Стилистика Нестерова

О.Ф.
Нестерова
ENGLISH STYLISTICS
СТИЛИСТИКА АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА
Учебное пособие
Воронеж 2010
0
Федеральное агентство по образованию
Государственное образовательное учреждение
высшего профессионального образования
Воронежский государственный архитектурно-строительный университет
О.Ф.Нестерова
ENGLISH STYLISTICS
Под общей редакцией
профессора З.Е.Фоминой
Рекомендовано в качестве учебного пособия

редакционно-издательским советом Воронежского государственного
архитектурно-строительного университета для студентов,
обучающихся по специальности
«Переводчик в сфере профессиональной коммуникации»
Воронеж 2010
1
УДК 802.0(07)
ББК 81.2Англ я7
Н561
Рецензенты:
кафедра английского языка Воронежского государственного
педагогического университета;
С.В. Спиридонова, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент,
заведующая кафедрой современных языков и коммуникации
МОУ ВПО Воронежского института экономики и социального управления
Нестерова, О.Ф.
English Stylistics. Стилистика английского языка: учеб. пособие
Н561
для ПСПК / О.Ф.Нестерова; под ред. З.Е.Фоминой; Воронеж. гос.
арх.-строит. ун-т. – Воронеж, 2010. – 79 с.
Учебное пособие предназначено для студентов специальности «Переводчик в сфере

профессиональной коммуникации».
Основная цель пособия – ознакомить студентов, обучающихся по дополнительной
образовательной программе «Переводчик в сфере профессиональной коммуникации», с
наиболее важными понятиями стилистики и, в частности, стилистики английского языка,
обучить стилистическим приемам и выразительным средствам английского языка. В
пособии представлено описание различных функциональных языковых стилей,
ориентированных на их практическое использование в профессиональной деятельности.
Материал пособия рассчитан для активного усвоения и самостоятельного изучения
стилистики английского языка.
Ил. 1. Библиогр.: 32 назв.
ISBN 978-5-89040-265-3
© Нестерова О.Ф., 2010

© Воронежский государственный
архитектурно- строительный
университет, 2010
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ВВЕДЕНИЕ
Учебное пособие «Стилистика английского языка» предназначено для

студентов специальности «Переводчик в сфере профессиональной
коммуникации». Практическое владение навыками профессионального
перевода предполагает не только адекватное владение лексико-
грамматической базой английского языка, но и знание различных языковых
дисциплин. Стилистика занимает важную роль в курсе обучения
профессионально ориентированному переводу.
В различных коммуникативных ситуациях люди используют разные
способы выражения своих мыслей, т.е. разные стили общения. В
отечественной лингвистике их принято называть функциональными
стилями, в лингвистической зарубежной традиции – регистрами речи.
Знание функциональных стилей и выразительных языковых средств,
характерных для каждого стиля, весьма важно для специалиста,
занимающегося переводом специальной литературы.
Данное учебное пособие состоит из 3-х разделов. В обзорном разделе
представлены основные концепции и научные изыскания в области
стилистики в изложении современных лингвистов и отражают наблюдения и
взгляды ведущих ученых Оксфордской школы. Цель данного раздела –
познакомить студентов с отдельной терминологией, необходимой для
восприятия текста с точки зрения стилистики языка. Данный раздел следует
считать предварительным этапом к курсу прикладной стилистики.
Второй раздел учебного пособия «Стилистика английского языка»
представляет собой курс, состоящий из 12 лекций, в ходе которого студенты
ПСПК знакомятся с фигурами, тропами, стилистическими приемами,
выразительными средствами и основами стилистического анализа.
Приводятся примеры из художественных и публицистических произведений
зарубежных авторов.
Специальная терминология представлена в научно-терминологическом
справочнике и включена в третий раздел пособия.
Каждый раздел пособия включает в себя список рекомендуемой
литературы, а в разделе «Лекции» предложены тематические вопросы для
самоконтроля. В конце пособия указан общий библиографический список,
включающий основную литературу, дополнительную и словари. Основой
для составления данного пособия послужили учебники по стилистике
английского языка ведущих отечественных и зарубежных авторов (Арнольда
И.В., Гуревича В.В., Гальперина И.Р., Verdonk P.), а также новейшие
лингвистические исследования в данной области и справочная литература.
Предлагаемое учебное пособие позволит обучаемым овладеть
основами стилистики языка, что будет способствовать развитию навыков
адекватного профессионально ориентированного перевода с учетом всех
требований, предъявляемых к данному виду работы.
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SECTION I
Survey
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The concept of style
The concept of style is an old one; it goes back to the very beginnings of literary
thought in Europe. It appears in connection with rhetoric rather than poetic.
Stylistics is concerned with the study of style in language. But what is style
in language? How is it produced? How can it be recognized and described?
The term ‘style’ (without specific reference to language) is one which we
use so commonly in our everyday conversation and writing that it seems
unproblematic: it occurs so naturally and frequently that we take it for granted
without enquiring just what we might mean by it. Thus, we regularly use it with
reference to the shape or design of something (“the elegant style of a house”), and
when talking about the way in which something is done or presented (”I don’t like
his style of management”). When describing someone’s manner of writing,
speaking or performing we may say “She writes in a vigorous style”. We also talk
about particular styles of architecture, painting, dress and furniture when
describing the distinctive manner of an artist, a school or a period. And finally,
when we say that people or places have “style”, we are expressing the opinion that
they have fashionable elegance, smartness or a superior manner (“They live in
grand style”).
Style in language can be defined as distinctive linguistic expression. So
stylistics, the study of style, can be defined as the analysis of distinctive expression
in language and the description of its purpose and effect.
Different genres, or types, of text containing specific features of style create
particular effects.
Style as motivated choice

Style involves a choice of form without a change of message. Style is indeed a
distinctive way of using language for some purpose and to some effect. In order to
achieve this purpose and effect all the devices are used, different forms and
structures are chosen.
So in making a stylistic analysis we are not so much focused on every form

and structure in a text, as on those which stand out in it. Such conspicuous
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elements rouse the reader’s interest or emotions. In stylistics this psychological
effect is called foregrounding, a term which has been borrowed from the visual
arts. Such foregrounded elements often include a distinct patterning or parallelism
in a text’s typography, sounds, word choices, grammar, or sentence structures.
Other potential style markers are repetitions of some linguistic element, and
deviations from the rules of language in general or from the style you expect in a
particular text type or context.
Style in context
Style does not arise out of a vacuum but that its production, purpose and effect are
deeply embedded in the particular context in which both the writer and the reader
play their distinctive roles. We should distinguish between two types of context:
linguistic and non-linguistic context. Linguistic context refers to the surrounding
features of language inside a text, like the topography, sounds, words, phrases and
sentences which are relevant to the interpretation of other such linguistic elements.
The non-linguistic context is a much more complex notion since it may
include any number of text-external features influencing the language and style of
a text. Conscious or unconscious choices of expression which create a particular
style are always motivated and inspired by contextual circumstances in which both
writers and readers are in various ways involved.
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2
Style in literature
When we encounter a text, we recognize it as of a particular and familiar kind, as

belonging to a particular genre, for example a newspaper article, a blurb, a menu,
or an insurance policy. We have an idea of what to expect.
So if you have become familiar with the stylistic conventions of the genre of
poetry, you will know that the language of poetry has the following characteristics:
its meaning is often ambiguous and elusive; it may flout the conventional rules of
grammar; it has a peculiar sound structure; it is spatially arranged in metrical lines
and stanzas; it often reveals foregrounded patterns and its sounds, vocabulary,
grammar, or syntax, and last but not least, it frequently contains indirect references
to other texts.
Text type and function
The majority of the texts have some practical function in that they have intentions
which can be related to the real world around us. For instance, a headline
encourages us to read a news story, a publisher’s blurb encourages us to buy a
book, and an advertisement is designed to promote a product.
This, of course, prompts the compelling question as to what the function
might be of text types or genres like poetry, novels and plays, all of which are
traditionally designated as literary texts. The first thing we might note is that
whatever the function of poetry may be, it bears no relation to our socially
established needs and conventions, because unlike non-literary texts, poetry is
detached from the ordinary contexts of social life. To put it differently, poetry does
not make direct reference to the world of phenomena but provides a representation
of it through its peculiar and unconventional uses of language which invite and
motivate, sometimes even provoke, readers to create an imaginary alternative
world. Perhaps it is its essential function, namely it enables us to satisfy our needs
as individuals, to escape from our socialized existence and to find a reflection of
our conflicting emotions.
Certainly, our perceptions are different. We have different expectations and
different emotions, out interpretation of the text may differ from others and may
include total rejection.
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3
Text and discourse
The nature of text
When we think of a text, we typically think of a stretch of language, either spoken

or written, complete in itself and of some considerable extent: a business letter, a
leaflet, a news report, a recipe, and so on. But there appears a problem when we
have to define units of language which consist of a single sentence, or even a
single word, which are experienced as texts because they fulfil the basic
requirement of forming a meaningful whole. Typical examples of such small-scale
texts are public notices like ‘K e e p o f f t h e g r a s s’, ‘K e e p l e f t’, ‘D a
n g e r’, ‘R a m p a h e a d’, ‘E x i t’.
These minimal texts are meaningful in themselves, and therefore do not need
a particular structural patterning with other language units. In other words, they are
complete in terms of communicative meaning. It should be recognized that the
term ‘text’ often refers to a definable communicative unit with a social or cultural
function. Thus a casual conversation, a poster, a poem, or an advertisement would
be referred to as texts. So, if the meaningfulness of texts does not depend on their
linguistic size, what else does it depend on?
Consider the road sign ‘R a m p a h e a d’. When you are driving a car and
see this sign, you interpret it as a warning and you know what to do. From this it
follows that you recognize a piece of language as a text, not because of its length,
but because of its location in a particular context. And if you are familiar with the
text in that context, you know what the message is intended to be.
But now suppose you see the same road sign in the collection of a souvenir-
hunter! Of course, you still know the original meaning of the sign, but because of
its dissociation from its ordinary context of traffic control, you are no longer able
to act on its original intention. We can conclude that, for the expression of its
meaning, a text is dependent on its use in an appropriate context.
The nature of discourse
Discourse is one of the most widely used and overworked terms in many branches
of linguistics, stylistics, cultural and critical theory.
It covers all those aspects of communication which involve not only a
message or text but also the addresser and addressee, and their immediate context
of situation. Discourse would therefore refer not only to ordinary conversation and
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its context, but also to written communication between writer and reader. In this
broad sense, discourse ‘includes’ text, but the two terms are not always easily
distinguished, and are often used synonymously.
The meaning of a text does not come into being until it is actively employed
in a context of use. This process of activation of a text by relating it to a context of
use is called discourse. To put it differently, this contextualization of a text is
actually the reader’s (and in the case of spoken text, the hearer’s) reconstruction of
the writer’s (or speaker’s) intended message. A text may be in some written form,
or in the form of a sound recording, or it may be unrecorded speech. But in
whatever form it comes, a reader (or hearer) will search the text for cues or signals
that may help to reconstruct the writer’s (or speaker’s) discourse. However, just
because he or she engaged in a process of reconstruction, it is always possible that
the reader (or hearer) infers a different discourse from the text than the one the
writer (or speaker) had intended.
Textual and contextual meaning

In order to derive a discourse from a text we have to explore two different sites of
meaning: on the one hand, the text’s intrinsic linguistic or formal properties (its
sounds, typography, vocabulary, grammar and so on) and on the other hand, the
extrinsic contextual factors which are taken to affect its linguistic meaning. These
two interacting sites of meaning are the concern of two fields of study: semantics
is the study of formal meanings as they are encoded in the language of texts, that
is, independent of writers and readers set in a particular context, while pragmatics
is concerned with the meaning of language in discourse, that is, when it is used in
an appropriate context to achieve particular aims. Pragmatic meaning is not an
alternative to semantic meaning, but complementary to it.
We distinguished two kinds of context: an internal linguistic context built up
by the language patterns inside the text, and an external non-linguistic context
drawing us to ideas and experiences in the world outside the text. The latter is a
very complex notion because it may include any number of text-external features
influencing the interpretation of a discourse. We can specify the following
components:
1. the text type, or genre;
2. its topic, purpose, and function;
3. the immediate temporary and physical setting of the text;
4. the text’s wider social, cultural and historical setting;
5. the identities, knowledge, emotions, abilities, beliefs, and assumptions of
the writer and reader;
6. the relationships holding between the writer and reader;
7. the association with other similar or related text types.
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4
Perspectives on meaning
Linguistic features in texts can be interpreted differently as representing an event

or situation from a particular perspective or point of view. The notion of
perspective is itself problematic.
Perspective in narrative fiction
If the author changes the perspective or point of view from which a fictional world
is presented it will result in a different story and give rise to a different
interpretation.
We make sense of a text by relating it to the context of our knowledge,
emotions, and experience. Bur since such contexts will be different for particular
readers, so interpretations will vary also.
At one level of perception, we might all agree on what a text is about, but
diverge greatly in our interpretation of it.
The first question that inevitably arises as soon as we start reading a novel or
short story is who the narrator is, whose voice we are supposed to be hearing, and
therefore whose version of events. We know who the author is, the person who
actually produced the text, but that is, of course, not the same thing at all.
Stylistic markers of perspective and positioning
To begin with, at various points in the text the narrator refers to persons, places,
and times by means of words and phrases like ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘you’, ‘here’, ‘nearby’,
and the present and past tenses of verbs, for example ‘owns’, ‘was’, ‘lived’, and
‘tell’. In a face-to-face conversation these terms would be easily understood
because speaker and listener would share the same physical context of time and
place. But in writing things are different. Of course, readers know the textual or
semantic meaning of these words, but they do not know their situational or
pragmatic meaning. This is because they cannot see the people referred to by ‘I’,
‘my’, and ‘you’ in the flesh, nor can they actually observe the places indicated by
‘here’, ‘nearby’, or check the times in relation to the verb tenses. However,
prompted by their experience of the real world and their knowledge of the stylistic
conventions of fiction, readers will understand these linguistic expressions as
representations of the people, places, and times in the story, and will act on them
as cues to imagine themselves as participating in the situation of the fictional world
of the discourse.
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Deixis
The technical term for these textual cues is deictics, while the psycholinguistic
phenomenon as a whole, which is fundamental to all spoken and written discourse,
is usually called deixis (from a Greek word which means ‘pointing’ or ‘showing’).
Deictics may serve to ‘point to’ the listener’s or reader’s attention to the speaker’s
or narrator’s spatial and temporal situation. Then there are also deictics which
refer the listener or reader to the people taking part in the events of the discourse.
Hence we may distinguish three types of the deictics: place deictics, which include
adverbs such as ‘here’ (near the speaker), ‘there’ (away from the speaker);
prepositional phrases like ‘in front of’, ‘behind’, ‘to the left’, ‘to the right’; the
determiners or pronouns ‘this’ and ‘these’ (near the speaker) and ‘that’ and ‘those’
(away from the speaker), and the deictic verbs ‘come’ and ‘bring’ (in the direction
of the speaker) and ‘go’ and ‘take’ (in a direction away from the speaker). Another
category is time deictics, which include items such as ‘now’, ‘then’, ‘today’,
‘yesterday’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘next day’. Other important time deictics are the present
and past tenses of full verbs (for example, ‘play/s’, ‘played’; ‘go/es’, ‘went’) and
of auxiliaries (for example, ‘have’ and ‘had’). The third category is person
deictics, which include the first person pronoun ‘I’ (and its related forms ‘me’,
‘my’, and ‘mine’) and the second person pronoun ‘you’ (and its related forms
‘your’ and ‘yours’). They are the terms people use to refer to themselves and to
talk to each other.
The deictics in a narrative text prompt the following important questions:
Who is telling the story? Who is the narrator talking to? Where and when do the
events take place? And from whose perspective is the story told?
Reading a novel is not only a matter of finding out what is told, but also how it is
told. In other words you cannot separate content (the ‘what’) from form (the
‘how’). Undoubtedly, the most important formal aspect is the author’s choice of
perspective. It is the controlling consciousness through whose filter readers
experience the events of the story. And a subjective first-person perspective can
draw readers into the illusion of presence in the fictional world by inducing them
to fill the vacant role of the second-person addressee.
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5
The language of literary representation
Perspective in third-person narration
The first-person narrator necessarily assumes a participant role within the fictional
context and so adopts a subjective perspective on events. We might propose that
the third-person narrator, on the other hand, takes up the non-participant role of
observer and so adopts an objective point of view. But things are not so simple. In
the non-fictional world, it is true, it would be normal to use third-person terms of
reference to talk about objective events that can be observed and reported on: ‘The
woman was sitting at her table writing letters. She was wearing a red dress. The
man entered the room. He picked up a book.’ And so on. This is straightforward
enough. But in fiction we frequently find that the narrator uses third-person
reference to describe things which is quite impossible to observe. Consider, for
example, the following passage from Lawrence’s novel Women in Love:
(1)He went into her boudoir, a remote and very cushiony place. (2) She was sitting
at her table writing letters. (3) She lifted her face abstractedly when he entered,
watched him go to the sofa, and sit down. (4) Then she looked down at her paper
again.
(5) He took up a large volume which he had been reading before, and became
minutely attentive to his author. (6) His back was towards Hermione. (7) She could
not go on with her writing. (8) Her whole mind was a chaos, darkness breaking in
upon it, and herself struggling to gain control with her will, as a swimmer
struggles with the swirling water. (9)But in spite of her efforts she was borne
down, darkness seemed to break over her, she felt as if her heart was bursting. (10)
The terrible tension grew stronger and stronger, it was most fearful agony, like
being walled up.
The first six sentences here report observable events from a third person
perspective in a conventional way: ‘He went … She was sitting …writing letters.
She lifted her face … he entered, watched him … she looked down … He took up a
large volume … His back was …’. But with (7) there is a transition to a different
perspective. ‘She could not go on with her writing’ expresses a state of mind which
is inaccessible to observation, and which only she herself can be aware of.
Sentences (8) to (10) directly express the personal experience of the character. The
narrator has moved inside the character’s mind. And so we have a third-person
expression of first-person experience. And as the perspective changes, so does the
use of language. The most obvious difference is in sentence length. The text on
each side of the transitional sentence (7) consists of exactly the same number of
words (68) but they combine into six sentences in the first part and only three in
the second. But the sentences do not only differ in length, but also in their syntax.
11
Those of the first part of the text are structurally straightforward and describe a
sequence of events in an orderly linear way: ‘He went … she was sitting … She
lifted her face … he entered … [she] watched him …’ and so on. After the
transition, however, the syntax becomes disordered, phrases do not fit together
with neat linearity, but accumulate without clear structural connections. What is
expressed is not a series of events but a sudden outbreak of sensations all
happening at the same time. The chaos in Hermione’s mind, and her struggle for
the control of her feelings, are not just described but directly represented by the
syntax itself.
In this text we see a shift in narrative perspective from that of the third-
person observer to that of first-person participant, and a corresponding change in
the way language is structured to achieve an appropriate representation.
In this text, the narrator shifts perspective but remains within one fictional
context of time and place. But narrators can also shift perspective by taking up
different contextual positions.
Speech and thought representation
There are also times, however, when the narrator delegates perspective to the
characters and leaves to speak for themselves. In this case we are presented with a
record of direct speech (DS). Let us see the extract from the poem by John
Betjeman.
She puts her fingers in his as, loving and silly,

At long-past Kensington dances she used to do
‘It’s cheaper to take the tube to Piccadilly
And then we can catch a nineteen or a twenty-two’.
In the first two lines the narrator first describes what happens in the observable
present (‘She puts her fingers in his’) and then shifts to an omniscient perspective
to express her feelings, and to recall her personal past. In the last two lines we are
presented with the direct speech of her actual utterance.
In the preceding verse of the poem we also find lines within quotation
marks, but here they do not express what the character actually says but what is
going on in his mind.
No hope. And the iron nob of this palisade

So cold to the touch, is luckier now than he
‘Oh merciless, hurrying Londoners! Why was I made
For the long and the painful deathbed coming to me?’
Here is presented direct thought (DT).
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But the use of direct speech is not the only kind of speech representation we
find in fiction. Indirect speech (IS) is also common, as indeed it is in non-literary
use. Here is an utterance from Hemingway’s short story ‘Hills Like White
Elephants’:
‘The beer’s nice and cool’, the man said.

It could be rendered as follows:
The man said (that) the beer was nice and cool.
In the case of indirect speech, the narrator reports only the content of what the
character has said, but not its exact wording (it is , in this sense, reported rather
than recorded speech). This allows the narrator to intervene and to interpret the
character’s original words, thereby, again, shifting perspective:
The man commented on how nice and cool the beer was.
The man said, appreciatively, that the beer was nice and cool.
The representation of indirect thought (IT), of course, presupposes an even

greater degree of narrator initiative:
The man thought that the beer was nice and cool.
These ways of representing direct and indirect speech and thought conform
to linguistic conventions which apply to written language in general. And now we
see a kind of representation which is more specifically literary:
The man drank the beer. Goodness, how nice and cool it was!
The expression ‘Goodness’, suggests a direct record of what was said or thought
but the past tense ‘was’ suggests that this is an indirect report. What we have here
is a blend of both, a hybrid form. This has been referred to as free indirect speech
(FIS) or free indirect thought (FIT). It should be noted that it has become
customary to roll these forms into one and to use the umbrella term free indirect
discourse (FID).
A further development of these modes of thought representation is to be
found in the so-called stream of consciousness technique through which the
narrator designs a style which creates the illusion that, without his or her
interference, readers have direct access to the mental processes of the characters,
i.e. to their inner points of view. As a result, the reader sees the fictional world
through the ‘mental window’ of the observing consciousness of the characters.
Stream of consciousness is now widely used in modern fiction as a narrative
method to reveal the character’s unspoken thoughts and feelings without having
13
recourse to dialogue or description. Here is an example from James Joyce’s
Ulysses:
Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I’m a tree, so
blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could be changed
into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. Funny little beggar.
Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very likely. Hanging by his heels in the
odour of sanctity. Bell scared him out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could
hear them all at it. Pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition.
This piece of first-person discourse takes us right into the mind of the central
figure in the novel. His thought processes are directly projected. The fragmented
syntax, the staccato phrases, the use of the present tense, all create a style which
dramatizes the unedited thoughts and impressions of the character as they occur.
And all orientational expressions like ‘There he goes’ and ‘Belfry up there’ are
related to the character’s point of view; he is the centre of every thing that is going
on. And the extract is entirely free from reporting clauses and quotation marks.
This is the style of interior monologue, through which the reader is enabled
to tune in to the character’s train of thought or stream of consciousness, seemingly
without being hampered by the presence of the narrator.
Список рекомендуемой литературы
1. Birch, David. Language Discourse and Literature /D. Birch. - Unwin Hyman,
1989. – p. 310.
2.Brogan, T.V.F. The New Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms /T.V.F. Brogan. -
Princeton University Press, 1994. – p. 117.
3.Carter, Ronald & Nash, Walter. A Guide to Styles of English Writing /R. Carter,
W. Nash. - Blackwell, 1990. – p. 158.
4.Cook, Guy. Discourse and Literature /G. Cook. - Oxford University Press,1994.
– p. 190.
5.Leech, Geoffrey N. & Short Michael H. Style in Fiction /G.N. Leech, M.H.
Short. - Longman, 1981. – p. 91.
6.Short, Mick. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays & Prose /M.Short. -
Addison Wesley Longman, 1996. – p. 119.
7.Toolan, Michael. Language in Literature. An Introduction to Stylistics /M.
Toolan. - Arnold, 1998. – p. 84.
8.Verdonk, Peter. Stylistics /P. Verdonk. - Oxford University Press, 2005. – p.
124.
9.Verdonk, Peter. A Brief Survey from Classical Rhetoric to Cognitive Stylistics
/P. Verdonk. – Oxford University Press, 1999. – p. 110.
10.Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics. - 2-nd edn. - Pearson Education,
2001. – p. 458.
11.Widdowson, H.G. Practical Stylistics. An Approach to Poetry /H.G.
Widdowson. - Oxford University Press, 1992. – p. 75.
14
S E C T I O N II
LECTURES
Lecture 1: GENERAL NOTES ON STYLE AND STYLISTICS. STYLISTICS
AS A SUBJECT
People have been interested in the questions of style for a long time. We can
say, rhetoric is the “mother” of modern stylistics, its objective was to teach the art
of public speech (the ability to express thoughts with fine words), the well-
organized speech, ways of speech decoration and concept of style. Aristotel was
the first to start the theory of style, metaphor, to oppose poetry to prose.
The word “style” derived from the Latin word “stilus” which meant a short
stick sharp at one end and flat at the other used by the Romans for writing on wax
tablets. Now the word “style” is used in many senses. The first concept is so broad
that it is hardly possible to regard it as a term. Even in linguistics the word “style”
is used very widely. The majority of linguists agree that the term presupposes the
following: 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 subsystems called styles; 7) the interrelation
between language and thought and 8) the individual manner of an author in making
use of language. The term “style” is also applied to the teaching of how to write
clearly, simply and emphatically. Style is the correspondence between thought and
its expression. To say briefly, style in language is a distinctive linguistic manner of
expression.
The meaning of a text does not come into being until it is actively employed
in a context of use. This process of activation of a text by relating it to a context of
use is called discourse. This contextualization of a text is actually the reader’s
reconstruction of the writer’s intended message. It is always possible that the
reader infers a different discourse from the text than the one the writer had
intended.
Stylistics, sometimes called linguo-stylistics, is a branch of general
linguistics. It is concerned with the study of style in language. It explores
principles of selection and usage various lexical, grammatical, phonetic and other
language media to express thoughts and emotions in different communicative
situations. Stylistics can be defined as the analysis of distinctive expression in
language and the description of its purpose and effect.
When we encounter a text, we recognize it as belonging to a particular
genre, for example, a newspaper article, a menu or an advertisement. We have an
idea of what to expect. So if you have become familiar with the stylistic
conventions of this genre of texts, you will know that the language of poetry has
15
the following characteristics: its meaning is often ambiguous; it may flout the
conventional rules of grammar; it has a peculiar sound structure; it frequently
contains indirect references to other texts etc.
There is language stylistics, speech stylistics, linguo-stylistics, stylistics
from the author, perception stylistics, literary stylistics, decoding stylistics etc.
Language stylistics explores 1) language subsystems, i.e. functional styles
and sublanguages characterized with specific vocabulary, phraseology and syntax;
2) expressive and emotional features of different language media.
Speech stylistics studies separate real texts considering the ways of content
transferring according to the language norms and their deviations.
Linguo-stylistics was established by Balli. It compares the common norm of
language with special subsystems named functional styles and dialects (in this
narrow meaning linguo-stylistics is called functional stylistics) and studies the
language elements as the units being able to express and evoke additional emotions
and estimation.
The comparative stylistics which is developed intensively takes into
consideration stylistic possibilities of two and more languages.
Literary stylistics studies all means of artistic expressiveness, typical for
work of literature, the author, trend of literature or the whole age and factors
determining the artistic expressiveness.
Both linguo-stylistics and literary stylistics are divided into some levels:
lexical, grammatical and phonetic.
Lexical stylistics studies stylistic lexical functions and considers the
interaction of direct and indirect meaning. It deals with various compounds of
contextual meanings of words, their expressive, emotional and estimating
possibilities and also different functional styles they attribute to.
Dialects, terminology, slang, colloquial words and expressions, neologisms,
archaisms, barbarisms etc are examined in different conditions of context. The
important role in stylistic analysis belongs to the phraseological units and proverbs.
Grammatical stylistics is subdivided into morphological and syntactical.
Morphological stylistics considers different grammatical categories attributable to
various parts of speech and their stylistic possibilities. Syntactical stylistics
explores the expressive possibilities of word order, types of sentences, types of
syntactical bond. Figures of speech, which give additional expressiveness, play the
important role here. Much attention is paid to different forms of transferring
speech: dialogue, direct speech, a stream of consciousness etc.
Phonetic stylistics includes all phenomena of poems and prose sound
organization, i.e. rhythm, alliteration, sound imitation, rhyme, assonance etc. Here
we can refer the non-standard pronunciation with comic or satirical effect to show
the social inequality or to create the local color.
Practical stylistics teaches to speak and treat the language correctly, gives
advice how to use the words with well-known meanings. The language should be
communicatively pragmatic.
16
Functional stylistics studies style as the functional variety of the language,
especially in belles-lettres text.
The subject of stylistics is the emotional language expression and all
expressive means of language, i.e.
the tasks of stylistics:
1) investigation and selection of special language media among synonymous
ways of rendering one and the same idea for reaching desirable effect of the
utterance.
2) the analysis of expressive means in language (for example in phonetics –
alliteration, in syntax – inversion).
3) the determination of functional task, i.e. stylistic function which language
means fulfil.
Stylistics is commonly divided into linguo-stylistics and literary stylistics.
Stylistics is closely connected with ancient disciplines:
- Study of literature (which examines the content)
- Semiotics (which defines the text as the system of signs to be read
differently)
- Pragmatics (which studies the impact)
- Sociolinguistics (the selection of language media depending on the
communicative situation).
Вопросы для самоконтроля
1. What does the word “style” presuppose in linguistics?

2. How can you explain the concept of discourse?
3. What is the subject of stylistics?
4. What are the tasks of stylistics?
1. Гуревич, В.В. English Stylistics. Стилистика английского языка: учебн.

пособие /В.В.Гуревич. – М.: Наука, 2008. - 67 с.
2. Солганик, Г.Я. Стилистика текста: учебн. пособие /Г.Я.Солганик. - 6-е
изд. - М.: Наука, 2000. - 217 с.
3. Шаховский, В.И. Стилистика английского языка /В.И.Шаховский. – Л.:
ЛКИ, 2008. - 235 с.
4. Coupland, N. Towards the Stylistics of Discourse //Styles of Discourse /
N.Coupland. - London: Ed. Groom Hel, 1988. - p. 147.
5. Crystal, D., Davy D. Investigating English Style /D.Crystal, D.Davy. - London:
Longman, 1969. - p. 94.
6. Galperin, I.R. Stylistics /I.R.Galperin. - M.: Higher School Publishing House,
1981. - 343 c.
17
Lecture 2: STYLISTIC DEVICES AND EXPRESSIVE MEANS. STYLISTIC
FUNCTION
The main concepts of stylistics are:

1) Tropes – figurative language means in which the word or the word-
combination is used in its transferred meaning. They are chiefly lexical and
serve for description. The essence of the trope is to compare the traditional
usage of the lexical unit with the concept transferred by the same unit while
fulfilling the special stylistic function.
2) Expressive language media – they don’t create images but promote the
speech expressiveness and intensify its emotionality by means of specific
devices. They are not connected with transferred meaning. They are more
predictable than stylistic devices.
3) Figures of speech – figurative expressive language media. This term is
frequently used for stylistic devices that make use of a figurative meaning of
the language elements and thus create a vivid image.
4) Stylistic devices – they can be independent or coincide with the language
means. Stylistic device is the intentional and conscious intensification of
some typical structural or semantic feature of language unit, including the
expressive means.
One and the same stylistic means can be stylistic one in belles-lettres speech and
can’t be it in colloquial speech (in one case it amplifies the effect and in the other it
doesn’t affect).
Convergence is the simultaneous usage of several stylistic devices.
And to differentiate stylistic devices and expressive means we can say that
stylistic device is a model of changing unemotional sentences into
pragmatically charged. And expressive means are not connected with the
meaning. They serve the emotional and logical intensification of the utterance.
They may be phonetic, morphological, word-building, lexical, phraseological
and syntactical forms.
Stylistics studies the usage of the expressive means in different speech
styles, their potential possibilities as the stylistic devices.
The most powerful expressive means are phonetic (alliteration, assonance,
onomatopoeia, rhyme, rhythm etc). The human voice can indicate every nuance of
meaning no other means can. Pitch, melody, stress, whispering, a sing-song
manner and other ways of using the voice are much more effective than any other
means in intensifying an utterance emotionally or logically.
Morphological expressive means is now rather impoverished set of media.
But some of them are kept nowadays.
“He shall do it! = I shall make him do it!” (‘shall’ in the second and third person).
Among the word-building means we can point out, for example, diminutive
suffixes –y(ie), -let (auntie, streamlet).
18
At the lexical level there are words with emotive meaning only (interjections
– междометия, перебивающий возглас), epithet, metaphor, antonomasia,
metonymy, irony, personification, allegory, periphrasis, hyperbole, litotes, words
belonging to the layers of slang and vulgar words or to poetic or archaic layers. All
kinds of phraseological units possess the property of expressiveness. Proverbs,
sayings make speech emphatic.
At the syntactical level there are many constructions which reveal a certain
degree of logical or emotional emphasis (inversion, repetition, asyndeton, ellipsis
etc).
The stylistic function is the role the language medium plays to transfer
expressive information:
- creation of artistic expressiveness;
- creation of inspiration;
- creation of comic effect;
- hyperbole;
- may be descriptive (characterological) for creation of speech characteristic of the
hero.
There is no direct correspondence between stylistic means, devices and
functions, because the stylistic means are unequal. Inversion, for example,
depends on the context and situation and can create inspiration, or vice versa, give
ironic, parody meaning. A great number of conjunctions can serve to distinguish
logically the elements of the utterance, to create the impression of slow, measured
tale or to transfer the anxious questions, suppositions. Hyperbole can be tragic and
comic, pathetic and grotesque.
The functional stylistic color (connotation) shouldn’t be mixed with stylistic
function. The first one belongs to the language, and the second one – to the text.
Unlike neutral words, which only denote a certain notion and thus have only a
denotational meaning, their stylistic synonyms usually contain some connotations,
i.e. additional components of meaning which express some emotional colouring or
evaluation of the object named. In dictionaries functional stylistic and emotional
connotations are determined with special marks: colloquial, poetical, slang,
ironical, anatomy etc.
Unlike stylistic connotation, stylistic function helps the reader to accentuate
the chief idea.
It is also important to distinguish the stylistic function from the stylistic
device. We can refer stylistic figures and tropes to stylistic devices. The last ones
are syntactical and stylistic figures intensifying emotionality and expressiveness of
the utterance by means of unusual syntactical construction: different types of
repetition, inversion, parallelism, ellipsis etc. Phonetic stylistic devices are
alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia (sound imitation) and other devices of sound
speech organization.
We said that the word “style” is used in various spheres of our life. We also
point out the individual style which is frequently identified with the general term
19
“style”. Individual style deals with the peculiarities of a writer’s individual
manner of using language means to achieve the effect he desires. Individual
style is a unique combination of language units, expressive means and stylistic
devices peculiar to a given writer, which makes that writer’s works easily
recognizable. The term “style” is widely used in literature to signify literary genre.
Thus, we speak of classical style (or style of classicism), realistic style, the style of
romanticism and so on. It is applied to various kinds of literary works: the fable,
novel, ballad, story, etc. But the general term “style” is a much broader notion.
So, we can resume and define style as a system of interrelated language
means which serves to definite aim of communication.
1. What are the main concepts of stylistics?

