Lecture 5-6 Stylistic semasiology

1. Expressive means (EM) and stylistic devices (SD), their different classifications.

2. Tropes and figures of speech.

1. The metaphorical group;

2. metonymical group;

3. Irony.

3. Lexical SD.

4. Syntactical SD.

5. Lexico - syntactical SD.

Stylistic device is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and (or) semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized status and thus becoming a general model.

Tropes are EM based on the transfer of meaning or figurative use of the words and expressions within one and the same paradigm.

Figures of speech refer to specific combinations of words and specific syntactical structures imaginatively used. They are correlated in time (syntagmatically).

Ex.:

She is the heart of society (trope).

She is as beautiful as a rose (figure of speech).

The metaphorical group (metaphor, personification, allegory).

Metaphor is a trope in which words denoting one object are transferred (or associated with) to others to indicate a resemblance between them.

Resemblance or similarity of:

1. Shape: Her eyes were two profound and menacing gunbarrels.

2. Function: He is a fox.

3. Position: It was the iron skeleton of the mill.

Verbs: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, some few to be chewed and digested. /Bacon/.

Nouns: Hamlet knew that, potentially at least, he was a whole symphonyorchestra.

Adjectives: Sleepless nights; dying flowers; blue dream.

Structurally metaphors are simple or sustained (prolonged, extended):

“I had a stable of promises and I believed those promises. I rode those promises, hard, once to a bad fall (Stephens).

The components of a metaphor;

1. tenor;

2. vehicle;

3. tertium comparationis.

“He bent his head and with a single hasty glance (tenor) seemed to dive into my eyes (vehicle).

Personification: ”the bare old elm trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air…”

The metonymical group (metonymy, synecdoche) is based on contiguity (really existing relations) between 2 objects.

The relations are: causal, symbolic, spatial, instrumental, functional:

1. the relations of the container and … contained: “…село – все с ясносиними глазами.”;

2. the relations of the instrument and the action: “Give every man thy ear, and few thy voice.” /Shakespeare/.

3. Symbol and notions:

Throne, Crown, Laurel.

4. Cause and effect: He takes the death”.

5. general and its part: “A student is expected to know…”

6. Subject and its property:

“He made his way through the perfume and conversation.”

7. Abstract notions denoting emotional state instead of people who experience these emotions:

« Стоногий стон бредет за колесницей» (М. Петровых); “Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow.” (D.)

Synecdoche: using the name of a part instead of the whole or vice versa: “To be a comrade with a wolf and owl”.

Fresh and trite (dead) metonymy: brass (money), china (porcelain)

Stylistic functions of tropes:

1. bringing out the message of the work of art: “A Farewell To Arms”, “ For Whom the Bell Tolls”, “Say No To Death”;

2. serving as a kind of symbol:

”the roaring sea” (anxiety)

3. expressing the philosophical concepts:”All the King’s Men”;

4. expressing the emotive and evaluative attitude of the writer towards the object described;

5. describing characters: “ The machine sitting at the desk was no longer a man, it was a busy N.Y. broker” (O. Henry).

Prof. Screbnev’s classification:

TROPES:

Figures of QUANTITY:

Hyperbole; Meiosis:Understatement &

Litotes.

Figures of QUALITY:

METAPHOR:Periphrasis, Allusion, Personification, Allegory.

METONYMY:Synecdoche,

Antonomasia.Irony. Epithet.

ANTONOMASIA is a SD based on the usage of a common noun instead of a proper name & vice versa to characterize the person simultaneously with naming him – the so called “speaking names»: Lady Teasle, Miss Sharp, Mister Logic.

Every Caesar has his Brutus.

Table 8 Prof. Arnold’s classification of TROPES: