Aposiopesis

It is a sudden and dramatic breaking off of a thought in the middle of a sentence as though the speaker were unwilling or unable to continue. Both elliptical points (...) and a dash may mark it in print.

e.g. "Oh, I want to help you, Andrew, only - do you really believe" - Baumer look a deep breath. Then, low voiced, he replied, "I knew a...".

As is seen from the examples a sudden break in the narrative may convey doubt, indecision sometimes - anger, threat, thus carrying an emotive function. When used in the author's speech or personages' inner dialogues aposiopesis promotes the creation of emotional tension.

e.g. And yet - his whole alibi depends on her word. But in that case –.

Question-in-the-Narrative

is asked and answered by one and the same person, usually the author

For what is left the poet here? // For Greeks a blush - for Greece a tear. (Byron - Don Juan)

- does not contain statement unlike a rhetorical question ;

- assume a semi-exclamatory nature;

- is very often used in oratory;

- sometimes gives the impression of an intimate talk between the writer and the reader; Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. (Ch.Dickens)

- may also remain unanswered (there are only hints of the possible answers) How long must it go on? Now long must we suffer? Where is the end? What is the end? (Norris)

- presumes that the questioner does not know the answer.

It is a question asked solely to produce an emotional effect. The answer is either self evident or immediately provided by the questioner.

e.g. But if you can't help yourself, who can? I suppose nobody.

Such questions help maintain closer contact with the reader or with the listener. They are much favoured by orators for an obvious advantage of taking over the initiative and, by mere verbal trickery, of making people believe that the thoughts imposed on them are their own thoughts.

Represented Speech

English writers use three ways of reproducing actual speech:

1) direct speech-representing actual speech as it is;

2) indirect speech-representing actual speech through the author's speech;

3) represented speech, also related by the author, combining lexical and syntactical peculiarities of colloquial and literary speech. Represented speech reproduces the spoken words or thoughts of a character almost directly, but still within the author's speech.

e.g. It was funny to think that in a few hours she would be someone else, someone's wife...what did that mean? Who would she be then? Represented speech in the passage conveys the thoughts of a person that were never actually pronounced. The use of represented speech is a powerful device in the hands of writers; it presents the words and even the inner speech (thoughts) of personages more vividly and emotionally than indirect speech. Represented speech may be marked by certain grammatical features:

• the tense-forms of the verbs are switched from t present to the past.

• personal pronouns are changed from the 1st and 2nd person to the 3rd person;

• but the syntactical structure of the utterance doesn't change.

There are two major types of represented speech: uttered represented speech and unuttered represented speech or inner monologue.