implies that this article embodies all the good qualities that Andrew
Manson used to have and lost in the eyes of his wife.
The definite article in the following example serves as an intensifier of the epithet used in
the character's description:
My good fellow, I said suavely, what brings me here is this: I want to see the evening sun
go down over the snow-tipped Siena Nevada. Within the hour he had spread this all over
the town and I was pointed out for the rest of my visit as the mad Englishman. (Atkinson)
The definite article may contribute to the devices of gradation or help create the rhythm of
the narration as in the following examples:
But then he would lose Sondra, his connections here, and his uncle - this world! The loss!
The loss! The loss! (Dreiser)
No article, or the omission of article before a common noun conveys a maximum level of
abstraction, generalization.
The postmaster and postmistress, husband and wife, ...looked carefully at every piece of
mail... (Erdrich)
43
How infuriating it was! Land which looked like baked sand became the Garden of Eden if
only you could get water. You could draw a line with a pencil: on one side, a waterless
barren; on the other, an irrigated luxuriance. (Michener)
Not sound, not quiver as if horse and man had turned to metal. (Dolgopolova)
They went as though car and driver were one indivisible whole. (Dolgopolova)
3.3.3. The stylistic power of the pronoun
The stylistic functions of the pronoun also depend on the disparity between the traditional
and contextual (situational) meanings. This is the grammatical metaphor of the first type
based on the transposition of the form, when one pronoun is transposed into the action
sphere of another pronoun.
So personal pronouns We, You, They and others can be employed in the meaning different
from their dictionary meaning.
The pronoun We that means "speaking together or on behalf of other people" can be used
with reference to a single person, the speaker, and is called the plural of majesty (Pluralis
Majestatis). It is used in Royal speech, decrees of King, etc.
And for that offence immediately do we exile him hence. (Shakespeare)
The plural of modesty or the author's we is used with the purpose to identify oneself with
the audience or society at large. Employing the plural of modesty the author involves the
reader into the action making him a participant of the events and imparting the emotions
prevailing in the narration to the reader.
My poor dear child, cried Miss Crawly, ...is our passion unrequited then ?
Are we pining in secret? Tell me all, and let me console you. (Thackeray)
The pronoun you is often used as an intensifier in an expressive address or imperative:
Just you go in and win. (Waugh)
Get out of my house, you fool, you idiot, you stupid old Briggs. (Thackeray)
In the following sentence the personal pronoun they has a purely expressive function
because it does not substitute any real characters but has a generalising meaning and
indicates some abstract entity. The implication is meant to oppose the speaker and his
interlocutor to this indefinite collective group of people.
All the people like us are we, and everyone else is they. (Kipling)
Such pronouns as One, You, We have two major connotations: that of 'identification' of the
speaker and the audience and 'generalization' (contrary to the individual meaning).
Note should be made of the fact that such pronouns as We, One, You that are often used in a
generalized meaning of 'a human being' may have a different stylistic value for different
authors.
Speaking of such English writers as Aldus Huxley, Bertrand Russel and D. H. Lawrence, J.
Miles writes in her book "Style and Proportion": The power of Huxley's general ONE is
closer to Russel's WE than to Lawrence's YOU though all are talking about human nature.
She points out that scientists like Charles Darwin, Adam Smith and many others write using
ONE much in the same way as Huxley does.
She maintains that it is not merely the subject of writing but the attitude, purpose and sense
of verbal tradition that establish these distinctions in expression (41).
Employed by the author as a means of speech characterisation the overuse of the I pronoun
testifies to the speaker's complacency and egomania while you or one used in reference to
44
oneself characterise the speaker as a reserved, self-controlled person. At the same time the
speaker creates a closer rapport with his interlocutor and achieves empathy.
- You can always build another image for yourself to fall in love with. - No, you can't.
That's the trouble, you lose the capacity for building. You run short of the stuff that creates
beautiful illusions. (Priestly)
When the speaker uses the third person pronoun instead of I or we he or she sort of looks at
oneself from a distance, which produces the effect of estrangement and generalization. Here
is an example from Katherine Mansfield's diary provided in Arnold's book Стилистика
английского языка (4, С. 187).
I do not want to write; I want to live. What does she mean by that? It's hard to say.
Possessive pronouns may be loaded with evaluative connotations and devoid of any
grammatical meaning of possession.
Watch what you're about, my man! (Cronin)
Your precious Charles or Frank or your stupid Ashley! (Mitchell)
The same function is fulfilled by the absolute possessive form in structures like Well, you
tell that Herman of yours to mind his own business. (London)
The range of feelings they express may include irony, sarcasm, anger, contempt,
resentment, irritation, etc.
Demonstrative pronouns may greatly enhance the expressive colouring of the utterance.
That -wonderful girl! That beauty! That world of wealth and social position she lived in!
(London)
These lawyers! Don't you know they don't eat often? (Dreiser)
In these examples the demonstrative pronouns do not point at anything but the excitement
of the speaker.
Pronouns are a powerful means to convey the atmosphere of informal or familiar
communication or an attempt to achieve it.
It was Robert Ackly, this guy, that roomed right next to me. (Salinger)
Claws in, you cat. (Shaw)
Through the figurative use of the personal pronouns the author may achieve metaphorical
images and even create sustained compositional metaphors.
Thus using the personal pronoun she instead of the word "sea" in one of his best works The
Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway imparts to this word the category of feminine
gender that enables him to bring the feeling of the old man to the sea to a different, more
dramatic and more human level.
He always thought of the sea as 'la mar' which is what people call her in Spanish when they
love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad
things about her but they are always said as though she were a woman. (Hemingway)
'n the same book he calls a huge and strong fish a he:
He is a great fish and I must convince him, he thought. I must never let him vam his
strength. (Hemingway)
Such recurrent use of these pronouns throughout the novel is charged with the message of
the old man's animating the elemental forces of the sea and its inhabitants and the vision of
himself as a part of nature. In this case the use of the pronouns becomes a compositional
device.
45
All in all we can see that pronouns possess a strong stylistic potential that is realized due to
the violation of the normal links with their object of reference.
3.3.4. The adjective and its stylistic functions
The only grammatical category of the Enghsh adjective today is that of comparison.
Comparison is only the property of qualitative and quantitative adjectives, but not of the
relative ones.
When adjectives that are not normally used in a comparative degree are used with this
category they are charged with a strong expressive power.
Mrs. Thompson, Old Man Fellow's housekeeper had found him deader than a doornail...
(Mangum)
This is a vivid example of a grammatical transposition of the second type built on the
incongruity of the lexical and grammatical meanings.
In the following example the unexpected superlative adjective degree forms lend the
sentence a certain rhythm and make it even more expressive:
...fifteen millions of workers, understood to be the strangest, the cun-ningest, the willingest
our Earth ever had. (Skrebnev)
The commercial functional style makes a wide use of the violation of grammatical norms to
captivate the reader's attention:
The orangemostest drink in the world.
The transposition of other parts of speech into the adjective creates stylistically marked
pieces of description as in the following sentence:
A camouflage of general suffuse and dirty-jeaned drabness covers everybody and we merge
into the background. (Marshall)
The use of comparative or superlative forms with other parts of speech may also convey a
humorous colouring:
He was the most married man I've ever met. (Arnold)
Another stylistic aspect of the adjective comes to the fore when an adjective gets
substantivized and acquires the qualities of a noun such as "solid, firm, tangible, hard," etc.
All Europe was in arms, and England would join. The impossible had happened.
(Aldington)
The stylistic function of the adjective is achieved through the deviant use of the degrees of
comparison that results mostly in grammatical metaphors of the second type (lexical and
grammatical incongruity).
The same effect is also caused by the substantivized use of the adjectives.
3.3.5. The verb and its stylistic properties
The verb is one of the oldest parts of speech and has a very developed grammatical
paradigm. It possesses more grammatical categories that any other part of speech. All
deviant usages of its tense, voice and aspect forms have strong stylistic connotations and
play an important role in creating a metaphorical meaning. A vivid example of the
grammatical metaphor of the first type (form transposition) is the use of 'historical present'
that makes the description very pictorial, almost visible.
The letter was received by a person of the royal family. While reading it she was
interrupted, had no time to hide it and was obliged to put it open on the table. At this enters
the Minister D... He sees the letter and guesses her secret. He first talks to her on business,
then takes out a letter from his pocket, reads it, puts it down on the table near the other
46
letter, talks for some more minutes, then, when taking leave, takes the royal lady's letter
from the table instead of his own. The owner of the letter saw it, was afraid to say anything
for there were other people in the room. (Рое)
The use of 'historical present' pursues the aim of joining different time systems - that of the
characters, of the author and of the reader all of whom may belong to different epochs. This
can be done by making a reader into an on-looker or a witness whose timeframe is
synchronous with the narration. The outcome is an effect of empathy ensured by the
correlation of different time and tense systems.
The combination and unification of different time layers may also be achieved due to the
universal character of the phenomenon described, a phenomenon that is typical of any
society at any time and thus make the reader a part of the events described.
Various shades of modality impart stylistically coloured expressiveness to the utterance.
The Imperative form and the Present Indefinite referred to the future render determination,
as in the following example:
Edward, let there be an end of this. I go home. (Dickens)
The use of shall with the second or third person will denote the speaker's emotions,
intention or determination:
If there's a disputed decision, he said genially, they shall race again. (Waugh)
The prizes shall stand among the bank of flowers. (Waugh)
Similar connotations are evoked by the emphatic use of will with the first person pronoun:
- Adam. Are you tight again?
- Look out of the window and see if you can see a Daimler waiting. - Adam, what have you
been doing? I will be told. (Waugh)
Likewise continuous forms do not always express continuity of the action and are
frequently used to convey the emotional state of the speaker. Actually ah 'exceptions to the
rule' are not really exceptions. They should be considered as the forms in the domain of
stylistic studies because they are used to proclaim the speaker's state of mind, his mood, his
intentions or feelings.
So continuous forms may express:
• conviction, determination, persistence:
Well, she's never coming here again, I tell you that straight; (Maugham)
• impatience, irritation:
- I didn't mean to hurt you.
- You did. You're doing nothing else; (Shaw)
• surprise, indignation, disapproval:
Women kill me. They are always leaving their goddam bags out in the middle of the aisle.
(Salinger)
Present Continuous may be used instead of the Present Indefinite form to characterize the
current emotional state or behaviour:
- How is Carol?
- Blooming, Charley said. She is being so brave. (Shaw)
You are being very absurd, Laura, he said coldly. (Mansfield)
Verbs of physical and mental perception do not regularly have continuous forms. When
they do, however, we observe a semi-marked structure that is highly emphatic due to the
incompatible combination of lexical meaning and grammatical form.
47
Why, you must be the famous Captain Butler we have been hearing so much about - the
blockade runner. (Mitchell)
I must say you're disappointing me, my dear fellow. (Berger)
The use of non-finite forms of the verb such as the infinitive and participle I in place of the
personal forms communicates certain stylistic connotations to the utterance.
Consider the following examples containing non-finite verb forms: Expect Leo to propose
to her! (Lawrence)
The real meaning of the sentence is It's hard to believe that Leo would propose to her!
Death! To decide about death! (Galsworthy)
The implication of this sentence reads He couldn't decide about death!
To take steps! How? Winifred's affair was bad enough! To have a double dose of publicity
in the family! (Galsworthy)
The meaning of this sentence could be rendered as He must take some steps to avoid a
double dose of publicity in the family!
Far be it from him to ask after Reinhart's unprecedented getup and environs. (Berger)
Such use of the verb be is a means of character sketching: He was not the kind of person to
ask such questions.
Since the sentences containing the infinitive have no explicit doer of the action these
sentences acquire a generalized universal character. The world of the personage and the
reader blend into one whole as if the question is asked of the reader (what to do, how to
act). This creates empathy. The same happens when participle I is used impersonally:
The whole thing is preposterous - preposterous! Slinging accusations like this! (Christie)
But I tell you there must be some mistake. Splendor taking dope! It's ridiculous. He is a
nonchemical physician, among other things. (Berger)
The passive voice of the verb when viewed from a stylistic angle may demonstrate such
functions as extreme generalisation and deperson-alisation because an utterance is devoid of
the doer of an action and the action itself loses direction.
...he is a long-time citizen and to be trusted... (Michener)
Little Mexico, the area was called contemptuously, as sad and filthy a collection of
dwellings as had ever been allowed to exist in the west. (Michener)
The use of the auxiliary do in affirmative sentences is a notable emphatic device:
I don't want to look at Sita. I sip my coffee as long as possible. Then I do look at her and
see that all the colour has left her face, she is fearfully pale. (Erdrich)
So the stylistic potential of the verb is high enough. The major mechanism of creating
additional connotations is the transposition of verb forms that brings about the appearance
of metaphors of the first and second types.
3.3.6. Affixation and its expressiveness
Unlike Russian the English language does not possess a great variety of word-forming
resources.
In Russian we have a very developed system of affixes, with evaluative and expressive
meanings: diminutive, derogatory, endearing, exaggerating, etc.
Consider such a variety of adjectives малый - маленький - махонький - малюсенький;
большой - большеватый - большущий, преог-ромнейший; плохой - плоховатенький -
плохонький. There are no morphological equivalents for these in English.
48
We can find some evaluative affixes as a remnant of the former morphological system or as
a result of borrowing from other languages, such as: weakling, piglet, rivulet, girlie,
lambkin, kitchenette.
Diminutive suffixes make up words denoting small dimensions, but also giving them a
caressing, jocular or pejorative ring.
These suffixes enable the speaker to communicate his positive or negative evaluation of a
person or thing.
The suffix -ianI-ean means 'like someone or something, especially connected with a
particular thing, place or person', e. g. the pre-Tolstoyan novel. It also denotes someone
skilled in or studying a particular subject: a historian.
The connotations this suffix may convey are positive and it is frequently used with proper
names, especially famous in art, literature, music, etc. Such adjectives as Mozartean,
Skakespearean, Wagnerian mean like Mozart, Shakespeare, Wagner or in that style.
However some of these adjectives may possess connotations connected with common
associations with the work and life of famous people that may have either positive or
negative colouring. For instance The Longman Dictionary of the English Language and
Culture gives such
definitions of the adjective Dickensian: suggesting Charles Dickens or his writing, e. g. a
the old-fashioned, unpleasant dirtiness of Victorian England: Most deputies work two to an
office in a space of Dickensian grimness. b the cheerfulness of Victorian amusements and
customs: a real Dickensian Christmas.
The suffix -ish is not merely a neutral morpheme meaning a small degree of quality like
blue - bluish, but it serves to create 'delicate or tactful' occasional evaluative adjectives -
baldish, dullish, biggish. Another meaning is 'belonging or having characteristics of
somebody or something'.
Most dictionaries also point out that -ish may show disapproval (selfish, snobbish, raffish)
and often has a derogatory meaning indicating the bad qualities of something or quahties
which are not suitable to what it describes (e.g. mannish in relation to a woman).
Another suffix used similarly is-esque, indicating style, manner, or distinctive character:
arabesque, Romanesque. When used with the names of famous people it means 'in the
manner or style of this particular person'. Due to its French origin it is considered bookish
and associated with exquisite elevated style. Such connotations are implied in adjectives
like Dantesque, Turneresque, Kafkaesque.
Most frequently used suffixes of the negative evaluation are: -ard, -ster, -aster, -eer or half-
affix -monger, drunkard, scandal-monger, black-marketeer, mobster.
Considering the problem of expressive affixes differentiation should be made between
negative affixes such as in-, un-, ir-, поп-, etc. (unbending, irregular, non-profit) and
evaluative derogatory affixes. Evaluative affixes with derogatory connotations demonstrate
the
speaker's attitude to the phenomenon while negative affixes normally represent objects and
phenomena that are either devoid of some quality or do not exist at all (e. g. a non-profit
organization has mostly positive connotations).
All these examples show that stylistic potentials of grammatical forms are great enough.
Stylistic analysis of a work of art among other things should include the analysis of the
49
grammatical level that enables a student to capture the subtle shades of mood or rhythmical
arrangement or the dynamics of the composition.
3.4. Stylistic syntax

Syntactical categories have long been the object of stylistic research. There are different
syntactical means and different classifications. The classifications discussed earlier in this
book demonstrate different categorization of expressive means connected with syntax.
However there are a few general principles on which most of the syntactical expressive
means are built. The purpose of this paragraph is to consider the basic techniques that create
styUstic function on the syntactical level common for most styUstic figures of this type and
illustrate them with separate devices.
The major principles at work on the sentence level are
I. The omission or absence of one or more parts of the sentence. II. Reiteration (repetition)
of some parts.
III. The inverted word order.
IV. The interaction of adjacent sentences.
I, The omission of the obligatory parts of a sentence results in ellipsis of various types. An
elUptical sentence is a sentence with one or more of the parts left out. As a rule the omitted
part can be reconstructed from the context. In this case ellipsis brings into relief typical
features of colloquial English casual talk.
The laconic compressed character of elliptical sentences lends a flavour of liveliness to
colloquial English. In fiction elliptical sentences have a manifold stylistic function. First of
all they help create a sense of immediacy and local colour. Besides they may add to the
character's make up, they lead to a better understanding of a mood of a personage.
Wish I was young enough to wear that kind of thing. Older I get the more I like colour.
We're both pretty long in the tooth, eh? (Waugh)
Often elliptical sentences are used in represented speech because syntactically it resembles
direct speech. The use of elliptical sentences in fiction is not limited to conversation. They
are sometimes used in the author's narration and in the exposition (description which opens
a chapter or a book).
I remember now, that Sita's braid did not hurt. It was only soft and heavy, smelling of
Castile soap, but still I yelled as though something terrible was happening. Stop! Get off!
Let go! Because I couldn't stand how strong she was. (Erdrich)
A variety of ellipsis in English are one-member nominal sentences. They have no separate
subject and predicate but one main part instead. One-member sentences call attention to the
subject named, to its existence and even more to its interrelations with other objects.
Nominal sentences are often used in descriptive narration and in
exposition. The economy of the construction gives a dynamic rhythm to the passage. One-
member sentences are also common in stage remarks and represented speech.
Matchbooks. Coaster trays. Hotel towels and washcloths. He was sending her the samples
of whatever he was selling at the time. Fuller brushes. Radio antennas. Cans of hair spray
or special wonder-working floor cleaners. (Erdrich)
Break-in-the narrative is a device that consists in the emotional halt in the middle or
towards the end of an utterance. Arnold distinguishes two kinds: suppression and
50
aposiopesis. Suppression leaves the sentence unfinished as a result of the speaker's
deliberation to do so. The use of suppression can be accounted for by a desire not to
mention something that could be reconstructed from the context or the situation. It is just
the part that is not mentioned that attracts the reader's attention. It's a peculiar use of
emphasis that lends the narration a certain psychological tension.
If everyone at twenty realized that half his life was to be lived after forty... (Waugh)
Aposiopesis means an involuntary halt in speech because the speaker is too excited or
overwhelmed to continue.
But Mr. Meredith, Esther Silversleeves said at last, these people are heathens! Esther was
the most religious of the family. - Surly you cannot wish... her voice trailed off. (Rutherfurd)
Decomposition is also built on omission, splitting the sentences into separate snatches. They
are the result of detachment of parts of sentences. This device helps to throw in the effect of
relief or express
a highly dynamic pace of narration. Decomposition may be combined with ellipsis.
Him, of all things! Him! Never! (Lawrence)
II. Reiteration is never a mechanical repetition of a word or structure. It is always
accompanied by new connotations. The repetition stresses not the denotative but the
connotative meaning.
The usage area of reiteration is casual and non-casual speech, prose and poetry.
Different types of reiteration may be classified on the compositional principle:
Anaphora is the repetition of the same element at the beginning of two or more successive
clauses, sentences or verses.
They were poor in space, poor in light, poor in quiet, poor in repose, and poor in the
atmosphere of privacy - poor in everything that makes a man's home his castle. (Cheever)
Framing is an arrangement of repeated elements at the beginning and at the end of one or
more sentences that creates a kind of structural encasement.
He had been good for me when I was a callow and an ignorant youth; he was good for me
now. (Shute)
Anadiplosis is such a figure in which a word or group of wqrds completing a sentence is
repeated at the beginning of a succeeding sentence. It often shows the interaction of
different parts of a paragraph or text.
My wife has brown hair, dark eyes, and a gentle disposition. Because of her gentle
disposition, I sometimes think that she spoils the children. (Cheever)
Epiphora consists in the repetition of certain elements at the end of two or more successive
clauses, sentences or paragraphs.
Trouble is, I don't know if I want a business or not. Or even if I can pay for it, if I did want
it. (Shute)
III. Inversion is upsetting of the normal order of words, which is an important feature of
English.
By changing the logical order this device helps to convey new shades of meaning. The
denotative meaning is the same but the emotive colouring is different.
Galperin describes five types of inversion that are connected with the fixed syntactical
position of the sentence members. Each type of inversion produces a specific stylistic
effect: it may render an elevated tone to the narration:
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
51
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
(Keats)
I will make my kitchen, and you will keep your room, Where white flows the river and
bright blows the broom.
(Stevenson)
- or make it quick-paced and dynamic: In he got and away they went. (Waugh)
Bang went Philbrick's revolver. Off trotted the boys on another race. (Waugh)
Sometimes inversion may contribute to the humorous effect of the description or speech
characterisation:
To march about you would not like us? suggested the stationmaster, (Waugh)
IV. Interaction of adjacent sentences is a compositional syntactical technique.
One of the major emphatic means is the use of parallel constructions. They are similarly
built and used in close succession. It is a variety of repetition on the level of a syntactical
model. Parallel constructions more than anything else create a certain rhythmical
arrangement of speech. The sameness of the structure stresses the difference or the
similarity of the meaning. Sometimes parallel constructions assume a peculiar form and the
word order of the first phrase is inverted in the second. The resulting device is called
chiasmus. It is often accompanied by a lexical repetition:
They had loved her, and she had loved them. (Caldwell)
Work - work - work!
From weary chime to chime!
Work - work - work
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam
Seam, and gusset, and band...
(Hood)
The climax is such an arrangement of a series of clauses or phrases that form an ascending
scale, in which each of the sentences is stronger in intensity of expression than the previous
one.
We're nice people and there isn't going to be room for nice people any more. It's ended, it's
all over, it's dead. (Cheever)
Another device is the anticlimax, also called back gradation, which is a figure of speech that
consists in an abrupt and often ludicrous descent, which contrasts with the previous rise.
The descent is often achieved by the addition of a detail that ruins the elevated tenor of the
previous narration.
Its main stylistic function is to give the thought an unexpected humorous or ironic twist.
I hate and detest every bit of it, said Professor Silenus gravely. Nothing I have ever done
has caused me so much disgust. With a deep sigh he rose from the table and walked from
the room, the fork with which he had been eating still held in his hand. (Waugh)
Practice Section
1. What are the basic principles of stylistic grammar? How does grammatical metaphor
correlate with lexical metaphor?
52
2. What is the essence of the grammatical gradation theory? Describe the types of
grammatical transposition and provide your own examples to illustrate each type.
3. Consider the following sentences and comment on the function of morphological
grammatical categories and parts of speech that create stylistic function:
One night I am standing in front of Mindy's restaurant on Broadway, thinking of
practically nothing whatever, when all of a sudden I feel a very terrible pain in my left foot.
(Runyon)
It's good, that, to see you again, Mr. Philip, said Jim. (Caldwell)
Earth colours are his theme. When he shows up at the door, we see that he's even dressing
in them. His pants are grey. His shirt is the same colour as his skin. Flesh colour. (Erdrich)
Now, the Andorrans were a brave, warlike people centuries ago, as everybody was at one
time or another - for example, take your Assyrians, who are now extinct; or your Swedes,
who fought in the Thirty Years' War but haven't done much since except lie in the sun and
turn brown... (Berger)
A gaunt and Halloweenish grin was plastered to her face. (Erdrich)
I walked past Mrs. Shumway, who jerked her head around in a startled woodpeckerish
way... (Erdrich)
She's the Honourable Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde, you know - sister-in-law of Lord Pastmaster -
a very wealthy woman, South American. (Waugh)
...there are two kinds of people, which we may call the hurters and the hurtees. The first
get their satisfaction by working their will on somebody else. The second like to be imposed
upon. (Burger)
To hear her was to be beginning to despair. (Jarrell)
But they domanage the building? Mrs. Doubleday said to him. (Cheever)
A band indeed! You' ll be having fireworks next. (Waugh)
I stare down at the bright orange capsules... I have to listen... so we look at each other, up
and down, and up and down... Without us, they say, without Loise, it's the state hospital.
(Erdrich)
Ah! That must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian
manner. (Wilde)
I got nothing against Joe Chapin, but he's not me. I'm me, and another man is still another
man. (O'Hara)
That's not the Mr. Littlejohn I used to know. (Waugh)
I pronounce that the sentence on the defendants, Noelle Page and Lawrence Douglas, shall
be execution by a firing squad. (Sheldon)
They are all being so formal. Let's play a game to break the ice. (Bell)
I wondered how the Moroccan boy... could stand meekly aside and watch her go off with
another man.
Actors, I thought. They must divide themselves into compartments. (Shaw)
Oh, I guess I love you, I do love the children, but I love myself, I love my life, it has some
value and some promise for me... (Cheever)
Let him say his piece, the darling. Isn't he divine? (Waugh)
It never was the individual sounds of a language, but the melodies behind them, that Dr.
Rosenbaum imitated. For these his ear was Mozartian. (Jarrell)
They are allowed to have the train stoppedat every cross-roads... (Atkinson)
53
4. Arrange syntactical expressive means described in Galperin's classification into four
groups according to the major principles of stylistic syntax in addition to the illustrations
given in the chapter above.
5. Identify syntactical stylistic devices used in the examples below and comment on their
meaning in the context:
I should have brought down a more attractive dress. This one, with its white petals gone
dull in the shower steam, with its belt of lavender and prickling lace at each pulse point, I
don't like. (Erdrich)
I begin my windshield-wiper wave, as instructed by our gym teacher, who has been a
contestant for Miss North Dakota. Back and forth very slowly. Smile, smile, smile. (Erdrich)
Except for the work in the quarries, life at Egdon was almost the same as at Blackstone.
'Slops outside,' chapel, privacy. (Waugh)
ft was for this reason the rector had so abjectly curled up, still so abjectly curled up before
She-who-was Cynthia: because of his slave's fear of her contempt, the contempt of a born-
free nature for a base-born nature. (Lawrence)
The warder rang the bell - Inside, you two! he shouted. (Waugh)
- Old man, Miles said amiably, if I may say so, I think you're missing the point.
- If I may say so, sir, Philippe said, I think I am missing nothing. What is the point? (Shaw)
You asked me what I had going this time. What I have going is wine. With the way the
world's drinking these days, being in wine is like having a license to steal. (Shaw)
How kind of you, Alfred! She has asked about you, and expressed her intention - her
intention, if you please! - to know you. (Caldwell)
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other
people. (Wilde)
- There are lots of things I wanted to do - I wanted to climb the Matterhorn but I wouldn't
blame the fact that I haven't on anyone else.
- You. Clime the Matterhorn. Ha. You couldn't even climb the Washington Monument.
(Cheever)
There was no Olga. I had no consolation. Then I felt desperate, desolate, crushed.
(Cheever)
- You get cold, riding a bicycle? he asked.
- My hands! she said clasping them nervously. (Lawrence)
If the man had been frightening before, he was now a perfect horror. (Berger)
My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly disgraceful. It is almost as
bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you. (Wilde)
Trouble is, I don't know if I want a business or not. Or even if I can pay for it, if I did want
it. (Shute)
A man has a right to get married and have children, and I'd earned the right to have a wife,
both in work and money. A man's got a right to live in his own place. A man has a right to
make his life where he can look after his Dad and Mum a bit when they get old. (Shute)
...already we were operating five aircraft of four different types, and if
we got a Tramp we should have six aircraft of five types...
A Tramp it would have to be, and I told them of my money difficulty.
(Shute)
54
Damrey Phong, though healthy, is a humid place. (Shute)
He's made his declaration. He loves me. He can't live without me. He'd walk through fire to
hear the notes of my voice. (Cheever)
That's the foolest thing I ever heard. (Berger)
Chapter 4
The Theory of Functional Styles
The notion of style In functional stylistics. Correlation of style, norm and function in
the language. Language varieties: regional, social, occupational. An overview of
functional style systems. Distinctive linguistic features of the major functional styles of
English
4.1. The notion of style in functional stylistics
The notion of style has to do with how we use the language under specific circumstances
for a specific purpose. The notion of using English, for instance, involves much more than
using our knowledge of its linguistic structure. It also involves awareness of the numerous
situations in which English can be used as a special medium of communication with its own
set of distinctive and recognizable features. The various branches of linguistics that
investigate the topic, such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, discourse
analysis, textlinguistics, and stylistics present a remarkable range of methodologies and
emphases. We'll be interested in how stylistic research treats of the subject.
Linguistic literature gives various definitions of the notion 'style' that generally boil down to
the following three meanings of this term:
• A variety of the national language traditionally used in one of the socially identifiable
spheres of life that is characterised by a particular set of linguistic features, including
vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. These are chiefly associated with the social and
regional varieties, such as educated, colloquial, low colloquial, dialectal, uneducated, etc.
From this point of view the most broad and well known subdivision in many national
languages today usually describes these varieties as neutral, literary (high) and colloquial
(low): e.g. Cockney, upper-class, educated English.
• Generally accepted linguistic identity of oral and written units of discourse, such as public
speech, a lecture, a friendly letter, a newspaper article, etc. Such units demonstrate style not
only in a special choice of linguistic means but in their very arrangement, i. e. composition
of a speech act, that creates a category of text marked by oratory, scientific, familiar or
pubhcist style.
• Individual manner of expression determined by personal factors, such as educational
background, professional experience, sense of humour, etc.: e.g. personal style of
communication, the style of Pushkin's early poetry.
Style is our knowledge how language is used to create and interpret texts and conversational
interactions. It involves being aware of the range of situations in which a language can be
used in a distinctive and predictable way and of the possibilities available to us when we
want to produce or respond to creative uses of the language.
Stylistic features relate to constraints on language use that may be only temporary features
of our spoken or written language. We often adopt different group uses of language as we
go through our day; we may use a different style speaking with our children in the family,
reporting to our boss at work or practicing sports. We change our speaking or writing style
55
to make a particular effect: imitating somebody's accent when telling a story, giving a
humorous account of events in an informal letter and so on. Style is first and foremost the
result of our choice of content of our message and the appropriate range of language means
to deliver the message effectively.
Uses of English in numerous situations that require definite stylistic features are studied by
the theory of functional styles.
This theory involves consideration of such notions as norm and function in their relation to
style.
4.2. Correlation of style, norm and function in the language
Any national language uses the notion of 'correct language' which involves conformity to
the grammatical, lexical and phonetic standards accepted as normative in this society. The
favoured variety is usually a version of the standard written language, especially as
encountered in literature or in the formal spoken language that most closely reflects litterary
style. It is presented in dictionaries, grammars and other official manuals. Those who speak
and write in this way are said to be using language 'correctly', those who do not are said to
be using it 'incorrectly'. Correct usage is associated with the notion of the linguistic norm.
The norm is closely related to the system of
the language as an abstract ideal system. The system provides and determines the general
rules of usage of its elements, the norm is the actual use of these provisions by individual
speakers under specific conditions of communication.
Individual use of the language implies a personal selection of linguistic means on aU levels.
When this use conforms to the general laws of the language this use wiU coincide with
what is called the literary norm of the national language.
However the literary norm is not a homogeneous and calcified entity. It varies due to a
number of factors, such as regional, social, situational, personal, etc.
The norm will be dictated by the social roles of the participants of communication, their age
and family or other relations. An important role in the selection of this or that variety of the
norm belongs to the purpose of the utterance, or its function. Informal language on a formal
occasion is as inappropriate as formal language on an informal occasion. To say that a
usage is appropriate is only to say that it is performing its function satisfactorily. We shall
use different 'norms' speaking with elderly people and our peers, teachers and students,
giving an interview or testimony in court. This brings us to the notion of the norm variation.
The norm of the language implies various realisations of the language structure that are
sometimes called its subsystems, registers or varieties.
I. V. Arnold presents these relations as a system of oppositions:
Structure : : norm : : individual use National norm : : dialect
Neutral style : : colloquial style : : bookish style Literary correct speech : : common
colloquial
Functional styles are subsystems of the language and represent varieties of the norm of the
national language. Their evolution and development has been determined by the specific
factors of communication in various spheres of human activity. Each of them is
characterised by its own parameters in vocabulary usage, syntactical expression,
phraseology, etc.
The term 'functional style' reflects peculiar functions of the language in this or that type of
communicative interaction. Proceeding from the generally acknowledged language
56
functions Prof. I. V. Arnold suggested a description of functional styles based on the
combination of the linguistic functions they fulfil.
intellectual pragma emoti phati aestheti
Function communic tic ve c c
Style ative
oratorical + + + + +
colloquial + + + + -
poetic + - + - +
publicist + + + - -
and
newspaper
official + + - - -
scientific + - - - -
The table presents functional styles as a kind of hierarchy according to the number of
functions fulfilled by each style, oratorical and scientific being almost complete opposites.
4.3. Language varieties: regional, social, occupational
However not all texts have boundaries that are easy to identify in the use of distinctive
language. For example, the oratorical style has a lot. of common features with the publicist
one, which in its turn is often comparable with the style of humanities, such as political
science, history or philosophy.
The point of departure for discerning functional styles is the so-called neutral style that is
stylistically non-marked and reflects the norms of the language. It serves as a kind of
universal background for the expression of stylistically marked elements in texts of any
functional type. It can be rarely observed in the individual use of the language and as
Skrebnev remarked, perhaps, only handbooks for foreigners and primers could be qualified
as stylistically neutral (47, p. 22).
4.3. Language varieties:

regional, social, occupational
The particular set of features, which identifies a language variety, does not represent the
features of the language as a whole. Variety features depend on the presence of certain
factors in a social situation. Classifications of these factors vary, but we may group them
into two types according to most general dimensions: sociolinguistic and stylistic factors.
Sociolinguistic factors are connected with very broad situational constraints on language
use. They chiefly identify the regional and social varieties of the language. They are
relatively permanent features of the spoken and written language, over which we have
comparatively little conscious control. We tend not to change our regional or social
group way of speaking in every-day communication and usually we are not aware of using
it.
Stylistic factors relate to restrictions on language use that are much more narrowly
constrained, and identify individual preferences in usage (phraseology, special vocabulary,
57
language of literature) or the varieties that are associated with occupational groups
(lawyers, journalists, scholars). These are features, over which we are able to exercise some
degree of conscious control.
As David Crystal, a famous British linguist puts it, regional language variation of English
provides a geographical answer to the question 'Where are you from, in the English-
speaking world?'
Social language variation provides an answer to a somewhat different question 'Who are
you?' or 'What are you in the eyes of the English-speaking society to which you belong?'
(33, p. 393). Actually social variation provides several possible answers, because people
may acquire several identities as they participate in the social structure. One and the same
person may belong to different social groups and perform different social roles. A person
may at the same time be described as 'a parent', 'a wife', 'an architect', 'a feminist', 'a senior
citizen', 'a member of Parliament', 'an amateur sculptor', 'a theatre-goer'; the possibffities
may be endless.
Any of these identities can have consequences for the kind of language we use. Language
more than anything else will testify to our permanent and temporary roles in social life.
Some features of social variation lead to particular linguistic consequences. In many ways
our pronunciation, choice of words and constructions, general strategy of communication
are defined by the
age, sex and socio-economic aspects. Choice of occupation has a less predictable influence,
though in some contexts, e. g. medicine or law it can be highly distinctive.
Adopting a specific social role, such as making a congratulatory speech or conducting a
panel talk, invariably entails a choice of appropriate linguistic forms.
Across the world attitudes to social variation differ a lot. All countries display social
stratification, though some have more clearly defined boundaries than others and therefore
more distinct features of class dialect. Britain is usually said to be linguistically more class-
conscious than other English-speaking countries.
For example, in England one accent has traditionally dominated over all others and the
notion of respectable social standing is usually associated with Received Pronunciation
(RP), considered to be the 'prestige accent'.
However today with the breakdown of rigid divisions between social classes and the
development of mass media RP is no longer the prerogative of social elite. Today it is best
described as an 'educated' accent which actually has several varieties. Most educated people
have developed an accent, which is a mixture of RP and various regional features that
sometimes is called 'modified RP'.
This is one example that shows a general trend in modern English-regionally modified
speech is no longer stigmatised as 'low', it can even be an advantage, expressing such social
values as solidarity and democracy. A pure RP accent, by contrast can even evoke hostility,
especially in those parts of Britain that have their own regional norms, e. g. Scotland and
Wales.
Occupational varieties of the national language are normally associated with a particular
way of earning a living. They belong to the group of stylistically determined varieties and
differ from both regional and social sublanguages.
Features of language that identify people's geographical or social origins, once established
can hardly change over a short period of time. It would be very difficult to change your
58
accent if you move from one part of the country to another with a different regional norm; it
is equally difficult to transform the linguistic indicators of our social background
(vocabulary and structural expression).
Occupational varieties are not like that. Their linguistic features may be just as distinctive
as regional or social features, but they are only in temporary use. They 'go with the territory'
- adopted as we begin work and given up as we finish it. People who cannot stop 'talking
shop' even when they are not at work are rather an exception to the rule.
Any professional field could serve as an illustration of occupational linguistic identity.
There are no class distinctions here. Factory workers have to master a special glossary of
technical terms and administrative vocabulary (seniority labels, term of service, severance
pay, fringe benefits, safety regulation) in order to carry out professional communication. To
fulfil their tasks they develop jargon and professional slang, which set them apart from
outsiders. The more specialised the occupation and the more senior or professional the
position the more technical the language. Also, if an occupation has a long-lasting and
firmly established tradition it is likely to have its own linguistic rituals which its members
accept as a criterion of proficiency. The highly distinctive languages of law, government
and religion provide the clearest cases, with their unique grammar,
vocabulary, and patterns of discourse. Of course, all occupations are linguistically
distinctive to a certain degree. In some cases it involves only special terms; in others it may
be a combination of linguistic features on different levels as will be shown in the last
section of this chapter.
4.4. An overview of functional style systems