2. What is the difference between stylistic devices and expressive means?
3. How can you define the concept of style?
4. What can expressive means be?
5. Characterize phonetic expressive means.
6. What do lexical means serve for?
7. How does stylistic function differ from functional stylistic colour?
8. What is understood by the individual style?
1. Акимова, Г.Н. Экспрессивные свойства синтаксических структур. /Г.Н.

Акимова. – Л.: Ленинградский университет, 1998. – 72 с.
2. Арнольд , И.В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык: учебн. для
вузов. /И.В. Арнольд. - 7-е изд. - М.: Высшая школа, 2005. – 383 с.
3. Ильинская, И.С. О языковых и неязыковых стилистических средствах.
/И.С. Ильинская. – М.: Высшая школа, 2003. – 63 с.
4. Galperin, I.R. Stylistics. /I.R.Galperin. - M.: Higher School Publishing House,
1981. – 343 с.
5. Screbnev, Y.M. Fundamentals of English Stylistics. /Y.M. Screbnev. - M.:
АСТ, 2000. - 224 с.
20
Lecture 3: STYLISTIC CLASSIFICATION OF THE ENGLISH
VOCABULARY
To speak about functional characteristics of the styles and stylistic devices of

language it’s necessary to make clear what is meant by the literary language.
Literary language is a historical category. It exists as a variety of the national
language. So, the literary language is that variety of the national language
which imposes definite morphological, phonetic, syntactical, lexical,
phraseological and stylistic norms. In this connection there are two conflicting
tendencies in the process of establishing the norm:
1. preservation of the already existing norm, sometimes with attempts to
re-establish old forms of the lang;
2. introduction of new norms not yet firmly established.
So, we can define the norm as the invariant of the phonemic,
morphological, lexical and syntactical patterns circulating in lang.-in-
action at a given period of time.
At every period of time language has its own norms corresponding to the
given period of time.
What was happening to the English language throughout its history? How
has it changed and why?
Development of the English literary language
The English literary language has had a long peculiar history.

The English language is the result of the integration of the tribal dialects
of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who occupied the British Isles in the 3-d – 5-th
centuries. The language was called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. Now, it is a dead
language, like Latin or classic Greek. The Old English period lasted
approximately until the end of the 12-th century.
During the Middle English period, the English language rapidly progressed
towards its present state. By that time it had greatly enlarged its vocabulary by
borrowings from Norman-French and other languages.
The New English period is usually dated from the 15-th century. This is
the beginning of the English language, spoken and written, at the present time.
This period cannot be characterized by uniformity in the language.
In the 16-th century literary English began to flourish with the general
growth of culture to which much was contributed by the two universities, Oxford
and Cambridge. It was a common interest in classical literature. It was a
tendency to archaisms. An orientation towards the living developing
colloquial language.
The 17-th century literary English is characterized by a general tendency to
regulation. It was leading to the establishment of the norms of literary English.
21
By the 18-th century it was the desire to establish language laws. The gap
between the literary and colloquial English was widening. The situation of
communication has evolved two varieties of language – the spoken and the
written.
The most striking difference between the spoken and written languages is in
the vocabulary used. There are words and phrases typically colloquial, on the one
hand, and typically bookish, on the other.
The spoken language makes use of intensifying words. It is rich in
expressive means (interjections, words with strong emotive meaning, unfinished
sentences are also typical of the spoken language).
In the written language most of the connecting words are used only there
(nevertheless, therefore, furthermore, moreover). And written language is rich in
complicated sentences.
The 19-th century is characterized by the purification of the language from
vulgarisms and new words. The tendency to protest against innovation. At this
time colloquial words and expressions created by the people began to pour into
literary English. And a more or less firmly established differentiation of styles
began. By this period the shaping of the newspaper style, the publicist style, the
style of scientific prose and the official style have been completed. And belles-
lettres prose called for a system of expressive means and stylistic devices.
Functional styles of language have shaped themselves within the literary
form of the English language. The standard English language was divided into
the literary language and the colloquial language.
The word stock of a language may be represented as a definite system.
According to the diagram by Galperin I.R. we may represent the whole of
the word stock of the English language as being divided into three main layers: the
l i t e r a r y l a y e r, the n e u t r a l l a y e r and the c o l l o q u i a l l a y e
r. The literary and the colloquial layers contain a number of subgroups. The aspect
of the literary layer is its bookish character, this makes the layer more or less
stable. The aspect of the colloquial layer is its spoken character. It makes it
unstable. The aspect of the neutral layer is its universal character. It can be
employed in all styles of language and in all spheres of human activity. It makes
the layer the most stable of all.
The literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words: 1.
common literary; 2. terms; 3. poetic words; 4. archaic words; 5. foreignisms and
barbarisms; 6. nonce-words.
The colloquial vocabulary falls into the following groups: 1. common
colloquial words; 2. slang; 3. jargonisms; 4. professionalisms; 5. dialectal words; 6.
vulgarisms; 7. colloquial coinages (nonce-words).
22
23
The common literary, neutral and common colloquial words are grouped
under the term s t a n d a r d E n g l i s h v o c a b u l a r y. Other groups in the
literary layer are defined as special literary vocabulary and those in the colloquial
layer are defined as special colloquial (non-literary) vocabulary.
1. What is the literary language?

2. How can we define the norm of the language?
3. When did differentiation of styles begin?
4. What layers is the English language divided?
5. Characterize the diagram
1. Арнольд, И.В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык: учебн. для

2. Шаховский, В.И. Стилистика английского языка. /В.И. Шаховский. – Л.:
ЛКИ, 2008. – 235 с.
3. Galperin, I.R. Stylistics. /I.R. Galperin. - M.: Higher School Publishing House,
1981. – 343 c.
Lecture 4: NEUTRAL, COMMON LITERARY AND COMMON

COLLOQUIAL VOCABULARY
Stylistic differences of any kind can be expressed by various language

means: phonetic, lexical or grammatical. One of the most vivid means is, naturally,
the choice of vocabulary. Compare three layers of the English language:
Neutral Colloquial Literary
child kid infant/offspring

father daddy parent/ancestor
leave/go away be off/get out/ retire/withdraw
get away
continue go on proceed
begin/start get started/ commence
come on
24
Neutral words form the main part of word stock. These words are used in
all functional styles.
Stylistically neutral words usually constitute the main member in a group of
synonyms, the so-called synonymic dominant (синонимическая доминанта).
They are not emotionally coloured and have no additional evaluating elements;
such are the words child, father, begin, leave/go away, continue in the examples
above.
Common literary words are chiefly used in rhetoric, written speech.
Common colloquial words are literary standard words plus some familiar
words. They represent casual speech, unofficial communication. Phrasal verbs
often have the mark colloq.
Unlike neutral words (synonymic dominants), which only denote
(обозначают) a certain notion and thus have only a denotation meaning
(денотативное значение, обозначение некоторого понятия), their stylistic
synonyms usually contain some connotations (коннотации), i.e. additional
components of meaning which express some emotional colouring or evaluation
(оценка) of the object named; these additional components may also be simply
signs of a particular functional style of speech. For example:
An endearing connotation (ласкат.) – e.g. in the words kid, daddy (as different
from the neutral words child, father); approving evaluation (одобрительная
оценка) – e.g. in the word renowned (a renowned poet = прославленный; on the
other hand, its synonyms like well-known, famous are neutral in this respect (have
no connotations).
It should be noted that we do not include into the stylistically coloured
vocabulary words that directly express some positive or negative evaluation of an
object – хороший, плохой, красивый, некрасивый, прекрасный,
уродливый;good, bad, pretty, ugly. Here the evaluation expressed makes up their
denotation meaning proper, but not an additional connotation. In the sentence
Don’t read this bad book the negative evaluation is expressed directly (by the
denotation meaning of the adjective bad), whereas in Don’t read this trash the
evaluation is expressed by the derogatory colouring of the noun trash – in other
words, it is present here only as a connotation; thus, words like trash, rot, stuff
(=”something worthless, bad”) are stylistically marked (стилистически
маркированы, т.е. обладают определенной стилистической окраской), while
the word bad is stylistically unmarked (стилистически не маркировано,
нейтрально).
Apart from that, the stylistic connotation of a word may be just a sign of a
certain functional style to which the word belongs, without carrying any emotional
or evaluative element. Thus, sentence like It’s cool (Это круто) contains not only
a high positive evaluation (in the same way as the stylistically neutral variant It is
very good), but also a stylistic connotation which shows that it belongs to the
familiar-colloquial style (фамильярно-разговорный стиль), or even to slang.
25
1. How is standard English vocabulary represented?

2. Characterize neutral, common literary and common colloquial vocabulary.
3. What is the difference between them?
4. Where do common colloquial words mainly occur?
5. Speak about the connotation and denotation meanings.

пособие. /В.В. Гуревич. - М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
1981. – 343 c.
АСТ, 2000. – 224 с.
Lecture 5: SPECIAL LITERARY VOCABULARY (книжно-литературная

лексика)
Special literary vocabulary is marked with ‘lit’ or ‘fml’ – formal, highly

literary, bookish words. It includes terms, archaic words, nonce-words,
foreignisms and barbarisms.
A formal (bookish) style is required in situations of official or restrained
relations between the interlocutors, who try to avoid any personal and emotional
colouring or familiarity, and at the same time to achieve clarity of expression. This
style is used in various genres of speech, such as in official documents, scientific
works, publicist works or public speeches, etc. Special literary vocabulary is
represented with several groups.
Terms
A term is generally very easily coined and easily accepted. Terms are
generally associated with a definite branch of science. Terms are characterized by a
tendency to be monosemantic and therefore easily call the required concept. They
belong to the scientific style. They may as well appear in all other existing styles.
But their function in this case changes. They no longer refer to a given notion or
concept, they indicate the technical peculiarities of the subject, make some
reference to the occupation of a character whose language contains special words
26
and sometimes special terminology suggests that the author is showing off his
erudition.
When terms lose their qualities as terms and pass into the common literary
vocabulary, this process may be called “de-terminization”. Such words as radio,
television, and the like have long been in common use and their terminological
character is no longer evident.
Poetic and highly literary words
They are marked with ‘poet’. Poetic words are used primarily in poetry,
they belong to a definite style of language and perform in it their direct function -
to evoke emotive meanings.
Poetic language has special means of communication, i.e. rhythmical
arrangement, some syntactical peculiarities and a certain number of special words.
Poetic words in the English language do not present a homogeneous group:
they include archaic words such as naught=nothing, woe=grief, thee=you. The use
of a contracted form of a word instead of the full one is very common in English
poetry (morn=morning, even=evening, oft=often). Sometimes we may see an
expanded form of a word (vasty=vast, steepy=steep). But such devices are
generally avoided by modern English poets. Due to poeticisms poetical language is
sometimes not very understandable.
Archaic words
Besides the vocabulary that is in current use, we also find archaic words,
which belong to some previous stage of language development but can still be
found in works of fiction (especially in the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Swift
or other classical authors). Cf. the archaic words Behold!=Look!, Wither are you
going?=Where are you going to? whilst-while, etc.
We may divide them into three groups:
Obsolescent – words which become rarely used; to this category we may
refer morphological forms belonging to the earlier stages in the development of the
language, (the pronouns thou, thee, thy, thine; the ending –(e)th instead of –(e)s –
he maketh); many French borrowings ( a palfrey=a small horse;
garniture=furniture);
Obsolete – words that have already gone completely out of use but are still
recognized by the English speaking community (methinks=I think, it seems to me;
nay=no);
Archaic proper – words which are no longer recognizable in modern
English, that were in use in Old English, which have either dropped out of the
language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have
become unrecognizable (troth=faith).
27
The vocabulary that has gone out of use also includes the so called
‘historisms’ – words which reflect some phenomena belonging to the past times,
e.g. knight (рыцарь), archer (лучник); cf. also Russian historisms like
городничий, городовой, бояре. Historical terms never disappear from the
language, they remain as terms referring to definite stages in the development of
society. Historical words have no synonyms, whereas archaic words have been
replaced by modern synonyms.
The main function of archaisms in works of fiction is to reflect the life of the
heroes of historical novels, to depict “local and time colour”. They create a realistic
background to historical novels. Archaisms make the reader “look into the epoch,
feel it”.
Archaic words and phrases are found in other styles, frequently in the style
of official documents. In this case they are terminological in character. Among the
archaic elements the following may be mentioned: hereby, hereinafternamed.
Archaic words are sometimes used for satirical purposes and to create an
elevated effect.
Barbarisms and Foreign words
Comparatively new borrowings from other languages, which are not yet
completely assimilated in the language (phonetically or grammatically), but have
been already become facts of the English language, are stylistically marked as
‘barbarisms’. Most of them have corresponding English synonyms, e.g. de
facto=(in point of fact), status quo=(the existing state of things). Barbarisms are
generally given in the dictionary.
Foreign words do not belong to the English vocabulary. They are not
registered by English dictionaries. There are foreign words in the English
vocabulary which fulfil a terminological function. Such words as solo, tenor and
the like are terms. They have no synonyms.
Both foreign words and barbarisms are widely used in various styles of
language, especially, in the style of belles-lettres and the publicist style with
various aims, one of their function is to supply local color.
Literary coinages (including nonce-words)
According to the function they are divided into:

1) terminological coinages or neologisms;
2) stylistic coinages or neologisms;
The first ones designate new concepts resulting from the development of
science.
The second type is created to be a more expressive means of communicating
the idea.
According to the formal-semantic meaning their classification is following:
28
1) proper neologisms ( both a new form and a new meaning)
to telecommute
They are similar to terminological coinages.
2) transnomination (new form but an old meaning)
big C – cancer, I am burned out – tired/exhausted
They refer to synonyms and may be regarded as stylistic coinages.
3) semantic innovations (old form but a new meaning)
sophisticated – раньше “умудренный опытом”, теперь
sophisticated computer – прогрессивный
They promote polysemy in the language.
4) nonce-words (окказионализмы).
They appear for particular occasion. They are not included into the
dictionaries. Their main purpose is functional disposability. They are often formed
by means of conversion.
I wifed in Texas, mother-in-lawed, uncled, aunted, cousined …
Nonce-words are not reproduced in speech, they are repeated. They are individual
formations and have their own author. They are quite expressive, humorous and
are created according to the existing word-formation (balconyful – балкон, полный
людей).
Nonce-words can be:
- system – which appear according to word-formation models; they can
become neologisms if they occur many times.
- unsystem– those are formally or semantically distorted (“incorrect words”),
based on deformation. Винни Пух: It’s a missage (когда в горшке вместо
меда обнаруживает message).
1. What are the main subgroups of special literary words?

2 .What do you know of terms, their structure, meaning, functions?
3. What are the fields of application of archaic words and forms?
4. What is the difference between barbarisms and foreign words?
5. How can literary coinages be classified?

пособие. /В.В. Гуревич. – М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
1981. – 343 c.
29
Lecture 6: SPECIAL COLLOQUIAL VOCABULARY
Standard colloquial style - the style of informal, friendly oral

communication. Its vocabulary is usually lower than that of the formal or neutral
styles, it is often emotionally coloured by connotations (daddy, kid).
Colloquial speech is characterized by the frequent use of words ,with a
broad meaning (широкозначные слова): speakers use a small group of words in
quite different meanings, whereas in a formal style every word is to be used in a
specific and clear meaning. Compare the different uses of the verb “get”:
I got (=received) a letter today; Where did you get (=buy) those shoes&; We
don’t get (=have) much rain here in summer; I got (=caught) flu’ last month; We
got (=took) the six[-o’clock train from London; I got into (=entered) the house
easily; Where has my pen got to (=disappeared)?; We got (=arrived) home late;
Get (=put) your hat on!; I can’t get (=fit) into my old jeans; Get (=throw ) the cat
out of the house!; I’ll get (=punish) you, just you wait!; We got (=passed) through
the customs without any checking; I’ve got up to (=reached) the last chapter of the
book; I’ll get (=fetch) the children from school; It’s getting (=becoming) dark; He
got (=was) robbed in the street at night; I got (=caused) him to help me with the
work; I got the radio working at last (=brought it to the state of working); Will you
get (=give, bring) the children their supper tonight?; I didn’t get (=hear) what you
said; You got (=understood) my answer wrong; I wanted to speak to the director,
but only got (=managed to speak) to his secretary; Will you get (=answer) the
phone?; Can you get (=tune in) to London on your radio?
There are phrases and constructions typical of colloquial type: What’s up?
(=what has happened?); No problem! (=This can easily be done), etc.
In grammar: a) the use of shortened variants of word-forms (isn’t, can’t;
there’s; I’d say; Yaa) b) the use of elliptical (incomplete) sentences (I did; Like it?
May I?).
The syntax is characterized by the preferable use of simple sentences. Note
the neutral style in the following extract:
When I saw him there, I asked him, ‘Where are you going?’, but he started
running away from me. I followed him. When he turned round the corner, I also
turned round it after him, but then noticed that he was not there. I could not
imagine where he was…
and the same extract in its colloquial version:
I saw him there, I say ‘Where’ye going?’ He runs off, I run after him. He
turns the corner, me too. He isn’t there. Where’s he now? I can’t think… (note also
the rather frequent change from the Past tense to the Present, in addition to the
absence of conjunctions or other syntactic means of connection).
Non-standard (familiar-colloquial) style of speech is mostly represented
by a special vocabulary. Here we find emotionally coloured words (general slang),
low-colloquial vocabulary and slang words, rude and vulgar vocabulary (taboo),
jargons, professional (special) slang, dialectal words.
30
General slang (sl.infml) – are the words and expressions with ironic, rudish
shade. They make the speech informal (cool - клевый, pan – физиономия, get
hyper – выходить из себя, don’t get hyper – не заводись, cabbage – капуста,
бабло).
General slang:1) makes speech specific and fresh;
2) promotes short distance between the speakers;
3) establishes conformism;
4) demonstrates denial of common valuables (to die – to check out,
to pop off, to sling one’s hook, to go west, to snuff out, to kick the bucket).
As we said general slang should be distinguished from low-colloquial words.
General slang is characterized by its expressiveness, informality and ironic or
rudish shade. But low-colloquial words have rude connotation, they are not used in
respectable conversation (bitch, bastard) . From the other hand, you should
separate them from rude literary words (moron – идиот, слабоумный).
The meaning of the term ‘slang’ is given in many dictionaries.
Webster’s “New World Dictionary of the American Language” gives the following
meanings of the term:
“1. originally, the specialized vocabulary and idioms of criminals, tramps, etc. the
purpose of which was to disguise from outsiders the meaning of what was said;
now usually called cant. 2. the specialized vocabulary and idioms of those in the
same work, way of life, etc.; now usually called shoptalk, argot, jargon. 3.
colloquial language that is outside of conventional or standard usage and consists
of both coined words and those with new or extended meanings; slang develops
from the attempt to find fresh and vigorous, colourful, pungent or humorous
expression, and generally either passes into disuse or comes to have a more formal
status.”
The “New Oxford English Dictionary” defines slang as follows:
“a) the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable
character; language of a low and vulgar type; b) the cant or jargon of a certain
class or period; c) language of a highly colloquial type considered as below the
level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current
words employed in some special sense.”
What can we refer to slang?
The following stylistic layers are generally marked as slang:
1. Words which may be classed as thieves’ cant, or the jargons of other social
groups and professions, like dirt=money, to dance=to hang.
2. Colloquial words and phrases of professional or dialectal direction (to have a
hunch – предчувствовать; fishy – ‘suspicious’)
3. Figurative words and phrases (Scrooge – a mean person, shark –‘a
pickpocket’)
4. Words derived by means of conversion (the noun ‘agent’ is considered
neutral, because it has no stylistic notation, and the verb ‘to agent’ –
‘разбойничать’ is included in one of the American dictionaries of slang;
31
‘ancient’ (adj.) – ‘древний’, ‘античный’, ‘ancient’ (n.) – ‘старикашка’,
‘старая развалина’).
5. Abbreviations (rep – reputation, cig – cigarette, ad – advertisement, flu –
influenza).
6. Set expressions which are generally used in colloquial speech (to go in for)
7. Improprieties of a morphological and syntactical character (I says), double
negatives as ‘I don’t know nothing’.
8. Any new coinage that has not gained recognition and has not yet been
received into standard English.
It is suggested that the term “slang” should be used for those forms of the
English language which are either mispronounced or distorted in some way
phonetically, morphologically or lexically.
Slang is nothing but a deviation from the established norm at the level of the
vocabulary of the language.
What about the purpose of the slang? It is well written in “A Historical
Dictionary of American Slang”:
“Sometimes slang is used to escape the dull familiarity of standard words, to
suggest an escape from the established routine of everyday life. When slang is
used, our life seems a little fresher and a little more personal. Also, as at all levels
of speech, slang is sometimes used for the pure joy of making sounds, or even for a
need to attract attention by making noise.
But more important … is the slang’s reflection of the personality, the
outward, clearly visible characteristics of the speaker.”
We said, that the term “slang” is broad and there are many kinds of slang:
cockney, commercial, military, theatrical, parliamentary and others and there is
also a standard slang, the slang that is common to all people who receive standard
in their writing and speech and also use an informal language which, in fact, is no
language but merely a way of speaking, using special words and phrases in some
special sense.
What causes the nature of slang?
Personality and surroundings (social or occupational) are the two chief factors
determining the nature of slang.
I’d like to show you one more episode from the story by O. Henry “By
courier”. O. Henry opposes neutral and common literary words to special
colloquial words and slang for a definite stylistic purpose. He distorts a message by
translating the literary vocabulary of one speaker into the non-literary vocabulary
of another (discard – отбрасывать, отказываться от чего-либо; moosehunting
– охота на американского лося).
“Tell her I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where I
shall join that Alaska moosehunting expedition. Tell her that, since she has
commanded me neither to speak nor to write to her, I take this means of making
one last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake of what has been. Tell her that
to condemn and discard one who has not deserved such treatment, without giving
32
him her reason or a chance to explain is contrary to her nature as I believe it to
be.”
This message was delivered in the following manner:
“He told me to tell yer he’s got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scool
clean out to ‘Frisco. Den he’s goin’ to shoot snowbirds in de Klondike. He says
yer told him to send ‘round no more pink notes nor come hangin’ over de garden
gate, and he takes dis mean (sending the boy to speak for him) of putting yer wise.
He says yer referred to him like a has-been, and never give him no chance to kick
at de decision. He says yer swilled him and never said why.”
The contrast between what is standard English and what is crude, broken
non-literary or uneducated American English has been achieved by means of
setting the common literary vocabulary and also the syntactical design of the
original message against jargonisms, slang and all kinds of distortions of forms,
phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical.
Jargonisms
It is a special slang. It is a recognized term for a group of words whose aim

is to preserve secrecy within one or another social group.
They may be defined as a code within a code, i.e. special meanings of words
that are imposed on the recognized code – the dictionary meaning of the words
(‘loaf’ means ‘head’; ‘lexer’ – a student preparing for a law course (лат. ‘lex’ –
закон)
Jargonisms are social in character. They are not regional. In England and in
the USA almost any social group of people has its own jargon. The following
jargons are well known in the English language: the jargon of thieves, the jargon of
jazz people, of the army, the jargon of sportsmen and so on.
The various jargons remain a foreign language to the outsiders of any
particular social group. Slang, contrary to jargon, needs no translation. It is not a
secret code.
Jargonisms do not always remain the possession of a given social group.
Some of them migrate into other social strata and sometimes become recognized in
the literary language of the nation.
But as the general slang differs from low-colloquial, the common jargons
differ from special professional jargons.
We must remark that both slang and the various jargons of Great Britain
differ much more from those of America than the literary language in the two
countries does. American slang on the whole remains a foreign language to the
Englishman.
Jargonisms, like slang and other groups of the non-literary layer, do not
always remain on the outskirts of the literary language. Many words have entered
the standard vocabulary. Thus the words kid, fun, humbug, formely slang words or
33
jargonisms, are now considered common colloquial. They may be said to be
dejargonized.
Professionalisms
Professionalisms are the words used in a definite trade, profession by people

connected by common interests both at work and at home. They commonly
designate some working process. Professionalisms are correlated to terms.
Terms are coined to nominate new concepts that appear in the process of
technical progress and the development of science. Professional words name anew
already-existing concepts, tools or instruments, and have the typical properties of a
special code.
Professionalisms are special words in the non-literary layer of the English
vocabulary, whereas terms are a specialized group belonging to the literary layer of
words.
Terms are easily decoded and enter the neutral stratum of the vocabulary.
Professionalisms generally remain in circulation within a definite community, they
are linked to a common occupation and common social interests.
The semantic structure of the term is easily understood. The semantic
structure of a professionalism is often dimmed.
But, like terms, professionalisms do not allow any polysemy, they are
monosemantic.
Here are some professionalisms used in different trades: ‘tin-fish’ –
‘submarine’; ‘block-buster’ – a bomb especially designed to destroy blocks of big
buildings’
Professionalisms should not be mixed up with jargonisms. Like slang words,
professionalisms do not aim at secrecy. They fulfil a socially useful function in
communication, facilitating a quick and adequate grasp of the message.
There are certain fields of human activity which gain a nation-wide interest
and popularity, in Great Britain, for example, it concerns sports and games. And
professionalisms are wide-spread in this sphere.
Professionalisms are used in emotive prose to depict the natural speech of a
character. The skilful use of a professional word will show not only the vocation of
a character, but also his education, breeding, environment and sometimes even his
psychology.
Dialectal Words
Dialectal words are those which in the process of integration of the English
national language remained beyond its literary boundaries, and their use is
34
generally referred to a definite locality. Such words are connected with agriculture,
horses, cattle and sport.
There is sometimes a difficulty in distinguishing dialectal words from
colloquial words. Some dialectal words have become so familiar in standard
colloquial English that they are universally accepted as recognized units of the
standard colloquial English. To these words belong ‘lass’ meaning ‘a girl or a
beloved girl’ and the corresponding ‘lad’, ‘a boy or a young man’.
To the dialects are usually referred the non-standard varieties of English
used on the territory of Great Britain, while the word variants (varieties) refers to
the use of English outside this territory, e.g. the English language of the USA,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
English dialects are divided into northern (including the Scottish dialect)
and southern (including ‘cockney’, the dialect of the area south of London).
Many of the words fixed in dictionaries as dialectal are of Scottish origin.
This is explained by the fact that Scotland has struggled to retain the peculiarities
of its language to be independent. The Scottish dialect comes back to the Gaelic
language (галльский язык). Such words used by speakers of English in the area of
Scotland as bairn=child, auld=old, ben=mountain, bonnie=beautiful,
kirk=church, loch=lake. The pronunciation of Scottish dialectal words may also
have some peculiarities, e.g. [u:] instead of [au], e.g. [hu:s] (=house),
[du:n(=down); [ai] instead of [ou] – e.g. [stain] (=stone), [raid] (=road).
Among other dialects used for stylistic purposes in literature is the southern
dialect. It has a phonetic peculiarity that distinguishes it from other dialects ( initial
[s] and [f] are voiced, and are written in the direct speech of characters as [z] and
[v], f.ex.: ‘volk’ – ‘folk’, ‘vound’ – ‘found’, ‘zee’ – ‘see’, ‘zinking’ – ‘sinking’.
The Irish dialect of English is spread in Northern Ireland. It is not the Irish
language itself (which is of Celtic origin and is spoken in the Irish Republic – in
the southern part of the island), but a variety of English, which includes Irish
words: girsha (=little girl), cardia (=friendship) and also English words with a
changed meaning: harvest (=autumn).
Dialectal words are only to be found in the style of emotive prose, very
rarely in other styles.
Variants of English used outside the territory of Great Britain are found in
the former British colonies. One of the most notable and widespread is the
American variant. It has certain peculiarities of pronunciation, which include: the
pronunciation of the sound [r] in any position in the word (girl, here); the
substitution of the vowel [æ] for the long [a:] in ask, last, after (as in the Scottish
dialect); pronunciation of the vowel [a] instead of [o] in words like hot, pot, stop.
There are also differences in vocabulary, e.g. fall (British - autumn), guess
(=think), drug (=medicine), candy (=sweets), etc. As for grammar forms,
American English uses gotten instead of got. It also prefers simplified variants of
spelling: color (=colour), theater (=theatre), telegram (=telegramme), etc.
35
Vulgar Words (Taboo)
We shall define vulgarisms as swear-words and obscene words and

expressions. They have nothing to do with words in common use nor can they be
classed as colloquialisms.
There are different degrees of vulgar words. Some of them, the obscene
ones should not even be fixed in common dictionaries. They are called “four-
letter” words. A lesser degree of vulgarity is presented by words like
‘damn’,(проклятье), ‘bloody’,(проклятый, чертовски), ‘son of a bitch, ‘to hell’
(ругать на чем свет стоит) and others. These vulgarisms sometimes appear
only with the initial letter printed: d- - - (damn!), b - - - (bloody).
The function of vulgarisms is almost the same as that of interjections, i.e. to
express strong emotions, mainly annoyance, anger, vexation (досада) and the like.
They are not to be found in any style of speech except emotive prose, and here
only in the direct speech of the characters.
The language of the underworld is rich in coarse words and expressions. But
not every expression which may be considered coarse should be regarded as a
vulgarism. Coarseness of expression may result from improper grammar, non-
standard pronunciation, from the misuse of certain literary words and expressions,
from a distortion of words. All these improprieties of speech cannot be regarded as
vulgarisms.
Colloquial Coinages (Nonce-Words)
Colloquial coinages, unlike those of a literary-bookish character, are

spontaneous. Not all of the colloquial nonce-words are fixed in dictionaries or even
in writing and therefore most of them disappear from the language leaving no
trace.
Unlike literary-bookish coinages, nonce-words of a colloquial nature are not
usually built by means of affixes but are based on certain semantic changes in
words. Colloquial nonce-formations are actually not new words but new meanings
of existing words.
‘Presently’ used to mean ‘at the present moment’ has got the meaning ‘in the
near future’. ‘Peculiar’ – ‘belonging exclusively to’ as colloquial coinage means
‘uncommon’ ,’odd’.
In some cases it is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between nonce-
words of bookish and of colloquial origin. Some words which have sprung from
the literary-bookish stratum have become popular in ordinary colloquial lang. and
have acquired new meanings in their new environment.
36
1. What are the main characteristics of slang?

2. What do you know of professional and social jargonisms?
3. What do you think of the purpose of the slang?
4. What is the place and the role of dialectal words in the national language? in the
literary text?
5. How are colloquial coinages formed?

пособие. /В.В. Гуревич. – М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
2. Шаховский, В.И. Стилистика английского языка. /В.И. Шаховский. – Л.:
ЛКИ, 2008. – 235 с.
3. Bridgeman, Richard. The Colloquial Style in America. /R.Bridgeman. - New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986. – p. 94.
4. Crystal, D., Davy, D. Investigating English Style. /D. Crystal, D. Davy. –
London: Longman, 1969. –p. 107.
5. Henry, O. Selected Stories (”By courier”). /O. Henry. – M.: Progress
Publishers, 1977. – 129 с.
6. A Historical Dictionary of American Slang. - New York, 2006. – p. 525.
7. New Oxford English Dictionary. - Oxford University Press, 2000. – p. 613.
8. Webster, New World Dictionary of the American Language. – Springfield,
1999. – p. 747.
Lecture 7: PHONETIC EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC

DEVICES
Stylistic differences of any kind can be expressed by various language

means: phonetic, lexical or grammatical.
Now we are speaking about phonetic ones. And such science as
phonostylistics studies how phonetic means are used as descriptive means, the way
a word, a phrase or a sentence sounds. The sound of most words taken separately
will have little or no aesthetic value. It is in combination with other words that a
word may acquire a desired phonetic effect.
L.Bloomfield, a well-known American linguist, says: “…in human speech
different sounds have different meaning.”
37
There is such a device which helps to select words, having such a sound
form which can intensify expressive content of the episode. Now, let us see what
phonetic stylistic devices fulfill this function.
Euphony (эвфония) – благозвучие.
It is sound selection which corresponds mostly to the emotional mood of the

utterance, the case when the sound corresponds to the content, for example,
predomination of long vowels and diphthongs, sonants, which give smoothness
and softness.
Onomatopoeia – onomete’pie – (ономатопея) – звукоподражание.
This term denotes sound imitation, i.e. the use of words which denote some
phenomenon by imitating its real sounding (wind, sea, thunder, machines or tools,
sighing, laughter, animal’s sounds (cuckoo, buzz (bees), hiss (snakes), bow-wow
(dogs), bump, grumble, sizzle, ding-dong, jingle (звенеть)click ( bang,
mew/miaow and purr (cats), hoink (pigs), bubble (булькать), rustle (шуршать),
splash (плескаться), whistle (свистеть), ping-pong, roar (реветь), tinkle
(звякнуть) These words cause acoustic impression.
“Then with enormous, shattering rumble, sludge-puff, sludge-puff the
train came into the station”.
There are two varieties of onomatopoeia: direct and indirect. Direct

onomatopoeia. is contained in words that imitate natural sounds, as ding-dong,
buzz, bang, slap, rap, tap (звук удара), cuckoo, mew, ping-pong, roar and the
like.
Indirect onomatopoeia is a combination of sounds the aim of which is to make the
sound of the utterance an echo of its sense. It is sometimes called “echo-writing”.
An example is:
“And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain”,
where the repetition of the sound [s] actually produces the sound of the rustling of
the curtain.
The same can be said of the sound [w] if it aims at reproducing, let us say,
the sound of wind.
“Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet
A man goes riding by”.
Indirect onomatopoeia is sometimes very effectively used by repeating
words, for example, “silver bells … how they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle”
Words built on the basis of onomatopoeia make speech especially expressive
when used in their figurative meanings:
38
Cars were whizzing past (moving very fast).
The pot was bubbling on the fire (boiling and making this sound)
The crowd buzzed with excitement (made a noise like that)
Alliteration
A phonetic stylistic device based on repetition of the same or similar

sounds, in particular consonant sounds, at close distance, which makes speech
more expressive.
It is frequently used in idioms, set phrases, proverbs. For example, tit-bit (лакомый
кусочек), neck or nothing (пан или пропал), to shilly-shally (to waste time without
taking action).
“The world will know our courage, our constancy, and our compassion” – sound
[k] shows the position strength.
Alliteration is used in the titles of literary works. (Sense and Sensibility,
Pride and Prejudice).
The translator can transfer alliteration as following: silken sad uncertain
rustling of each purple curtain – и шелковый, печальный, неожиданный шорох
каждой сиреневой шторы.
Due to alliteration the musical effect and expressiveness are created.
Alliteration is considered as a part of phonosemantic theory. According to it a
speech sound is connected with certain content. [l] - плавный, нежный, мягкий,
[i] – радостный, [d] – сумрачный, [m] – дает усыпляющий эффект.
“How sweet it were …
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the music of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and blood and live again in memory”.
Alliteration in the English language is originated from English folklore. The
laws of phonetic arrangement in Anglo-Saxon poetry differed greatly from those of
present-day English poetry. In Old English poetry alliteration was one of the basic
principles of verse and considered along with rhythm to be its main characteristic.
A variant of alliteration is assonance, i.e. repetition of the same or similar
vowels only (My shoes show signs of wear and tear). The term “assonance” is also
used to denote an imperfect rhyme (рифма), when only vowels are rhymed
(number – blunder, same – cane). As a result, the light sounding opposed to the
dull color is created.
Rhythm
In poetic speech is produced by regular alteration (чередование) of stressed

and unstressed syllables.
Why do you cry, Willie?
Why do you cry?
39
Why, Willie, why, Willie,
Why, Willie, Why?
A division (отрезок) of the poetic line from stress to stress, which contains
one stressed syllable and one or two unstressed syllables, is called a Foot (стопа).
The foot is the main unit of rhythm in poetic speech. According to the correlation
of stressed and unstressed syllables within the foot, we distinguish the following 5
types of feet:
1) Trochee (хорей), with two syllables, of which the first is stressed and the
second unstressed:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater,
2) Iambus (ямб), with two syllables, of which the first is unstressed, the second
stressed:
And then my love and I shall pace,
3) Dactyl (дактиль), three syllables, the first stressed, the other two unstressed:
Why do you cry, Willy?
4) Amphibrach (амфибрахий), three syllables with the stress on the second:
A diller, a dollar, a ten o’clock scolar…
5) Anapaest (анапест), three syllables, stress on the third:
Said the flee, ‘Let us fly’,
The type of foot and the number of feet in the line determine the Metre of
the verse (стихотворный размер).
English versification is often characterized by certain irregularities
(нарушения) in the metre.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Certainly, the verses require rhythm, but prose is also characterized by
rhythm.
What makes the rhythm of prose?
1) The repetition of the structural design of the sentence;
2) Dramatic feeling demands regular rhythm;
3) And almost any piece of prose, though in essence non-rhythmical, can be
made rhythmical by isolating words and making appropriate pauses between
them.
Rhythm is the main factor which brings order into the utterance. Of course, it is not
an easy task to find prose rhythm because rhythm is not an essential property of
prose, whereas it is essential in verse. The example of rhythm in prose is
following: I have ransacked my oldest dreams for keys and clues. We can hear the
sound balance and music in this sentence (it is the translation of Nabokov’s prose).
Rhyme (rime) – (рифма).
It is created by the repetition of the same sounds in the last stressed syllable
of two (or more) lines in a stanza (строфа). Rhyme came into the English poetry at
40
the end of the 14-th century. It facilitates the text perception and the rhyming
words attract attention. In prose the rhyme is used in comic situations.
We distinguish between full rhymes and incomplete rhymes. The full rhyme
presupposes identity of the vowel sound and the following consonant sounds in a
stressed syllable (might, right). Incomplete rhymes can be divided into two main
groups: vowel rhymes and consonant rhymes. In vowel-rhymes the vowels of the
syllables in corresponding words are identical, but the consonants may be different
as in flesh – fresh – press. Consonant rhymes, on the contrary, show concordance
in consonants and disparity in vowels, as in worth – forth, flung – long.
By the type of the stressed syllable we distinguish the male rhyme (мужская
рифма), when the stress falls on the last syllable in the rhymed lines, and the
female rhyme (женская рифма), when it falls on the last but one syllable:
When the lamp is shattered (fem. Rhyme)
The light in the dust lies dead; (male rhyme)
When the cloud is scattered (fem.)
The rainbow’s glory is shed. (male)
Мой дядя самых честных правил, (жен. Рифма)

Когда не в шутку занемог, (муж.)
Он уважать себя заставил (жен.)
И лучше выдумать не мог. (муж.)
For the English verses the male rhymes are characteristic of, due to the one-
syllable words prevailing in the English language.
The following classification of the English rhymes presupposes:
- Paired rhymes (парные, смежные рифмы), when the rhyming pattern is
aabb;
The seed ye sow, another reaps; (a)
The wealth ye find, another keeps; (a)
The robes ye weave, another wears; (b)
The arms ye forge, another bears; (b) (Shelley)
- Alternate rhymes (перекрестные рифмы), with the pattern abab;
A slumber did my spirit seal; (a)
I had no human fears: (b)
She seemed a thing that could not feel (a)
The touch of earthly years. (b) (W.Wordsworth)
- Enclosing rhymes (охватные, опоясанные рифмы), with the pattern abba;
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, (a)
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; (b)
Round many western islands have I been (b)
Which bards in fealty (=loyalty) to Apollo hold. (a) (J.Keats)
41
There may also be the so called eye-rhyme (графическая рифма), when the
elements rhymed are similar only in spelling, but not in pronunciation (find – wind;
supply – memory).
As for the pronunciation the rhymes may be the exact (точные) - heart –
part or approximate (приблизительные) – devil – evil.
Depending on the number of rhyming sounds the rhymes may be “poor”
(by-cry) and “rich” (brevity – longevity).
1. What is euphony?
2. What does onomatopoeia denote?
3. What is alliteration based on?
4. What kind of rhymes do you know?
5. What makes the rhythm of prose?

Пособие. /В.В. Гуревич. – М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
2. Bloomfield, L. Phonetics and Speech. /L. Bloomfield. - New York, Oxford,
1991. – p. 79.
3. Galperin,I.R. Stylistics. /I.R. Galperin. - M.: Higher School Publishing House,
1981. – 343 c.
4. Kuharenko, V.A. Seminars in Style. /V.A. Kuharenko. - M.: Higher School
Publishing, 1986. – 144 c.
АСТ, 2000. – 224 с.
Lecture 8: GRAPHIC STYLISTIC DEVICES
Graphic images
To create the rhythmic impression under visual perception the poetry is

divided into stanzas and the prose applies the division into paragraphs to create the
completeness of every thought. The graphic form reflects the poem’s structure
and gives expressiveness to the utterance.
The most common stanza, one consisting of four lines, is called a quatrain
(катрен, четверостишие); the more seldom one, consisting of two, is called a
couplet (двустишие).
42
There is also a ballad stanza, typical of poetical folklore, especially that of
the 14-th-15-th centuries. A ballad is a poem with a plot (сюжет), which tells some
story. The ballad stanza usually has four lines.
A specific type of stanza is used in a sonnet. There we usually find twelve
lines (three quatrains), followed by two final lines (a couplet), which contain a kind
of summary of the whole verse.
Sometimes the poetic text has the shape of a star, a heart, a triangle and a
cross. Its appearance can correspond to its theme and content.
There may also be blank verse (белый стих), in which there is no rhyming,
but the rhythm and metre are to some extent preserved.
Punctuation
The important place belongs to the punctuation. It reflects the rhythmic and
melodic composition of speech. The great attention is paid to the exclamatory and
question marks. They make the text emotional.
The emotional pauses are marked with dashes or suspension marks. (Please
– not that!) (Oh, he’s a… he’s a kind of acquaintance). They attract attention to the
important word.
The stylistic function of the full stop can be different. While describing the
quick change of events, the full stop divides the text into short separate sentences
creating the unity simultaneously. And vice versa the long text without full stops
transfers the dynamic relationship of the parts.
Inverted commas or quotation marks are mainly used to distinguish the
character’s speech or thoughts. With their help the author underlines that either he
doesn’t use these words himself or shows the ironic attitude to the expression.
The absence of punctuation is also significant because it makes the text
similar to the form of the document and adds it importance. This device is used in
ceremonial poetry.
The peculiarities of print
While addressing or personifying the common nouns are written with capital
letter. It gives the special significance and solemn colour to the text. The whole
words may be printed with capital letters and are spoken out emphatically and
loudly. (I didn’t kill Henry. No, NO!)
Epigraphs, citations, prose and poetry, the foreign words and everything that
demands the unusual intensification are printed in italics. Many auxiliary words
which are usually unstressed are printed in italics when they are especially
important.
1. What is the aim of different graphic images?
43
2. Does the shape of the text influence its perception?
3. Why is punctuation so important?
4. What are the peculiarities of print?

1981. – 343 c.
Lecture 9: USE OF SET EXPRESSIONS
In language studies we should not ignore stable lexical units. Here we are
faced with:
A cliché is an expression that has become stereotyped. Examples of real clichés

are: rosy dreams of youth, the patter of little feet, to withstand the test of time.
Proverbs and sayings are brief statements showing in condensed form the
accumulated life experience of the community and serving as conventional
practical symbols for abstract ideas. They are usually didactic and image bearing:
“Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
The main feature distinguishing them from ordinary utterances that their literal
meaning is suppressed by their transferred meaning. This device is used not only in
the belles-lettres style but in the publicist style as well.
An epigram is a stylistic device similar to a proverb, the only difference being

that epigrams are coined by individuals whose names we know, while proverbs are
the coinage of the people. Brevity is the essential quality of the epigram.
Epigrams are often confused with aphorisms and paradoxes. It is difficult to
draw a demarcation line between them. But real epigrams are true to fact.
The epigram is in fact a s y n t a c t i c a l w h o l e, though a syntactical
whole need not necessarily be epigrammatic.
A quotation is a repetition of a phrase or statement from a book, speech, the

exact reproduction of an actual utterance made by a certain author. The stylistic
value of a quotation lies mainly in the fact that it comprises two meanings: the
primary meaning, the one which it has in its original surroundings, and the
44
applicative meaning, the one which it acquires in the new context. They are often
used in epigraphs.
Quotations are usually marked off in the text by inverted commas (“ “),
dashes (-), italics or other graphical means.
1. What do we understand by the stable lexical units?

2. Can you name your own examples of clichés?
3. What distinguishes proverbs and sayings from ordinary utterances?
4. What is the difference between epigrams and proverbs?
5. What is the stylistic value of the quotation?
1981. – 343 c.
АСТ, 2000. – 224 с.
Lecture 10: LEXICAL STYLISTIC DEVICES OR TROPES (FIGURES OF

SPEECH)
The term Figures of speech (фигуры речи, тропы, образные средства) is

frequently used for stylistic devices that make use of a figurative meaning of the
lang. elements and thus create a vivid image (образ).
Words in a context may acquire additional lexical meaning not fixed in
dictionaries – contextual meaning. Sometimes the new meaning becomes the
opposite of the primary meaning, then we deal with transferred meaning.
The relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meanings may be
maintained on the principle of similarity, proximity or opposition. Thus the
stylistic devices based on these principles are m e t a p h o r, m e t o n y m y
and i r o n y.
Metaphor (метафора)
Metaphor denotes a transference of meaning based on resemblance

(перенос, основанный на сходстве), on a covert (скрытое) comparison: (He is
not a man, he is just a machine; the childhood of mankind; a film star) Not only
objects can be compared in a metaphor, but also phenomena, actions or qualities:
(Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some few are to be chewed
and digested; pitiless cold; cruel heat)
45
Metaphors may be simple, when expressed by a word or phrase (Man
cannot live by bread alone), and complex (prolonged or sustained, сложная
метафора), when a broader context is required to understand it, or when the
metaphor includes more than one element of the text (for example, the metaphoric
representation of a city as a powerful and dangerous machine – The average New
Yorker is caught in a machine. He whirls along, he is dizzy, he is helpless. If he
resists, the machine will crush him to pieces.)
A trite metaphor (стершаяся метафора) is one that is overused in speech,
so that it has lost its freshness of expression. Such metaphors often turn into
idiomatic phrases (phraseological expressions) that are fixed in dictionaries (seeds
of evil; a flight of imagination; to burn with desire)
National metaphor is characteristic for a certain nation. An English word
“bear” – “медведь” has its slang meaning “полицейский” because in German
tribes’ mythology the “bear” (медведь) - the symbol of the order.
Traditional metaphors are those which relate to some period of time or
some literary trend. For example, English poets used widely such traditional
metaphors as pearly teeth, coral lips, hair of golden wire, ivory neck.
The expressiveness of the metaphor is promoted by the simultaneous
presence of images of both objects – the one which is actually named and the one
which supplies its own “legal” name. The wider the gap between the associated
objects the more striking and unexpected – the more expressive – is the metaphor.
Metaphors are mostly to be found in poetry and emotive prose. Trite
metaphors are generally used as expressive means in newspaper articles, in
oratorical style and even in scientific language.
Metonymy (метонимия)
Metonymy denotes a transference of meaning which is based on proximity

(contiguity) of notions (перенос, основанный на смежности понятий, явлений),
not on resemblance. In cases of metonymy, the name of one object is used instead
of another, closely connected with it. This may include:
1. The name of a part instead of the name of a whole (synecdoche, синекдоха):
Washington and London (=USA and UK) agree on most issues; He was
followed into the room by a pair of heavy boots (= by a man in heavy
boots); the Russian “Да, да”, ответили рыжие панталоны (Чехов). In a
similar way, the word crown (to fight for the crown) may denote “the royal
power/the king”.
2. The name of a container instead of the contents: The hall applauded. He
drank a whole glass of whisky (= drank the liquid contained in a glass). This
is such a frequent type of transference of meaning in the language system
that in many cases (like the latter example), it is not perceived as a stylistic
device.
46
3. The name of a characteristic feature of an object instead of the object or the
material instead of the thing made of it, as in: The marble spoke.
4. The name of an instrument instead of an action or the doer of an action: Let
us turn swords into ploughs (= Let us replace fighting by peaceful work. –
Перекуем мечи на орала).
5. Antonomasia (антономасия, переименование), a subtype of metonymy,
this device consists in the use of a proper name instead of a common name
or vice versa. Thus, we may use a description instead of a person’s name,
creating a kind of nickname: Mister Know-all, Miss Sharp, Mr.Snake,
Scrooge. On the other hand, a proper name may be used instead of a
common name: He is the Napoleon of crime (= a genius in crime as great as
Napoleon was in wars). I have a Rembrandt at home (= a picture by
Rembrandt).
As a rule, metonymy is expressed by nouns and is used in syntactical
functions characteristic of nouns (subject, object, predicative).
Irony
Irony is based on the simultaneous realization of two opposite meanings: the

permanent, “direct” meaning (the dictionary meaning) of words and their
contextual meaning. Usually the direct meaning in such cases expresses a positive
evaluation of the situation, while the context contains the opposite, negative
evaluation:
How delightful! – to find yourself in a foreign country without a penny in your
pocket!
Aren’t you a hero – running away from a mouse!
Irony must not be confused with humor, although they have very much in
common. Humour always causes laughter. But the function of irony is not to
produce a humorous effect. It rather expresses a feeling of irritation, displeasure,
pity or regret.
The emotive meaning or emotional colouring of a word plays a considerable

role in stylistics. One of the stylistic devices based on some metaphor and thus
creating an image, containing an expressive characteristic of the object is the e p i
t h e t.
Epithet
It is used to characterize some properties or features of the object with the

