3. Figures of opposition.

Л.П. Єфімов Стилістика англійської мови. – Вінниця: Нова книга, 2004. – 239 c.

Expressive means of a language are those phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic units and forms which make speech emphatic. Introduce connotational (stylistic, non-denotative) meanings into utterances.

Stylistic devices (tropes, figures of speech) are not language phenomena. They are formed in speech and most of them don`t exist out of context. Are grouped into phonetic, lexico-semantic and syntactic types.

Phonetic EM and SD: rhythm, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia.

Lexico-semantic EM and SD (Figures of Substitution):

Figures of Quantity (hyperbole, meiosis, litotes), Figures of Quality (metonymy, synecdoche, periphrasis, euphemism; metaphor, epithet, antonomasia, personification; irony).

Figures of Combination: Figures of identity (simile, synonyms); Figures of contrast (oxymoron, antithesis); Figures of inequality (climax, anticlimax, zeugma, pun).

Syntactic EM and SD:

Reduction of the s-ce model (ellipsis, nominative s-ce, aposiopesis, asyndeton, parceling); Extension of the s-ce model (repetition, enumeration, tautology, polysyndeton, parallelism); Change of word-order (inversion, detachment); Transposition of s-ce meaning (rhetoric questions and other variants).

Stylistic Lexicology

Stylistic Lexicology deals with words which make up people`s lexicon. The majority of English words are:

• neutral – form the lexical backbone of all functional styles, they are understood and accepted by all English-speaking people; being the main source of synonymy and polysemy, they easly produce and stylistic variants (mouse, child, kid, infant, parent, father, daddy).

• Terms belong to particular sciences, used mostly in the scientific functional style; they`re monosemantic, have no synonyms (approbation, anomaly, interpretation, definition, vector, leg of a triangle).

• Poetic words – create poetic images and make speech elevated.

• Obsolete words have gone completely out of usage but they`re still recognized by the native speakers (thee, thy, thine, methinks = it seems to me, nay = no).

• Archaic words belong to OE and are not recognized nowadays.

• Barbarisms and foreignisms have the same origin; they`re borrowed from other languages (French, Latin) (protégé, a propos, beau monde, de novo, alter ego, datum).

• Neologisms – newly born words (network, server, e-mail, site message).

• Common colloquial vocabulary – familiar words and idioms used in informal speech and writing and unacceptable in polite conversations:

• Jargonisms – non-standard words used by people of certain asocial group to keep their intercourse secret (candy – cocaine, snifter – a cocaine addict, candy man – drug seller).

• Professionalisms – term-like words, are used and understood by members of a certain trade or profession (scalpel, carburetor).

• Dialecticisms – words used by people of a certain community living in a certain territory.

• Slang – non-standard vocabulary understood and used by the whole nation; vulgar, obscene words – a part of slang (money – moo, oof, boot, lettuce, green goods, hay, bean, rubbish, salad, soap, sugar, iron, etc.).

• Idioms – fixed phrase which is only meaningful as a whole.

Morphological Stylistics

The main notion is the transposition – a divergence between the traditional usage of a neutral word and its situational / stylistic usage. Morpholoigical EM`s and SD`s:

• Nouns form antonomasia and personification (he`ll never be a Shakespeare; snows, sands, waters).

• Articles are used uncommonly (a Brown, a silly Jane, the John).

• Verbs form lexical EM`s and SD`s (so it be; it is time I went).

• Adjectives – epithets, comparison, attributes (crazy bicycle, tremendous achievements, idiotic shoe-laces, red colour, the most Italian car, beautifuller).

• Pronouns (it`s me, him, her, them, us).

Phonetic and Graphic EM`s & SD`s.

• Rhyme – the accord of syllables in words (fact – attract, mood – intrude, news – refuse).

• Rhythm – a recurring stress pattern in poetry.

• Instrumentation – the act of selecting and combining sounds in order to make utterances expressive and melodic.

• Alliteration – repetition of consonants (She sells sea shells on the sea shore).

• Assonance – repetition of vowels (the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain).

• Onomatopoeia – a combination of sounds, imitating natural sounds (cock-a-doodle-doo).

• Punctuation: the full stop, the comma, brackets, tha dash, the exclamation mark, the interrogative mark, the hyphen, the colon, the semicolon, the apostrophe, capital letters, text segmentation, a paragraph, chapters / sections, a heading.

