The Stylistic Use of Adjectives

The only grammatical category qualitative and quantitative adjectives have is degrees of comparison. The meaning of this category is very close to a stylistic category of expressiveness, especially in such cases when a great degree of some quality is underlined both grammatically and lexically, e.g., a most valuable idea, the sweetest baby, the newest fashion of all. Besides it can be expressed by means of different structures, cf., the sweetest baby – the sweetest of babies, a most foolish wife – the most foolish of wives, he is foolish – he is as foolish as can be. In literary colloquial the emotional-evaluating component is often introduced by pairs of evaluating words: nice and warm, good and strong, etc.,

e.g., I was hoping you’d have everything nice and clean and tidy when I came in. (Osborne)

The use of degrees of comparison with the adjectives, which normally do not have them, creates a stylistic effect, e.g., You’re truer than any other friend I ever had. (Binchy) You cannot be deader than dead. (Hemingway)

The same effect may be achieved when a synthetic way of forming degrees of comparison is used with polysyllabic words, e.g., Curiouser and curiouser! cried Alice. (Carrol)

Violation of the rules of word-building and form-building rules results in a greater influence on a reader or listener, e.g., I want a Christmassy Christmas’, Caroline explained.’old fashioned’ (O’Flanagan).

It might be too Dublinish for people round here. (Binchy)

It is often found in advertising, e.g., The orangemostest drink in the world! Double violation of valency rules results in the word that is expressive and easy to remember.

Violation of reference in adjectives causes changes in valency and creates a great expressive effect, e.g., white rush (about the movement of a swan), hungry ribs and shoulders, idiotic shoelaces, etc.

Stylistic Potential of Verbal Categories

The category of tense. The use of the present tense forms in narrations about past or future events was called by O.Jesperson the Historic or Dramatic present In a lively emotional narrative Historic/Dramatic present is used to create the effect of the readers’ presence in the situations described, to make their description more vivid. A similar effect is achieved by the use of Continuous tense forms if compared to non-Continuous as they are more emotionally coloured.

e.g., Ruth: You are burning yourself out! And for what?

. George: You don’t even begin to understand – you’re no different from the rest. Burning myself out! You bet I’m burning myself out! I’ve been doing that for so many years now – and who in hell cares?

Everybody’s being so damned considerate. (I.Shaw)

One day when I’m no longer spending my days running a sweet-stall, I may write a book about us all. (Osborne)

To express irony or dissatisfaction a special grammatical form, i.e. a question containing continuous tense forms, is combined with a specific intonation pattern, e.g., You are not really suggesting that, are you? You are not trying to convince me that…? Sometimes continuous forms are used for the sake of revealing more politeness on the part of the speaker, e.g., I’d better show you the way. He is not feeling so good today.

From the point of view of functional stylistics it is important to mention the grammatical forms characteristic of spoken colloquial English: I/he/we ain’t, I says (for past events), the use of ‘has, is, was’ with the subject in Plural, etc., such forms add to local or historical colouring of characters’ speech.

Archaic verbal forms used in fiction create either the atmosphere of a historical epoch or refer to dialects in which the forms survived. These are:

2nd person sing., present –dost, knowest, livest, hast

3^rd person sing., present - doth, knoweth, liveth

Past – hadst, didst

A separate group of verbs possesses a great emotional power, these are modal verbs which normally convey the speaker’s attitude to what he is speaking about, expressing possibility, desirability, necessity, etc. of the actions described.

Stylistic Functions of Adverbs

As for adverbs, there are only individual observations of adverbs functioning in different styles, like the use of the adverb ‘now’: when used in fiction it means ‘at present’, while in scientific literature it has other meanings, similar to ‘further, so, in the given paper, etc.’