aim of giving evaluation of these features.
Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used SD, which is
understandable – it offers ample opportunities of qualifying every object from the
47
author’s viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, publicist style, and
everyday speech.
One and the same word may be an adjective only (sharp knife, iron spoon)
and an epithet (a man of iron will, sharp mind).
An epithet may be used in the sentence as an attribute: a cutting smile
(насмешливая, едкая), or as an adverbial modifier: to smile cuttingly.
Fixed epithets (устойчивые) are often found in folklore: a sweet heart,
merry old England.
Epithets may be:
- language (constant): salt tears;
- speech: the smiling sun;
- the epithets with inversion: this devil of a woman instead of this devilish
woman. They are very popular in colloquial style.
Epithets may be classified as: s e m a n t i c and s t r u c t u r a l.
Semantically, they may be divided into two groups: those 1) associated with the
noun following and those 2) unassociated with it.
The first group characterizes the feature inherent to the object: dark forest.
The second group are attributes used to characterize the object by a feature
which may be unexpected: voiceless sands.
Structurally, epithets can be viewed from the point of 1) composition and 2)
distribution.
According to the compositional structure epithets may be divided into
- s i m p l e – ordinary adjectives;
- c o m p o u n d - built like compound adjectives (cloud-shapen giant);
- p h r a s e - Just a ghost of a smile appeared on his face; I’ll-contradict-you
expression on his face.
From the point of view of distribution, the epithets may be arranged as the s t
r i n g o f e p i t h e t s: It was the wonderful, cruel, bewildering, fatal, great city.
Another distributional model is the t r a n s f e r r e d epithet. They
generally describe the state of a human being, but now refer to an object: sick
chamber, sleepless pillow, unbreakfasted morning.
The epithet is a direct way of showing the author’s attitude towards the
things described.
Oxymoron
This is a device which combines, in one phrase, two words (usually: noun +
adjective, sometimes an adverb may combine with an adjective) whose meanings
are opposite and incompatible (несовместимы): a living corpse, a low skyscraper,
to cry silently. As is clearly seen from this string of oxymorons, each one of them
is a combination of two semantically contradictory notions, that help to emphasize
contradictory qualities as a dialectal unity simultaneously existing in the described
phenomenon.
48
The next group of stylistic devices elevates some quality to the greatest
importance.
Simile
Simile is an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two

different classes. This is a comparison creating a vivid image due to the fact that
the object with which we compare is well-known as an example of the quality. The
characteristic itself may be named in the simile, e.g. when the conjunction “as” is
used: beautiful as a rose; stupid as an ass; stubborn as a mule; fresh as a rose; fat
as a pig; white as snow; proud as a peacock.
Similes may contain no special connector expressing comparison, as in: She
climbed with the quickness of a cat.
Comparative constructions are not regarded as simile if no image is created,
when the object with which something is compared, is not accepted as a generally
known example of the quality: John skates as beautifully as Kate does; She is not
so clever as her brother.
Note that, unlike a simile, a metaphor contains a covert comparison, which is
already included in the figurative meaning of a word: cf. a metaphor in What an
ass he is! with the simile He is stupid as an ass. Metaphors are usually more
expressive and more emotionally colored than similes just because they do not
express the comparison openly.
In the English language there is a long list of similes pointing out the
analogy between the various qualities, states or actions of a human being and the
animals supposed to be the bearers of the given quality, for ex.: sly as a fox; busy
as a bee; industrious as an ant; blind as a bat; faithful as a dog; to work like a
horse; hungry as a bear; thirsty as a camel.
Periphrasis
This is a device by which a longer phrase is used instead of a shorter and

plainer one, it is the re-naming of an object for greater expressiveness: my better
half (my wife); Almighty (God); in poetry – the sightless couriers of the air (the
winds); has a humorous coloring – a disturber of the piano keys (a pianist).
Stylistic periphrasis can also be divided into:
- logical – which is based on one of the inherent properties of the object
described, as in instruments of destruction (pistols);
- figurative – is based either on metaphor or on metonymy, as in to tie the knot
(to marry).
There is little difference between metaphor or metonymy on the one hand,
and figurative periphrasis on the other. It is the structural aspect of the periphrasis,
which always presupposes a word combination.
49
The main function of the periphrases is to convey a purely individual
perception of the described object. To achieve it the generally accepted nomination
of the object is replaced by the description of one of its features or qualities, which
seems to the author most important for the characteristic of the object, and which
thus becomes foregrounded.
The often repeated periphrases become trite and serve as universally
accepted periphrastic synonyms: “the gentle (soft, weak) sex (women).
Euphemism
There is a variety of periphrasis which we call euphemistic. Euphemism

denotes the use of a different, more gentle or favourable name for an object or
phenomenon so as to avoid undesirable or unpleasant associations. Thus, the verb
to die may be replaced by euphemisms like to expire, to be no more,to join the
majority, to be gone, to depart.
The term is derived from Greek: eu – well + -pheme – speaking).
Euphemism is sometimes figuratively called “a whitewashing device”.
Euphemistic expressions may have the structure of a sentence: China is a
country where you often get different accounts of the same thing (where many lies
are told).
There are euphemisms replacing taboo-words, i.e. words forbidden in use in
a community: The Prince of darkness or The Evil One (the Devil); the kingdom of
darkness or the place of no return (Hell).
Euphemisms may be divided into several groups according to their spheres
of application. The most recognized are the following: 1) religious, 2) moral, 3)
medical and 4) parliamentary.
The life of euphemisms is short. They very soon become closely associated
with the object named and give way to a newly-coined word or combination of
words.
Hyperbole, Meiosis and Litotes
These are stylistic devices aimed at intensification of meaning.

Hyperbole (гипербола, преувеличение) denotes a deliberate extreme
exaggeration of the quality of the object: He was so tall that I was not sure he had
a face; the man-mountain; a thousand pardons; I’ve told you a million times; He
was scared to death.
Hyperbole is one of the most common expressive means of our everyday
speech. Hyperbole may be the final effect of another stylistic device - metaphor,
simile, irony, as we have in the case “The man was like the Rock of Gibraltar”.
Hyperbole can be expressed by all notional parts of speech. There are words
though, which are used in this SD more often than others. They are such pronouns
50
as “all”, “every”, “everybody” and the like; also numerical nouns (“a million”,
“a thousand”), as was shown above, and adverbs of time (“ever”, “never”).
Meiosis (мейозис, преуменьшение) denotes understatement of the quality of the
object. Such reserve and politeness are typical of Englishman. “The wind is rather
strong” instead of “There’s a gale blowing outside”.
Litotes (understatement; литота, преуменьшение) is a device based on a peculiar
use of negative constructions in the positive meaning, so that the quality seems to
be underestimated, but in fact it is shown as something very positive or intensified:
Not bad (very good); he is no coward (very brave); it was no easy task (very
difficult); it was done not without taste (in very good taste).
While speaking about interaction of primary and derivative meanings we

should mention polysemy, i.e. the ability of the word to have two or more
meanings. This term must be referred to lexicology.
And in stylistics there are special devices which make a word materialize
two distinct dictionary meanings. They are zeugma and the pun.
Zeugma (зевгма, каламбур)
This is a stylistic device that plays upon two different meanings of the word
– the direct (literal) and the figurative (transferred) meanings, thus creating a pun
(игра слов). The effect comes from the use of a word in the same formal
(grammatical) relations, but in different semantic relations, due to the simultaneous
realization of the literal and figurative meaning of a word: A leopard changes his
spots, as often as he goes from one spot to another (spot – 1. пятно, 2 – место).
She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief. “ Now, please, shake your
hands!” – “There is no need for that. Their hands must have been shaking since
morning”.
Allegory and Personification (олицетворение)
Allegory is a device by which the names of objects or characters of a story are

used in a figurative sense, representing some more general things, good or bad
qualities. This is often found in fables (басни) and parables (притчи). It is also a
typical feature of proverbs, which contain generalizations:
All is not gold that glitters (=impressive words or people are not always really so
good as they seem);
Every cloud has a silver lining (=even in bad situations we may find positive
elements);
There is no rose without a thorn (=there are always disadvantages in the choice
that we make);
Make the hay while the sun shines (=hurry to achieve your aim while there is a
suitable situation).
51
As a subtype of allegory we distinguish Personification, by which human
qualities are ascribed to inanimate objects, phenomena or animals. In the well-
known poem:
Twinkle, little star!
How I wonder what you are!...
a star is represented as if it were a living being whom the author addresses.
In poetry, fables, etc., personification is often represented grammatically by
the choice of masculine or feminine pronouns for the names of animals, inanimate
objects or forces of nature. The pronoun He is used for the Sun, the Wind, for the
names of any animals that act like human beings in the tale (The cat who walked by
himself), for strong, active phenomena (Death, Ocean, River) or feelings (Fear,
Love). The pronoun She is used for what is regarded as rather gentle (the Moon,
Nature, Silence, Beauty, Hope, Mercy).
Allusion
This is indirect reference to some historical or literary fact expressed in the

text. Allusion presupposes the knowledge of such a fact on the part of the reader or
listener, so no particular explanation is given.
He felt as Balaam must gave felt when his ass broke into speech (Maugham)
(allusion to the biblical parable of an ass that spoke the human language when its
master, Balaam, intended to punish it.)
1. Define the concept of litotes?

2. What is there in common between litotes and meiosis?
3. What is the difference between metonymy and metaphor?
4. What does hyperbole denote?
5. What is irony?
6. What is antonomasia?
7. What semantic and structural types of epithets do you know?
8. Where are allegory and personification applied?

Пособие. /В.В. Гуревич. – М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
2. Солганик, Г.Я. Стилистика текста: учебн. пособие /Г.Я. Солганик. - 6-е
изд. - М.: Наука, 2000. – 217 с.
3. Тарыгина, В.А. Эпитет и жанр. /В.А. Тарыгина. - М.: Оникс, 2000. – 78 с.
4. Galperin ,I.R. Stylistics. /I.R. Galperin. – M.: Higher School Publishing House,
1981. – 343 c.
52
Lecture 11: SYNTACTICAL STYLISTIC DEVICES
To speak about syntactical stylistic devices we should consider the main

syntactical units. Let’s start with the s y n t a c t i c a l w h o l e. It generally
comprises a number of sentences interdependent structurally and semantically,
Thus, syntactical whole is a combination of sentences presenting a structural and
semantic unity backed up by the rhythmic and melodic unity. Most epigrams are
syntactical wholes from the point of view of their semantic unity. A syntactical
whole may coincide with the paragraph.
A p a r a g r a p h is a group of sentences which shows an internal unity,
logical in character. The length of a paragraph normally varies from 8 to 12
sentences. In newspaper style, however, most paragraphs consist of one – three
sentences. The paragraph in some styles, such as scientific, publicist and some
others generally has a topic sentence (key-sentence) which embodies the main idea
of the paragraph. The paragraph in belle-lettres prose generally lacks unity, there
are no topic sentences in emotive prose as a rule.
The next item in syntax is a s e n t e n c e. It is regarded as neutral if it
maintains the regular word order. Any other order of the parts of the sentence may
also carry the necessary information, but the impact on the reader will be different.
Stylistic inversion
An unusual order of words chosen for emphasis of greater expressiveness is

inversion. The notion of stylistic inversion is broader than the notion of inversion
in grammar, where it generally relates only to the position of subject and predicate.
Thus, in stylistics
- it may include the postposition of an adjective in an attributive phrase:
A passionate ballad gallant and gay …
Once upon a midnight dreary…
- it may also refer to a change in the standard position of all other members of
the sentence (Subject – Predicate – Object). Thus, in poetic language
secondary members may stand before the main members:
The sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight.
- as for the position of the predicate before subject, we may distinguish cases
of
1) full inversion:
On goes the river
And out past the mill
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
53
2) cases of partial inversion, usually when an adverbial modifier, object or a
predicative begins the sentence and only part of the predicate comes before
the subject:
How little had I realized that, for me, life was only then beginning.
Terribly cold it certainly was.
Stylistic inversion aims at attaching logical stress or additional emotional
colouring to the meaning of the utterance. Inversion is one of the forms of
emphatic constructions.
Detached constructions
Sometimes one of the secondary parts of the sentence is placed so that it

seems formally independent of the word it logically refers to. Such parts of
structures are called detached. Secondary members obtain their own stress and
intonation because they are detached from the rest of the sentence by commas,
dashes or even a full stop as in the following cases:
Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in his eyes.
‘I want to go’, he said, miserable.
Detached construction is a device bridging the norms of written and spoken
language. It is similar to inversion. The functions are almost the same. But
detached construction produces a much stronger effect as it presents parts of the
utterance significant from the author’s point of view in a more or less independent
manner.
Suspense (Retardation – ретардация, замедление)
This is a compositional device by which the less important part of the

message is in some way separated from the main part, and the latter is given only
at the end of the sentence, so that the reader is kept in suspense. The theme, that
which is known, and the rheme, that which is new, of the sentence are distanced
from each other and the new information is withheld, creating the tension of
expectation.
‘Mankind’, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend was obliging enough to
read and explain to me, ‘for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw’.
The term “suspense” is also used in literary criticism to denote an expectant
uncertainty about the outcome of the plot. To hold the reader in suspense (in a state
of uncertainty and expectation) means to keep the final solution just out of sight.
Detective and adventure stories are examples of suspense fiction. This device is
especially favoured by orators.
54
Repetition (повтор)
It is used when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion. It shows the
state of mind of the speaker.
‘Stop!’ – she cried, ‘Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear; I don’t want to hear
what you’ve come for.
Repetition is classified as l e x i c a l which is often used to increase the
degree of emotion; and s y n t a c t i c which refers to repetition of syntactic
elements of construction.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea.
The repetition of the same elements at the beginning of several sentences is
called anaphora. The repetition of the same elements at the end of several
sentences is called epiphora.
The repetition may be f r a m i n g , l i n k i n g, s y n o n y m.
The last one is the repetition of the same idea by using synonymous words and
phrases. Some critics define this stylistic device as tautology, i.e. the repetition of
the same word or idea in other words. They call it a fault of style. But on the other
hand, this repetition may be justified by the aim of the communication.
The daylight is fading, the sun is setting, and night is coming on.
can be considered as tautological, but this sentence may serve as an artistic
example depicting the approach of night.
This stylistic device may be acceptable in oratory, it helps the audience to grasp the
meaning of the utterance.
Parallelism
A special variant of syntactic repetition is syntactic parallelism. It means

repetition of similar syntactic constructions in the text in order to strengthen the
emotional impact or expressiveness of the description.
There were, …, real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink
it out of, and plates of the same to hold the cakes and toast in.
There are two main functions of this construction: s e m a n t i c- equal
semantic significance of the component parts; and s t r u c t u r a l a rhythmical
design to these component parts.
It is used in different styles. In the style of official documents it carries the
idea of semantic equality of the parts, in scientific prose – the logical principle of
arranging ideas, in the belle-lettres style – an emotive function. It is used as a
technical means in building up other stylistic devices.
55
Chiasmus (хиазм)
This term denotes repetition of the same structure but with the opposite order
of elements (a reversed version of syntactic parallelism).
Down dropped the breeze,
The sails dropped down.
In the days of old men made the manners,

Manners now make men.
The purpose of chiasmus is to bring in some new shade of meaning or
additional emphasis. Chiasmus contributes to the rhythmical quality of the
utterance.
Enumeration
It is a stylistic device by means of which homogeneous parts of an utterance

are made heterogeneous from the semantic point of view.
Famine, despair, cold, thirst and heat had done their work …
Fleur could concentrate immediate attention on the donkeys, the priests, beggars,
children, crowing cocks, old villages, goats, olive-trees, melons, mules, great
churches and swimming grey-brown mountains of a fascinating land.
Climax and Anticlimax
Climax is an arrangement of sentences (or of the homogeneous parts of one

sentence) which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or
emotional tension in the utterance (“Better to borrow, better to beg, better to
die!”). In climax we deal with strings of synonyms or at least semantically related
words belonging to the same thematic group.
It may be l o g i c a l is based on the relative importance of the component parts.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say “How are you?” No beggars
implored him. No children asked him what it was o’clock. No man or woman ever
once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place.
The order of the statements shows that the author considers the culmination of the
climax.
E m o t i o n a l climax is based on the relative emotional tension produced by
words with emotive meaning.
It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city.
Q u a n t i t a t i v e climax is an evident increase in the volume.
They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of stairs; they
inspected innumerable kitchens.
56
The most widely spread model of climax is a three-step construction, in
which intensification of logical importance, of emotion or quantity (size,
dimensions) is gradually rising from step to step.
Climax is a means by which the author discloses his world outlook, his
evaluation of objective facts and phenomena.
Climax suddenly interrupted by an unexpected turn of the thought which
defeats expectations of the reader (listener) and ends in complete semantic reversal
of the emphasized idea, is called a n t i c l i m a x, in which the final element is
weaker in degree, or lower in status than the previous; it usually creates a
humorous effect. To stress the abruptness of the change emphatic punctuation
(dash, most often) is used between the ascending and the descending parts of the
anticlimax.
Music makes one feel so romantic – at least it gets on one’s nerves, which is the
same thing nowadays. (Wilde)
Antithesis
It is a stylistic opposition which is based on relative opposition of

contrasting pairs.
A saint abroad, and a devil at home.
Youth is lovely, age is lonely.
Antithesis has the following basic functions: rhythm-forming, connecting,
comparative.
The main function of the antithesis is to stress the heterogeneity of the
described phenomenon, to show that the latter is a dialectical unity of two (or
more) opposing features.
The types of connection between parts of a sentence, between sentences

themselves, between syntactical wholes and within the paragraph are called a s y
n d e t o n and p o l y s y n d e t o n.
Asyndeton is a deliberate omission of conjunctions or other connectors between
parts of the sentence.(бессоюзие)
“There’s no use in talking to him, he’s perfectly idiotic!” said Alice desperately.
(because)
Should a Frenchman or Englishman travel my route, their stored pictures of it
would be different from mine. (if)
Polysyndeton is a device opposite to asyndeton: a repeated use of the same
connectors (conjunctions, prepositions) before each component part.
(многосоюзие)
Mr.Boffin sat staring at a little bookcase, and at a window, and at an empty blue
bag, and at a pen …
57
Ellipsis
In colloquial speech this device consists in omission of some parts of the

sentence that are easily understood from the context or situation. But, while in
colloquial style this omission simply makes the speech more compact (Where is
he? – In the garden), in literary descriptions it may give the construction an
additional expressive or emotional colouring.
There’s somebody wants to speak to you.
I went to Oxford as one goes into exile; she to London.
The horror! The flight! The exposure! The police! – Am tragedy – the hero is
angry, anxious and in panic.
A Break in the Narration (Aposiopesis, умолчание)
This device consists in a sudden stop in the middle of a sentence when the
continuation is quite clear: “Don’t you do this, or …” (a threat) “These are
certainly good intensions, but …” (the continuation is clear from the well-known
proverb that good intentions pave the way to Hell).
Question in the Narration
It is asked and answered by one and the same person, usually the author.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.
Question in the Narration is very often used in oratory.
Question in the Narration may also remain unanswered.
How long must it go on? How long must we suffer? Where is the end? What is the
end?
These sentences show a gradual transition to rhetorical questions.
Having the form of an interrogative sentence, a rhetorical question contains not a
question but a covert statement of the opposite.
Who does not know Shakespeare? (“everybody knows”)
A rhetorical question may contain irony.
Since when are you interested in such things? (“I doubt that you are really
interested in them”)
Represented speech (несобственно-прямая речь)
This is the case when the speech of a character in the work of fiction is
represented without quotation marks, as if it were the author’s speech.
Old Jolion was on the alert at once. Wasn’t the “man of property” going to live in
his new house, then?
Represented speech exists in two varieties: 1) uttered represented speech and
2) unuttered or inner represented speech.
58
U t t e r e d represented speech demands that the tense should be switched from
present to past and that the personal pronouns should be changed from 1-st and 2-
nd person to 3-rd person as in indirect speech, but the syntactical structure of the
utterance does not change.
Could he bring a reference from where he now was? He could.
This device is used not only in the belles-lettres style, but in newspaper style.
U n u t t e r e d or inner represented speech expresses feelings and thoughts of the
character which were not materialized in spoken or written language.
An idea had occurred to Soames. The first step would be to go down and see his
cousin at Robin Hill. Robin Hill – the house Bosinney had built for him and Irene –
the house they had never lived in.
1. What are the main functions of parallel constructions?

2. Have you ever observed chiasmus? What is it?
3. What do you know about antithesis?
4. Speak about asyndeton and polysyndeton.
5. What types of repetition do you know?
6. Speak about the stylistic device of climax and its types.
7. What is an anticlimax?
8. How can you characterize represented speech?

вузов /И.В. Арнольд. - 7-е изд. - М.: Высшая школа, 2005. – 383 с.
2. Гуревич, В.В. English Stylistics. Стилистика английского языка: учеб.
пособие /В.В. Гуревич. – М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
3. Шаховский, В.И. Стилистика английского языка /В.И. Шаховский. – Л.:
ЛКИ, 2008. – 235 с.
4. Galperin, I.R. Stylistics /I.R. Galperin. - M.: Higher School Publishing House,
1981. – 343 c.
5. Kuharenko, V.A. Seminars in Style /V.A. Kuharenko. - M.: Higher School
Publishing House, 1986. – 144 c.
Lecture 12: FUNCTIONAL STYLES OF LANGUAGE
Each style of the literary language makes use of a group of language means
the interrelation of which is peculiar to the given style. Each style, however, can be
recognized by one or more leading features. For instance, the use of special
terminology is a lexical characteristic of the style of scientific prose.
59
A style of language can be defined as a system of coordinated, interrelated
and interconditioned language means intended to fulfil a specific function of
communication and aiming at a definite effect.
Each style is a relatively stable system at the given stage in the development
of the literary language, but it changes. Therefore it is a historical category. Thus,
the style of emotive prose actually began to function as an independent style after
the second half of the 16-th century; the newspaper style budded of from the
publicist style; the oratorical style has undergone considerable fundamental
changes and so with other styles..
The development of each style is predetermined by the changes in the norms
of standard English. It is also greatly influenced by changing social conditions, the
progress of science and the development of cultural life in the country.
The modern linguists define the following functional styles:
1) the belles-lettres style;
2) publicist style;
3) the newspaper style;
4) scientific prose style;
5) the style of the official documents.
The belles-lettres style
It has three sub-styles: e m o t i v e p r o s e, d r a m a and p o e t r y. All

these sub-styles have certain common features, typical of the general belles-lettres
style and each of them also has some individuality.
They have a double function: first of all, they aim at the cognitive process
and, secondly, they fulfil an aesthetic function.
The distinctive features of the belles-lettres style are:
1) Imagery, achieved by purely linguistic devices;
2) The use of words in more than one meaning;
3) A vocabulary which reflects the author’s personal evaluation of things or
phenomena.;
4) A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax;
5) The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language.
Emotive prose is a combination of the spoken and written varieties of the

language. There are always two forms of communication present – monologue and
dialogue. The colloquial language in the belles-lettres style is not a pure
reproduction of the natural speech, but it has undergone changes introduced by the
writer.
Emotive prose uses the elements from other styles: the newspaper, the
official, the style of scientific prose. But all these styles under the influence of
emotive prose undergo a kind of transformation.
60
Emotive prose came into being rather late. In early Anglo-Saxon literature
there was no emotive prose. The first emotive prose which appeared was
translations from Latin of stories from the Bible and the Lives of the Saints. In the
15-th century it described the life and adventures of kings and knights. In the
emotive prose of the 16-th century we can find allusions, parallel constructions,
antithesis, similes and many other stylistic devices. In the 18-th century the
emotive prose used language means and stylistic devices in some cases resembled
the manner of poetic style. The 19-th century prose is characterized by jargonisms,
professional words, slang, dialectal words and even vulgarisms. At the beginning
of the 20-th century such stylistic devices are developed as represented speech
(both uttered and unuttered), detached constructions. Present-day emotive prose is
characterized by different syntactical models, unexpected ways of combining
sentences.
Drama. It is the language of plays. The author’s speech is almost entirely

excluded. But the language of the characters is in no way the exact reproduction of
the norms of colloquial language. The language of plays is always stylized. The
plays of the 16-th century were rhymed and they are called dramatic poetry. In
plays the characters’ utterances are generally much longer than in ordinary
conversation. We often can observe the questions in the narration here.
Poetry is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the

utterances. Both the syntactical and semantic aspects of the poetic sub-style are
compact. The commonly used constructions are elliptical sentences, detached
constructions, inversion, asyndeton and other syntactical peculiarities. Rhythm and
rhyme are distinguishable properties of the poetic sub-style.
The phonetic features of the language of poetry are called e x t e r n a l.
They immediately strike the ear and the eye. Through lexical and syntactical
peculiarities the idea and feelings are conveyed to the reader, they are called i n t e
r n a l. Images from a linguistic point of view are mostly built on metaphors,
metonymy, simile, onomatopoeia.
Another feature of the poetic sub-style is its emotional coloring due to the
rhythmic arrangement and the great number of emotionally colored words. Poetical
language is a specific mode of communication which uses specific means differing
from prose.
Whatever the function of poetry may be, it bears no relation to our socially
established needs, because poetry is detached from the ordinary contexts of social
life. Poetry does not make direct reference to the world of phenomena but
provides a representation of it through its peculiar and unconventional uses of
language which invite and motivate, sometimes even provoke, readers to create an
imaginary alternative world.
61
Publicist style
It falls into three varieties: the o r a t o r y style proper, the e s s a y and

the a r t i c l e s.
The general aim of publicist style is to constantly influence on public
opinion. Publicist style has features in common with the style of scientific prose,
on the one hand, and that of emotive prose, on the other. Publicist style is also
characterized by brevity of expression.
Oratory style is the oral variant of publicist style. The stylistic devices employed
in oratorical style are determined by the conditions of communication. Antithesis,
parallel constructions, repetition, climax, suspense, rhetorical questions and
questions in the narration are used to persuade the audience, to add weight to the
speaker’s opinion. Allusions in oratorical style depend on the content of the speech
and the level of the audience. Oratory speech presupposes mainly the usage of
neutral and common literary language, some amount of colloquial language and
terms. The slang is excluded. Oratory style is characterized by clear and concrete
conclusions. Speech should be interesting.
The essay dates from the 16-th century. It is a literary composition of moderate
length on philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subjects. It never goes deep
into the subject, but touches upon the surface.
Nowadays an essay is usually a kind of feature article (тематическая
статья) in a magazine or newspaper. It is characterized by clarity and brevity of
expression, by the use of the first person singular, by expanded use of connecting
words, and abundant use of emotionally colored words, of metaphors and other
figures of speech. The essay aims at a lasting, the speech at an immediate effect.
Articles (newspaper speech). Words of emotive meaning are few, if any, in

popular scientific articles. Their argumentation and emotional appeal are achieved
by emphatic constructions of different kinds. They contain many newspaper
clichés and colloquial units. Grammar is rather simple.
Newspaper style
English newspaper style dates back from the 17-th century. Newspaper
style is a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means
which serve the purpose of informing and instructing the reader.
Not all the printed material comes under newspaper style.
To understand the language peculiarities of newspaper style we should
analyze the following basic newspaper features:
1. Brief news items
2. The headline
62
3. Advertisements and announcements
4. The editorial
The function of a brief news item is to inform the reader. It states only facts
without giving comments. It is essentially matter-of-fact and stereotyped forms of
expression prevail almost without emotional coloring.
The vocabulary used is neutral and common literary. Newspaper style is
characterized by:
- the use of special political or economic terminology (constitutional,
election, gross output);
- the use of bookish vocabulary, including certain clichés (population, public
opinion, pressing problems), which may be based on metaphors and thus
emotionally colored (a storm of applause, pillars of society, war hysteria);
- frequent use of abbreviations – names of organizations, political movements,
etc. (EEC – European Economic Community, FO – Foreign Office, MP –
Member of Parliament);
- the use of neologisms, since newspapers quickly react to any new trends in
the development of society, technology, science (black Americans –
Negroes, stop-go politics – indecisive politics).
The grammatical peculiarities of brief news items are:
- complex sentences with a number of clauses;
- verbal constructions;
- syntactical complexes, especially with the infinitive;
- attributive noun groups (the national income and expenditure figures, leap
into space age);
- elliptical sentences found in headlines.
The headline is the title given to a news item or a newspaper article. Its
main function is to inform the reader briefly of what the news is about. English
headlines are short and catching. Unlike news, headlines contain emotionally
colored words and phrases (Crazy Waste of Youth, Roman Catholic Priest sacked).
Stylistic devices used in headlines are the pun, alliteration. Syntactically headlines
are very short sentences which may be declarative, interrogative, including direct
speech.
Advertisements appeared in the middle of the 17-th century. Their function
is also to inform the reader. There are two basic types of advertisements and
announcements in the modern English newspaper: classified and non-classified
(separate).
In classified advertisements various kinds of information are arranged
according to subject-matter into sections, such as Births, Marriages, Deaths,
Business Offers etc.
The absence of all articles and some punctuation marks makes the statement
telegram-like. Sentences tend to be short and compact. The vocabulary of
classified advertisements is neutral with some sprinkling emotionally colored
words to attract the reader’s attention.
63
In non-classified or separate advertisements the reader’s attention is attracted
by every possible means: graphical, stylistic. They are not brief, as the advertiser
may buy as much space as he chooses.
Editorials are an intermediate phenomenon bearing the features of both the
newspaper style and the publicist style.
The function of the editorial is to influence the reader by giving an
interpretation of certain facts. Editorials comment on the political and other events
of the day. Their purpose is to give the editor’s opinion and interpretation of the
news published and suggest to the reader that it is the correct one. Editorials appeal
not only to the reader’s mind but to his feelings as well. (The long-suffering
British housewife needs a bottomless purse to cope with this scale of inflation)
Alongside political words, terms, clichés and abbreviations you can find
colloquial words, slang and professionalisms. The language of editorials is
characterized by a combination of different strata of vocabulary. Practically any
stylistic device may be found in editorial. Some editorials abound in parallel
constructions, various types of repetition, rhetorical questions.
Scientific prose style
The genre of scientific works exists mainly in the written form of language
(scientific articles, monographs), but it may also be used in its oral form (scientific
reports, lectures). The aim of this style is to prove a hypothesis, to create new
concepts, to disclose relations between different phenomena. The language means
used tend to be unemotional. This style requires the use of special terminology.
The first feature of this style is the l o g i c a l s e q u e n c e o f u t t e r
a n c e s with clear indication of their interrelations and interdependence.
The second feature is the u s e o f t e r m s, specific to each given branch
of science.
The third is s e n t e n c e-p a t t e r n s. They are of three types:
p o s t u l a t o r y, a r g u m e n t a t i v e, f o r m u l a t i v e.
The fourth feature is the use of q u o t a t i o n s and r e f e r e n c e s.
The fifth feature is the frequent use of f o o t-n o t e s.
And the last feature is the i m p e r s o n a l i t y of scientific writings.
Scientific experiments are generally described in the passive voice.
The syntax of scientific speech is characterized by the use of complete
sentences, the use of extended complex and compound sentences without omission
of conjunctions, the use of bookish syntactic constructions and attributive phrases,
special terminology and stable expressions (to sum up, as we have seen, finally,
again, thus).
The author’s speech is written from the first person plural, the impersonal
forms with it and constructions with one are widely used.
64
The style of official documents
It is represented by the following sub-styles:

1. the language of business documents
2. the language of legal documents
3. that of diplomacy
4. that of military documents.
The aim of communication in this style of language is to reach agreement between
two contracting parties: the state and the citizen, a society and its members, two or
more enterprises etc. Such documents require the choice of a special kind of
vocabulary, grammar forms and structures, the use of special formulas of
politeness and clichés. The syntax of official style is characterized by the frequent
use of non-finite forms – gerund, participle, infinitive and complex structures with
them. This style uses words in their logical dictionary meaning. Words with
emotive meaning are also not to be found in the style of official documents.
Almost every official document has its own compositional design.
1. Enumerate functional styles of contemporary English.

2. What do you know about the scientific style?
3. Characterize the official style.
4. Discuss the peculiarities of the newspaper style.
5. What are the main features of the publicist style?
1.Ванников, Ю.В. Типы научных и технических текстов и их

лингвистические особенности /Ю.В. Ванников. – М.: Наука, 1984. – 137 с.
2. Гуревич, В.В. English Stylistics.Стилистика английского языка: учебн.
пособие /В.В. Гуревич. – М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
3. Наер, В.Л. Функциональные стили английского языка /В.Л. Наер. - М.:
Наука, 1981. – 154 с.
4. Разинкина, Н.М. Функциональная стилистика английского языка /Н.М.
Разинкина. - М.: Наука, 1989. – 271 с.
5. Kuharenko, V.A. Seminars in Style /V.A. Kuharenko. - M.: Higher School
Publishing House, 1986. – 144 c.
65
S E C T I O N III
TERMINOLOGICAL REFERENCE
Allegory A stylistic device by which the names of objects or characters are used
in a figurative sense, representing some more general things.
Alliteration A stylistic device based on repetition of the same or similar sounds,

in particular consonant sounds.
Allusion Indirect reference to some historical or literary fact expressed in the text.
Anticlimax An arrangement in which the final element is weaker in degree, or

lower in status than the previous. See climax.
Antithesis A stylistic opposition which is based on relative opposition of

contrasting parts.
Antonomasia A subtype of metonymy which consists in the use of a proper

name instead of a common name or vice versa.
Aposiopesis A sudden stop in the middle of a sentence when the continuation is

quite clear. It is also known as a break in the narration.
Archaic proper word A word which has either dropped out of the language
entirely or has changed in its appearance so much that it has become
unrecognizable.
Assonance A variant of alliteration, repetition of the same or similar vowels

only.
Asyndeton A deliberate omission of conjunctions or other connectors between

parts of the sentence.
Barbarism A comparatively new borrowing from other language, which is not

yet completely assimilated in the language, but has been already become a part of
the language.
66
Chiasmus Repetition of the same structure but with the opposite order of
elements.
Cliché An expression that has become stereotyped.
Climax An arrangement of sentences which secures a gradual increase in

significance, importance, or emotional tension in the utterance.
Coinage A word that has recently come into the language and is still felt as rather
new.
Context Linguistic context refers to the surrounding features of language inside a

text, while non-linguistic context includes any number of text-external features
influencing the language and style of a text.
Connotation An additional component of meaning which expresses some

emotional colouring or evaluation of the object named.
Convergence The simultaneous usage of several stylistic devices.
Deictics Textual cues such as here, there, now, then, I, and you, which locate a
discourse in relation to the speaker’s or writer’s perspective or point of view,
whether in space, time, or interpersonal relations. See also place deictics, time
deictics, person deictics.
Deixis The process of contextual orientation (from the Greek word for ‘pointing’
or ‘showing’). See deictics.
Detached construction One of the secondary parts of the sentence which is

placed so that it seems formally independent of the word it logically refers to.
Dialectal word A word which remained beyond literary boundaries of the

language and is generally used in a definite locality.
Direct speech (DS) A style of speech representation used when a narrator

delegates perspective to the characters and leaves them to speak for themselves.
Direct thought (DT) A style of thought representation, which presupposes a

privileged omniscience on the part of the narrator.
67
Discourse The process of activation of a text by relating it to an appropriate
context, in other words, the reader’s or listener’s reconstruction of the writer’s or
speaker’s intended message.
Ellipsis A stylistic device consisting in omission of some parts of the sentence

that are easily understood from the context or situation.
Enumeration A stylistic device by means of which homogeneous parts of an

utterance are made heterogeneous from the semantic point of view.
Epigram A stylistic device similar to a proverb, but is coined by the individual

whose name we know.
Epithet A stylistic device which is used to characterize some properties or

features of the object with the aim of giving evaluation of these features.
Euphemism The use of a different, more gentle or favourable name for an object
or phenomenon to avoid undesirable or unpleasant associations.
Euphony A sound selection when the sound corresponds to the content.
Foot A division of the poetic line which contains one stressed syllable and one or
two unstressed syllables. We distinguish 5 types of feet: trochee, iambus, dactyl,
amphibrach and anapaest.
Foregrounding The bringing of particular textual features into prominence, e.g.