Stylistic semasiology. Lexico-semantic SD`s.

Figures of Substitution:

1. Figures of Quantity (hyperbole, meiosis, litotes),

2. Figures of Quality (metonymy, synecdoche, periphrasis, euphemism; metaphor, epithet, antonomasia, personification; irony).

• Hyperbole – a deliberate exaggeration of a certain quality of an object or phenomenon (to be scared to death; to give the world to do smth.; to beg a thousand pardons);

• Meiosis – a deliberate diminution of a certain quality of an object or phenomenon (to be the drop of water; a cat-size pony; to be situated in one minute from here; he is a real microbe).

• Litotes – a specific variant of meiosis (to be not without sense of humour; to be not unreasonable, not impossible).

• Metonymy – is the transference of a name of one object to another object based upon the principle of contiguity of the two objects. Lexical metonymy: table`s leg, teapot`s nose, hand, a hand (a worker), grave (death)); Contextual metonymy (the other voice shook his hand; to be followed by a pair of heavy boots).

• Synecdoche – naming the whole object by mentioning part of it / using the name of the whole object to denote a constituent part of this object (the hall; the school; the blue suit; the museum).

• Periphrasis – the replacement of a direct name of a thing or phenomenon by the description of some quality of this thing or phenomenon. Logical periphrasis is based upon one of the inherent properties of the object (weapons – instruments of destruction; love – the human weakness); Figurative periphrasis is based upon metaphor or metonymy (to marry – to tie the knot; money – root of evil).

• Euphemism – used to replace an unpleasantly sounding word / word-combination (God – lord, heaven; to die – to be gone, to be no more, to go west, to join the majority, to pass away; idiots – mentally abnormal).

• Metaphor – the result of transference of the name of one object to another object based upon similarity of the objects (time passes; the fire flashed from his eyes being able to melt the glasses).

• Epithet – attributes which describe objects expressively (loud ocean; glorious sight; helpless loneliness; blank face; tremendous pressure; heart-burning desire; do-it-yourself command; go-to devil request; head-to-toe beauty; I-don`t-want-to-do-it feeling).

• Antonomasia – the identification of human beings with things which surround them (John is a real Romeo/ Snake/ the Napoleon).

• Personification – the speaker ascribes human behaviour, thoughts, and opinions to inanimate objects (Lie / Love is a strange creature).

• Allegory – is antonomasia used in the whole text.

• Irony – breaking the principle of sincerity of speech (favoured country, noble illustration).

Stylistic semasiology:

Figures of Combination:

1. Figures of identity (simile, synonyms);

2. Figures of contrast (oxymoron, antithesis);

3. Figures of inequality (climax, anticlimax, zeugma, pun).

• Simile – the comparison of two objects having smth in common (as, as if, as though, like, so, to resemble).

• Synonyms (John – he – the man – the victim - …)

• Oxymoron – the combination of words which are semantically incompatible (adj + N; adv + adj: hot snow, pleasantly ugly).

• Paradox – a ststement appears to be self-contradictory, but contains smth of a truth (Cowards die many times before their death).

• Antithesis – an oxymoron realized in a phrase (the age of withdon, the age of foolushness; a happy, healthy man).

• Climax (Gradation) – the arranging of the utterance so that each subsequent component of it increases significance, importance or emotional tension of narration (I`m sorry, so very sorry, so extremely sorry).

• Anticlimax – the arranging of the utterance so that each subsequent component of it decreases significance, importance, emotional tension of narration (he cried, no doubt he`s been eating raw onions).

• Zeugma – consists of three constituents: the basic word stands in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to a couple of adjacent words; the basic word combined with the first adjacent word forms a phraseological word-combinaton; the same basic word combined with the second adjacent word forms a free word-combination (Freddy got out of bed and low spirits).

• Pun – a play of words (Is she engaged? – She`s already married. / Carry on, but Peter never ate carrion).

Stylistic syntax

Syntactic SD:

1. Reduction of the s-ce model (ellipsis, nominative s-ce, aposiopesis, asyndeton, parceling);

2. Extension of the s-ce model (repetition, enumeration, tautology, polysyndeton, parallelism);

3. Change of word-order (inversion, detachment);

4. Transposition of s-ce meaning (rhetoric questions and other variants).

• Ellipsis – such a syntactic structure in which there is no subject, predicate or both (To the disco; The staff).

• Nominative s-ce – one-member structure, having no subject, no predicate (April).