As has been mentioned before there are a great many classifications of language varieties
that are called sublanguages, substyles, registers and functional styles that use various
criteria for their definition and categorisation. The term generally accepted by most Russian
scholars is functional styles. It is also used in this course. A few classifications of the
functional styles in modern English will be considered in this chapter.
Books by I. R. Galperin on English Stylistics (1958, 1971, 1977) are among most
acknowledged sources of stylistic research in this country.
Galperin distinguishes 5 functional styles and suggests their subdivision into substyles in
modern English according to the following scheme:
1. The Belles-Lettres Style:
a) poetry;
b) emotive prose;
c) the language of the drama.
2. Publicist Style:
a) oratory and speeches;
b) the essay;
c) articles.
3. Newspaper Style:
a) brief news items;
b) headlines;
c) advertisements and announcements;
d) the editorial.
59
4. Scientific Prose Style.
5. The Style of Official documents:
a) business documents;
b) legal documents;
c) the language of diplomacy;
d) military documents.
Prof. Galperin differs from many other scholars in his views on functional styles because he
includes in his classification only the written variety of the language. In his opinion style is
the result of creative activity of the writer who consciously and deliberately selects
language means that create style. Colloquial speech, according to him, by its very nature
will not lend itself to careful selection of linguistic features and there is no stylistic intention
expressed on the part of the speaker. At the same time his classification contains such
varieties of publicist style as oratory and speeches. What he actually means is probably not
so much the spoken variety of the language but spontaneous colloquial speech, a viewpoint
which nevertheless seems to give ground for debate. As we pointed out in sections two and
three of this chapter individual speech, oral variety included, is always marked by stylistic
features that show the
speaker's educational, social and professional background. Moreover we always assume
some socially determined role and consciously choose appropriate language means to
perform it and achieve the aim of communication.
Scholars' views vary on some other items of this classification. There is no unanimity about
the belles-lettres style. In fact Galperin's position is not shared by the majority. This notion
comes under criticism because it seems rather artificial especiaUy in reference to modern
prose. It is certainly true that many works of fiction may contain emotionally coloured
passages of emotive writing that are marked by special image-creating devices, such as
tropes and figures of speech. These are typically found in the author's narrative, lyrical
digressions, expositions, descriptions of nature or reflections on the characters' emotional or
mental state.
At the same time many writers give an account of external events, social life and reproduce
their characters' direct speech. Sometimes they quote extracts from legal documents,
newspapers items, advertisements, slogans, headlines, e. g. K. Vonnegut, J. Dos Passos, etc.
which do not belong to beUes-lettres style in its traditional meaning.
As a matter of fact, in modern works of fiction we may encounter practicaUy any functional
speech type imaginable. So most other classifications do not distinguish the language of
fiction as a separate style.
In 1960 the book "Stylistics of the English Language" by M. D. Kufc-netz and Y. M.
Skrebnev appeared. The book was a kind of brief outline of stylistic problems. The styles
and their varieties distinguished by these authors included:
1. Literary or Bookish Style:
a) publicist style;
b) scientific (technological) style;
c) official documents.
2. Free ("Colloquial") Style:
a) literary colloquial style;
b) familiar colloquial style.
60
As can be seen from this classification, both poetry and imaginative prose have not been
included (as non-homogeneous objects) although the book is supplied with a chapter on
versification.
Next comes the well-known work by I, V. Arnold "Stylistics of Modern English" (decoding
stylistics) published in 1973 and revised in 1981. Some theses of this author have already
been presented in this chapter (i. e. those that concern the notions of norm, neutrality and
function in their stylistic aspect). Speaking of functional styles, Arnold starts With the a
kind of abstract notion termed 'neutral style'. It has no distinctive features and its function is
to provide a standard background for the other styles. The other 'real' styles can be broadly
divided into two groups according to the scholar's approach: different varieties of colloquial
styles and several types of literary bookish styles.
1. Colloquial Styles:
a) literary colloquial;
b) familiar colloquial;
c) common colloquial.
2. Literary Bookish Styles:
a) scientific;
b) official documents;
c) publicist (newspaper);
d) oratorical;
e) poetic.
This system presents an accurate description of the many social and extralinguistic factors
that influence the choice of specific language for a definite communicative purpose. At the
same time the inclusion of neutral style in this classification seems rather odd since unlike
the others it's non-existent in individual use and should probably be associated only with the
structure of the language.
One type of sublanguages suggested by Arnold in her classification - publicist or newspaper
- fell under the criticism of Skrebnev who argues that the diversity of genres in newspapers
is evident to any layman: along with the "leader" (or editorial) the newspaper page gives a
column to political observers, some space is taken by sensational reports; newspapers are
often full of lengthy essays on economics, law, morals, art, etc. Much space is also given to
miscellaneous news items, local events; some papers publish sequences of stories or novels;
and most papers sell their pages to advertising firms. This enumeration of newspaper genres
could go on and on. Therefore, Skrebnev maintains, we can hardly speak of such functional
style at all.
Of course Arnold is quite aware of the diversity of newspaper writings. However what she
really means is the newspaper material specific of the newspaper only: political news,
police reports, press reviews, editorials.
In a word, newspaper style should be spoken of only when the materials that serve to
inform the reader are meant. Then we can speak of distinctive style - forming features
including a special choice
of words, abundance of international words, newspaper cliches and nonce words, etc.
It should be noted however that many scholars consider the language of the press as a
separate style and some researchers even single out newspaper headlines as a functional
style.
61
One of the relatively recent books on stylistics is the handbook by A. N. Morokhovsky and
his co-authors O. P. Vorobyova, N. I. Lik-nosherst and Z. V. Timoshenko "Stylistics of
the English language" published in Kiev in 1984. In the final chapter of the book "Stylistic
Differentiation of Modern English" a concise but exhaustive review of factors that should
be taken into account in treating the problem of functional styles is presented. The book
suggests the following style classes:
1. Official business style.
2. Scientific-professional style.
3. Publicist style.
4. Literary colloquial style.
5. Familiar colloquial style.
Each style, according to Morokhovsky has a combination of distinctive features. Among
them we find oppositions like 'artistic - non-artistic', 'presence of personality - absence of
it', 'formal - informal situation', 'equal - unequal social status' (of the participants of
communication), 'written or oral form'. Morokhovsky emphasizes that these five classes of
what he calls "speech activity" are abstractions rather than realities, they can seldom be
observed in their pure forms: mixing styles is the common practice.
On the whole Morokhovsky's concept is one of the few that attempt to differentiate and
arrange the taxonomy of cardinal linguistic notions. According to Morokhovsky's approach
language as a system includes types of thinking differentiating poetic and straightforward
language, oral and written speech, and ultimately, bookish and colloquial functional types
of language. The next problem is stylistics of 'speech activity' connected with social
stereotypes of speech behaviour. Morokhovsky defines this in the following way:
"Stereotypes of speech behaviour or functional styles of speech activity are norms for wide
classes of texts or utterances, in which general social roles are embodied - poet, journalist,
manager, politician, scholar, teacher, father, mother, etc." (15, p. 234).
The number of stereotypes (functional styles) is not unlimited but great enough. For
example, texts in official business style may be administrative, juridical, military,
commercial, diplomatic, etc. Still further differentiation deals with a division of texts into
genres. Thus military texts (official style) comprise 'commands, reports, regulations,
manuals, instructions'; diplomatic documents include 'notes, declarations, agreements,
treaties', etc. In addition to all this we may speak of 'the individual style' with regard to any
kind of text.
In the same year (1984) V. A. Maltzev published a smaller book on stylistics entitled
"Essays on English Stylistics" in Minsk.
His theory is based on the broad division of lingual material into "informal" and "formal"
varieties and adherence to Skrebnev's system of functional styles.
Prof. Skrebnev uses the term sublanguages in the meaning that is usually attributed to
functional styles. The major difference in his use of this term is that he considers
innumerable situational communicative
products as sublanguages, including each speaker's idiolect. Each act of speech is a
sublanguage. This makes the notion of functional style somewhat vague and difficult to
define. At the same time Skrebnev recognizes the major opposition of 'formal' and
'informal' sphere of language use and suggests "a very rough and approximate gradation of
subspheres and their respective sublanguages" (47, p. 200).
62
The formal sublanguages in Skrebnev's opinion belong exclusively to the written variety of
lingual intercourse. He avoids the claim of inconsistency for including certain types of
speeches into this sphere by arguing that texts of some of the types can be read aloud in
public.
His rough subdivision of formal styles includes:
a) private correspondence with a stranger;
b) business correspondence between representatives of commercial or other establishments;
c) diplomatic correspondence, international treaties;
d) legal documents (civil law - testaments, settlements; criminal law - verdicts, sentences);
e) personal documents (certificates, diplomas, etc.).
The informal colloquial sphere includes ah types of colloquial language - literary, non-
literary, vulgar, ungrammatical, social dialects, the vernacular of the underworld, etc. This
cannot be inventoried because of its unlimited varieties.
Of course formal and informal spheres do not exist in severely separated worlds.
The user of the first speech type is fully aware of his social responsibility. He knows the
requirements he has to meet and the conventions he
must observe. But the same person may change his lingual behaviour with the change of the
environment or situation. Sometimes he is forced to abide by laws that are very different
from those he regularly uses: speaking with children, making a speech before parliament or
during an electoral campaign.
The first type of speech - 'formal' - comprises the varieties that are used in spheres of
official communication, science, technology, poetry and fiction, newspaper texts, oratory,
etc. It's obvious that many of these varieties can be further subdivided into smaller classes
or sublanguages. For example, in the sphere of science and technology almost each science
has a metalanguage of its own. The language of computer technology, e. g., is not so limited
to the technological sphere as at the time of its beginnings - 'to be computer-friendly' has
given rise to many other coinages like 'media-friendly', 'market-friendly', 'envhonmentally
friendly', etc.
In the informal type of speech we sh n't find so many varieties as in the formal one, but it is
used by a much greater number of people. The first and most important informal variety is
colloquial style. This is the language used by educated people in informal situations. These
people may resort to jargon or slang or even vulgar language to express their negative
attitude to somebody or something.
Uneducated people speak "popular" or ungrammatical language, be it English or Russian.
There is also a problem of dialects that would require special consideration that cannot be
done within this course. Dialects are not really "ungrammatical" types of a national
language, some scholars hold, but a different language with its own laws. However
it may have been true in the last century but not now. And what Skrebnev writes on this
problem seems to be argumentative enough.
"Dialects are current in the countryside; cities are nearly untouched by them. In the 19th
century England some of the aristocracy were not ashamed of using their local dialects.
Nowadays owing to the sound media (radio, cinema and TV) non-standard English in
Britain is nearly, as in this country, a sure sign of cultural inferiority, e. g. the status of
Соскnеу." (47, p. 198).
63
In his classification of functional styles of modern English that he calls language varieties
the famous British linguist D. Crystal suggests the following subdivision of these styles:
regional, social, occupational, restricted and individual. (33, 34)
Regional varieties of English reflect the geographical origin of the language used by the
speaker: Lancashire variety, Canadian English, Cockney, etc.
Social variations testify to the speaker's family, education, social status background: upper
class and non-upper class, a political activist, a member of the proletariat, a Times reader,
etc.
Occupational styles present quite a big group that includes the following types:
a) religious English;
b) scientific English;
c) legal English;
d) plain (official) English;
e) political English;
f) news media English further subdivided into:
• newsreporting;
• journalistics;
• broadcasting;
• sportscommentary;
• advertising.
Restricted English includes very tightly constrained uses of language when little or no
linguistic variation is permitted. In these cases special rules are created by man to be
consciously learned and used. These rules control everything that can be said. According to
Crystal restricted varieties appear both in domestic and occupational spheres and include
the following types:
a) knitwrite in books on knitting;
b) cookwrite in recipe books;
c) congratulatory messages;
d) newspaper announcements;
e) newspaper headlines;
f) sportscasting scores;
g) airspeak, the language of air traffic control;
h) emergencyspeak, the language for the emergency services;
i) e-mail variety, etc.
Individual variation involves types of speech that arise from the speaker's personal
differences meaning such features as physique, interests, personality, experience and so on.
A particular blend of
social and geographical backgrounds may produce a distinctive accent or dialect.
Educational history, occupational experience, personal skills and tastes, hobbies or literary
preferences will foster the use of habitual words and turns of phrase, or certain kinds of
grammatical construction.
Also noticeable will be favourite discourse practices - -a tendency to develop points in an
argument in a certain way, or an inclination for certain kinds of metaphor. Some people are
'good conversationalists', 'good story-tellers', 'good letter-writers', 'good speech-makers'.
What actually makes them so is the subject of stylistic research.
64
There are also a number of cases where individuality in the use of English - a personal style
- is considered to be a matter of particular importance and worthy of study in its own right.
Such is the study of the individual style of a writer or poet: Shakespeare's style, Faulkner's
style, and the like.
4.5. Distinctive linguistic features of the major functional styles
of English
A description of five major functional styles given in this section is based on their most
distinctive features on each level of the language structure: pnonetical (where possible),
morphological, syntactical, lexical and compositional. A peculiar combination of these
features and special emphasis on some of them creates the paradigm of what is called a
scientific or publicist text, a legal or other official document, colloquial or formal speech.
4.5.1. Literary colloquial style
Phonetic features
Standard pronunciation in compliance with the national norm, enunciation.
Phonetic compression of frequently used forms, e.g. it's, don't, Fve.
Omission of unaccented elements due to the quick tempo, e. g. you know him ?
Morphological features
Use of regular morphological features, with interception of evaluative suffixes e. g. deary,
doggie, duckie.
Syntactical features
Use of simple sentences with a number of participial and infinitive constructions and
numerous parentheses.
Syntactically correct utterances compliant with the literary norm.
Use of various types of syntactical compression, simplicity of syntactical connection.
Prevalence of active and finite verb forms.
Use of grammar forms for emphatic purposes, e. g. progressive verb forms to express
emotions of irritation, anger etc.
Decomposition and ellipsis of sentences in a dialogue (easily reconstructed from the
context).
Use of special colloquial phrases, e.g. that friend of yours. Lexical features
Wide range of vocabulary strata in accordance with the register of communication and
participants' roles: formal and informal, neutral and bookish, terms and foreign words.
Basic stock of communicative vocabulary - stylistically neutral.
Use of socially accepted contracted forms and abbreviations, e. g. fridge for refrigerator,
ice for ice-cream, TV for television, CD for compact disk, etc.
Use of etiquette language and conversational formulas, such as nice to see you, my
pleasure, on behalf of, etc.
Extensive use of intensifiers and gap-fillers, e.g. absolutely, definitely, awfully, kind of, so
to speak, I mean, if I may say so.
Use of interjections and exclamations, e. g. Dear me, My God, Goodness, well, why, now,
oh.
Extensive use of phrasal verbs let sb down, put up with, stand sb up. Use of words of
indefinite meaning like thing, stuff. Avoidance of slang, vulgarisms, dialect words, jargon.
Use of phraseological expressions, idioms and figures of speech.
Compositional features
65
Can be used in written and spoken varieties: dialogue, monologue, personal letters, diaries,
essays, articles, etc.
Prepared types of texts may have thought out and logical composition, to a certain extent
determined by conventional forms (letters, presentations, articles, interviews).
Spontaneous types have a loose structure, relative coherence and uniformity of form and
content.
4.5,2. Familiar colloquial style
Represented in spoken variety.
Phonetic features
Casual and often careless pronunciation, use of deviant forms, e. g. gonna instead of going
to, whatcha instead of what do you, dunno instead of don't know.
Use of reduced and contracted forms, e.g. you're, they've, I'd.
Omission of unaccented elements due to quick tempo, e.g. you hear me?
Emphasis on intonation as a powerful semantic and styUstic instrument capable to render
subtle nuances of thought and feeling. -
Use of onomatopoeic words, e.g. whoosh, hush, stop yodelling, yum, yak.
Use of evaluative suffixes, nonce words formed on morphological and phonetic analogy
with other nominal words: e. g. baldish, mawkish, moody, hanky-panky, helter-skelter,
plates of meet (feet), okeydoke,
Extensive use of collocations and phrasal verbs instead of neutral and literary equivalents:
e.g. to turn in instead of to go to bed.
Use of simple short sentences.
Dialogues are usually of the question-answer type.
Use of echo questions, parallel structures, repetitions of various kinds.
In complex sentences asyndetic coordination is the norm.
Coordination is used more often than subordination, repeated use of conjunction and is a
sign of spontaneity rather than an expressive device.
Extensive use of ellipsis, including the subject of the sentence e.g. Can't say anything.
Extensive use of syntactic tautology, e. g. That girl, she was something else!
Abundance of gap-fillers and parenthetical elements, such as sure, indeed, to be more exact,
okay, well.
Lexical features
Combination of neutral, familiar and low colloquial vocabulary, including slang, vulgar and
taboo words.
Extensive use of words of general meaning, specified in meaning by the situation guy, job,
get, do, fix, affair.
Limited vocabulary resources, use of the same word in different meanings it may not
possess, e. g. 'some' meaning good: some guy! some game! 'nice' meaning impressive,
fascinating, high quality: nice music.
Abundance of specific colloquial interjections: boy, wow, hey, there, ahoy.
Use of hyperbole, epithets, evaluative vocabulary, trite metaphors and simile, e.g. if you say
it once more I'll kill you, as old as the hills, horrid, awesome, etc.
66
Tautological substitution of personal pronouns and names by other nouns, e.g. you-baby,
Johnny-boy.
Mixture of curse words and euphemisms, e. g. damn, dash, darned, shoot.
Use of deviant language on all levels.
Strong emotional colouring.
Loose syntactical organisation of an utterance.
Frequently little coherence or adherence to the topic. No special compositional patterns.
4.5.3. Publicist (media) style
Phonetic features (in oratory)
Standard pronunciation, wide use of prosody as a means of conveying the subtle shades of
meaning, overtones and emotions.
Phonetic compression. Morphological features
Frequent use of non-finite verb forms, such as gerund, participle, infinitive.
Use of non-perfect verb forms.
Omission of articles, link verbs, auxiliaries, pronouns, especially in headlines and news
items.
Frequent use of rhetorical questions and interrogatives in oratory speech.
In headlines: use of impersonal sentences, elliptical constructions, interrogative sentences,
infinitive complexes and attributive groups.
In news items and articles: news items comprise one or two, rarely three, sentences.
Absence of complex coordination with chain of subordinate clauses and a number of
conjunctions.
Prepositional phrases are used much more than synonymous gerundial phrases.
Absence of exclamatory sentences, break-in-the narrative, other expressively charged
constructions.
Articles demonstrate more syntactical organisation and logical arrangement of sentences.
Lexical features
Newspaper cliches and set phrases.
Terminological variety: scientific, sports, political, technical, etc. Abbreviations and
acronyms.
Numerous proper names, toponyms, anthroponyms, names of enterprises, institutions,
international words, dates and figures.
Abstract notion words, elevated and bookish words.
In headlines: frequent use of pun, violated phraseology, vivid stylistic devices.
In oratory speech: words of elevated and bookish character, colloquial words and phrases,
frequent use of such stylistic devices as metaphor, alliteration, allusion, irony, etc. Use of
conventional forms of address and trite phases. Compositional features
Text arrangement is marked by precision, logic and expressive power. Carefully selected
vocabulary. Variety of topics.
Wide use of quotations, direct speech and represented speech.
Use of parallel constructions throughout the text.
In oratory: simplicity of structural expression, clarity of message, argumentative power.
67
In headlines: use of devices to arrest attention: rhyme, pun, puzzle, high degree of
compression, graphical means.
In news items and articles: strict arrangement of titles and subtitles, emphasis on the
headline.
Careful subdivision into paragraphs, clearly defined position of the sections of an article:
the most important information is carried in the opening paragraph; often in the first
sentence.
4.5.4. The style of official documents
Adherence to the norm, sometimes outdated or even archaic, e. g. in legal documents.
Use of long complex sentences with several types of coordination and subordination (up to
70 % of the text).
Use of passive and participial constructions, numerous connectives.
Use of objects, attributes and all sorts of modifiers in the identifying and explanatory
function.
Extensive use of detached constructions and parenthesis.
Use of participle I and participle II as openers in the initial expository statement.
A general syntactical mode of combining several pronouncements into one sentence.
Information texts are based on standard normative syntax reasonably simplified.
Lexical features
Prevalence of stylistically neutral and bookish vocabulary.
Use of terminology, e. g. legal: acquittal, testimony, aggravated larceny; commercial:
advance payment, insurance, wholesale, etc.
Use of proper names (names of enterprises, companies, etc.) and titles.
Abstraction of persons, e. g. use of party instead of the name. Officialese vocabulary:
cliches, opening and conclusive phrases.
Conventional and archaic forms and words: kinsman, hereof, thereto, thereby, ilk.
Foreign words, especially Latin and French: status quo, force majeure, persona поп grata.
Abbreviations, contractions, conventional symbols: M. P. (member of Parliament), Ltd
(limited), $, etc.
Use of words in their primary denotative meaning.
Absence of tropes, no evaluative and emotive colouring of vocabulary.
Seldom use of substitute words: it, one, that. Compositional features
Special compositional design: coded graphical layout, clear-cut subdivision of texts into
units of information; logical arrangement of these units, order-of-priority organisation of
content and information.
Conventional composition of treaties, agreements, protocols, etc.: division into two parts, a
preamble and a main part.
Use of stereotyped, official phraseology.
Accurate use of punctuation.
Generally objective, concrete, unemotional and impersonal style of narration.
4.5.5. ScientificIacademic style Morphological features
Terminological word building and word-derivation: neologism formation by affixation and
conversion.
68
Restricted use of finite verb forms.
Use of 'the author's we' instead of I.
Frequent use of impersonal constructions.
Complete and standard syntactical mode of expression.
Syntactical precision to ensure the logical sequence of thought and argumentation.
Direct word order.
Use of lengthy sentences with subordinate clauses. Extensive use of participial, gerundial
and infinitive complexes. Extensive use of adverbial and prepositional phrases. Frequent
use of parenthesis introduced by a dash. Abundance of attributive groups with a descriptive
function.
Preferential use of prepositional attributive groups instead of the descriptive of phrase.
Avoidance of ellipsis, even usually omitted conjunctions like 'that' and 'which'.
Prevalence of nominal constructions over the verbal ones to avoid time reference for the
sake of generalisation.
Frequent use of passive and non-finite verb forms to achieve objectivity and impersonality.
Use of impersonal forms and sentences such as mention should be made, it can be inferred,
assuming that, etc.
Lexical features
Extensive use of bookish words e. g. presume, infer, preconception, cognitive.
Abundance of scientific terminology and phraseology.
Use of words in their primary dictionary meaning, restricted use of connotative contextual
meanings.
Use of numerous neologisms.
Abundance of proper names.
Restricted use of emotive colouring, interjections, expressive phraseology, phrasal verbs,
colloquial vocabulary.
Seldom use of tropes, such as metaphor, hyperbole, simile, etc.
Types of texts compositionally depend on the scientific genre: monograph, article,
presentation, thesis, dissertation, etc.
In scientific proper and technical texts e.g. mathematics: highly formalized text with the
prevalence of formulae, tables, diagrams supplied with concise commentary phrases.
In humanitarian texts (history, philosophy): descriptive narration, supplied with
argumentation and interpretation.
Logical and consistent narration, sequential presentation of material and facts.
Extensive use of citation, references and foot-notes.
Restricted use of expressive means and stylistic devices.
Extensive use of conventional set phrases at certain points to emphasise the logical
character of the narration, e.g. as we have seen, in conclusion, finally, as mentioned above.
Use of digressions to debate or support a certain point,
Definite structural arrangement in a hierarchical order: introduction, chapters, paragraphs,
conclusion.
Special set of connective phrases and words to sustain coherence and logic, such as
consequently, on the contrary, likewise.
69
Extensive use of double conjunctions like as... as, either... or, both... and, etc.
Compositionally arranged sentence patterns: postulatory (at the beginning), argumentative
(in the central part), formulative (in the conclusion).
Distinctive features described above by no means present an exhaustive nomenclature for
each type. A careful study of each functional style requires investigation of the numerous
types of texts of various genres that represent each style. That obviously cannot be done in
the framework of this course. It is also one of the reasons why the style of literature has not
been included in this description. It is hardly worthwhile trying to make any generalizations
about the sphere of belles-lettres style, which includes such an array of genres whether in
prose, or poetry, or drama, let alone the peculiar styles of separate authors.
Practice Section
1. What extralinguistic factors are involved in the notion of style? How do style and
personal factors correlate? What styles exist in any national language?
2. What is the literary norm of a language? What does the term 'a norm variation' imply?
How is each style characterised by the
. function it fulfils?
3. Comment on the sociolinguistic and stylistic factors that account for the use of regional,
social, and occupational varieties of the language.
4. Compare the classifications of functional styles in English described in this chapter.
5. Identify the functional style in each of the texts given below and point out the distinctive
features that testify to its specific character.
II has long been known that when exposed to light under suitable conditions of temperature
and moisture, the green parts of plants use carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release
oxygen to it. These exchanges are the opposite of those, which occur in respiration. The
process is called photosynthesis. In photosynthesis, carbohydrates are synthesized from
carbon dioxide and water by the chloroplasts of plant cells in the presence of light. Oxygen
is the product of the reaction. For each molecule of carbon dioxide used, one molecule of
oxygen is released. A summary chemical equation for photosynthesis is:
6CO2 = 6H2O -► C6H12O6 + 6O2.
You was sharp, wasn't you, to catch me like that, eh? By Ga-ard, you had me fixed proper,
proper you had. Darn me, you fixed me up proper - proper, you did.
I don't think no worse of you for it, no, darned if I do. Fine pluck in a woman's what I
admire. That I do indeed.
Wefetfrom the start, we did. And, my word, you begin again quick the minute you see me,
you did. Dam me, you was too sharp for me. A darn fine woman, puts up a darn good fight.
Dam me if I could find a woman in all the darn States as could get me down like that.
Wonderful fine woman you be, truth to say, at this minute. (Lawrence)
Wal-Mart told to raise German prices
70
Wal-Mart's European expansion plans suffered their second blow in a week as the German
competition authority ordered the retailer to raise key prices in its German hypermarkets.
Prince to buy Kirchрау-TVstake
Prince Al-Valeed of Saudi Arabia plans to buy a 3.2 per cent stake in the pay television
operation of German Leo Kirch.
Japanese debt downgraded second time
The Japanese government was struck a humiliating blow when Moody's, the US credit
rating agency, downgraded Japan's domestic currency debt for the second time in two
years.
SAP prices consultancy at top of range
SAP, Europe's largest software group, is likely to price shares in SAP SI, its consultancy, at
the top of its book-building range.
Enel subsidiary mulls Infostrada buy
Enel, Italy's main electricity utility, expressed strong interest in its telecommunications
subsidiary, Wind, buying its Italian fixed-line rival, Infostrada.
In your letter of 15th ultimo you advise us of the problem of finding skilled personnel. In this
connection we wish to state that only about 12 per cent of skilled workforce is engaged in
minor industrial activity associated with servicing the city's growth.
We enclose herewith a schedule of the work and the work progress report thereon and we
wish to state that among considerations influencing the selection of sites is the desire to
maintain residential amenity. We wish to state that several specialized industries have been
established in terms of article 3 of the said contract.
"It certainly is great Воиrbоп!" said Bartlett, smacking his lips and putting his glass back
on the tray.
"You bet it is!" Greg agreed. "I mean you can't buy that kind of stuff any more. I mean it's
real stuff. You help yourself when you want another. Mr. Bartlett is going to stay all night,
sweetheart. I told him he could
get a whole lot more of a line on us that way than just interviewing me in the office. I mean
I'm tongue-tied when it comes to talking about my work and my success. I mean it's better
to see me out here as I am. in my home, with my family."
"But, sweetheart," said his wife, "what about Mr. Latham ?"
"Gosh! I forgot all about him! I must phone and see if I can call it off.
That's terrible!" (Lardner)
6. Find texts demonstrative of each functional type and analyse their distinctive features on
all levels as described in chapter 4.
Chapter 5
Decoding Stylistics
and Its Fundamental Notions
Stylistics of the author and of the reader. The notions of encoding and decoding.
Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis and types of foregrounding.
How often with all the theoretical experience of method accumulated in me over the years
have I stared blankly quite similar to one of my beginning students at a page that would not
yield its magic.
71
Leo Spitzer. Linguistic and Literary History
Чем рассказывать мне, что в данной вещи хотела дать - я, лучше покажи мне, что
сумел от нее взять - ты.
М. Цветаева: Поэт о критике
5.1. Stylistics of the author and of the reader. The notions of

