Lecture #1

General notes on style and stylistics:

1. Style and stylistics.
2. Stylistics and its tasks.
1.The subject of stylistics has so far not been definitely outlined. It will not be an
exaggeration to say that among the various branches of General Linguistics the most obscure in
content is undoubtedly stylistics. This is due to a number of reasons.
First of all there is confusion between the terms s t y I c and s t yl i s t i c s. The first concept is so
broad that it is hardly possible to regard it as a term. We speak of style in architecture, 'literature,
behaviour, linguistics, dress and in other fields of human activity.
Even in linguistics the word style is used so widely that it needs interpretation. The
majority of linguists who deal with the subject of style agree that the term applies to the
following fields of investigation: 1) the aesthetic function of language, 2) expressive means in
language, 3) synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea, 4) emotional colouring in
language, 5) a system of special devices called stylistic devices, 6) the splitting of the literary
language into separate subsystems called styles, 7) the interrelation between language and
thought and 8) the individual manner of an author in making use of language.
The term style is also applied to the teaching of how to write clearly, simply and
emphatically. This purely utilitarian approach to the problem of style stems from the practical
necessity to achieve correctness in writing and avoid ambiguity.
These heterogeneous applications of the word style in linguistics have given rise to different
points of view as to what is the domain of stylistics.
There is a widely held view that style is the correspondence between thought and its expression.
The notion is based on the assumption that of the two functions of language, viz. communication
and expression of ideas,3 the latter finds its proper materialization in strings of sentences
specially arranged to convey the ideas and also to get the desired response.
Indeed, every sentence uttered may be characterized from two sides: 1) whether or not the
string of language forms expressed is something well-known and therefore easily understood and
to some extent predictable, 2) whether or not the string of language forms is built anew; is, as it
were, an innovation made on the spur of the moment, which requires a definite effort on the part
of the listener to get at the meaning of the utterance1 and is therefore unpredictable.
In connection with the second function of language, there arises the problem of the interrelation
between the thought and its expression. The expression of the thought, the utterance, is viewed
from the angle of the kind of relations there may be between the language units and the
categories of thinking. The concept of this interrelation has given birth to a number of wellknown epigrams and sententious maxims. Here are some which have become a kind of alter ego
of the word style.
"Style is a quality of language which communicates precisely emotions or thoughts, or a system
of emotions or thoughts, peculiar to the author."
"... a true idiosyncrasy of style is the result of an author's success in compelling language to
conform to his mode of experience.":
"Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one:
speaking is a thinking out into language." (Newman)
"As your idea's clear or else obscure, The expression follows, perfect or impure." (Boileau)
Many great minds have made valuable observations on the interrelation between thought and
expression. The main trend in most of these observations may be summarized as follows: the
linguistic form of the idea expressed always reflects the peculiarities of the thought. And vice
versa, the character of the thought will always in a greater or lesser degree manifest itself in the
language forms chosen for the expression of the idea. In this connection the following quotation
is interesting:

"To finish and complete your thought! ...How long it takes, how rare it is, what an immense
delight! ...As soon as a thought has reached its full perfection, the word springs into being,
offers itself, and clothes the thought." (Joubert)
That thought and expression are inseparable from each other is a well-established fact. But to
regard this as the true essence of style is misleading, in as much as what is mainly a
psychological problem has been turned into a linguistic one.
However, although the inseparability of thought and expression is mainly the domain of
logic and psychology, it must not be completely excluded from the observation of a stylicist. The
character of the interrelation between the thought and its expression may sometimes explain the
author's preference for one language form over another.
The linguistic problem of thought and expression, mistakenly referred to as one of the
problems of style, has given rise to another interpretation of the word style. The term is applied
to the system of idiosyncrasies peculiar to one or another writer, and especially to writers who
are recognized as possessing an ingenious turn of mind. This generally accepted notion has
further contributed to the general confusion as to how it should be understood and applied. It is
only lately that the addition of the attributive 'individual' has somehow clarified the notion,
though it has not put a stop to further ambiguity.
The term individual style is applied to that sphere of linguistic and literary science which
deals with the peculiarities of a writer's individual manner of using language means to achieve
the effect he desires. Deliberate choice must be distinguished from a habitual idiosyncrasy in the
use of language units; every individual has his own manner of using them. Manner is not
individual style inasmuch as the word style presupposes a deliberate choice. In order to
distinguish something that is natural from something that is the result of long
and perhaps painful experience, two separate terms must be used, otherwise the confusion will
grow deeper.
When Buffon coined his famous saying which, due to its epigrammatical form, became a
by-word all over the world: "Style is the man himself" he had in mind those qualities of
speech which are inherent and which reveal a man's breeding, education, social standing, etc. All
this is undoubtedly interwoven with individual style. A man's breeding and education will always
tell on his turn of mind and therefore will naturally be revealed in his speech and writing.
However a definite line of demarcation must be drawn between that which is deliberately done,
in other words, that which is the result of the writer's choice and, on the other hand, that which
comes natural as an idiosyncrasy of utterance.
Correspondingly, let us agree to name individual choice of language means, particularly
in writing, individual style and inherent, natural idiosyncrasies of speech individual m a n n
e r Individual style is sometimes identified with style in general. This, as has already been
pointed out, is the result of the general confusion as to the meaning and application of the term
style.
The notion of individual style extends much beyond the domain of linguistics. It is here
that the two separate branches of human knowledge, literature and linguistics come to grips in
the most peculiar form. A writer's world outlook is one of the essential constituents of his
individual style. But world outlook cannot be included in the field of language investigation.
Likewise the literary compositional design of a writer's work cannot be subjected to linguistic
analysis, although this is also one of the constituents of a writer's individual style. It follows then
that individual style cannot be analysed without an understanding of these and other component
parts, which are not purely linguistic. Therefore Middleton Murry justly arrives at the conclusion
that "... to judge style primarily by an analysis of language is almost on a level with judging a
man by his clothes."
Nevertheless analysis of an author's language seems to be the most important aspect in
estimating his individual style. That this is a fact is not only because the language reflects to a
very considerable extent the idea of the work as a whole, but because writers unwittingly contribute greatly to establishing the system and norms of the literary language of a given period. In

order to compel the language to serve his purpose, the writer draws on its potential resources in a
way which is impossible in ordinary speech.
The essential property of a truly individual style is its permanence. It has great powers of
endurance. It is easily remembered and therefore yields itself to repetition. Due to the careful
selection of language forms it is easily recognizable. Moreover, the form of the work, or in other
words, the manner of using the language in which the ideas are wrought, assumes far greater
significance than in any other style of language. It is sometimes even considered as something
independent of meaning, i.e. of any idea. There are some critics who maintain that form is of
paramount importance, and that in proper situations it can generate meaning.
Leaving aside exaggeration of this kind, it is however necessary to point out that in belles-lettres
manner of expression may contribute considerably to the meaning of the smaller units in writing
(phrase, sentence, paragraph). This will be shown later when we come to analyse the linguistic
nature and functions of stylistic devices.
In one of his critical essays V. G. Belinsky suggested a separate term for individual style
the Russian word . Unfortunately, however, no new term has been coined in English.
Hence the evergrowing confusion caused by the various uses of one and the same term for
different concepts.
Selection, or deliberate choice of language, which we hold to be the main distinctive
feature of individual style, inevitably brings up the question of norms.
In the literary language the norm is the invariant of the phonemic, morphological, lexical
and syntactical patterns in circulation during a given period in the development of the given
language. Variants of these patterns may sometimes diverge from the invariant, but never
sufficiently to become unrecognizable or misleading. The development of any literary language
shows that the variants (of the levels enumerated above) will always centre around the axis of the
invariant forms. The variants, as the term itself suggests, will never detach themselves from the
invariant to such a degree as to claim entire independence. Yet, nevertheless, there is a tendency
to estimate the value of individual style by the degree it violates the norms of the language.
"It is in the breach or neglect of the rules that govern the structure of clauses, sentences, and
paragraphs that the real secret of style consists, and to illustrate this breach or observation is less
easy", writes George Saintsbury.
Quite a different point of view is expressed by E. Sapir, who states that
"...the greatest or shall we say the most satisfying-literary artists, the Shakespeares and
Heines, are those who have known subconsciously how to fit or trim the deeper intuition to the
provincial accents of their daily speech. In them there is no effect or strain. Their personal
"intuition" appears as a completed synthesis of the absolute art of intuition and the innate,
specialized art of the linguistic medium."
The problem of variants or deviations from the norms of the literary language has long
been under observation. It is the inadequacy of the concept norm that causes controversy. At
every period in the development of a literary language there must, be a tangible norm which first
of all marks the difference between literary and non-literary language. A too rigorous adherence
to the norm brands the writer's language as bookish, no matter whether it is a question of speech
or writing. But on the other hand, neglect of the norm will always be regarded with suspicion as
being an attempt to violate the established signals of the language code which facilitate and
accelerate the process of communication. The freer the handling of the norms the more difficult
is the exchange of thoughts and ideas.
The use of variants to the norms accepted at a given stage of language development is not
only permissible but to a very considerable extent indispensable. Variants interacting with
invariants will guarantee the potentialities of the language for enrichment to a degree which no
artificial coinage will ever be able to reach.
The norm of the language always presupposes a recognized or received standard, hi the
same time it likewise presupposes vacillations from the received standard. The problem,
therefore, is to establish the range of permissible vacillations.

There is a constant process of gradual change taking place in the forms and meaning of the forms
of language at any given period in the development of the language. It is therefore most
important to understand the received standard of the given period in the language in order to
comprehend the direction of its further progress.
Some people think that one has to possess what is called a feeling for the language in order to be
able to understand the norm of the language and its possible variants. But it is not so much the
feeling of the language as the knowledge of the laws of its functioning and of its history which
counts.
When the feeling of the norm, which grows with the knowledge of the laws of the
language, is instilled in the mind, one begins to appreciate the beauty of justifiable fluctuations.
But the norm can be grasped and established only when there are deviations from it. It is
therefore best perceived in combination with something that breaks it.
In this connection the following lines from L. V. Scherba's work
are worth quoting:
"... in order to achieve a free command of a literary language, even one's own, one must read
widely, giving preference to those writers who deviate but slightly from the norm."
"Needless to say, all deviations are to some extent normalized: not every existing deviation from
the norm is good; at any rate, not in all circumstances. The feeling for what is permissible and
what is not, and mainlya feeling for the inner sense of these deviations (and senseless ones, as
has been pointed out, are naturally bad), is developed through an extensive study of our great
Russian literature in all its variety, but of course in its best examples."1
Naturally, there are no writers who do not deviate from the established norms of the language
they would be unbearably tedious if there were. Only when the feeling of the norm is well
developed, does one begin to feel the charm of motivated deviations from the norm. Then L. V.
Scherba adds an explanation which throws light on the problem of deviation from the norm from
the point of view of the conditions under which a deviation may take place:
"I say justifiable or 'motivated' because bad writers frequently make use of deviations from the
norm which are not motivated or justified by the subject matter that is why they are
considered bad writers."2
N. J. Shvedova in her interesting article on the interrelation between the general and the
individual in the language of a writer states:
out concentration of the expressive means of the common language, which have undergone
special literary treatment: it is a reflection of the common language of the given period, but a
prismatic reflection, in which the language units have been selected and combined individually,
their interrelation being seen through the prism of the writer's world outlook, his aim and his
skill. The language of a writer reflects the tendencies of the common language."
What we call here individual style, therefore, is a unique combination of the language units,
expressive means and stylistic devices of a language peculiar to a given writer, which makes that
writer's works or utterances easily recognizable. Hence individual style may be likened to a
proper name. It has a nominal character. It is based on a thorough knowledge of the
contemporary literary language and of earlier periods in its development as well. It allows certain
deviations from the established norms. This, needless to say, presupposes a perfect knowledge of
the invariants of the norms. Individual style requires to be studied in a course of stylistics in so
far as it makes use of the potentialities of language means, whatever the character of these
potentialities may be.
Another commonly accepted connotation of the term style is embellishment of language.
This concept is popular and is upheld in some of the scientific papers on literary criticism.
Language and style are regarded as separate bodies. Language can easily dispense with style,
which is likened to the trimming on a dress. Moreover, style as an embellishment of language is
viewed as something that hinders understanding. It is alien to language and therefore is identified
with falsehood. In its extreme, style may dress the thought in such fancy attire that one can
hardly get at the idea hidden behind the elaborate design of tricky stylistic devices.

This notion presupposes the use of bare language forms deprived of any stylistic devices, of any
expressive means deliberately employed.
In this connection Middleton Murry writes:
"The notion that style is applied ornament had its origin, no doubt, in the tradition of the
school of rhetoric in Europe, and in its place in their teaching. The conception was not so
monstrous as it is today. For the old professors of rhetoric were exclusively engaged in
instructing their pupils how to expound an argument or arrange a pleading. Their classification of
rhetorical devices was undoubtedly formal and extravagant... The conception of style as applied
ornament... is the most popular of all delusions about style."
Perhaps it is due to this notion that the word "style" itself still bears a somewhat derogatory
meaning. It is associated with the idea of something pompous, showy, artificial, something that is
set against simplicity, truthfulness, the natural. Shakespeare was a determined enemy of all kinds
of embellishments of language.
To call style embellishment of language is to add further ambiguity to the already existing
confusion,
A very popular notion among practical linguists, teachers of language, is that style is the
technique of expression. In this sense style is generally defined as the ability to write clearly,
correctly and in a manner calculated to interest the reader. Though the last requirement is not
among the indispensables, it is still found in many practical manuals on style. Style in this
utilitarian sense should be taught, but it belongs to the realm of grammar, and not to stylistics. It
is sometimes, and more correctly, called composition. Style as the technique of expression
studies the normalised forms of the language. It sets up a number of rules as to how to speak and
write, and discards all kinds of deviations as being violations of the norm. The norm itself
becomes rigid, self-sustained and, to a very great extent, inflexible.
Herbert Spencer1 writes:
"... there can be little question that good composition is far less dependent upon
acquaintance with its laws, than upon practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a quick
imagination and a sensitive ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts needless. He
who daily hears and reads well-framed sentences, will naturally more or less tend to use similar
ones.'"2
The utilitarian approach to the problem is also felt in the following statement by E. J. Dunsany,
an Irish dramatist and writer of short stories:
"When you can with difficulty write anything clearly, simply, and emphatically, then, provided
that the difficulty is not apparent to the reader, that is style. When you can do it easily, that is
genius."
V. G. Belinsky also distinguished two aspects of style, making a hard and fast distinction
between the technical and the creative power of any utterance.
"To language merits belong correctness, clearness and fluency," he states, "qualities which can be
achieved by any talentless writer by means of labour and routine."
"But style () is talent itself, the very thought."
In traditional Russian linguistics there are also adherents of this utilitarian approach to the
problem of style. For1 instance, Prof. Gvozdev thinks that "Stylistics has a practical value,
teaching students to master the language, working out a conscious approach to language".1
In England there are in fact two schools of stylistics the one represented by Prof. Middleton
Murry whom we have already cited and the other, that of Prof. Lucas. Prof. Murry regards style
as individual form of expression. Prof. Lucas considers style from the purely practical aspect. He
states that the aims of a course in style are:
"a) to teach to write and speak well, b) to improve the style of the writer, and c) to show him
means of improving his ability to express his ideas".
It is important to note that what we here call the practical approach to the problem of
style should not be regarded as something erroneous. It is quite a legitimate concept of the
general theory of style. However, the notion of style cannot be reduced to the merely practical

aspect because in this case a theoretical background, which is a verified foundation for each and
every practical understanding, will never be worked out.
Just as the relations between lexicology and lexicography are accepted to be those of theory and
practice, so theoretical and practical stylistics should be regarded as two interdependent branches
of linguistic science. Each of these branches may develop its own methods of investigation and
approach to linguistic data.
The term style also signifies a literary genre. Thus we speak of classical style or the style
of classicism; realistic style; the style of romanticism and so on. On the other hand, the term is
widely used in literature, being applied to the various kinds of literary work, the fable, novel,
ballad, story, etc. Thus we speak of a story being written in the style of a fable or we speak of the
characteristic features of the epistolary style or the essay and so on.
In this application of the term, the arrangement of what are purely literary facts is under
observation; for instance, the way the plot is dealt with, the arrangement of the parts of the
literary composition to form the whole, the place and the role of the author in describing and
depicting events.
In some of these features, which are characteristic of a literary composition, the purely
literary and purely linguistic overlap, thus making the composition neither purely linguistic nor
purely literary. This however is inevitable. The fact that the lines of demarcation are blurred
makes the contrast between the extremes more acute, and therefore requires the investigator to be
cautious when dealing with borderline cases.
Finally there is one more important application of the term style. We speak of the different styles
of language.
2. A style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite
aim in communication. Each style is recognized by the language community as an independent
whole. The peculiar choice of language means is primarily dependent on the aim of the
communication. One system of language means is set against other systems with other aims, and
arising from this, another choice and arrangement of the language means is made.
Thus we may distinguish the following styles within the English literary language: 1) the belleslettres style, 2) the publicistic style, 3) the newspaper style, 4) the scientific prose style, 5) the
style of official documents, and presumably some others.
Most of these styles belong exclusively to writing, inasmuch as only in this particular
form of human intercourse can communications of any length be completely unambiguous. This
does not mean, however, that spoken communications lack individuality and have no distinct
styles of their own. But they have not yet been properly subjected to scientific analysis. Folklore,
for example, is undoubtedly a style inasmuch as it has a definite aim in communicating its facts
and ideas, and is therefore characterized by a deliberately chosen language means.. But so far
folklore has been too little investigated to be put on the same level of linguistic observation as
the styles mentioned above. We shall not therefore make a study of those types of literature
which began life purely as speech and were passed on by word of mouth, though many of them
are today perpetuated in writing. We shall confine our attention to the generally accepted styles
of language.
Each style of language is characterized by a number of individual features. These can be
classified as leading or subordinate, constant or changing, obligatory or optional.
Each style can be subdivided into a number of substyles. The latter represent varieties of the root
style and therefore have much in common with it. Still a substyle can, in some cases, deviate so
far from the root style that in its extreme it may even break away. But still, a sub-style retains the
most characteristic features of the root style in all aspects.
Among the styles which have been more or less thoroughly investigated are the following:
1) The belles-lettres style. It falls into three varieties: a) poetry proper; b) emotive prose and c)
drama.

2) The style that we have named publicistic comprises the following substyles: a) speeches
(oratory); b) essays; c) articles in journals and newspapers.
3) The newspaper style has also three varieties: a) newspaper headlines; b) brief news items and
communiqus and c) advertisements.
4) The scientific prose style has two main divisions, viz. the prose style used in the humanitarian
sciences, and that used in the exact sciences.
5) The style of official documents, as the title itself suggests, covers a wide range of varying
material which, however, can be reduced to the following groups': a) language of commercial
documents, b) language of diplomatic documents, c) language of legal documents, d) language
of military documents.
The classification presented here is not arbitrary, the work is still in the observational stage. The
observational stage of any scientific research will ensure objective data, inasmuch as it enables
the student to collect facts in sufficient number to distinguish between different groups. The
classification submitted above is not proof against criticism, though no one will deny that the
five groups of styles exist in the English literary language.
A line of demarcation must be drawn between literary stylistics s and linguistic stylistics. It is
necessary to bear in mind the constant interrelation between the two.
Some linguists consider that the subject of linguistic stylistics is confined to the study of the
effects of the message, i. e. its impact on the reader or listener. Thus Michael Riffaterre writes
that "Stylistics will be a linguistics of the effects of the message, of the output of the act of
communication, of its attention-compelling function."1 This point of view is influenced by recent
developments in the general theory of information. Language, being one of the means of
communication or, to be exact, the most important means of communication, is regarded as an
instrument by means of which the actual process of conveying ideas from one person to another
is carried out. Stylistics in that case is confined to the study of expressions of thought.
"Stylistics," writes Riffaterre further, "studies those features of linguistic utterance that are
intended to impose the encoder's way of thinking on the decoder, i. e. studies the act of
communication not as merely producing a verbal chain, but as bearing the imprint of the
speaker's personality, and as compelling the addressee's attention."2
This point of view on style is shared by Prof. W. Porzig who says that the means which
"...would produce an impression, would cause a definite impact, effect" 3 is the science of
stylistics.
Quite a different definition of style and stylistics, one that is interesting in more than one
way, is that given by Archibald A. Hill." A current definition of style and stylistics," writes A.
Hill, "is that structures, sequences, and patterns which extend, or may extend, beyond the
boundaries of individual sentences define style, and that the study of them is stylistics."
The truth of this approach to style and stylistics lies in the fact that the author concentrates on
such phenomena in language as present a system, in other words on facts which are not confined
to individual use.
Almost the same view is held by Seymour Chatman, who writes of "style as a product of
individual choices and patterns of choices among linguistic possibilities." 2 Prof. Chatman,
though he uses the word 'individual' in a different meaning, practically says the same as Prof.
Hill, but unlike him, confines style to what we have called here individual style or the style of
the author.
A broader view of style is expressed by Werner Winter, who maintains that
"A style may be said to be characterized by a pattern of recurrent selections from the inventory of
optional features of a language. Various types of selection can be found: complete exclusion of
an optional element, obligatory inclusion of a feature optional elsewhere, varying degrees of
inclusion of a specific variant without complete elimination of competing features."3
The idea of distinguishing styles by various types of selection seems to be a sound one. It places
the whole problem on a solid foundation of objective criteria, namely the interdependence of
optional and obligatory features.

Along the same lines was the proposition made by the writer of the present book, who
suggested that each style should be singled out by closely observing primary and secondary,
obligatory and optional, essential and transitory features of a given set of texts.
There is no use in quoting other definitions of style. They are too many and too heterogeneous to
fall under one more or less satisfactory unified notion. Undoubtedly all these discrepancies in the
understanding of the word style stem from its ambiguity. But still all the various definitions leave
an impression that by and large they all have something in common. All of them point to some
integral significance, namely that style is a set of characteristics by which we distinguish
members of one subclass from members of other subclasses, all of which are members of the
same general class.
Three events in the development of linguistic stylistics as a branch of general linguistics
must be considered as landmarks the discussion of the problem of style in
, 1954, in which many important general and particular problems of style were
broadly discussed and some obscure aspects elucidated; the Conference on Style in Language
held at Indiana University in the spring of 1958 and the subsequent publication (1960) of the
proceedings, of this conference, which revealed the existence of quite divergent points of view
held by different students of style and literature; and the conference on Style and Stylistics held
in the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages in March 1969which
elucidated certain general principles followed in the study of style and stylistics, and ascertained
in which direction studies in linguistic stylistics may be maintained.
A significant contribution to the cause of stylistics is being mad by the journal Style published by
the University of Arcansas.
From numerous conferences, discussions, theses, monographs an articles published in our
country and abroad there emerges a more less clear statement as to what the subject of linguostylistics represents. This is: 1) The study of the styles of language as subsystems the literary
language and distinguished from each other by a peculiar set of interdependent language means
and 2) The study of these mean in a system disclosing their linguistic properties and nature as
well a the functioning of their laws.
These two tasks of linguo-stylistics correspond to a certain degree with what Nils Eric Enkvist,
of Abo Academy, Finland, has called "microstylistics" and "macrostylistics". He defines the first
as "...the study of style markers and stylistics sets within the sentence or within units smaller
than the sentence," and the second as "...stylistics of sentence sequences."
In order to investigate these two issues it is necessary to review certain general linguistic
phenomena on which the science of stylistic rests.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

Lecture #2
General notes on style and stylistics:
Expressive means and stylistic devices (EMs and SDs)
The subject of stylistics can be outlined as the study of the nature functions and structure
of stylistic devices, on the one hand, and, n the other, the study of each style of language as
classified above, i. e. its aim, its structure, its characteristic features and the effect it produces, as
well as its interrelation with other styles of language. The task we set before ourselves is to make
an attempt to single out such problems as are typically stylistic and cannot therefore be treated in
any other branch of linguistic science.
Now a question arises: why are some of the notions of style enumerated not treated in this
lecture? The reply is that, on the one hand, not all of these notions are relevant to the domain of
linguistics, and, on the other, this work is intended to be a theoretical course of stylistics in which
only crucial issues shall be taken up. Indeed, individual styles or manners of writing do not come
under our observation, this being an entirely different field of linguistic and literary study. It has
already been pointed out that individual manner, though it may conform to the norms of the
language to a greater or lesser degree, will nevertheless be the practical realization of abstract
language units. In other words here we have I a nguage-i n-actio n, that is, speech. Stylistic
devices are abstract categories of language-as-a-sys-t e m, that is, language proper. But the
practical application of these abstract categories, being spontaneous, represents language-inaction, or speech. This is in accordance with the laws which govern the functioning of every
language fact.
We shall therefore make an extensive analysis of individual usage of stylistic devices
inasmuch as they disclose their as yet unknown or unused potentialities. But it must be.
remembered that the use made in this lecture of individual styles, i. e. the writings of well-known
English men-of-letters, will not have as its aim the generalization of the data obtained. Our task
is to show the variable functioning of stylistic devices. This will help us to define the means
existing in the English language, and perhaps in other languages as well, which are used to serve
definite aims of communication. It is obvious that observation of the variety of uses to which a
stylistic device can advantageously be put, can only be carried out where there is a field for
innovation and contextual meanings, viz., in the style of belles-lettres.
As regards style as technique of expression, we hold the view that this very important issue must
be presented in a special work on composition.
In the recent development of the theory of language the dichotomy of language and
speech occupies an important place. Language-as-a-system may figuratively be depicted as a
usurper or an exploiter of language-in-action, or speech. Whenever Speech produces anything
that can be given a name, whatever it may be, it immediately becomes a fact of language-as-asystem. It is hallowed into a language means.
So it is with stylistic devices. Being born in speech, after recognition as rightful members
of the system in which they generally operate, they are duly taken away from their mother's
breast, Speech, and made independent members of the family, Language.
As regards the system of styles of language in English, we are in a position to point out the most
characteristic features of the styles of language .These features have been carefully studied and
on the basis of previous investigation into the linguistic character of stylistic devices brought into
a kind of system. It is sometimes enough merely to point out the interrelation of the characteristic
features of a given style of language to be able to tell one style from another.

A course in this relatively new science, stylistics, will be profitable to those who have a
sound linguistic background. The expressive means of English and the stylistic devices used in
the literary language can only be understood (and made use of) when a thorough knowledge of
the phonetic, grammatical and lexical data of the given language has been attained. The stylistic
devices (SD) must be observed on different levels: on the phonetic, morphemic, lexical,
phraseological, syntactical levels and on the utterance level. If a thorough command of language
data has not been acquired, the subtleties of the theory of stylistics may escape the student or
may prove to be beyond his grasp.
For example, we can easily distinguish between a piece of emotive prose and a business
letter. Just as easily can we tell a newspaper brief from a scientific thesis; a poem from a military
document; a piece of oratory from a diplomatic pact and so on. Apparently our knowledge of the
characteristic features of different styles of language is based not only on our intuition. There
must be some objective criteria which the system relies on and which we can define as the
leading or principal features of a given style.
A special part of this lecture is devoted to a description of the styles which have already
manifested themselves as more or less independent systems.
In linguistics there are different terms to denote those particular means by which a writer
obtain his affect. Expressive means ,stylistic means, stylistic devices and other terms are all used
indiscriminately. For one purpose it is necessary to make a distinction between expressive means
(EMs) ,which are used in some specific way, and special devices called stylistic devices (SDs).
The expressive means of a language are those phonetic means,morphological
forms,means of word-building,and lexical,phraseological and syntactical forms,all of which
function in the language for emotional or logical intensification of the utterance.These
intensifying forms of the language,wrought by social usage and recognized by their semantic
function have been fixed in grammars and dictionaries label them as intensifiers. In most cases
they have corresponding neutral synonymous forms.
The most powerful expressive means of any language are phonetic.The human voice can
indicate subtle nuances of meaning that no other means can attain.Pitch, melody, stress,
pausation, drawling.drawling out certain syllables, whispering,a sing-song manner of speech and
other ways of using the voice are more effective than any other means in intensifying the
utterance emotionally or logically.
Among the morphological expressive means the use of the Present Indefinite instead of the Past
Indefinite must be mentioned first. This has already been acknowledged as a special means and
is named the Historical Present.In describing some past event the author uses the present
tenses,thus achieving a more vivid picturisation of what was going on.
Among word-building means we find a great many forms which serve to make the
utterance more expressive and fresh or to intensify it.The diminutive suffixes as y (ie),let,e.g.dear,dearie,stream,streamlet,add some emotional colouring to the words.We may also
refer to what are called neologisms and nonce-words formed with non-productive suffixes or
with Greek roots,as:mistressmanship,cleanorama,walkathon.
At the lexical level there are a great many words which due to their inner expressiveness,
constitute a special layer.
Finally at the syntactical level there are many constructions which,being set against
synonymous ones,will reveal a certain degree of logical or emotional emphsis.
Let us compare the following pairs of structures:
I have never seen such a film. Never have I seen such a film.
Mr.Smith came in first. It was Mr.Smith who came in first.
The second structure in each pair contains empatic elements.
The expressive means of the English language have so far been very little investigated except,
perhaps, certain set expressions and to some extent affixation. Most of them still await
researchers. They are widely used for stylistic purposes, but these purposes likewise have not yet
been adequately explained and hardly at all specified.

Yet they exist in the language as forms that can be used for emphasis, i. ., to make a part
of the utterance more prominent and conspicuous, as a segmental analysis of the utterance
shows. This inevitably calls for a more detailed analysis of the nature of the emphatic elements
which we have named expressive means of the language. Not infrequently, as we shall see later,
some expressive means possess a power of emotional intensification which radiates through the
whole of the utterance. Lately a new concept has been introduced into linguistics that of supersegmental analysis. This takes into account not only what the words mean in the given context,
but also what new shades of meaning are at issue when the utterance is analysed as a whole.
The expressive means of the language are studied respectively in manuals of phonetics,
grammar, lexicology and stylistics. Stylistics, however, observes not only the nature of an
expressive means, but also its potential capacity of becoming a stylistic device.
What then is a stylistic device (SD)? It is a conscious and intentional literary use of some
of the facts of the language (including expressive means) in which the most essential features
(both structural and semantic) of the language forms are raised to a generalized level and thereby
present a generative model. Most stylistic devices may be regarded as aiming at the further
intensification of the emotional or logical emphasis contained in the corresponding expressive
means.
This conscious transformation of a language fact into a stylistic device has been observed
by certain linguists whose interests in scientific research have gone beyond the boundaries of
grammar. Thus A. A. Potebnja writes:
"As far back as in ancient Rome and Greece and with few exceptions up to the present time, the
definition of a. figurative use of a word has been based on the contrast between ordinary speech,
used in its own, natural, primary meaning and transferred speech."1
A. A. Potebnja thus shows how the expressive means of the Russian language are transformed
into stylistic devices. He describes how Gogol uses the literal repetition characteristic of folklore
instead of' allusions and references.
The birth of an SD is not accidental. Language means which are used with more or less
definite aims of communication and in one and the same function in various passages of writing,
begin gradually to develop new features, a wider range of functions and become a relative means
of expressiveness alongside the already recognized expressive means of the language, like
proverbs or sayings, diminutive suffixes and the like. These SDs form a special group of
language means which are more abstract in nature than the expressive means of the language. It
would perhaps be more correct to say that unlike expressive means, stylistic devices are patterns
of the language whereas the expressive means do not form patterns. They are just like words
themselves, they are facts of the language, and as such are, or should be, registered in
dictionaries.
This can be illustrated in the following manner:
Proverbs and sayings are facts of language. They are collected in dictionaries. There are
special dictionaries of proverbs and sayings. It is impossible to arrange proverbs and sayings in a
form that would present a pattern even though they have some typical features by which it is
possible to determine whether or not we are dealing with one. These typical features are: rhythm,
sometimes rhyme and/or alliteration.
But the most characteristic feature of a proverb or a saying lies not in its formal linguistic
expression, but in the content-form of the utterance. As is known, a proverb or a saying is a
peculiar mode of utterance which is mainly characterized by its brevity. The utterance itself,
taken at its face value, presents a pattern which can be successfully used for other utterances. The
peculiarity of the use of a proverb lies in the fact that the actual wording becomes a pattern
which needs no new wording to suggest extensions of meaning which are contextual. In other
words a proverb presupposes a simultaneous application of two meanings: the face-value or
primary meaning, and an extended meaning drawn from the context, but bridled by the facevalue meaning. In other-words the proverb itself becomes a vessel into which new content is
poured. The actual wording of a proverb, its primary meaning, narrows the field of possible

extensions of meaning, i. e. the filling up of the form. That is why we may regard the proverb as
a pattern of thought. So it is in every other case at any other level of linguistic research. Abstract
formulas offer a wider range of possible applications to practical purposes than concrete words,
though they have the same purpose.
The interrelation between expressive means and stylistic devices can be worded in terms
of the theory of information. Expressive means have a greater degree of predictability than
stylistic devices. The latter may appear in an environment which may seem alien and therefore
be only slightly or not at all predictable. Expressive means are commonly used in language, and
are therefore easily predictable. Stylistic devices carry a greater amount of information because
if they are at all predictable they are less predictable than expressive means. It follows that
stylistic devices must be regarded as a special code which has still to be deciphered. Stylistic
devices are generally used sparingly, lest they should overburden the utterance with information.
Not every stylistic use of a language fact will come under the term SD. There are
practically unlimited possibilities of presenting any language fact in what is vaguely called its
stylistic use. But this use in no way forms anSD. For a language fact to become an SD there is
one indispensable requirement, viz., that it should be so much used in one and the same function
that it has become generalized in its functions. True, even a use coined for the occasion, that is a
nonce use can, and very often does create the necessary conditions for the appearance of an SD.
Thus many facts of English grammar are said to be used with a stylistic function, e. g. some of
the English morphemes are used in definite contexts as full words, but these facts are not SDs of
the English language. They are still wandering in the vicinity of the realm of stylistic devices
without being admitted into it. Perhaps in the near future they will be accepted as SDs, but in the
meantime they are not. This can indirectly be proved by the fact that they have no special name
in the English language system of SDs. Compare such SDs as metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron,
parallel construction and the like. These have become facts of a special branch of linguistic
science, viz., stylistics. All these facts, however, are facts of general linguistics as well.But in
general linguistics they are viewed as means either of creating new meanings of words, or of
serving the purpose of making the utterance more comprehensible (cf. the repetition of the
subject of a sentence when there is a long attributive clause following the subject, which breaks
the natural sequence of the primary members of the sentence and therefore requires the repetition
of the subject).
So far stylistic devices have not been recognized as lawful members of the system of language.
They are set apart as stylistic phenomena, this being regarded as a special domain, not part and
parcel of the system of language. But the process of the development of language does not take
into consideration the likes or dislikes of this or that linguist, it establishes its own paths along
which the formation of the whole system of a language is moulded. The stylistic devices of a
highly developed language like English or Russian have brought into the literary language a
separate body of means of expression which have won recognition as a constituent to be studied
in the branch of language study named Stylistics.
And yet some scholars still regard stylistic devices as violations of the norms of the language.
(See Saintsbury, p. 13.) It is this notion which leads some prominent linguists (G. Vandryes, for
example) to the conclusion that "The Belles-Lettres Style (where SDs flourish, /. G.) is always a
reaction against the common language; to some extent it is a jargon, a literary jargon, which may
have varieties."
The study of the linguistic nature of SDs in any language therefore.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

5. . . . . ., 1952, . 8.
6. See F. L. Lucas. Style. London. 1962.

Lecture #3
Meaning from a stylistic point of view:
1. The linguistic term-meaning.
2. Polysemanticism.
3. Denotational Meaning.
1.A number of stylistic devices are based on the peculiar use of lexical meanings.
Therefore it seems to be necessary to define with precision the types of meanings words may
have which we meet in stylistic devices.
Words can be approached from multifarious aspects, some of which go beyond the
boundaries of pure linguistics, though they are deeply rooted in the texture of the language. The
most common and acceptable definition of a word is the following. A word is a language sign
that expresses a concept by its forms and meanings. By concept is meant an abstract or general
idea of some phenomenon of objective reality including the subjective feelings and emotions of
human beings. The forms of a word show its relation to the other words in a sentence. The
meaning of a word is the means by which the concept is materialized. The meaning will always
direct the mind to the object or objects we think of. The forms of a word will direct the mind to
the correlation between the words in a sentence.

The forms of a word are also said to have meanings. Therefore we distinguish between lexical
meaning and grammatical meaning, the former referring to the phenomena of objective reality
and the latter to the correlation between the words in a sentence.
2.Both lexical and grammatical meaning may be polysemantic. This means that a word
may have a number of meanings. So here we meet the first contradiction in terms. On the one
hand a word expresses a concept by its meanings. On the other hand each meaning may denote a
separate concept. The contradiction is to some extent removed by introducing the notion of
progress in language. The meanings are liable to change. When there is an obvious connection
between different meanings, we call them shades of meaning, nuances of meaning and even
separate meanings, the latter being on the verge of becoming separate words. When the process
of breaking away from the basic meaning has gone so far that we scarcely feel any connection
between the meanings, we say that the word has split into two different words which in this case
become homonyms.1
The meanings of a word are the only means of materializing a concept in language, though some
concepts may be materialized not by means of the signs of language but by other signs by
gestures, mimicry, music, painting, sculpture and the other fine arts.
It is of paramount importance in stylistics to bear in mind that concepts of objective
reality have different degrees of abstractness. This is adequately manifested in language.
Adjectives are more abstract in meaning than nouns. Adverbs may be considered more abstract
than adjectives inasmuch as they usually characterize an abstract notion, action or state.
Conjunctions and prepositions have a still higher degree of abstractness because it is not objects
as such that they indicate, but the correlation of the concepts involved. Therefore we may
consider conjunctions and prepositions, and some auxiliary words as well, to be on the border
line between lexical and grammatical categories, or in terms of meaning, having a grammatical
meaning which suppresses the lexical meaning.
Within the grammatical classes of words there are also different degrees of abstractness. Nouns,
as is known, are divided into two large classes, abstract and concrete. But this division does not
correspond to the actual difference in the degree of abstractness. This will be explained later
when we come to illustrate abstractness and concreteness.
A word, as is known, generalizes. Consequently, a word will always denote a concept, no
matter whether it names a definite object or embraces all the objects of a given kind.
The problem of abstractness, and especially the degree of abstractness, is of vital importance in
stylistics in more than one respect. Stylistics deals not only with the aesthetic and emotional
impact of the language. It also studies the means of producing impressions in our mind.
Impression is the first and rudimentary stage of concept. But the concept through a reverse
process may build another kind of impression. Impressions that are secondary to concepts, in
other words which have been born by concepts, are called imagery.
Imagery is mainly produced by the interplay of different meanings. Concrete objects are
easily perceived by the senses. Abstract notions are perceived by the mind. When an abstract
notion is by the force of the mind represented through a concrete object, an image is the result.
Imagery may be built on the interrelation of two abstract notions or two concrete objects or an
abstract and a concrete one.
Three types of meaning can be distinguished, which we shall call logical, emotive and n m
i n a I respectively.
Logical meaning is the precise naming of a feature of the idea, phenomenon or object, the
name by which we recognize the whole of the concept. This meaning is also synonymously
called referential meaning or direct meaning. We shall use the terms logical and referential as
being most adequate for our purpose.
Referential meanings are liable to change. As a result the referential meanings of one word may
denote different concepts. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between primary and secondary
referential, or logical, meaning.

Thus the adverb inwardly has the primary logical meaning of internally or within. Its
secondary logical meanings are: towards the centre, mentally, secretly, which are to some extent
derived from the primary meaning. ? Some dictionaries give a very extended list of prim and
secondary logical meanings and it is essential for stylistic purposes to distinguish them, as some
stylistic devices are built on the interplay of primary and secondary logical meanings.
All the meanings fixed by authoritative English and American, dictionaries comprise
what is called the semantic structure of the w d. The meanings that are to be found in speech
or writing and which are accidental should not be regarded as components of the semantic
structure of the word. They may be transitory, inasmuch as they depend on the context. They are
generally called contextual meanings.
Let us compare the meanings of the word presence in the following two sentences.
"The governor said that he would not allow the presence of federal troops on the soil of his
State."
"...the General has been faced with a problem as old as France's presence, in Algeria, the
stubborn resistance of officers and officials..."
In the first sentence the word 'presence merely means '...the state of being present', whereas in
the second sentence the meaning of the word expands into '...occupation', i. e. the seizure and
control of an area, especially foreign territory, by military forces.
The first meaning is the dictionary meaning of the word. The second meaning is a
contextual one. It lives only in the given text and disappears if the context is altered. However
there are definite reasons to assume that a number of derivative meanings are given place in
dictionaries on the basis of contextual meanings. When the two meanings clearly co-exist in the
utterance, we say there is an interaction of dictionary and contextual meanings. When only one
meaning is perceived by the reader, we are sure to find this meaning in dictionaries as a
derivative one.
Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether there is a simultaneous materialization of two
dictionary logical meanings or an interplay of a dictionary and a contextual meaning. The
difficulty is caused, on the one hand, by insufficient objective criteria of what should be fixed in
dictionaries as already established language facts, and on the other hand, by deliberate political,
aesthetic, moral and other considerations on the part of the compilers of the dictionaries.
Thus in Byron's use of the word 'arise' in the line "Awake ye sons of Spain, awake, arise"
the word 'arise has the long-established meaning of 'revolt'. It is not contextual any longer. But
no. English or American dictionary fixes this particular meaning in the semantic structure of the
word 'arise' and it is left to the ability of the attentive reader to supply the obvious meaning to the
word.
The same can be said about the word 'appeasement'. There is an implicit difference in the
treatment of the semantic structure of this word in British and American dictionaries. In no
British dictionary will you find the new derivative meaning, viz. 'a sacrifice of moral principle in
order to avert aggression'. Some modern American dictionaries include this meaning in the
semantic structure of the word 'appeasement'. The reason for the difference is apparent the
British prime minister Chamberlain in 1938 played an ignoble role in Munich, sacrificing
Czechoslovakia to Hitler's greed. The new meaning that was attached to the word (in connection
with this historical event) cannot now be removed from its semantic structure.
A dictionary meaning is materialized in the context; a contextual meaning is born in the
context. However, dictionaries, though the only reliable sources of information regarding the
meanings of a given word, apply very diverse and even contradictory principles in ascertaining
the general acceptability and recognition of some of the shades of meaning which are in process
of being shaped as independent meanings. Thus, to excuse oneself in the meaning of 'to leave', as
in 'Soames excused himself directly after dinner' (Galsworthy); or the meaning of a thought = 'a
little' as in 'A thought more fashionably than usual' (Galsworthy) are fixed as separate meanings
in some modern British and American dictionaries, but are neglected in others.

Every word possesses an enormous potentiality for generating new meanings. This power
is often underestimated by scholars who regard a word as a unit complete in itself and
acknowledge a new-born meaning only when it has firmly asserted itself in language and
become accepted by the majority of the language community. But not to see the latent
possibilities of a word is not to understand the true nature of this unit of language.
The potentiality of words can also be noted in regard to emotive me a n i n g. Emotive
meaning also materializes a concept in the word, but unlike logical meaning, emotive meaning
has reference not directly to things or phenomena of objective reality, but to the feelings and
emotions of the speaker towards these things or to his emotions as such. Therefore the emotive
meaning bears reference to things, phenomena or ideas through a kind of evaluation of them. For
example:
I feel so darned lonely. (Graham Green, "The Quiet American".)
He classified him as a man of monstrous selfishness; he did not want to see that knife descend,
but he felt it for one great fleeting instant. (London)
The italicized words have no logical meaning, only emotive meaning. Their function is to
reveal the subjective, evaluating attitude of the writer to the things or events spoken of. Men-ofletters themselves are well aware that words may reveal a subjective evaluation and sometimes
use it for definite stylistic effects, thus, calling the attention of the reader to the meaning of such
words. Thus, for example, in the following passage from "The Man of Property" by Galsworthy:
"She was not a flirt, not even a coquette words dear to the heart of his generation, which loved
to define things by a good, broad, inadequate word but she was dangerous."
Here the words 'flirt' and 'coquette' retain some of their logical meaning. They mean a
person (particularly a girl) who endeavours to attract the opposite sex, who toys with her
admirers. But both words have acquired an additional significance, viz. a derogatory shade of
meaning. This shade may grow into an independent meaning and in this case will be fixed in
dictionaries as having a special, emotive meaning, as, for example, have the words fabulous,
terrifying, stunning, spectacular, swell, top, smart, cute, massive and the like.
Many words acquire an emotive meaning only in a definite context. In that case we say
that the word has a contextual emotive meaning.
Stephen Ullmann holds that "Only the context can show whether a word should be taken as a
purely objective expression, or whether it is primarily designed to convey and arouse emotions.
This is obvious in the case of words like liberty, and justice, which are frequently charged with
emotional implications. But even colourless everyday terms may, in freak contexts, acquire
unexpected emotional overtones, as for instance 'wall' in this passage from a Midsummer Night's
Dream:
'And thou, wall, sweet, lovely wall, ...Thanks, courteous wall... wicked wall.
Ullmann's point of view is only partly true. There are, of course, words which as we have
pointed out may acquire emotive meaning in a context. Ordinarily though, and particularly when
taken as isolated lexical units, they can hardly be said to possess emotive meaning. But
Ullmann's opinion that only the context can inject emotional meaning into words, contradicts the
facts. In the vocabulary of almost any European language there are words which are undoubtedly
bearers of emotive meaning. These are interjections, oaths or swear-words, exclamatory words
(variants of interjections) and a great number of qualitative or intensifying adjectives some of
which have already been mentioned. The emotive meaning of some of these classes of words is
so strong that it suppresses the co-existing logical meaning, as for example in stunning and
smart. It is significant that these words are explained in dictionaries by means of synonymous
words charged with strong emotional implications, i. e. words that direct the mind not to
objective things, ideas or phenomena but to the feelings. Thus the word smart is explained in
"The Penguin English Dictionary" thus: stinging, pungent, keen; vigorous, brisk; clever,
intelligent; impertinent; shrewd; witty; spruce, neat, gay, fashionable!"1
Other classes of words with emotive meaning have entirely lost their logical meaning and
function in the language as interjections. Such words as alas, oh, ah, pooh, darn, gosh and the

like have practically no logical meaning at all; words like the devil, Christ, God, goodness
gracious, etc., are frequently used only in their emotive meaning. The same can be said about the
words bloody, damn and other expletives.
Contrary to Stephen Ullmann, we think that emotional meaning is inherent in a definite
group of words and adherent to many words denoting emotions and feelings even when taken out
of the context.
Ullmann's example of the word wall as bearing strong emotional meaning does not stand
scrutiny. He overlooks the real, bearers of emotional meaning, viz. the words preceding or
following it: 0, sweet, lovely (these three words are repeated several times), courteous, wicked. It
goes without saying that these words strongly colour2 the word wall, but no emotional meaning
as a counterpart of logical meaning can be observed here.
Emotive meaning of words plays an important role in stylistics. Therefore it should never
be underrated. A very keen eye or ear will always distinguish elements of emotive meaning.
Emotional colouring may be regarded as a rudimentary stage of emotive meaning, which is
generally fixed as an independent meaning in good dictionaries. Anything recognizable as having
a strong impact on our senses may be considered as having emotive meaning, either dictionary or
contextual.
3.And finally we come to nominal meaning. There are words which, while expressing
concepts, indicate a particular object out of a class. In other words these units of the language
serve the purpose of singling out one definite and singular object out of a whole class of similar
objects. These words are classified in grammars as proper nouns. The nature of these words can
be understood if we have a clear idea of the difference between the two main aspects of a word:
"nomination" and "signification". These aspects are also called "reference" and "signification" or
"denotation" and "connotation". The difference can roughly be illustrated by the following
example.
Let us take the word table. The first thing that appears in our mind is the general notion
deprived of any concrete features or properties. This is the signification. But by the word table
we may also denote a definite table. In this case we use a definite article and the meaning
becomes nominating. But we may also fix a definite name to the object which we want to be
recognized as a unique object because of its peculiar properties. In this way proper names appear.
Their function is not to single out one of the objects of the class for one particular occasion, as in
the case with the use of the definite article, but to make it the bearer of the properties which our
mind has attached to it. Thus nominal meaning is a derivative logical meaning. To distinguish
nominal meaning from logical meaning the former is designated by a capital letter. Such words
as Smith, Longfellow, Everest, Black Sea, Thames, Byron are said to have nominal meaning. The
logical meaning from which they originate may in the course of time be forgotten and therefore
not easily traced back. Most proper names have nominal meanings which may be regarded as
homonyms of common nouns with their logical or emotional meanings, as Hope, Browning,
Taylor, Scotland, Black, Chandler, Chester (from the Latin word castra 'camp'). Hence logical
meanings which nominate an object, at the same time signify the whole class of these objects.
Nominal meanings which nominate an object are deprived of the latter function because they do
not represent a class. It must be remembered however that the nominal meaning will always be
secondary to the logical meaning. The process of development of meaning may go still further. A
nominal meaning may assume a logical meaning due to certain external circumstances. The
result is that a logical meaning takes its origin in a nominal meaning. Some feature of a person
which has made him _or her noticeable and which is recognized by the community is made the
basis for the new logical meaning. Thus dunce ('a dullard, a stupid person') is derived from the
personal name Duns Scotus, a medieval scholastic; hooligan ('a ruffian') is probably
derived from the name of a rowdy family, cf. the Irish name Houligan, in a comic song popular
about 1885; boycott ('refuse to do business with,' 'combine together against a person by breaking
off all relations with him'). The verb boycott was first used in 1880 to describe the action of the
Land League towards Captain Boycott, an Irish landlord. The nominal meanings of these words

have now faded away and we perceive only one, the logical meaning. But sometimes the process
of attaching nominal meaning to a word with a logical meaning takes place, as it were, before
our eyes. This is done for purely stylistic purposes and is regarded as a special stylistic device ..
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.
5. . . . . ., 1952, . 8.
6. See F. L. Lucas. Style. London. 1962.

Lecture # 4
PHONETIC EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC DEVICES

1 General notes.
2. Onomatopeia.
3.Alliteration and Assonance.
4.Rhythm and Rhyme.
GENERAL NOTES
The stylistic approach to the utterance is not confined to its structure and sense. There is
another thing to be taken into account which, in a certain type of communication, viz. belleslettres, plays an important role. This is the way a word, a phrase or a sentence sounds. The sound
of most words taken separately will have little or no aesthetic value. It is in combination with
other words that a word may acquire a desired phonetic effect. The way a separate word sounds
may produce a certain euphonic impression, but this is a matter of individual perception and
feeling and therefore subjective. For instance, a certain English writer expresses the opinion that
angina ,pneumonia , and uvula would make beautiful girl's names instead of what he calls
"lumps of names like Joan, Joyce and Maud". In the poem "Cargoes" by John Masefield he
considers the words like ivory, sandal-wood, cedar-wood, emeralds and amethysts as used in the
first two stanzas to be beautiful, whereas those in the 3rd stanza "strike harshly on the ear!"
"With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead, Fire-wood, iron-ware and cheap tin trays."
As one poet has it, this is "...a combination of words which is difficult to pronounce, in which the
words rub against one another, interfere with one another, push one another."
Verier, a French scientist, who is a specialist on English versification, suggests that we should try
to pronounce the vowels [a, k, u:] in a strongly articulated manner and with closed eyes. If we do
so, he says, we are sure to come to the conclusion that each of these sounds expresses a definite
feeling or state of mind. Thus he maintains that the sound [u;] generally expresses sorrow or
seriousness; [i:] produces the feeling of joy and so on.
L. Bloomfield, a well-known American linguist says:
"...in human speech, different sounds have different meaning. To study the coordination of
certain sounds with certain meanings is to study language".
An interesting statement in this regard is made by a Hungarian linguist, Ivan Fonagy:
"The great semantic entropy (a term from theory of communication denoting the measure of the
unknown, /. G) of poetic language stands in contrast to the predictability of its sounds. Of course,
not even in the case of poetry can we determine the sound of a word on the basis of its meaning.
Nevertheless in the larger units of line and stanza, a certain relationship can be found between
sounds and content."
The Russian poet B. Pasternak is of quite a different opinion. He says that he has
"...always thought that the music of words is not an acoustic phenomenon and does not consist of
the euphony of vowels and consonants taken separately. It results from the correlation of the
meaning of the utterance with its sound."3
,
T
he theory of the sense-independence of separate sounds is based on a subjective
interpretation of sound associations and has nothing to do with objective scientific data.
However, as is stated above, the sound of a word, or perhaps more exactly the way words sound
in combination, cannot fail to contribute something to the general effect of the message,
particularly when the sound effect has clearly been deliberately worked out. This can easily be
discerned when analysing alliterative word combinations or the rhymes in certain stanzas or from
a more elaborate analysis of sound arrangement.
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech-sounds which aims at imitating sounds
produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc), by things (machines or tools, etc), by people
(sighing, laughter, patter of feet, etc) and by animals. Combinations of speech sounds of this type
will inevitably be associated with whatever produces the natural sound. Therefore the relation
between onomatopoeia and the phenomenon it is supposed to represent is one of metonomy.

There are two varieties of onomatopoeia: direct and indirect. D i-r e t onomatopoeia is
contained in words that imitate natural sounds, as ding-dong, buzz, bang, cuckoo,
tintinnabulation, mew, ping-pong, roar and the like.
These words have different degrees of imitative quality. Some of them immediately bring to
mind whatever it is that produces the sound. Others require the exercise of a certain amount of
imagination to decipher it.
Onomatopoetic words can be used in a transferred meaning, as for instance, ding-dong,
which represents the sound of bells rung continuously, may mean 1) noisy, 2) strenuously
contested. Examples are: a ding-dong struggle, a ding-dong go at something.
In the following newspaper headline:
DING-DONG ROW OPENS ON BILL, both meanings are implied.
Indirect onomatopoeia is a combination of sounds the aim of which is to make the sound of the
utterance an echo of its sense. It is sometimes called "echo-writing". An example is:
'And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain' (E. A. Poe),
where the repetition of the sound [s] actually produces the sound of the rustling of the curtain.
Indirect onomatopoeia, unlike alliteration, demands some mention of what makes the sound, as
rustling (of curtains) in the line above. The same can be said of the sound [wl if it aims at
reproducing, let us say, the sound of wind. The word wind must be mentioned, as in:
"Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in the
dark and wet A man goes riding by." (R. S. Stevenson)
Indirect onomatopoeia is sometimes very effectively used by repeating words which themselves
are not onomatopoetic, as in Poe's poem "The Bells" where the words tinkle and bells are
distributed in the following manner:
"Silver bells... how they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle" and further
"To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells."
Alongside obviously onomatopoetic words as tinkle, tintinnabulation and jingling the
word bells is drawn into the general music of the poem and begins to display onomatopoetic
properties through the repetition.
A skilful example of onomatopoetic effect is shown by Robert Southey in his poem "How the
Water Comes down at Lodore." The title of the poem reveals the purpose of the writer. By artful
combination of words ending in -ing and by the gradual increase of the number of words in
successive lines, the poet achieves the desired sound effect. The poem is rather too long to be
reproduced here, but a few lines will suffice as illustrations:
"And nearing and clearing,
And falling and crawling and sprawling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And in this way the water comes down at Ladore."
Alliteration
Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the
utterance. The essence of this device lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular
consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words:
"The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence and feud, frosts and fires it
follows the laws of progression". (J. Galsworthy) or,
"Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, "Doubting, dreaming
s
dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before." (E. A. Poe)
-^
Alliteration, like most phonetic expressive means, does not bear any lexical or other meaning
unless we agree that a sound meaning exists as such. But even, so we may not be able to specify
clearly the character of this meaning, and the term will merely suggest that a certain amount of

information is contained in the repetition of sounds, as is the case with the repetition of lexical
units.
However certain sounds if repeated may produce an effect that can be specified.
For example the sound [m] is frequently used by Tennyson in the poem "The Lotus Eaters" to
give a somnolent effect.
"How sweet it were,...
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the music of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory."
Therefore alliteration is generally regarded as a musical accompaniment of the author's
idea, supporting it with some vague emotional atmosphere which each reader interprets for
himself. Thus the repetition of the sound [d] in the lines quoted from Poe's poem "The Raven"
prompts the feeling of anxiety, fear, horror, anguish or all these feelings simultaneously.
Sometimes a competent reader, if unable to decipher the implied purpose of the alliteration, may
grow irritated if it is overdone and be ready to discard it from the arsenal of useful stylistic
devices.
An interesting example of the overuse of alliteration is given in Swinburne's "Nephelidia" where
the poet parodies, his own style:
"Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts
go aghast."
When the choice of words depends primarily on the principle of alliteration, exactitude of
expression, and even sense may suffer. But when used sparingly and with at least some slight
inner connection with the sense of the utterance, alliteration heightens the general aesthetic
effect.
Alliteration in the English language is deeply rooted in the traditions of English folklore. The
laws of phonetic arrangement in Anglo-Saxon poetry differed greatly from those of present-day
English poetry. In Old English poetry alliteration was one of the basic principles of verse and
considered along with rhythm to be its main characteristic. Each stressed meaningful word in a
line had to begin with the same sound or combination of sounds. Thus in'Beowulf:
Fyrst ford 3ewat: flota waes on ydum, bat under . Beornas on stefn stison:
streamas wundon, sund wid sande; sec3as on bearm nacan beorhte fraetwe...
The repetition of the initial sounds of the stressed words in the line, as it were, integrates the
utterance into a compositional unit. Unlike rhyme in modern English verse, the semantic
function of which is to chain one line to another, alliteration in Old English verse was used to
consolidate the sense within the line, leaving the relation between the lines rather loose. But
there really is an essential resemblance structurally between alliteration and rhyme (by the
repetition of the same sound) and also functionally (by communicating a consolidating effect).
Alliteration is therefore sometimes called initial rhyme.
The traditions of folklore are exceptionally stable and alliteration as a structural device of Old
English poems and songs has shown remarkable continuity. It is frequently used as a well-tested
means not only in verse but in emotive prose, in newspaper headlines, in the titles of books, in
proverbs and sayings, as for example,in the following:
Tit for tat; blind as a bat, betwixt and between; It is neck or nothing; to rob Peter to pay
Paul; or in the titles of books:
"Sense and Sensibility" (J. Austin); "Pride and Prejudice" (J. Austin); "The School for Scandal"
(Sheridan); "A Book of Phrase and Fable" (Brewer).
Rhyme
Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words.
Rhyming words are generally placed at a regular distance from each other. In verse they are
usually placed at the end of the corresponding lines.
Identity and particularly similarity of sound combinations may be relative. For instance, we
distinguish between full rhymes and incomplete rhymes. The full rhyme presupposes identity of