distinct patterns or parallelism, repetitions, and deviations from general linguistic
rules or from the style expected in a specific text type or genre, or context.
Free indirect discourse (FID) This is an umbrella term for free indirect speech
(FIS) and free indirect thought (FIT). FID has certain elements in common with
both direct speech (DS) or direct thought (DT) and indirect speech (IS) or
indirect thought (IT).
Functional style A system of coordinated, interrelated and interconditioned

language means intended to fulfil a specific function of communication and aiming
at a definite effect. The following functional styles are defined: belles-lettres,
publicist, newspaper, scientific prose and the style of official documents.
Genre A culturally specific text type, e.g. newspaper article, blurb, novel, poem.
Historism A word which reflects a certain phenomenon belonging to the past

times.
68
Hyperbole A deliberate extreme exaggeration of the quality of the object.
Indirect speech (IS) A style of speech representation in which the narrator reports
only the content of what the character has said, but not its exact wording.
Indirect thought (IT) A style of thought representation that presupposes even

more interference by the narrator than in indirect speech (IS).
Irony A stylistic device which is based on the simultaneous realization of two

opposite meanings: the dictionary meaning and the contextual meaning.
Jargonism A special slang whose aim is to preserve secrecy within one or

another social group.
Litotes A stylistic device based on a peculiar use of negative constructions in the

positive meaning.
Meiosis Understatement of the quality of the object.
Metaphor A transference of meaning based on resemblance.
Metonymy A transference of meaning which is based on proximity of notions, not

on resemblance.
Nonce-word A word which is not reproduced in speech, it is an individual

formation and has its own author. It is created according to the existing rules of
word-formation.
Obsolescent word A word which becomes rarely used.
Obsolete word A word which has already gone completely out of use but is still
recognized by the English speaking community.
Onomatopoeia The sound imitation, i.e. the use of the word which denotes some
phenomenon by imitating its real sounding.
Oxymoron A stylistic device which combines, in one phrase, two words whose
meanings are opposite and incompatible.
Paragraph A group of sentences which shows an internal unity, logical in

character.
69
Parallelism A variant of syntactic repetition. It means repetition of similar
syntactic constructions in the text in order to strengthen the emotional impact or
expressiveness of the description.
Periphrasis A stylistic device by which a longer phrase is used instead of a

shorter and plainer one, the re-naming of an object for greater expressiveness.
Person deictics Textual elements such as the first-person pronoun I (and its
related forms me, my, mine) and the second-person pronoun you (and its related
forms your, yours).
Personification A subtype of allegory by which human qualities are ascribed to

inanimate objects, phenomena or animals.
Perspective In a literal sense, the physical angle of vision from which a story gets
told, i.e. the narrator’s spatial and temporal perspective.
Place deictics Textual elements such as here, there, behind, to the left which refer
the listener or reader to the situational point of view of the speaker or writer in the
discourse.
Polysyndeton A stylistic device opposite to asyndeton: a repeated use of the

same connectors before each component part.
Pragmatics The study of what people mean by language when they use it in
appropriate context to achieve particular purposes.
Professionalism A word used in a definite trade, profession by people connected

by common interests.
Proverb A brief statement showing in condensed form the accumulated life

experience of the community and serving as conventional practical symbol for
abstract idea.
Quotation The exact reproduction of an actual utterance made by a certain author.
Repetition A stylistic device at which the same word is repeated several times.
Representation The use of language to create a context of reality rather than to

identify aspects of an existing one; the projection through language of an
alternative world.
70
Represented speech The speech of a character which is represented without
quotation marks, as if it were the author’s speech.
Rhyme The repetition of the same sounds in the last stressed syllable.
Rhythm Regular alteration of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Semantics The study of meaning as encoded in a language, in abstraction from its

use in a particular context.
Simile An imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two

different classes.
Slang A deviation from the established norm of the vocabulary.
Stanza A poetic division consisting of four or two lines.
Stream of consciousness technique A style of representation of thought which

appears to be the freest form of direct thought (DT) and creates the illusion that,
without narrator interference, readers have direct access to the random flow of
thought of characters, i.e. to their points of view. The technique is also known as
interior monologue.
Style in language A set of conscious or unconscious choices of expression,

inspired or induced by a particular context.
Stylistic device A model of changing unemotional sentences into pragmatically

charged.
Stylistic inversion An unusual order of words chosen for emphasis of greater

expressiveness.
Stylistics The study of style in language, i.e. the analysis of distinctive linguistic
expression and the description of its purpose and effect.
Suspense A compositional device by means of which the less important part of

the message is in some way separated from the main part, and the letter is given
only at the end of the sentence, so that the reader is kept in suspense. It is also
known as retardation.
Syntactical whole A number of sentences interdependent structurally and

semantically.
71
Taboo A swear word which is not commonly used and is classed as colloquialism
word.
Text Any piece of language which, in terms of communicative meaning, is

complete in itself. It is the observable product of a writer’s or speaker’s discourse,
which is the process that created the text.
Time deictics Textual elements such as now, then, yesterday, next week which
reveal to the listener or reader the temporal perspective of the speaker or writer in
the discourse.
Trope Figurative language means which serve for description.
Zeugma A stylistic device that plays upon two different meanings of the word –
the direct and the figurative meanings, thus creating a pun.
72
ЗАКЛЮЧЕНИЕ
Профессиональная деятельность переводчика связана с иностранной

аутентичной литературой как по различным научно-техническим профилям,
так и с деловой корреспонденцией. Поэтому знание функциональных стилей
английского языка и выразительных языковых средств весьма необходимо
специалисту данной квалификации для успешного коммуникативного
общения как в устной, так и в письменной речи.
Учебное пособие «Стилистика английского языка» (для студентов
специальности «Переводчик в сфере профессиональной коммуникации»)
предназначено для усвоения базовых понятий стилистики английского языка,
функциональных стилей, выразительных языковых средств и приемов
английского языка, овладения основами стилистического анализа.
Учебный материал, представленный в пособии, позволит в полной мере
отразить стилистические особенности английского языка, знание которых
весьма важно при переводе профессионально ориентированной литературы.
Приведенные примеры стилистического анализа текста будут способствовать
развитию грамотного профессионального подхода к переводу текстов
различной функционально-стилистической окраски.
Включенные в пособие теоретические материалы позволят полнее
представить предмет стилистики, ее задачи и перспективы как науки.
73
BASIC REFERENCES
1. Акимова, Г.Н. Экспрессивные свойства синтаксических структур. /Г.Н.

Акимова. – Л.: Ленинградский университет, 1998. – 72 с.
вузов /И.В. Арнольд. - 7-е изд. - М.: Высшая школа, 2005. – 383 с.
пособие /В.В. Гуревич. - М.: Наука, 2008. – 67 с.
4. Ильинская, И.С. О языковых и неязыковых стилистических средствах.
/И.С. Ильинская – М.: Высшая школа, 2003. – 63 с.
5. Наер, В.Л. Функциональные стили английского языка /В.Л. Наер. - М.:
Наука, 1981. – 154 с.
6. Разинкина, Н.М. Функциональная стилистика английского языка /Н.М.
Разинкина. - М.: Наука, 1989. – 271 с.
7. Солганик, Г.Я. Стилистика текста: учебн. пособие /Г.Я. Солганик. - 6-е
изд. - М.: Наука, 2000. – 217 с.
8. Шаховский, В.И. Стилистика английского языка /В.И. Шаховский. – Л.:
ЛКИ, 2008. – 235 с.
9. Birch, David. Language, Discourse and Literature /D. Birch. - Unwin Hyman,
1989.- p. 310.
10. Brogan, T.V.F. The New Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms /T.V.F. Brogan.
- Princeton University Press, 1994. – p. 117.
11. Cook, Guy. Discourse and Literature /G. Cook. - Oxford University Press,
1994. – p. 190.
12.Crystal, D., Davy D. Investigating English Style /D.Crystal, D. Davy. -
London: Longman, 1969. – p. 107.
13.Galperin, I.R. Stylistics /I.R. Galperin. - M.: Higher School Publishing House,
1981. – 343 c.
14.Kuharenko, V.A. Seminars in Style /V.A. Kuharenko. - V.: 1986. – 144 c.
15.Leech, Geoffrey N.& Short Michael N. Style in Fiction /G.N. Leech, M.N.
Short. - Longman, 1981. – p. 325.
16.Screbnev, Y.M. Fundamentals of English Stylistics /Y.M. Screbnev. - M.:
АСТ, 2000. – 224 с.
17.Verdonk, Peter. Stylistics /P.Verdonk. - Oxford University Press, 2005. – p.
124.
18.Verdonk, Peter. A Brief Survey from Classical rhetoric to cognitive stylistics
/P.Verdonk. – Oxford University Press, 1999. – p. 110.
SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES
1.Ванников, Ю.В. Типы научных и технических текстов и их

лингвистические особенности /Ю.В. Ванников. - М.: Наука, 1984. – 137 с.
74
2. Тарыгина, В.А. Эпитет и жанр /В.А. Тарыгина. - М.: Оникс, 2000. – 78 с.
3. Bloomfield, L. Phonetics in speech /L.Bloomfield. - New York, Oxford: 1991.
– p. 79.
4. Bridgeman, Richard. The Colloquial Style in America /R. Bridgeman. - New
York: Oxford University Press, 1966. – p. 94.
5. Carter, Ronald & Nash Walter. A Guide to Styles of English Writing /R. Carter,
W. Nash. - Blackwell, 1990. – p. 158.
6. Coupland, N. Towards the Stylistics of Discourse //Styles of Discourse
N.Coupland. - London: ed.Groom Helm, 1988. – p. 147.
7. Short, Mick. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose /M. Short. -
Addison Wesley Longman, 1996. – p. 119.
8. Toolan, Michael. Language in Literature. An Introduction to Stylistics /M.
Toolan. - Arnold, 1998. – p. 84.
9. Widdowson, H.G. Practical Stylistics. An Approach to Poetry /H.G.
Widdowson. - Oxford University Press, 1992. – p. 75.
10. Henry, O. Selected Stories (”By Courier”) /O. Henry. – M.: Progress
Publishers, 1977. – 125 c.
DICTIONARIES
1. A Historical Dictionary of American Slang. - New York, 2006. – p. 525.

2. New Oxford English Dictionary. - Oxford University Press, 2000. – p. 613.
3. Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics. - 2-nd edn. - Pearson Education, 2001.
– p. 458.
4. Webster. New World Dictionary of the American Language. – Springfield,
1999. – p. 747.
75
Оглавление
Введение …………………………………………………………………………3
Section I. Survey
1.The concept of style

Style as motivated choice …………………………………………………………4
Style in context …………………………………………………………………...5
2.Style in literature
Text type and function …………………………………………………………….6
3.Text and discourse

The nature of text …………………………………………………………………7
The nature of discourse …………………………………………………………...7
Textual and contextual meaning ………………………………………………….8
4.Perspectives on meaning
Perspective in narration fiction …………………………………………………. 9
Stylistic markers of perspective and positioning ………………………………...9
Deixis ……………………………………………………………………………10
5.The language of literary representation

Perspective in third-person narration …………………………………………….11
Speech and thought representation ………………………………………………12
Список рекомендуемой литературы ………………………………………14
Section II. Lectures
Lecture 1.
General notes on style and stylistics ……………………………………………..15
Вопросы для самоконтроля ……………………………………………………17

Список рекомендуемой литературы ………………………………………….17
Lecture 2.
Stylistic devices and expressive means. Stylistic function ………………………18

Список рекомендуемой литературы …………………………………………. 20
76
Lecture 3.
Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary …………………………….... 21
Вопросы для самоконтроля ………………………………………………….. 24

Список рекомендуемой литературы ………..……………………………… 24
Lecture 4.
Neutral, common literary and common colloquial vocabulary ………………... 24

Список рекомендуемой литературы ………………………………………… 26
Lecture 5.
Special literary vocabulary ……………………………………………………. 26
Вопросы для самоконтроля …………………………………………………. 29

Lecture 6.
Special colloquial vocabulary ………………………………………………….. 30
Вопросы для самоконтроля …………………………………………………... 37

Lecture 7.
Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices ……………………………….. 37
Вопросы для самоконтроля …………………………………………………... 42

Lecture 8.
Graphic stylistic devices ……………………………………………………….. 42

Список рекомендуемой литературы ……………………………………….. 44
Lecture 9.
Use of set expressions ……………………………………………………………44
Вопросы для самоконтроля …………………………………………………… 45

Список рекомендуемой литературы …………………………………………. 45
77
Lecture 10.
Lexical stylistic devices or tropes ……………………………………………… 45

Lecture 11.
Syntactical stylistic devices …………………………………………………….. 53

Список рекомендуемой литературы ………………………………………….59
Lecture 12.
Functional styles of language ……………………………………………………59

Section III. Terminological Reference …………………………………….. 66
Заключение …………………………………………………………………… 73
References ………………………………………………………………………74
Оглавление ……………………………………………………………………76
78
Учебное издание
Ольга Федоровна Нестерова
ENGLISH STYLISTICS
для студентов, обучающихся по специальности
«Переводчик в сфере профессиональной коммуникации»
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СТИЛИСТИКА АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА

Воронежский государственный архитектурно-строительный университет

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Учебное пособие предназначено для студентов специальности «Переводчик в сфере

Ил. 1. Библиогр.: 32 назв.

© Нестерова О.Ф., 2010

Учебное пособие «Стилистика английского языка» предназначено для

Style as motivated choice

So in making a stylistic analysis we are not so much focused on every form

When we encounter a text, we recognize it as of a particular and familiar kind, as

Text type and function

The nature of text

When we think of a text, we typically think of a stretch of language, either spoken

The nature of discourse

Textual and contextual meaning

Linguistic features in texts can be interpreted differently as representing an event

Perspective in narrative fiction

Stylistic markers of perspective and positioning

Speech and thought representation

She puts her fingers in his as, loving and silly,

No hope. And the iron nob of this palisade

Here is presented direct thought (DT).

‘The beer’s nice and cool’, the man said.

The representation of indirect thought (IT), of course, presupposes an even

Список рекомендуемой литературы

Вопросы для самоконтроля

1. What does the word “style” presuppose in linguistics?

Список рекомендуемой литературы

1. Гуревич, В.В. English Stylistics. Стилистика английского языка: учебн.

The main concepts of stylistics are:

Вопросы для самоконтроля

1. What are the main concepts of stylistics?

Список рекомендуемой литературы

1. Акимова, Г.Н. Экспрессивные свойства синтаксических структур. /Г.Н.

To speak about functional characteristics of the styles and stylistic devices of

Development of the English literary language

The English literary language has had a long peculiar history.

Вопросы для самоконтроля

1. What is the literary language?

Список рекомендуемой литературы

1. Арнольд, И.В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык: учебн. для

Lecture 4: NEUTRAL, COMMON LITERARY AND COMMON

Stylistic differences of any kind can be expressed by various language

Neutral Colloquial Literary

child kid infant/offspring

1. How is standard English vocabulary represented?

Список рекомендуемой литературы

1. Арнольд, И.В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык: учебн. для

Lecture 5: SPECIAL LITERARY VOCABULARY (книжно-литературная

Special literary vocabulary is marked with ‘lit’ or ‘fml’ – formal, highly

Poetic and highly literary words

Barbarisms and Foreign words

Literary coinages (including nonce-words)

According to the function they are divided into:

Вопросы для самоконтроля

1. What are the main subgroups of special literary words?

Список рекомендуемой литературы

1. Арнольд, И.В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык: учебн. для

Standard colloquial style - the style of informal, friendly oral

It is a special slang. It is a recognized term for a group of words whose aim

Professionalisms are the words used in a definite trade, profession by people

We shall define vulgarisms as swear-words and obscene words and

Colloquial Coinages (Nonce-Words)