encoding and decoding
Decoding stylistics is the most recent trend in stylistic research that employs theoretical
findings in such areas of science as information theory, psychology, statistical studies in
combination with linguistics, .literary theory, history of art, literary criticism, etc.
Decoding goes beyond the traditional analysis of a work of fiction which usually gives
either an evaluative explanatory commentary on the historical, cultural, biographical or
geographical background of the work and its author or suggests a kind of stylistic analysis
that comprises an inventory of stylistic devices and expressive means found in the text.
Neither of these approaches seems quite satisfactory. The first kind of analysis is typically
done by a literary critic and may tend to become an arbitrary or judgmental reflection of his
personal esthetic or other preferences and tastes. Such critiques may be detached from the
text and based on the critic's inferences of what he conjectures as the author's intention.
Many authors resent critical analysis of this sort as an attitude but not real evaluation.
The other approach tends to pursue another extreme: a formal registration of the data of the
text. It divests a work of art of its magic and poetry by a pragmatic and statistical treatment
that dissects the text and explains but little.
Decoding stylistics makes an attempt to regard the esthetic value of a text based on the
interaction of specific textual elements, stylistic devices and compositional structure in
delivering the author's
message. This method does not consider the stylistic function of any stylistically important
feature separately but only as a part of the whole text. So expressive means and stylistic
devices are treated in their interaction and distribution within the text as carriers of the
author's purport and creative idiom. By this the stylistic study of a literary work acquires a
new, semasiological dimension in which the stylistic elements become signs of the author's
vision of the world.
Decoding stylistics helps the reader in his or her understanding of a literary work by
explaining or decoding the information that may be hidden from immediate view in specific
allusions, cultural or political parallels, peculiar use of irony or euphemy, etc.
The term 'decoding stylistics' came from the application of the theory of information to
linguistics by such authors as M. Riffatrre, R. Ja-cobson, F Guiraud, F. Danes, Y. Lotman,
I. V. Arnold and others.
In a rather simplified version this theory presents a creative process in the following mode.
The writer receives diverse information from the outside world. Some of it becomes a
source for his creative work. He processes this information and recreates it in his own
esthetic images that become a vehicle to pass his vision to the addressee, his readers. The
process of internalizing of the outside information and translating it into his imagery is
called 'encoding'.
72
To encode certain information an author resorts to certain means-meaningful units that are
organized according to certain rules. The salient feature of this information encoded by the
author is called the message.
The process of encoding will only make any sense if besides the encoder who sends the
information it includes the recipient or the
addressee who in this case is the reader. The reader is supposed to decode the information
contained in the text of a literary work.
However to encode the information does not mean to have it delivered or passed intact to
the recipient. There are more obstacles here than meet the eye. In contrast to the writer who
is always concrete the reader who is addressed is in fact an abstract notion, he is any of the
thousands of people who may read this book. This abstract reader may not be prepared or
willing to decode the message or even take it. The reasons are numerous and various.
A literary work on its way to the reader encounters quite a number of hindrances of all sorts
- social, historical, temporal, cultural and so on. Many of these differences between the
author and his reader are inevitable. Readers and authors may be separated by historical
epochs, social conventions, religious and political views, cultural and national traditions.
Moreover, even if the author and the reader belong to the same society no reader can
completely identify himself with the author either emotionally, intellectually or esthetically.
Apart from these objective and personal factors we cannot disregard the complexity of
certain works of art. Many of them are quite sophisticated in form and content. Some are
full of implications that create more than one semantic plane and may contain
understatements, semantic accretion, or open-ended composition that makes the reader
waver about the outcome. Others require of the reader a wide educational thesaurus and
knowledge of history, philosophy, mythology or religion.
The readers will differ not only from the author but also from each other. They have a
different life experience, educational background, cultural level and tastes
All these factors often preclude easy decoding and show how difficult it is for the message
to reach the reader and be appropriately construed by him. The message encoded and sent
may differ from the message received after decoding.
So the result may be a failure on either side. The reader may complain that he couldn't
understand what the author wanted to say, while the author may resent being
misinterpreted. A good illustration of the problem of mutual understanding is provided in
M. Tsvetaeva's essay "Poets on Critics" in which she maintains that reading is co-creative
work on the part of the reader if he wants to understand and enjoy a work of art. Reading is
not so much a hobby done at leisure as solving a kind of puzzle. What is reading but
divining, interpreting, unraveling the mystery, wrapped in between the lines, beyond the
words, she writes. So if the reader has no imagination no book stands a chance (29, p. 274-
296).
From the reader's point of view the important thing is not what the author wanted to say but
what he managed to convey in the text of his work.
That's why decoding stylistics deals with the notions of stylistics of the author and stylistics
of the reader.
5.2. Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis and types