the vowel sound and the following consonant sounds in a stressed syllable, as in might, right;
needless, heedless. When there is identity of the stressed syllable, including the initial consonant
of the second syllable (in polysyllabic words), we have exact or identical rhymes.
Incomplete rhymes present a greater variety. They can be divided into two main groups: vowel
rhymes and consonant rhymes. In vowel-rhymes the vowels of the syllables in corresponding
words are identical, but the consonants may be different as in fleshfreshpress. Consonant
rhymes, on the contrary, show concordance in consonants and disparity in vowels, as in worth
forth; taletoolTrebletrouble; flunglong.
Modifications in rhyming sometimes go so far as to make one word rhyme with a
combination of words; or two or even three words rhyme with a corresponding two or three
words, as in upon her honour won her; bottom forgotten shot him. Such rhymes are called
compound or broken. The peculiarity of rhymes of this type is that the combination of words is
made to sound like one word a device which inevitably gives a colloquial and sometimes a
humorous touch to the utterance.
Compound rhyme may be set against what is called eye-rhyme, where the letters and not the
sounds are identical, as in love prove, flood brood,- have grave. It follows therefore that
whereas compound rhyme is perceived in reading aloud, eye-rhyme can only be perceived in the
written verse.Many eye-rhymes are the result of historical changes in the vowel sounds in certain
positions. The continuity of English verse manifests itself also in retention of some pairs of what
were once rhyming words. But on the analogy of these pairs, new eye-rhymes have been coined
and the model now functions alongside ear-rhymes.
According to the way the rhymes are arranged within the stanza, certain models have
crystallized, for instance:
1. coupletswhen the last words of two successive lines are rhymed. This is commonly marked
aa.
2. triple rhymes aaa
3. cross rhymes abab
4. framing or ring rhymes abba
There is still another variety of rhyme which is called i n t e r n al r h e. The rhyming
words are placed not at the end of the lines but within the line, as in:
"I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers." (Shelley) or,
"Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary." ()
Internal rhyme breaks the line into two distinct parts, at the same time more strongly
consolidating the ideas expressed in these two parts. Thus rhyme may be said to possess two
seemingly contradictory functions: dissevering on the one hand, and consolidating on the other.
As in many stylistic devices, these two functions of rhyme are realized simultaneously in a
greater or lesser degree depending on the distribution of the rhymes. In aa rhymes the
consolidating function is rather conspicuous. In aabaab rhymes the rhyming words bb may not
immediately reveal their consolidating function.
The dissevering function of internal rhyme makes itself felt in a distinctive pause, which is a
natural result of the longer line. This quality of internal rhyme may be regarded as a leading one.
The distinctive function of rhyme is particularly felt when it occurs unexpectedly in ordinary
speech or in prose. The listener's attention is caught by the rhyme and he may lose the thread of
the discourse.
Rhythm
Rhythm exists in all spheres of human activity and assumes multifarious forms. It is a
mighty weapon in stirring up emotions whatever its nature or origin, whether it is musical,
mechanical, or symmetrical as in architecture.
The most general definition of rhythm may be expressed as follows:
"rhythm is a flow, movement, procedure, etc., characterized by basically regular recurrence of
elements or features, as beat, or accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements or
features" (Webster's New World Dictionary).

Rhythm can be perceived only provided that there is some kind of experience in catching
the opposite elements or features in their correlation, and, what is of paramount importance,
experience in catching the regularity of alternating patterns. Rhythm is primarily a periodicity,
which requires specification as to the type of periodicity. According to some investigations,
rhythmical periodicity in verse "requires intervals of about three quarters of a second between
successive peaks of periods."1 It is a deliberate arrangement of speech into regularly recurring
units intended to be grasped as a definite periodicity which makes rhythm a stylistic device.
Rhythm, therefore, is the main factor which brings order into the utterance. The influence
of the rhythm on the semantic aspect of the utterance is now being carefully investigated and it
becomes apparent that orderly phonetic arrangement of the utterance calls forth orderly
syntactical structures which, in their turn, suggest an orderly segmenting of the sense groups.
The conscious perception of rhythms must be acquired by training, as must the perception of any
stylistic device. Some people are said to be completely deaf to rhythm and whatever efforts are
exerted to develop this sense in them inevitably fail. But this is not true. A person may not be
able to produce a flow of rhythmical units, but he can certainly acquire a feeling for rhythm if he
trains his ear.
Rhythm in language necessarily demands oppositions that alternate: long, short; stressed,
unstressed; high, low and other contrasting segments of speech. Some theoreticians maintain that
rhythm can only be perceived if there are occasional deviations from the regularity of
alternations. In this connection de-Groot writes:
"It is very strange indeed that deviations from the theme (i. ., the accepted kind of periodicity, /.
G.) in separate lines (called irregularities of the line) have been looked upon as deficiencies of
the poem by such eminent scholars as Yespersen and Heusseler. On the contrary, they are
indispensable, and have both a formal and expressive function. Harmony is not only a matter of
similarity, but also of dissimilarity, and in good poetry, irregularities of lines are among the most
important features of the poem both in their formal and their expressive functions. Actually, the
beauty of a poem is less dependent upon the regularities than upon the irregularities of the
poem."2 Academician V. M. Zhirmunsky suggests that the concept of rhythm should be
distinguished from that of meter. Meter is any form of periodicity in verse, its kind being
determined by the character and number of syllables of which it consists. The meter is an ideal
phenomenon characterized by its strict regularity, consistency and exchangeability. Rhythm is
flexible and sometimes an effort is required to perceive it. In classical verse it is perceived at the
background of the meter. In accented verse by the number of stresses in a line. In prose by the
alternation of similar syntactical patterns. He gives the following definition of verse rhythm. It is
"the actual alternation of stress which appears as a result of interaction between the ideal metrical
law and the natural phonetic properties of the given language material." 2 He holds the view that
romantic poetry regards metrical forms as a conventional tradition, which hinders the vigorous
individual creativity of the poet and narrows the potential variety of poetic material. This trend in
literature justifies all kinds of deviations from the metrical scheme as well as the dissimilarity of
stanzas; it favours enjambment (See p. 261) because it violates the monotonous concurrence of
the rhythmical and syntactical units of the metrical system; it makes ample use of imperfect
rhymes, inasmuch as they violate the trivial exactness of sound correspondence. It follows then
that the concept of rhythm should not be identified with that of meter, the latter, be it repeated,
appearing only in classical verse as an ideal form, an invariant of the given scheme of
alternation. However the deviations (the variants) must not go so far as to obscure the
consciously perceived ideal scheme. As has been pointed out before, stylistic effect can only be
achieved if there is a clear-cut dichotomy of the constituent elements (two kinds of meaning
realized simultaneously, as in metaphor and metonymy; or two constructions, as in rhetorical
questions and litotes, and so on). In the present case the dichotomy is perceived in the
simultaneous materialization of the orthodox and free patterns of metrical alternation. J.
Middleton Murry states:

"In order that rhythmic effects should be successful they must be differentiated with
certainty; and to manage contrasts of rhythm without contrast there is no differentiation
with so much subtlety that they will remain subordinate to the intellectual suggestion of the
words, is the most delicate work imaginable."
In his notes on Shakespeare's plays our Russian poet B. Pasternak expressed the same
idea in the following words:
"...The meter (that of blank verse, /. G.) is not made conspicuous. This is not a recitation.
The form with its self-admiration does not overshadow the content, which is infathomable and
chaste. It is an example of sublime poetry which in its finest examples has always the
simplicity and freshness of prose."1
V. Mayakovsky framed this idea in poetic form. "Rhythm", he writes, "is the foundation of every
poetic work, and passes through it like a clamour." And further, "I get my meter by covering this
clamour with words."2
The Russian poet A. Blok said that the poet is not one who writes verses, but the bearer of
rhythm. Verse did not become entirely divorced from music when it began to live as an
independent form of art. As is known, verse has its origin in song; but still the musical element
has never been lost; it has assumed a new form of existence rhythm.
It follows then that rhythm is not a mere addition to verse or emotive prose, which also
has its rhythm, aqd it must not be regarded as possessing "phonetic autonomy amounting to an
'irrelevant texture', but has a meaning." 3 This point of view is now gaining ground. Many
attempts have been made to ascribe meaning to rhythm and even to specify different meanings to
different types of meter. This is important, inasmuch as it contributes to the now-prevailing idea
that any form must make some contribution to the general sense. Rhythm intensifies the
emotions. It also specifies emotions. Some students of rhythm go so far as to declare that "...one
obvious agency for the expression of his (a poet's) attitude is surely metre" 4 and that "...the poet's
attitude toward his reader is reflected in his manipulation sometimes his disregard of
metre."5
So divergence from the ideal metrical scheme is an inherent quality of rhythm in verse. 6
The range of divergence must, however, have its limits. Deviations from the metrical theme are
free within the given frame of variation, but they cannot go beyond that frame lest the rhythmical
pattern should be destroyed. Permissible deviations from the given meter are called
modifications of the rhythmical pattern. Some of them occur so frequently in classical verse, that
they become, as it were, constituents of the rhythm.
"If violations of the meter take root," writes R. Jacobson, "they themselves become
rules..." and further"...these are allowed oscillations, departures within the limits of the law. In
British parliamentary terms, it is not an opposition to its majesty the meter, but an opposition of
its majesty.
It has already been pointed out that if rhythm is to be a stylistic category, one thing is required
the simultaneous perception of two contrasting phenomena, a kind of dichotomy. Therefore
rhythm in verse as an SD is defined as a combination of the ideal metrical scheme and the
variations of it, variations which are governed by the standard.
There are however certain cases in verse where no departures are allowed and the rhythm
strikes the ear with its strict regularity. These are cases where the rhythm contributes to the sense.
Thus in Robert Southey's "How the Water Comes Down at Ladore" (See p. 121) the rhythm itself
is meant to interpret the monotonous roar of the waterfall; or in Edward Lear's poem "The
Nutcrackers and the Sugar-tongs" where the rhythm reproduces the beat of galloping horses' feet,
or in march rhythm where the beat of the lines suggests a musical foundation. In short, wherever
there is a recognizable semantic function of the rhythm few, if any, deviations are evident.
Rhythm reveals itself most conspicuously in music, dance and verse. We have so far dealt
with verse because the properties of rhythm in language' are most observable in this mode of
communication. We shall now proceed to the analysis of rhythm in prose, bearing in mind that

the essential properties of prose rhythm are governed by the same general rules, though not so
apparent, perhaps, as in verse, and falling under different parameters of analysis.
Much has been said and written about rhythm in prose. Some investigators, in attempting
to find rhythmical patterns of prose, superimpose metrical measures on prose and regard
instances which do not fall under the suggested metrical scheme as variants. But the parameters
of the rhythm in verse and in prose are entirely different. R. Jacobson states "...any meter uses
the syllable as a unit of measure at least in certain sections of the verse." 3 The unit of measure in
prose, however, is not the syllable but a structure, a word combination, a sequence of words, that
is, phrases, clauses, sentences, even syntactical wholes. 4 The structural pattern, which in the
particular case is the rhythmical unit, will be repeated within the given span of prose. The rhythm
will be based not on the regular alternation of opposing units, i. e. a regular beat, but on the
repetition of similar structural units following one another or repeated after short intervals. The
peculiar property of prose rhythm. particularly in 20th century prose, is that it occurs only in
relatively short -spans of text, and that it constantly changes its patterns and may suddenly drop
to a normal almost unapparent rhythmical design or to no rhythm at all.
It must be made clear that metrical or accented rhythm, which is an internal and
indispensable property of verse, is incidental in prose, which in its very essence is nonrhythmical. A prose passage interpolated into a work written in verse, a device so favored by
some poets, has its significance in the acute opposition of the two modes of expression:
rhythmical versus non-rhythmical. The most observable rhythmical patterns in prose are based
on the use of certain stylistic syntactical devices namely, enumeration, repetition, parallel
construction (in particular, balance) and chiasmus. The beginning of Dickens's "A Tale of Two
Cities" on p. 223 may serve as an illustration of prose rhythm. Here the rhythm is easily
discernible.
In the following passage it is more difficult to catch the rhythm, though when the passage is read
aloud, the rhythm is clear.
"The high-sloping roof, of a fine sooty pink was almost Danish, and two 'ducky' little
windows looked out of it, giving an impression that very tall servants lived up there."
(John Galsworthy) Here the rhythmical pattern of the utterance is almost imperceptible to an
untrained ear, but will clearly be felt by one with rhythmical experience. The paired attributes
high-sloping, fine sooty, ducky little and likewise the attribute with an adverbial modifier very
tall are all structurally similar word combinations and therefore create the rhythm. As a good
example of oscillating prose rhythm hardly dissectible into rhythmical units is the following
excerpt from Somerset Maugham's "The Painted Veil":
"Walter, I beseech you to forgive me," she said, leaning over him. For fear that he could not bear
the pressure she took care not to touch him. "I'm so desperately sorry for the wrong I did you. I
so bitterly regret it."
He said nothing. He did not seem to hear. She was obliged to insist. It seemed to her
strangely that his soul was a fluttering moth and its wings were heavy with hatred. "Darling."
A shadow passed over his wan and sunken face. It was less than a movement, and yet it gave all
the effect of a terrifying convulsion. She had never used that word to him before. Perhaps in his
dying brain there passed the thought, confused and difficultly grasped, that he had only heard her
use it, a commonplace of her vocabulary, to dogs, and babies and motorcars. Then something
horrible occurred. She clenched her hands, trying with all her might to control herself, for she
saw two tears run slowly down his wasted cheeks.
"Oh, my precious, my dear, if you ever loved me I know you loved me and I was hateful I
beg you to forgive me. I've no chance now to show my repentance. Have mercy on me. I
beseech you to forgive."
She stopped. She looked at him, all breathless, waiting passionately for a reply. She saw
that he tried to speak. Her heart gave a great bound."
The long passage is necessary in order that the fluctuating, rhythmical pattern of both the
author's and the character's speech might be observed. The most obvious rhythmical unit here is