• Aposiopesis (Break) – the sudden break of the narration (If you go on like this … ( - )).

• Asyndeton – the omission of conjunctions.

• Polysyndeton – the reprtition of conjunctions.

• Parceling – the splitting of s-ces into smaller parts separated by full stops (Sally found John. Yesterday. In the pub.).

• Repetition (I`m very, very, very sorry):

• Anaphora – the repetition of the first element of each syntactic structure (Each… Each…);

• Epiphora – the repetition of the final element (… a case like that. … a case like that.);

• Framing – the initial part of a language unit is repeated at the end of this unit (Poor Mary. ……. Poor Mary.).

• Linking or reduplication – the repetition of the final component at the beginning of the sequential syntactic structure (… that dreadful occurance. Tat dreadful occurance…).

• Chiasmus – a reversed parallel construction (The lail must have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail).

• Enumeration (There were cows, hens, goats, peacocks, sheep in the village).

• Tautology – unintentional repetition (The name of my informant, the name of my informant, the name escapes me).

• Parallel constructions – construction built according to the same syntactic pattern (The cock was crowing. The stream was flowing. The small birds twitter. The lake doth glitter.).

• Inversion – the intentional change of the word-order (In came Jack. Little chances Benny had).

• Detachment – a s-ce component independent from the word it refers to (There was a girl. I liked her name, Linda.).

• Rhetoric questions - question requiring no answer.

V.A.Kukharenko A Book of Practice in Stylistics.-V.:Nova Knyha,2003.-p.117-119.

Ю.М. Скребнев Основы стилистики английского языка. Учебник для вузов. – М.: Астрель, АСТ, 2003. – С. 7; 77 – 120.

Л.П. Єфімов Стилістика англійської мови. – Вінниця: Нова книга, 2004. – C. 17 – 23.

Functional styles:

1. Scientific style is employed in professional communication; terms, clichés.

2. Official style – the style of official documents; archaic words

3. Publicist style – the historical changeability of stylistic differentiation of discourses (oratoric style). It`s marked by the explicit function of persuasion.

4. Newspaper style – is found in newspapers, informative materials, publications.

5. Belles-letters style - the style of literature, aims to impress the reader aethetically (prose, poetry).

K.A.Dolinin Stylistics of the French Language:

The speech is characterized by the positive or negative distinctive features that presuppose it`s subdivision into emotional, spontaneous, normative. Types of speech:

• Emotional normative conversation: literary colloquial speech;

• Emotional non-normative conversation: familiar colloquial speech;

• Emotional non-spontaneous literary speech: “publicistic style”, “oratorical style”, “style of literary narrative”;

• Emotional non-spontaneous non-normative style;

• Non-emotional normative talk; non-emotional non-normative talk;

• Non-emotional, non-spontaneous, normative literary speech: “official business style”, “scientific style”;

• Non-emot., non-spont., non-norm. speech: an official business letter of a semi-literate man.

Functional Styles are classified into bookish and colloquial.

The group of bookish styles: the style of official documents, the style of scientific prose, the newspaper style, the publicistic style, the belletristic style.

The group of colloquial style: the literary colloquial style, the informal colloquial style, the substandard speech style.

The style of official documents aims at establishing, developing, controlling business relations. It`s impersonal, rational, pragmatic; It`s characterized by the usage of capital letters, abbreviations, the domination of bookish, borrowed, archaic words, professional terms, clichés (aviso, interest-free, status quo).

The style of scientific prose serves as an important for promoting scientific ideas and exchanging scientific information among people. It`s characterized by the usage of the developed system of headlines, ttles, subtitles, footnotes, pictures, tables, schemes, formulae, the special terms of international origin. The usage of the scientific “we” – “the plural of modesty” in the meaning of “I”.

The newspaper style aims to inform people about all kinds of events and occurrences which may be of some interest to them. It`s characterized by the usage the neutral common literary words, political / economic / social terms, borrowings, clichés.

The publicistic style falls into the oratory style (speeches, lectures, reports), the style of radio and TV programmes, the style of essays and articles. The main feature is the direct contact with the audience.

The belletristic style – the style of books full of EM`s and SD`s, it embraces prose, drama, poetry.

The colloquial style complies with the regularities and norms of oral communication. The vocabulary – neutral, bookish, literary words, exotic words, colloquialisms, vulgar words, slang, dialects.