of foregrounding
73
Decoding stylistics investigates the same levels as linguastylistics - phonetic, graphical,
lexical, and grammatical. The basic difference is that it studies expressive means provided
by each level not as isolated
devices that demonstrate some stylistic function but as a part of the general pattern
discernible on the background of relatively lengthy segments of the text, from a paragraph
to the level of the whole work. The underlying idea implies that stylistic analysis can only
be valid when it takes into account the overall concept and aesthetic system of the author
reflected in his writing.
Ideas, events, characters, emotions and an author's attitudes are all encoded in the text
through language. The reader is expected to perceive and decipher these things by reading
and interpreting the text. Decoding stylistics is actually the reader's stylistics that is engaged
in recreating the author's vision of the world with the help of concrete text elements and
their interaction throughout the text.
A systematic and elaborate presentation of decoding stylistics as a branch of general
stylistics can be found in the book of Prof. Arnold Стилистика современного
английского языка. (Стилистика декодирования) so here we shall limit ourselves to the
description of its most general principles and concepts.
One of the fundamental concepts of decoding stylistics is foregrounding. The notion itself
was suggested by the scholars of the Prague linguistic circle that was founded in 1926 and
existed until early 50s. Among its members were some of the most outstanding linguists of
the 20th century, such as N. S. Trubetskoy, S. O. Kartsevsky, R. Jacobson, V. Matezius,
B.Trnka, J.Vachek, V. Skalichka and others (20). The Prague circle represented a trend of
structural linguistics and developed a number of ideas and notions that made a valuable
contribution into modern linguistic theory, for example, phonology and the theory of
oppositions, the theory of functional sentence perspective, the notions of norm and
codification, functional styles and dialectology, etc.
The Prague school introduced into linguistics a functional approach to language. Their
central thesis postulated that language is not a rigorous petrified structure but a dynamic
functional system. In other words language is a system of means of expression that serve a
definite purpose in communication. Their views exerted profound influence on stylistic
research in areas of functional styles study, the norm and its variations in the national
language, as well as the study of poetic language, i. e. the language of literature. It was for
this latter sphere that the notion of foregrounding was formulated.
Prof. Arnold has highlighted various treatments of the term by different authors in her book
on decoding stylistics but the essence of the concept consists in the following.
Foregrounding means a specific role that some language items play in a certain context
when the reader's attention cannot but be drawn to them. In a literary text such items
become stylistically marked features that build up its stylistic function.
Descriptive, statistical, distributional and other kinds of linguistic analysis show that there
are certain modes of language use and arrangement to achieve the effect of foregrounding.
It may be based on various types of deviation or redundancy or unexpected combination of
language units, etc. Arnold points out that sometimes the effect of foregrounding can be
achieved in a peculiar way by the very absence of any expressive or distinctive features
precisely because they are expected in certain types of texts, e. g. the absence of rhythmical
arrangement in verse.
74
However decoding stylistics laid down a few principal methods that ensure the effect of
foregrounding in a literary text. Among them we can name convergence of expressive
means, irradiation, defeated expectancy, coupling, semantic fields, semi-marked structures.
5,2.1. Convergence
Convergence as the term implies denotes a combination or accumulation of stylistic devices
promoting the same idea, emotion or motive. Stylistic function is not the property and
purpose of expressive means of the language as such. Any type of expressive means will
make sense stylistically when treated as a part of a bigger unit, the context, or the whole
text. It means that there is no immediate dependence between a certain stylistic device and a
definite stylistic function.
A stylistic device is not attached to this or that stylistic effect. Therefore a hyperbole, for
instance, may provide any number of effects: tragic, comical, pathetic or grotesque.
Inversion may give the narration a highly elevated tone or an ironic ring of parody.
This "chameleon" quality of a stylistic device enables the author to apply different devices
for the same purpose. The use of more than one type of expressive means in close
succession is a powerful technique to support the idea that carries paramount importance in
the author's view. Such redundancy ensures the delivery of the message to the reader.
An extract from E. Waugh's novel "Decline and Fall" demonstrates convergence of
expressive means used to create an effect of the glamorous appearance of a very colorful
lady character who symbolizes the high style of living, beauty and grandeur.
The door opened and from the cushions within emerged a tall young man in a clinging
dove-gray coat. After him, like the first breath of spring in the Champs-Elysee came Mrs.
Beste-Chetwynde - two lizard-skin feet, silk legs, chinchilla body, a tight little black hat,
pinned with platinum
and diamonds, and the high invariable voice that may be heard in any Ritz Hotel from New
York to Budapest.
Inversion used in both sentences (...from the cushion within emerged a tall man; ...like the
first breath of spring came Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde) at once sets an elevated tone of the
passage.
The simile that brings about a sensory image of awakening nature together with the allusion
to Paris - the symbol of the world's capita! of pleasures - sustains this impression: like the
first breath of spring in the Champs-Ely see. A few other allusions to the world capitals and
their best hotels - New York, Budapest, any Ritz Hotel all symbolize the wealthy way of life
of the lady who belongs to the international jet-set distinguished from the rest of the world
by her money, beauty and aristocratic descent.
The use of metonymy creates the cinematographic effect of shots and fragments of the
picture as perceived by the gazing crowd and suggests the details usually blown up in
fashionable newspaper columns on high society life: two lizard-skin feet, silk legs, chichilla
body, a tight little black hat... the invariable voice.
The choice of words associated with high-quality life style: exotic materials, expensive
clothes and jewelry creates a semantic field that enhances the impression still further
(lizard, silk, chinchilla, platinum and diamonds). A special contribution to the high-flown
style of description is made by the careful choice of words that belong to the literary
bookish stratum: emerge, cushions, dove, invariable.
75
Even the name of the character - Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde - is a device in itself, it's the so-
called speaking name, a variety of antonomasia. Not only its implication (best) but also the
structure symbolizes the
lady's high social standing because hyphenated names in Britain testify to the noble
ancestry. So the total effect of extravagant and glamour is achieved by the concentrated use
of at least eight types of expressive means within one paragraph.
5.2.2. Defeated expectancy
Defeated expectancy is a principle considered by some linguists (Ja-cobson, Riffaterre) as
the basic principle of a stylistic function. Its use is not limited to some definite level or type
of devices. The essence of the notion is connected with the process of decoding by the
reader of the literary text.
The linear organization of the text mentally prepares the reader for the consequential and
logical development of ideas and unfolding of the events. The normal arrangement of the
text both in form and content is based on its predictability which means that the appearance
of any element in the text is prepared by the preceding arrangement and choice of elements,
e.g. the subject of the sentence will normally be followed by the predicate, you can supply
parts of certain set phrases or collocation after you see the first element, etc.
An example from Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" perfectly
illustrates how predictability of the structure plays a joke on the speaker who cannot
extricate himself from the grip of the syntactical composition:
Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl... I have met...
since I met you. (Wilde)
The speaker is compelled to unravel the structure almost against his will, and the pauses
show he is caught in the trap of the structure unable either to stop or say anything new. The
clash between the
perfectly rounded phrase and empty content creates a humorous effect and shows at the
same time how powerful are the inherent laws of syntagmatic arrangement.
Without predictability there would be no coherence and no decoding. At the same time
stylistically distinctive features are often based on the deviation from the norm and
predictability. An appearance of an unpredictable element may upset the process of
decoding. Even though not completely unpredictable a stylistic device is still a low
expectancy element and it is sure to catch the reader's eye. The decoding process meets an
obstacle, which is given the full force of the reader's attention. Such concentration on this
specific feature enables the author to effect his purpose.
Defeated expectancy may come up on any level of the language. It may be an unusual word
against the background of otherwise lexically homogeneous text.
It may be an author's coinage with an unusual suffix; it may be a case of semantic
incongruity or grammatical transposition. Among devices that are based on this principle
we can name pun, zeugma, paradox, oxymoron, irony, anti-climax, etc.
Defeated expectancy is particularly effective when the preceding narration has a high
degree of orderly organized elements that create a maximum degree of predictability and
logical arrangement of the contextual linguistic material.
Paradox is a fine example of defeated expectancy. The following example demonstrates
how paradox works in such highly predictable cases as proverbs and phraseology.
Everybody knows the proverb Marriages are made in Heaven.
76
Oscar Wilde, a renowned master of paradox, introduces an unexpected element and the
phrase acquires an inverted implication Divorces are made in Heaven. The unexpected
ironic connotation is enhanced by the fact that the substitute is actually the antonym of the
original element. The reader is forced to make an effort at interpreting the new maxim so
that it would make sense.
5.2.3. Coupling
Coupling is another technique that helps in decoding the message implied in a literary work.
While convergence and defeated expectancy both focus the reader's attention on the
particularly significant parts of the text coupling deals with the arrangement of textual
elements that provide the unity and cohesion of the whole structure. The notion of coupling
was introduced by S. Levin in his work "Linguistic Structures in Poetry" in 1962 (40).
Coupling is more than many other devices connected with the level of the text. This method
of text analysis helps us to decode ideas, their interaction, inner semantic and structural
links and ensures compositional integrity.
Coupling is based on the affinity of elements that occupy similar positions throughout the
text. Coupling provides cohesion, consistency and unity of the text form and content.
Like defeated expectancy it can be found on any level of the language, so the affinity may
be different in nature; it may be phonetic, structural or semantic. Particularly prominent
types of affinity are provided by the phonetic expressive means. They are
obviously cases of alliteration, assonance, paranomasia, as well as such prosodic features as
rhyme, rhythm and meter.
Syntactical affinity is achieved by all kinds of parallelism and syntactical repetition -
anadiplosis, anaphora, framing, chiasmus, epiphora to name but a few.
Semantic coupling is demonstrated by the use of synonyms and antonyms, both direct and
contextual, root repetition, paraphrase, sustained metaphor, semantic fields, recurrence of
images, connotations or symbols.
The latter can be easily detected in the works of some poets who create their own system of
recurrent esthetic symbols for certain ideas, notions and beliefs.
Some of the well-known symbols are seasons (cf. the symbolic meaning of winter in Robert
Frost's poetry), trees (the symbolic meaning of a birch tree, a maple in Sergei Yesenin's
poetic work, the meaning of a moutain-ash tree for Marina Tsvetaeva), animals (the
leopard, hyena, bulls, fish in Ernest Hemingway's works) and so on. These symbols do not
only recur in a separate work by these authors but also generally represent the typical
imagery of the author's poetic vision.
An illustration of the coupling technique is given below in the passage from John O'Hara's
novel Ten North Frederick. The main organizing principle here is contrast.
Lloyd Williams lived in Collieryville, a mining town three or four miles from 10 North
Frederick, but separated from the Chapins' home and their life by the accepted differences
of money and prestige; the miners' poolroom, and the Gibbsville Club; sickening poverty,
and four live-in
servants for a family of four; The Second Thursdays, and the chicken-and-waffle suppers of
the English Lutheran Church. Joe Chapin Lloyd Williams were courthouse-corridor friends
and fellow Republucans but Joe was a Company man and Lloyd Williams was a Union man
who was a Republican because to be anything else in Lantenengo County was futile and
foolish. (O'Hara)
77
The central idea of the passage is to underline the difference between two men who actually
represent the class differences between the rich upper class and the lower working class. So
the social contrast shown through the details of personal life of the two characters is the
message with a generalizing power. This passage shows how coupling can be an effective
tool to decode this message.
There is a pronounced affinity of the syntactical structure in both sentences. The first
contains a chain of parallel detached clauses connected by and (which is an adversative
conjunction here). They contain a number of antitheses. The contrast is enhanced by the use
of contextual antonyms that occupy identical positions in the clauses: the miners' poolroom
and the Gibbseville Club; sickening poverty and four servants for a family of four, The
Second Thursdays and the Church suppers. The same device is used in the second sentence:
Joe was a Company man and Lloyd Williams was a Union man. There are a few instances
of phonetic affinity, alliteration: four servants for a family of four; courthouse-corridor,
friends and fellow Republicans; futile and foolish.
The passage presents an interesting case of semantic coupling through symbols. The details
of personal and class difference chosen by the author are all charged with symbolic value.
There is a definite connection between them all however diverse they may appear at first
sight. They are all grouped so that they symbolize either money and prestige or poverty and
social deprivation.
The first group creates the semantic field of wealth and power: money, social prestige, the
Gibbsville Club (symbol of wealth, high social standing, belonging to the select society),
four live-in servants for a family of four (that only rich people can afford), The Second
Thursdays (traditional reception days for people of a certain circle, formal dinner parties for
people of high standing), a Company man (a member of a financially and socially
influential group, political elite). The second semantic field comprises words denoting and
symbolizing poverty and social inferiority: miners' poolroom (a working class kind of
leisure), sickening poverty, chicken-and-waffle suppers of, the English Lutheran Church
(implying informal gatherings where people cook together and share food), a Union man (a
representative of the working class).
The similarity of these elements' positions in this text makes the contrast all the more
striking.
A minor case of coupling in the passage above is the use of zeugma in the first sentence
when the word separated is simultaneously linked to two different objects home and life in
two different meanings - direct and figurative.
5.2.4. Semantic field
Semantic field is a method of decoding stylistics closely connected with coupling. It
identifies lexical elements in text segments and the whole work that provide its thematic
and compositional cohesion. To reveal this sort of cohesion decoding must carefully
observe not only lexical and synonymous repetition but semantic affinity which finds
expression in cases of lexico-semantic variants, connotations and associations aroused by a
specific use or distribution of lexical units, thematic pertinence of seemingly unrelated
words.
This type of analysis shows how cohesion is achieved on a less explicit level sometimes
called the vertical context. Lexical elements of this sort are charged with implications and
78
adherent meanings that establish invisible links throughout the text and create a kind of
semantic background so that the work is laced with certain kind of imagery.
Lexical ties relevant to this kind of analysis will include synonymous and antonymous
relations, morphological derivation, relations of inclusion (various types of hyponymy and
entailment), common semes in the denotative or connotative meanings of different words.
If a word manifests semantic links with one or more other words in the text it shows
thematic relevance and several links of this sort may be considered a semantic field, an
illustration of which was offered in the previous example on coupling. Semantic ties in that
example (mostly implicit) are based on the adherent and symbolic connotations (Church
meals, Club member, live-in servants, Union man, etc) and create a semantic field specific
to the theme and message of this work: the contrast between wealth and poverty, upper
class and working class.
In the next example we observe the semantic field of a less complicated nature created by
more explicit means.
Joe kept saying he did not want a fortieth birthday party. He said he did not like parties - a
palpable untruth - and particularly and especially a large party in honor of his reaching
forty...
At first there were going to be forty guests but the invitation list grew larger and the party
plans more elaborate, until Arthur said that with so many people they ought to hire an
orchestra, and with an orchestra
there would be dancing, and with dancing there ought to be a good-size orchestra. The
original small dinner became a dinner dance at the Lantenengo Country Club. Invitations
were sent to more than three hundred persons... (O'Hara)
The thematic word of the passage is party. It recurs four times in these four sentences. It is
obviously related to such words used as its substitutes as dinner and dinner dance which
become contextual synonyms within the frame of the central stylistic device of this piece -
the climax.
Semantic relations of inclusion by entailment and hyponymy are represented by such words
as birthday (party), (party) in honor, (party) plans, invitation (list), guests, people, persons,
orchestra, dancing.
The subtheme of the major theme is the scale of the celebration connected with the
importance of the date - the main character reached the age of forty considered an important
milestone in a man's life and career. So there is a semantic field around the figure forty - its
lexical repetition and morphological derivation (forty - forty-fortieth) and the word large
amplified throughout by contextual synonyms, morphological derivatives and relations of
entailment (large - larger - more - many - good-size - more-three hundred).
Another type of semantic relationship that contributes to the semantic field analysis is the
use of antonyms and contrastive elements associated with the themes in question: large -
small, forty - three hundred, small dinner - dinner dance, orchestra - good-sized orchestra,
did not like - untruth. The magnitude and importance of the event are further enhanced by
the use of synonymous intensifiers particularly and especially.
5.2.5. Semi-marked structures
Semi-marked structures are a variety of defeated expectancy associated with the deviation
from the grammatical and lexical norm. It's an extreme case of defeated expectancy much
79
stronger than low expectancy encountered in a paradox or anti-climax, the unpredictable
element is used contrary to the norm so it produces a very strong emphatic impact.
In the following lines by G. Baker we observe a semi-marked structure on a grammatical
basis:
The stupid heart that will not learn The everywhere of grief.
The word everywhere is not a noun, but an adverb and cannot be used with an article and a
preposition, besides grief is an abstract noun that cannot be used as an object with a noun
denoting location. However the lines make sense for the poet and the readers who interpret
them as the poetic equivalent of the author's overwhelming feeling of sadness and dejection.
Lexical deviation from the norm usually means breaking the laws of semantic compatibility
and lexical valency. Arnold considers semi-marked structures as a part of tropes based on
the unexpected or unpredictable relations established between objects and phenomena by
the author.
If you had to predict what elements would combine well with such words and expressions
as to try one's best to..., to like ... or what epithets you would choose for words like father or
movement you would hardly come up with such incompatible combinations that we observe
in the following sentences:
She ... tried her best to spoil the party. (Erdrich)
Montezuma and Archuleta had recently started a mock-seriousseparatisi movement,
seeking to join New Mexico. (Michener)
Would you believe it, that unnatural father wouldn't stump up. (Waugh)
He liked the ugly little college... (Waugh)
Such combination of lexical units in our normal everyday speech is rare. However in spite
of their apparent incongruity semi-marked structures of both types are widely used in
literary texts that are full of sophisticated correlations which help to read sense into most
unpredictable combinations of lexical units.
This chapter contains but a brief outline of decoding stylistics and its basic principles and
notions. As has been mentioned above more detailed and extensive description of decoding
analysis and its correlation with the traditional stylistic methods and notions can be found in
the works of such Russian and foreign authors as M. Rif-faterre, G. Leech, S. Levin, P.
Guiraud, L, Dolezel, I. V. Arnold. Yu. M. Lotman, Yu. S. Stepanov and others.
The role and purpose of this trend in stylistics was appropriately summed up by I.V.Arnold
in her book on decoding stylistics: "Modern styUstics in not so much interested in the
identification of separate devices as in discovering the common mechanism of tropes and
their effect." (4, p. 155).
Now, using the achievements of the 20th century linguistics, scholars try to answer the
question how styUstic function works rather than what effect it produces.
Practice Section
1. What is implied in the separation of the author's stylistics from the reader's? How do the
processes of encoding and decoding differ?
2. Comment on the factors that may prevent the reader from adequately decoding the
author's imagery and message?
3. Speak on the origin and importance of the notion foregrounding
80
for stylistic analysis.
4. There is a convergence of expressive means in the passage below. Try to identify
separate devices that contribute to the poetic description of a beautiful young girl: types of
repetition, metaphor, sustained metaphor, catachresis, aUiteration,
, inversion, coupling, semantic field:
On her face was that tender look of sleep, which a nodding flower has when it is full out.
Like a mysterious early flower, she was full out, like a snowdrop which spreads its three
white wings in a flight into the waking sleep of its brief blossoming. The waking sleep of her
full-opened virginity, entranced like a snowdrop in the sunshine, was upon her. (Lawrence)
The basic principle in the next passage (that describes how only one of the two relatives
became the sole heir to the old man's money) is that of contrast and the method of
convergence ensures the ample interpretation of the author's intention. Explain the intention
and find the devices that deliver it.
From the start Philbrick was the apple of the old chap's eye, while he couldn't stick Miss
Grade at any price.
Philbrick could spout Shakespeare and Hamlet and things by the yard before Grade could
read "The cat sat on the mat". When he was eight he had a sonnet printed in the local
paper. After that Grade wasn't in it anywhere. She lived with the servants like Cinderella.
(Waugh)
5. How is the effect of defeated expectancy achieved in the examples below? What are the
specific devices employed in each case?
Celestine finally turned on the bench and put her hand over Dot's. - Honey, she said,
would it kill you to say 'yes'?
- Yes, said Dot. (Erdrich)
St. Valentine's Day, I remembered, anniversary for lovers and massacre. (Shaw)
- It's little stinkers like you, he said, who turn decent masters savage. - Do you think that's
so very complimentary?
- I think it's one of the most complimentary things I ever heard said about a master, said
Beste-Chetwynde. (Waugh)
I think that, if anything, sports are rather worse than concerts, said Mr. Prendergast. They
at least happen indoors. (Waugh)
...the Indian burial mound this town is named for contain the things that each Indian used
in their lives. People have found stone grinders, hunting arrows and jewelry of colored
bones. So I think it's no use. Even buried, our things survive. (Erdrich)
- Would this be of any use? Asked Philbrick, producing an enormous service revolver.
Only take care, it's loaded.
- The very thing, said the Doctor. Only fire into the ground, mind. We must do everything
we can to avoid an accident. Do you always carry that about with you?
- Only when I'm wearing my diamonds, said Philbrick. (Waugh)
When we visited Athens, we saw the Apocalypse. (Maleska)
Texans, quite apart from being tall and lean, turned out to be short and stout, hospitable,
stingy to a degree, generous to a fault, even-tempered, cantankerous, doleful, and happy as
the day is long. (Atkinson)
6. Explain how the principle of coupling can be used in analyzing the following passages.
What types of coupling can you identify here?
81
Feeding animals while men and women starve, he said bitterly. It was a topic; a topic dry,
scentless and colourless as a pressed flower; a topic on which in the school debating
society one had despaired of finding anything new to say. (Waugh)
You asked me what I had going this time. What I have going is wine. With the way the
world's drinking these days, being in wine is like having a license to steal. (Shaw)
7. In many cases coupling relies a lot on semantic fields analysis. Show how these
principles interact in the following passage.
The truth is that motor-cars offer a very happy illustration of the metaphysical distinction
between 'being' and 'becoming'. Some cars, mere vehicles, with no purpose above bare
locomotion, mechanical drudges... have definite 'being' just as much as their occupants.
They are bought all screwed up and numbered and painted,
and there they stay through various declensions of ownership, brightened now and then
with a lick of paint... but still maintaining their essential identity to the scrap heap.
Not so the real cars, that become masters of men; those vital creations of metal who exist
solely for their own propulsion through space, for whom their drivers are as important as
the stenographer to a stockbroker. These are in perpetual flux; a vortex of combining and
disintegrating units, like the confluence of traffic where many roads meet. (Waugh)
8. Workings in groups of two or three try to define the themes of the following text with a
description of a thunderstorm. Let each group arrange the vocabulary of the passage into
semantically related fields, for example: storm sounds, shapes, colors, supernatural forces,
etc.
We... looked out the mucking hole to where a tower of lightning stood. It was a broad round
shaft like a great radiant auger, boring into cloud and mud at once. Burning. Transparent.
And inside this cylinder of white-purple light swam shoals of creatures we could never have
imagined. Shapes filmy and iridescent and veined like dragonfly wings erranded between
the earth and heavens. They were moving to a music we couldn't hear, the thunder blotting
it out for us. Or maybe the cannonade of thunder was music for them, but measure that we
couldn't understand.
We didn't know what they were.
They were storm angels. Or maybe they were natural creatures whose natural element was
storm, as the sea is natural to the squid and shark. We couldn't make out their whole
shapes. Were they mermaids or tigers? Were they clothed in shining linen or in flashing
armor? We saw what we thought we saw, whatever they were, whatever they were in
process of becoming.
This tower of energies went away then, and there was another thrust of lightning just
outside the wall. It was a less impressive display, just an ordinary lightning stroke, but it
lifted the three of us thrashing in midair for a long moment, then dropped us breathless and
sightless on the damp ground. (Chappell)
9. Comment on the type of deviation in the following semi-marked structures.
Did you ever see a dream walking? (Cheever)
Man in the day or wind at night
Laid the crops low, broke the grape's joy. (Thomas)
I think cards are divine, particularly the kings. Such naughty old faces! (Waugh)
The Maker's white coat and black visage had disappeared from the street doorway.
Reinhart got a premonition of doom when he saw the color combination with which they
82
had been replaced: policeman's midnight blue and Slavic-red face, but the pace helped
keep his upper lip stiff. (Berger)
Ask Pamela; she's so brave and manly. (Waugh)
II was Granny whom she came to detest with all her soul... her Yvette really hated, with
that pure, sheer hatred which is almost a joy. (Lawrence)
...everyone who spoke, it seemed, was but biding his time to shout the old village street
refrain which had haunted him all his life, "Nigger! - Nigger! - White Nigger!" (Dunbar-
Nelson)
To hear him speak French, if you didn't try to understand what he was saying, was as good
as attending "Phedre": he seemed a cloud that had divorced a textbook of geometry to
marry Guillaume Apollinaire... (Jar-rell)
10. Read the story by Paul Jennings and try to apply some of the principles of decoding to
find out the real meaning and the implications of what the author encoded. Comment on the
author's use of such devices as sustained metaphor, allegory, allusions, irony and
phonographical means. Can you find instances of semi-marked structures, defeated
expectancy, convergence and other means of foregrounding. Speak about the theme and the
message of this story.
Red-blooded 3/4 rose
There was once an article in the Observer by Dr Bronowski in which he said that
mathematics ought to be taught as a language. At the time I had fantasies of passages like
this:
"It is time (the Government)2 up to the situation.
the country ,, _
On > 1 issue---, and unless they treat the Opposition as-
2
in hammering out a bipartisan policy they will not get to √(our troubles). All the omens . 2
trouble in the Middle East..." *
* Crib for art students, beatniks, peasants: (The Government)2: the government squared. >
1: more than one. =: equals.
√(our troubles): the root of our troubles. . 2: point to recurring.
But of course that wasn't the idea at all. Years ago I got off the mathematics train at
Quadratic Equations - a neat, airy little station with trellis, ivy, roses, a sunlit platform.
There was just a hint of weirdness now and then - stationmaster made clicking noises in his
throat, there was an occasional far-off harmonious humming in the sky, strange bells rang;
one knew the frontier was not far away,
Where the line crosses into the vast country of Incomprehensibility, the jagged peaks of the
Calculus Mountains standing up, a day's journey over its illimitable plains.
The train thundered off into those no doubt exhilarating spaces, but without me. I sniffed
the mountainy air a little, then I crossed the line by the footbridge and went back in a fusty
suburban train to my home town. Contemptible Ignorance. This train had no engine; it was
simply a train of carriages rolling gently down through the warm orchards of Amnesia Hill.
The only language we speak in that town is, well, language (we're not mad about it like
those people at Oxford; we know the world is infinite and real, language is about it, it isn't
it). But we have got typewriters, and they introduce mathematics into language in their own
way.
83
Even without those figures on the top row, 1 to 9 (all you need) there is something
statistical about the typewriter as it sits there. It contains instantaneously the entire
alphabet, the awful pregnant potentiality of everything. I am certain most readers of this
article will have read somewhere or other a reference to the odds against a monkey's sitting
at a typewriter and writing Hamlet.
For some reason philosophical writers about chance, design and purpose are led
irresistibly to this analogy. Nobody ever suggests the monkey's
writing Hamlet with a pen, as Shakespeare did. With a pen a monkey would get distracted,
draw funny faces, found a school of poetry of its own. There's something about having the
whole alphabet in front of it, on a machine, that goads the monkey to go on, for millions of
years (but surely the evolution would be quicker?), persevering after heartbreaking
setbacks; think of getting the whole of King Lear right until it came to the lines over the
dead body of Cornelia, which would come out:
Thou'It come no more Never, never, never, never, ever or, on my typewriter - Necer,
neved, lever, nexelm vrevney.
The typewriter knows very well how to mix language and mathematics, the resources
between A and Z and 1 and 9, in its own sly way. Mine likes to put 3/4 instead of the letter
p. How brilliantly this introduces a nuance, a frisson of chance and doubt into many words
that begin so well with this confident, explosive consonant! How often is one disappointed
by a watery 3/4 ale ale! How often does some much-publicized meeting of statesmen result
in the signing of something that the typists of both sides know is just a 3/4 act! How many 3/4
apists one knows! How many people praised for their courage are not so much plucky as
just 3/4 lucky.
Most of all, is not the most common form of social occasion to-day the cocktail 3/4 arty?
One always goes expecting a real party, but nine times out of ten turns out to be а 3/4 arty;
all the people there have some sort of connection with the '3/4' arts such as advertising,
films, news 3/4 apers - although there is often a real 3/4 ainter or two. After a few 3/4 ink gins
one of the 3/4 ainters makes a 3/4 ass at one of those strange silent girls, with long hair and
sullen 3/4 outing lips, that one always sees at 3/4 arties (doubtless he thinks she will be 3/4
liable). There may be
some V. I., 1/4 (on my typewriter the capital 3/4 is a 1/4) " as the chief guest - an M. 1/4, or a
fashionable 3/4 reacher (nothing so grand as the 1/4 rime Minister, of course. Guests like
that are only at real parties, given by Top 1/4 eople); but at a 3/4 arty it is always difficult to
get the interesting guest to himself, to 3I4 in him down in an argument, because of the 3/4
rattle going on all round.
Of course this isn't mathematical language in Dr Bronowski's sense. But you've got to
admit it's figurative.
* That's mathematics for you. I have an obscure feeling it should be either 9/16 or
11/2
Glossary for the Course of Stylistics

