General colloquial words

Graphon is an effective means of supplying information about the speaker’s origin, social and educational background, physical or emotional condition, etc.

It expresses the author’s attitude to the character. E .g.: sarcasm when Thackeray's character - butler Yellowplush – impresses his listeners with the learned words pronouncing them as “ sellybrated” (celebrated), “illygitmit” (illegitimate), “jewinile” (juvenile).

It may show the physical defects of the speakers. E .g., stuttering of R. P. Warren’s character: “The b-b-b-b-bas-tud - he seen me c-c-c-c-coming”.

Graphical changes may reflect not only the peculiarities of pronunciation, but are also used to convey the intensity of the stress.

Italicsadd logical or emotive significance to certain words, syllables or morphemes.

Intensity of speech (often in commands) is transmitted through the multiplication of a grapheme or capitalization of the word, as in Babbitt’s shriek “Alllll aboarrrrrd”, or in the desperate appeal in A. Huxley’s Brave New World – “Help. Help. HELP.”

Hyphenationof a word suggests the rhymed or clipped manner in which it is uttered as in the humiliating comment from Fl. O’Connor’s story – “grinning like a chim-pan-zee”.

6. Morphological expressive means and stylistic devices.

Morphological expressive means are

— grammatical functions displaying special emphasis

e.g.: the use of “shall” in the second and the 3rd person - He shall do it;

— word-building forms which serve to make the utterance more expressive

e.g.: the use of diminutive suffixes: -ie, -y, -let: sonny, piglet, auntie;

— forming of neologisms and nonce-words with nonproductive suffixes

e.g. He glasnosted his love affaire with this movie star (People).

7. Lexical stylistic devices: metaphor, metonymy, irony.

Stylistic devices based on interaction of dictionary and contextual logical meaning

The relation between dictionary and contextual meanings may be maintained along different lines: on the principles of

affinity (metaphor)

proximity (metonymy)

opposition (irony)

Metaphor is a stylistic device based on the affinity or similarity of certain properties or features of the two corresponding concepts.

Metaphors can be classified according to their degree of unexpectedness. Thus metaphors which are absolutely unexpected and quite unpredictable are called genuine metaphors.

e.g. Through the open window the dust danced and was golden.

Those which are commonly used in speech and are sometimes fixed in the dictionaries are trite metaphors or dead metaphors.

e. g. floods of tears, to fly into a passion, to jump to conclusion, to fall in love

Metaphors can be called sustained or prolonged if there are several metaphors that are closely connected in their meaning and help create the same image.

e. g. Mr. Pickwick bottled up his vengeance and corked it down. (Ch. Dickens)

Personification is a transfer of features and characteristics of a person to an inanimate object; prescribing to a phenomenon qualities, feelings and thoughts of a human being.

e.g. She had been asleep, always, and now life was thundering imperatively at all her doors. (J. London)

Allegory is the expression of an abstract idea through some concrete image or object.

It may be presented by:

a proverb/saying: e.g. It’s time to turn ploughs into swords. Still waters run deep.

fables

fairy tales

literary fiction in general

Metonymy is a stylistic device based on an association connecting the two concepts, or their proximity.

Proximity may be revealed:

between the symbol and the thing it denotes; e.g.: the crown (= t he royal family);

in the relation between the instrument and the action performed with this instrument; e.g. His pen is rather sharp.

in the relation between the container and the thing it contains; e.g. He drank one more cup.

Metonymy can be:

Lexical / etymological - belonging to everyday stock of words and expressions. New words and meanings are sometimes coined through the transfer of the name of one object on to the other (usually a proper name): mackintosh, volt.

Stylistic / expressive - suggesting a substitution of one word for another based on an unexpected association between two objects on the ground of some strong impression produced by a chance feature of the object described.

e.g.: Mess-jacket looked at me with his silent sleek smile. (R. Chandler)

Synecdoche is the transfer of meaning on the basis of association between a part and the whole, or the singular and the plural.

e.g.: England beat Australia at cricket.

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl. (W. Shakespeare)

He made his way through the perfume and conversation. (I. Show)

Irony is a stylistic device also based on the simultaneous realization of two logical meanings - dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings are in opposition to each other. Irony usually takes the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt.

e.g. What a noble illustration of the tender laws of this favoured country! They let the pauper go to sleep! (Ch. Dickens)

8.Lexical stylistic devices based on polysemantic effect: zeugma, pun.

Stylistic devices based interaction of primary and derivative logical meaning

Zeugma is a simultaneous realization of two meanings of a polysemantic unit. It is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to the adjacent word in the context, the semantic relations being on the one hand literal, and on the other, transferred.

e. g.: Dora plunged at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room. (Ch. Dickens)

Pun is a device based on polysemy, homonymy or phonetic similarity used to achieve a humorous effect. It is the use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect.

e.g.: – I wonder if I can see your mother, little boy. Is she engaged?

- Engaged?! She’s married.

9. The epithet and its types.

Stylistic devices based on interaction of logical and emotive meaning

The epithet is based on the interplay of emotive and logical meaning in an attributive word, phrase or even sentence, used to characterize an object and pointing out to the reader some of the properties or features of the object with the aim of giving an individual perception and evaluation of these features or properties.

From the point of view of their compositional structure epithets may be divided into:

1) simple (adjectives, nouns, participles): e.g. He looked at them in animal panic.

Pairs of epithets are represented by two epithets joined by a conjunction or asyndetically e.g.: “wonderful and incomparable beauty ” (O. Wilde)

Chains (strings) of epithetspresent a group of homogeneous attributes varying in number from three up to sometimes twenty. e.g.: “ You’re a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature.” (Ch.Dickens)

2) Compound epithets, e.g.: apple - faced man; a cloud-shaped giant.

Two-step epithets are called so because the process of qualifying seemingly passes two stages, the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification itself.

e.g.: an unnaturally mild day; a pompously majestic female.

3) sentence and phrase epithets

e.g.: his do-it-yourself attitude, a don’t-care attitude

4) reversed epithets - composed of two nouns linked by an of-phrase

e.g.: a shadow of a smile; a toy of a girl.

Semantically there are:

affective / emotive epithets - conveying the emotional evaluation of the object (gorgeous, magnificent);

figurative epithets-based on metaphors, metonymies and similes:a ghost-like face; the frowning cloud; the sleepless pillow;

fixed /conventional epithets: true love, merry Christmas, fair lady.

10. Lexical stylistic devices: oxymoron, antonomasia.

Oxymoron is a combination of two words with opposite meanings which exclude each other:

e. g.: speaking silence, cold fire, living death.

Oxymoron reveals the contradictory sides of one and the same phenomenon.

As soon as an oxymoron gets into circulation, it loses its stylistic value, becoming trite: pretty bad, awfully nice, terribly good.

Close to oxymoron is paradox – a statement that is absurd on the surface.

e.g.: War is peace. The worse, the better.