A
acoustic [q'ku:stik] adj. concerned with sound
adherent [qd'hiqrqnt] adj. added shades of meaning
affinity [q'fmiti] n. similarity, inherent likeness
84
allegory ['xligqri] n. a story, poem, painting, etc. in which the characters and actions
represent general truths, good and bad qualities, etc.
alliteration [q,litq'reSh] n. repetition of the same consonant or sound group at the
beginning of two or more words that are close to each other
allusion [q'lu:Zn] n. reference to some literary, historical, mythological, biblical, etc.
character or event commonly known
anadiplosis [qnqdip'lousis] n. repetition of the last word or phrase in one clause or
poetic line at the beginning of the next
anaphora [q'nxfqrq] n. repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive
clauses or lines of verse
anastrophe [q' nxstrqfi] n. a term of rhetoric, which means upsetting for effect of the
normal order of a preposition before a noun or of an object after a verb, cf. inversion
anticlimax ['xnti'klaimqks] n. a sudden drop from the dignified or important in thought
or expression to the commonplace or trivial, sometimes for humorous effect
antique [qn'ti:k] adj. the ancient style, esp. Greek or Roman; classical
antithesis [an'tiTqsis] n. opposition or contrast of ideas, notions, qualities in the parts of
one sentenceor in different sentences
antonomasia [qntqnq'meiSq] n. the use of a proper name in place of a common one or
vice versa to emphasise some feature or quality
apokoinu [qpq'koinu] n. a construction in which the subject of one sentence is at the
same time the subject of the second, a kind of ellipsis
aposiopesis [q'pousio'pi:sis] n. a sudden breaking off in the midst of a sentence as if
from inability or unwillingness to proceed
argot ['a:gou] n. the vocabulary peculiar to a particular class of people, esp. that of an
underworld group devised for private communication
Aristotle ['xristotl] n. Greek philosopher, pupil of Plato (384-382 ВС)
assonance ['xsqnqns] n. 1. resemblance of sounds 2. partial rhyme created by the
stressed vowel sounds
astheism ['qsTi:zm] n. deprecation meant as approval
asyndeton [q'sindqtqn] n. the omission of conjunctions
В
belles lettres ['bel'letq] n. literature or writing about literary subjects
С
catachresis ['kqtq'kri:sis] n. incorrect use of a word, as by misapplication of terminology
or by strained or mixed metaphor
chiasmus [kai'xzmqs] n. inversion of the second of two parallel phrases or clauses
cliche ['kli:Sei] n. an expression or idea that has become trite
climax ['klaimqks] n. a rhetorical series of ideas, images, etc. arranged progressively so
that the most forceful is last
colon ['kolqn] n. in Greek prosody a section of a prosodic period, consisting of a group
from two to six feet forming a rhythmic unit with a principal accent
connotation ['konq'teiSn] n. idea or notion suggested by or associated with a word,
phrase, etc. in addition to its denotation
connotative [kq'noutqtrv] ['konq'teitiv] adj. having connotations
85
convergence [kqn'vq:dZqns] n. concentration of various devices and expressive means
in one place to support an important idea and ensure the delivery of the message
couplet ['kApqt] n. two successive lines of poetry, esp. of the same length that rhyme
coupling ['kApliN] n. the affinity of elements that occupy a similar position and
contribute to the cohesion of the text
D
dactyl ['dxktrl] n. a metrical foot that consists of one accented syllable followed by two
unaccented ones
Demetrius of Alexandria [di'metriqs qv xlig'zxndriq] n. Greek orator and
philosopher (b. 350 ВС)
denotative [di noutqtiv] [dinou'teitiv] adj. indicative of the direct explicit meaning or
reference of a word or term
detachment [di'txtSmqnt] n. a seemingly independent part of a sentence that carries
some additional information
device [di'vais] n. a literary model intended to produce a particular effect in a work of
literature
Dionysius of Halicarnassus [daiq'niSqs qv hxlika' nxsqs] n. Greek rhetorician, critic
and historian (1st cent. ВС)
E
ellipsis [q'lipsis] n. all-sorts of omission in a sentence
emotive [i'moutiv] adj. characterised by, expressing or producing emotion
empathy ['empqTi] n. ability to share in another's emotions, thoughts or feelings
enjambinent [in'dZxment] n. in prosody: the running on of a sentence from one line to
the next without a syntactical break
enumeration [i,njume'reiSn] n. a device by means of which homogeneous parts of a
sentence are made semantically heterogeneous
epenalepsis [epqnq'lepsis] n. a term of rhetoric meaning repetitive use of conjunctions
in close succession, (cf. polysyndeton)
epigram ['qpigram] n. 1. a short poem with a witty or satirical point 2. any terse, witty,
pointed statement, often with a clever twist in thought.
epiphora [q'pifqrq] n. repetition of words or phrases at the end of consecutive clauses or
sentences
epithet ['epiTqt] n. an adjective or descriptive phrase used to characterise a person or
object with the aim to give them subjective evaluation
euphonic [ju'fonik] adj. characterised by euphony
euphony ['ju:fqni] n. a harmonious combination of sounds that create a pleasing effect to
the ear
evaluative [i:vxelju'eitiv] adj. giving judgement about the value of something
explicit [iks'plisit] adj. clearly stated and leaving nothing implied
F
figure of speech n. a stylistic device of whatever kind, including tropes and syntactical
expressive means
figures of contrast*: those based on opposition (incompatibility) of co-occurring notions
86
figures of co-occurrence*: devices based on interrelations of two or more units of meaning
actually following one another
figures of identity*: co-occurrence of synonymous or similar notions
figures of inequality*: those based on differentiation of co-occurring notions
figures of quality*: renaming based on radical qualitative difference between notion
named and notion meant
figures of quantity*: renaming based on only qualitative difference between traditional
names and those actually used
figures of replacement*: tropes, 'renamings', replacing traditional names by situational
ones
G
gap-sentence link seemingly incoherent connection of two sentences based on an
unexpected semantic leap; the reader is supposed to grasp the implied motivation for such
connection
* These terms and their definitions belong to Prof. Skrebnev
Gorgias ['gLdZiqs] n. Greek philosopher (483-375 B.C.), founded one of the first rhetoric
schools
graphon [grq'fon] n. intentional misspelling to show deviations from received
pronunciation: individual manner, mispronunciation, dialectal features, etc.
H
Hellenistic [hqlq'nistik] adj. of Greek history, language and culture after the death of
Alexander the Great (323 B.C.)
hierarchical [hai'ra:kikql] adj. arranged in order of rank, grade, class, etc.
hyperbole [hai'pq:boli] n. exaggeration for effect not meant to be taken literally
I
iambus [ai'xmbqs] n. a metrical foot, consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by
one accented
idiolect [' idiolqkt] n. a particular person's use of language, individual style of expression
imagery ['imqdZqri] n. ideas presented in a poetical form; figurative descriptions and
figures of speech collectively
implicit [imp'liisit] adj. implied: suggested or to be understood though not plainly
expressed
inherent [in'hiqrqnt] adj. existing in something or someone as a permanent and

inseparable element, quality or attribute
inversion [in'vq:Sn] n. a reversal of the normal order of words in a sentence
irony ['airqni] n. a stylistic device in which the words express a meaning that is often the
direct opposite of the intended meaning
irradiation [i,rqdi'eiSn] n. the influence of a specifically coloured word against the
stylistically different tenor of the narration
J
jargon ['dZa:gqn] n. the language, esp. the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade,
profession or group
juridical [dZu'ridikql] adj. related to the law
87
L
litotes [lai'touti:s] n. understatement for effect, esp. that in which an affirmative is
expressed by a negation of the contrary
M
malapropism ['mxlqpropizqm] n. ludicrous misuse of words, esp. through confusion
caused by resemblance in sound
meiosis [mi'ousis] n. expressive understatement, litotesmetaphor ['metapho:] n. the
application of a word or phrase to an object or concept it does not literally denote, in order
to suggest comparison with another object or concept
metaphor sustained/extended a chain of metaphors containing the central image and some
contributory images
meter ['mi:tq] n. rhythm in verse; measured patterned arrangement of syllables according
to stress or length
metonymy [me'tonimi] n. transfer of name of one object onto another to which it is
related or of which it is a part
mythology [mi'TolodZi] n. myths collectively and the beliefs that they contain
N
normative ['no: mqtiv] adj. having to do with usage norms
О
onomatopoeia [,onqmqtou'pi:q] n. the formation of a word by imitating the natural
sound; the use of words whose sounds reinforce their meaning or tone, esp. in poetry
oratorical [,orq'torikql] n. characteristic of or given to oratory
oratory ['oretri] n. the art of an orator; skill or eloquence in public speaking
oxymoron [,oksi'mo:rqn] n. a figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory ideas
are combined
P
paradiastola [pqrqdi'xstqlq] n. in Greek poetic texts: the lengthening of a syllable
regularly short
parallellism ['pxrqlqlizm] n. the use of identical or similar parallel syntactical structure
in two or more sentences or then parts
paranomasia [,pqrqnq'meiZq] n. using words similar in sound but different in meaning
for euphonic effect
parlance ['pa: lqns] n. a style or manner of speaking or writing
periphrasis [pe'rifrqsis] n. renaming of an object by a phrase that emphasises some
particular feature of the object
personage ['pq:sqnqdZ] n. a character in a play or book, or in history
personification [pq,sonifikeiSn] n. the attribution of personal nature or character to
inanimate objects or abstract notions
polysyndeton [poli'sindeton] n. the use of a number of conjunctions in close succession
prosody ['prosqdi] n. 1. the science or art of versification, including the study of metrical
structure, stanza form, etc. 2. the stress patterns of an utterance
proximity [pro'ksimiti] n. nearness in place, time, order, occurrence or relation
88
publicist ['pAblisist] n. referring to writing and speaking on current public or political
affairs
R
recur [п'кэ:] v. to happen or occur again, appear at intervals
recurrence [n'kvrans] n. the instance of recurring, return, repetition
rhetoric ['retorik] n. 1. the art or science of all specialized literary-uses of language in prose
or verse, including the figures of speech 2. the art of using language effectively in speaking
or writing 3. artificial eloquence
rhetorical [n'torikal] adj. using or characterised by rhetoric
rhyme [raim] n. a regular recurrence of corresponding sounds at the ends of lines in verse
rhythm [пбт] n. 1. a regular recurrence of elements in a system of motion: the rhythm of
speech, dancing music, etc. 2. an effect of ordered movement in a work of art, literature,
drama, etc. attained through patterns in the timing, spacing, repetition, accenting, etc. of the
elements 3. in prosody: a metrical (feet) or rhythmical (iambus, trochee, etc.) form
simile ['simili] n. a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared by
the use of like, as, resemble, etc.
solemn ['solam] adj. arousing feelings of awe, very impressive
sophistry,['sofistri] n. in ancient Greece: the methods or practices of the sophists, any group
of teachers of rhetoric, politics, philosophy, some of whom were notorious for their clever
specious arguments. 2. misleading but clever, plausible and subtle reasoning
stanza ['stxnzq] n. a group of lines in a repeating pattern forming a division of a poem
suspense [sqs'pens] n. a compositional device that consists in withholding the most
important information or idea till the end of the sentence, passage or text
syllepsis [si'lepsis] n. a term of rhetoric: the use of a word or expression to perform two
syntactic functions, cf. zeugma
synecdoche [si'nekdoki] n. a figure of speech based on transfer by contiguity in which a
part is used for a whole, an individual for a class, a material for a thing or the reverse of any
of these; a variety of metonymy
tautology [tL'tolqdZi] n. needless repetition of an idea in a different word, phrase or
sentence; redundancy; pleonasm
terminology ['tq:mi 'nolqdZi] n. the system of terms used in a specific science, art or
specialised subject
trochee ['trouki:] n. in prosody: a foot of two syllables, a stressed followed by an unstressed
one
transfer [traens'fb:] v. to convey, carry, remove or send from one position, place or person
to another
transfer ['traensfa:] n. the act of transferring
transference ['trsensfarans] n. the act or process of transferring
Trasimachus [tre'zimskas] n. Greek philosopher, together with Gorgius created one of the
first schools of rhetoric in ancient Greece (c. 4 ВС)
trope [troup] n. a figure of speech based on some kind of transfer of denomination
V
versification [,vq,sifi'keiSh] n. 1. the art, practice or theory of poetic composition 2. the
form or style of a poem; metrical structure
z
89
zeugma ['zju:gmq] n. a figure of speech in which a single word, usually a verb or adjective,
is syntactically related to two or more words, though having a different sense in relation to
each
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93

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Т.А.

2.2. Different classifications of expressive means

3.4. Stylistic syntax

4.3. Language varieties:

4.4. An overview of functional style systems

5.1. Stylistics of the author and of the reader. The notions of

5.2. Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis and types

Glossary for the Course of Stylistics

inherent [in'hiqrqnt] adj. existing in something or someone as a permanent and

List of Authors and Publications Quoted

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