the structural similarity of the sentences. The overwhelming majority of the sentences are short,
simple, almost unextended, resembling each other in structural design 'He said nothing', 'He
did not seem to hear', 'She was obliged to insist', 'A shadow passed over his wan and sunken
face', 'She had never used that word to him before', 'She saw that he tried to speak', 'Her heart
gave a great bound'.
Likewise the character's speech is marked by the same feature the sentences are short, simple,
resembling each other in their structural design, as "'Walter, I beseech you to forgive me', T beg
you to forgive me', 'I've no chance now to show my repentance', 'I beseech you. to forgive' and
earlier 'I'm so desperately sorry... I so bitterly regret it..."
But it is not only the repetition of the structural design of the sentences that makes the
rhythm: there are other elements contributing to it. With the increase of emotional tension the
author almost slips into the iambic rhythm of blank verse. Dramatic feeling demands regular
rhythm. As the emotion becomes tenser, the rhythmical beat and cadence of the words becomes
more evident. Mark the sentence which begins with "Perhaps in his dying brain...". Here a kind
of metrical rhythm can easily be discerned
"there passed the thought. confused and difficultly grasped that he had only heard her use it,
and so it goes on until the phrase "then something horrible occurred." Of course this intercorrelation of the rhythmical units in the passage is open to discussion. There may be various
delivery instances. In this connection R. Jacobson says that "a variation of verse instances within
a given poem must be strictly distinguished from the variable delivery instances."1
.
Indeed, almost any piece of prose, though in essence non-rhythmical, can be made
rhythmical by isolating words or sequences of words and making appropriate pauses between
each. In order to distinguish the variable delivery instances of an utterance from its inherent
structural and semantic properties, it is necessary to subject the text to a thorough analysis of the
correlated component parts. The short survey of the passage above shows that the prose rhythm
is interspersed with genuine metrical rhythm not devoid, of course, of the modifications which
make the verse-rhythm less conspicuous.
A very good example of prose rhythm can be seen in the chapter from Galsworthy's "Man of
Property" entitled 'June's Treat' a passage from which is given later. (See p. 271)
It must be noted that the irruption of prose into a metrical pattern is generally perceived as
annihilation of rhythm, whereas the introduction of metrical pattern into prose aims at
consolidating the already vaguely perceived rhythm of the utterance.
Prose rhythm, unlike verse rhythm, lacks consistency, as it follows various principles. But
nevertheless a trained ear will always detect a kind of alternation of syntactical units. The task is
then to find these units and to ascertain the manner of alternation. This is not an easy task
because, as has already been pointed out, rhythm is not an essential property of prose, whereas it
is essential in verse. Prose is the opposite of verse and this opposition is primarily structural, in
this case, rhythmical structure versus non-rhythmical structure. The incursion of prose into
poetry is a deliberate device to break away from its strict rhythm. An interesting suggestion is
made by V. M. Hamm who says that
"...song breaks down under the stress of reflection truth elbows out beauty, if you will. The poet
thinks, therefore h cannot sing; feeling is inhibited. It is as if he were saying, 'Poetry is, after all,
only a game, and I have more serious concerns than the keeping of an accent'. Is he thus trying to
show his superiority to his art?"1
This, of course, should not be taken literally. But on the whole there is much in it. Poetry
is the domain of feeling and thought where feeling predominates. Emotive prose is the domain of
thought and feeling where thought predominates.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.

4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

5. . . . . ., 1952, . 8.
6. See F. L. Lucas. Style. London. 1962.

Lecture #5
Lexical EMs and SDs:
1. Intentional meaning of the stylistic aspect of

words .Bathos.

2.
a)
b)
c)
1.

Interaction of different types of lexical meaning.

Metaphor.
Metonymy.
Irony.
INTENTIONAL MIXING OF THE STYLISTIC ASPECT OF WORDS
Heterogeneity of the component parts of the utterance is the basis for a stylistic device
called bathos. Unrelated elements are brought together as if they denoted things equal in rank or
belonging to one class, as if they were of the same stylistic aspect. By being forcibly linked
together, the elements acquire a slight modification of meaning. This device, which calls forth an
acute feeling of incongruity, is half-linguistic, half-logical. The heterogeneity may manifest itself
in absolutely unrelated concepts being joined together, for example, elevated and commonplace.
Here is a passage from Byron's "Don Juan" in which the elevated diction of a young man, who is
torn away from his beloved, is interlarded with everyday phrases and expressions, reflecting the
situation he gets sea-sick:
"And oh! if e'er I should forget, I swear
But that's impossible, and cannot be Sooner shall this blue ocean melt to air.
Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea. Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair!
Or think of any thing excepting thee; A mind diseased no remedy can physic {Here the ship
gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick.)
"Sooner shall heaven kiss earth {here he fell sicker)
Oh, Julia! what is every other woe? {For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor;
Pedro, Battista, help me down below) Julia, my love! {you rascal, Pedro, quicker) -
Oh, Julia! {this curst vessel pitches so) Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching!" {Here he
grew inarticulate with retching.) Such poetic expressions as 'heaven kissing the earth', 'what is
every other woe'; 'beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching' are joined in one flow of utterance
with colloquial expressions: 'For God's sake; you rascal; help me down below', 'this curst vessel
pitches so'. This produces an effect which serves the purpose of lowering the loftiness of
expression, inasmuch as there is a sudden drop from the elevated to the commonplace or even
the ridiculous.
As is seen from this example, it is not so easy to distinguish whether the device is more linguistic
or more logical. But the logical and linguistic are closely interwoven in problems of stylistics.
Another example is the following:
"But oh? ambrosial cash! Ah! who would lose thee? When we no more can use, or even abuse
thee!" ("Don Juan")
Ambrosial is a poetic word meaning 'delicious', 'fragrant', 'divine'. Cash is a common colloquial
word meaning 'money', 'money that a person actually has', 'ready money'.
Whenever literary words come into collision with non-literary ones there arises incongruity,
which in any style is always deliberate, inasmuch as a style presupposes a conscious selection of
language means.
The following sentence from Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" illustrates with what skill the
author combines elevated words and phrases and common colloquial ones in order to achieve the
desired impact on the reader it being the combination of the supernatural and the ordinary.
"But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it,
or the Country's done for."
The elevated ancestors, simile, unhallowed, disturb (in the now obsolete meaning of tear to
pieces) are put alongside the colloquial contraction the Country's ('the country is') and the
colloquial done for.
This device is a very subtle one and not always discernible even to an experienced
literary critic, to say nothing of, the rank-and-file reader. The difficulty lies first of all in the
inability of the inexperienced reader to perceive the incongruity of the component parts of the
utterance.
Thus in Byron's lines:

"They grieved for those who perished with the cutter And also for the biscuit-casks and butter."
the copulative conjunction and as well as the adverb also suggest the homogeneity of the
concepts those who perished and biscuit-casks and butter. The people who perished are placed
on the same level as the biscuits and butter lost at the same time. This arrangement may lead to at
least two inferences: ,
1. for the survivors the loss of food was as tragic as the loss of friends who perished in the
shipwreck;
2. the loss of food was even more disastrous, hence the elevated grieved ... for food.
It must be born in mind, however, that this interpretation of the subtle stylistic device
employed here is prompted by purely linguistic analysis: the verbs to grieve and to perish, which
are elevated in connotation, are more appropriate when used to refer to people and are out of
place when used to refer to food. The every-day-life cares and worries overshadow the grief for
the dead, or at least are put on the same level. The verb to grieve, when used in reference to both
the people who perished and the food which was lost, weakens, as it were, the effect of the first
and strengthens the effect of the second.
The implications and inferences drawn from a detailed and meticulous analysis of
language means and stylistic devices can draw additional information from the communication.
This kind of implied meaning is sometimes called superlinear or super-segment a I, i. ., a
meaning derived not directly from the words, but from a much finer analysis.
Almost of the same kind are the following lines, also from Byron: "Let us have wine and
women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after."
Again we have incongruity of concepts caused by the heterogeneity of the conventionally
paired classes of things in the first line and the alliterated unconventional pair in the second line.
It needs no proof that the words sermons and soda-water are used metonymically here signifying
'repentance' and 'sickness' correspondingly. The decoded form of this utterance will thus be: "Let
us now enjoy ourselves in spite of consequences." But the most significant item in the linguistic
analysis here will of course be the identical formal structure of the pairs 1. wine and women; 2.
mirth and laughter and 3. sermons and soda-water. The first and second pairs consist of words
so closely related that they may be considered almost synonymous. This affects the last pair and
makes the words sermons and soda-water sound as if they were as closely related as the words in
the first two pairs. A deeper insight into the author's intention may lead the reader to interpret
them as a tedious but unavoidable remedy for the sins committed.
Byron especially favours the device of bathos in his "Don Juan." Almost every stanza contains
ordinarily unconnected concepts linked together by a coordinating conjunction and producing a
mocking effect or a realistic approach to those phenomena of life which imperatively demand
recognition, no matter how elevated the subject-matter may be.
Here are other illustrations from this epoch-making poem:
"heaviness of heart or rather stomach;"
"There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion"
"...his tutor and his spaniel"
"who loved philosophy and a good dinner" "I cried upon my first wife's dying day And also
when my second ran away." . We have already pointed out the peculiarity of the device, that it
is half linguistic, half logical. .But the linguistic side becomes especially conspicuous when there
is a combination of stylistically heterogeneous words and phrases. Indeed the juxtaposition of
highly literary norms of expression and words or phrases that must be classed as non-literary,
sometimes low colloquial or even vulgar, will again undoubtedly produce a stylistic effect, and
when decoded, will contribute to the content of the utterance, often adding an element of humour. Thus, for instance, the following from Somerset Maugham's "The Hour before Dawn":
"Will you oblige me by keeping your trap shut, darling? he retorted." The device is frequently
presented in the structural model which we shall call heterogeneous enumeration. (See p.
216)

2. INTERACTION OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF LEXICAL MEANING

Words in a context, as has been pointed out, may acquire additional lexical meanings not
fixed in dictionaries, what we have called contextual meanings. The latter may sometimes
deviate from the dictionary meaning to such a degree that the new meaning , even becomes the
opposite of the primary meaning, as, for example, with the word sophisticated. (See p. 116) This
is especially the case when we deal with transferred meanings.
What is known in linguistics as transferred meaning is practically the interrelation between two
types of lexical meaning: dictionary and contextual. The contextual meaning, as has been pointed out, will always depend on the dictionary (logical) meaning to a greater or lesser extent. When
the deviation from the acknowledged meaning is carried to a degree that it causes an unexpected
turn in the recognized logical meanings, we register a stylistic device.
The transferred meaning of a word may be fixed in dictionaries as a result of long and frequent
use of the word other than in its primary meaning. In this case we register a derivative meaning
of the word. The term transferred is meant to point to the process of the formation of the
derivative meaning. Hence the term transferred should be used, to our mind, as a lexicographical
term signifying diachronically the development of the semantic structure of the word. In this case
we do not perceive two meanings.
When, however, we perceive two meanings of the word simultaneously, we are
confronted with a stylistic device in which the two meanings interact.
INTERACTION OF DICTIONARY AND CONTEXTUAL LOGICAL MEANINGS
The relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meanings may be maintained along
different lines: on the principle of affinity, on that of proximity, or symbol referent relations,
or on opposition. Thus the stylistic device based on the first principle is metaphor, on the second,
metonymy and on the third, irony.
a)Metaphor
A metaphor is a relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meanings based on the
affinity or similarity of certain properties or features of the two corresponding concepts.
The more obvious the similarity, the less need there is for deciphering words in the context. Thus
in
"Dear Nature is the kindest Mother still." (Byron, "Childe Harold") no explanatory words are
used. Nature is likened to a Mother in her attitude to man. The action of nursing is implied
but not directly stated.
In the following example, however, an explanation is given:
"The indicators became enemies if they lagged behind his wish:
dear and reliable friends when they showed what he wanted."
(Mitchel Wilson, "Live with Lightning")
The explanatory words 'if they...', 'when they...' help the reader to decipher the true meaning of
the metaphor.
Metaphor can be embodied in all the meaningful parts of speech, in nouns, adjectives,
verbs, adverbs and sometimes even in the auxiliary parts of speech, as in prepositions.
In "The human tide is rolling westward." (Dickens, "Dombey and Son"), the metaphor is
embodied in the adjective.
"In the slanting beams that streamed through the open window, the dust danced and was golden."
(O. Wilde, "The Picture
of Dorian Gray") Here the metaphors lie in the verbs. "The leaves fell sorrowfully.'' Here it is the
adverb that is a metaphor.
The metaphor is a well-known semantic way of building new meanings and new words. "It is
due to the metaphor" according to the remark of Quintilian, "that each thing seems to have its
name in language." Even language has been figuratively defined as a dictionary of faded
metaphors.

"Try to be precise," writes J. Middleton Murry, "and you are bound to be metaphorical; you
simply cannot help establishing affinities between all the provinces of the animate and inanimate
world."
Metaphors, like all stylistic devices can be classified according to their degree of
unexpectedness. Thus metaphors which are absolutely unexpected, i. ., are quite unpredictable,
are called genuine metaphors. Those which are commonly used in speech and therefore are
sometimes even fixed in dictionaries as expressive means of language are trite metaphors, ox
dead metaphors. Their predictability therefore is apparent. Genuine metaphors are regarded as
belonging to language-in-action, i. ., speech metaphors; trite metaphors belong to the languageas-a-system, i. e. language proper, and are usually fixed in dictionaries as units of the language.
V. V. Vinogradov states:
"...a metaphor, if it is not a clich, is an act of establishing an individual world outlook, it is an
act of subjective isolation... Therefore a word metaphor is narrow, subjectively enclosed, ...it
imposes on the reader a subjective view of the object or phenomenon and its semantic ties."
The examples given above may serve as illustrations of genuine metaphors. Here are some
examples of metaphors that are considered trite. They are time-worn and well rubbed into the
language: a ray of hope, floods of tears, a storm of indignation, a flight of fancy, a gleam of
mirth, a shadow of a smile and the like.
The interaction of the logical dictionary meaning and the logical contextual meaning
assumes different forms. Sometimes this interaction is perceived as a deliberate interplay of the
two meanings. In this case each of the meanings preserves its relative independence. Sometimes,
however, the metaphoric use of a word begins to affect the source meaning, i. e. the meaning
from which the metaphor is derived, with the result that the target meaning, that is the metaphor
itself, takes the upper hand and may even oust the source meaning. In this case we speak of dead
metaphors.
Thus in such words as to grasp (= 'to understand'), to get (== 'to understand'), to see (='to
understand'), the meaning in brackets has become a derivative logical meaning and is fixed by all
existing dictionaries as such. The metaphorical origin of these meanings can hardly be perceived.
There is no interplay of the two meanings. Consequently, there is no stylistic device, no
metaphor.
In such words as to melt {away) as in "these misgivings gradually melted away," we can still
recognize remnants of the original meaning and in spite of the fact that the meaning to vanish, to
disappear is ;
already fixed in dictionaries as one of the derivative meanings, the primary meaning still mal<es
itself felt.
Trite metaphors are sometimes injected with new vigour, i. e. their primary meaning is reestablished alongside the new (derivative) meaning. This is done by supplying the central image
created by the metaphor w^ith additional words bearing some reference to the main word. For
example: "Mr. Pickwick bottled up his vengeance and corked it down." The verb to bottle up is
explained in dictionaries as follovi's: "to keep in check" ("Penguin Dictionary"); "to conceal, to
restrain, repress" ("Cassell's New English Dictionary"). So the metaphor in the word can hardly
be felt. But it is revived by the direct meaning of the verb to corii down. This context refreshes
the almost dead metaphor and gives it a second life. Such metaphors are called sustained or
prolonged. Here is another example of a sustained metaphor:
"Mr. Dombey's cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however, that he felt he could
afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter." (Dickens, "Dombey and Son")
We may call the principal metaphor the central image of the sustained metaphor and the
other words which bear reference to the central image contributory images. Thus in the
example given the word cup (of satisfaction) being a trite metaphor is revived by the following
contributory images; full, drop, contents, sprinkle. It is interesting to note that both the central
image {the cup) and the contributory words are used in two senses simultaneously: direct and

indirect. The second plane of utterance is maintained by the key word satisfaction. It is this
word that helps us to decipher the idea behind the sustained metaphor.
Sometimes however the central image is not given, but the string of words all bearing upon some
implied central point of reference are so associated with each other that the reader is bound to
create the required image in his mind. Let us take the following sentence from Shakespeare:
"I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent." The words spur, to prick, the sides in their
interrelation will inevitably create the image of a steed.
The same is to be seen in the following lines from Shelley's "Cloud":
"In a cavern under is fettered the thunder. It struggles and howls at fits."
Here the central image that of a captive beast is suggested by the contributory images
fettered, struggles and howls.
The metaphor is often defined as a compressed simile. But this definition lacks precision.
Moreover it is misleading, inasmuch as the metaphor aims at identifying the objects, while the
simile aims at finding some point of resemblance by keeping the objects apart. That is why these
two stylistic devices are viewed as belonging to two different groups of SDs. They are different
in their linguistic nature.
True, the degree of identification of objects or phenomena in a metaphor varies according to its
syntactic function in the sentence and to the part of speech in which it is embodied. Thus when
the metaphor is expressed in a noun-predicative, the degree of identification is very low. This is
due to the character of the predicative relation in general. The metaphor in this case can be
likened to an epithet.
Indeed, in the sentence 'Expression is the dress of thought' we can hardly see any process
of identification between the concepts expression and dress; whereas in the lines
"Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age: years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; And Life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the
brim.(Byron. "Childe Harold")
The metaphors steal, fire, cup, brim embodied in verbs and nouns not used predicatively
can be regarded as fully identified with the concepts they aim at producing.
The metaphor is one of the most powerful means of creating images. This is its main function.
Genuine metaphors are mostly to be found in poetry and emotive prose. Trite metaphors are
generally used as expressive means in newspaper articles, in oratorical style and even in
scientific language. The use of trite metaphors should not be regarded as a drawback of style.
They help the writer to enliven his work and even make the meaning more concrete.
There is constant interaction between genuine and trite metaphors. Genuine metaphors, if they
are good and can stand the test of time, may, through frequent repetition, become trite and consequently easily predictable. Trite metaphors, as has been shown, may regain their freshness
through the process of prolongation of the metaphor.
Metaphors may be sustained not only on the basis of a trite] metaphor. The initial
metaphor may be genuine and may also be developed through a number of contributory images
so that the whole of the utterance becomes one sustained metaphor. A skilfully written example
of such a metaphor is to be found in Shakespeare's Sonnet No 24.
The central image "The eye the painter" is developed through a number of contributory
images: to draw, to stell, table, frame, hanging (picture) and the like.
In conclusion it will be of interest to show the results of the interaction between the dictionary
and contextual meanings.
The constant use of a metaphor, i. e. a word in which two meanings are blended,
gradually leads to the breaking up of the primary meaning. The metaphoric use of the word
begins to affect the dictionary meaning, adding to it fresh connotations or shades of meaning.
But this influence, however strong it may be, will never reach the degree where the dictionary
meaning entirely disappears. If it did, we should have no stylistic device. It is a law of stylistics
that in a stylistic device the stability of the dictionary meaning is always retained, no matter how
great the influence of the contextual meaning may be.

b)Metonymy
Metonymy is based on a different type of relation between the dictionary and contextual
meanings, a relation based not on affinity, but on some kind of association connecting the two
concepts which these meanings represent.
Thus the word crown may stand for 'king or queen', cup or glass, for 'the drink it
contains', woolsack for 'the Chancellor of the Exchequer who sits on it, or the position and
dignity of the Lord Chancellor', e. g., "Here the noble lord inclined his knee to the Woolsack."
(from Hansard).
Here also the interrelation between the dictionary and contextual meanings should stand out
clearly and conspicuously. Only then can we state that a stylistic device is used. Otherwise we
must turn our mind to lexicological problems, i. e. to the ways and means by which new words
and meanings are coined. The examples of metonymy given above are traditional. In fact they
are derivative logical meanings and therefore fixed in dictionaries. However, when such
meanings are included in dictionaries, there is usually a label fig ('figurative use'). This shows
that the new meaning has not entirely replaced the primary one, but, as it were, co-exists with it.
Still the new meaning has become so common, that it is easily predictable and therefore does not
bear any additional information, which is an indispensable condition for an SD.
Here are some more widely-used metonymical meanings, some of which are already fixed in
dictionaries without the label fig: the press for '(the personnel connected with) a printing or
publishing establishment', or for 'the newspaper and periodical literature which is printed by the
printing press'. The bench is used as a generic term for 'magistrates and justices'. A hand is used
for a worker; the cradle stands for infancy, earliest stages, place of origin and the grave stands
for death.
Metonymy used in language-in-action or speech, i. e. n t e x-tual metonymy, is genuine
metonymy and reveals a quite unexpected substitution of one word for another, or even of one
concept for another, on the ground of some strong impression produced by a chance feature of
the thing, for example:
"Miss Tox's hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr. Dombey's arm, and felt herself escorted
up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and a Babylonian collar," (Dickens)
Cocked hat and Babylonian collar stand for the wearer of the articles in question. One can hardly
admit that there is a special characterizing function in such a substitution. The function of these
examples of genuine metonymy is more likely to point out the insignificance of the wearer rather
than his importance, for his personality is reduced to his externally conspicuous features, the hat
and red collar.
Here is another example of genuine metonymy:
"Then they came in. Two of them, a man with long fair moustaches and a silent dark man...
Definitely, the moustache and I had nothing in common." (Doris Lessing. "Retreat to Innocence")
Again we have a feature of a man which catches the eye, in this case his facial
appearance: the moustache stands for the man himself. The function of the metonymy here is to
indicate that the speaker knows nothing of the man in question, moreover there is a definite
implication that this is the first time the speaker has seen him. Here is another example of the
same kind:
"There was something so very agreeable in being so intimate with such a waistcoat; in being on
such off-hand terms so soon with such a pair of whiskers that Tom was uncommonly pleased
with himself." (Dickens. "Hard Times")
In these two cases of genuine metonymy a broader context than that required by a metaphor is
necessary in order to decipher the true meaning of the stylistic device. In both cases it is
necessary to understand the words in their proper meanings first.Only then is it possible to grasp
the metonymy.
In the following example the metonymy grape also requires a broad context:
"And this is stronger than the strongest grape Could e'er express in its expanded shape."(Byron)

Metonymy and metaphor differ also in the way they are deciphered. In the process of disclosing
the meaning implied in a metaphor, one image excludes the other, that is the metaphor lamp in
the 'The sky lamp of the night' when deciphered, means the moon, and though there is a definite
interplay of meanings, we perceive only one object, the moon. This is not the case with
metonymy. Metonymy, while presenting one object to our mind does not exclude the other. In the
example given above the moustache and the man himself are both perceived by the mind.
Many attempts have been made to pinpoint the types of relation which metonymy is based on.
Among them the following are most common:
1. a concrete thing used instead of an abstract notion, case the thing becomes a symbol of the
notion, as in
In this
"'The camp, the pulpit and the law For rich men's sons are free." (Shelley)
2. The container instead of the thing contained: The hall applauded.
3. The relation of proximity, as in:
"The round game table was boisterous and happy." (Dickens)
4. The material instead of the thing made of it, as in: "The marble spoke."
5. The instrument which the doer uses in performing the action instead of the action or the doer
himself, as in:
"Well, Mr. Weller, says the gentl'mn, you're a very good whip, and can do what you like with
your horses, we know." (Dickens)
"As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last." (Byron)
The list is in no way complete. There are many other types of relations which may serve
as a basis for metonymy.
It must also be noted that metonymy, being a means of building up imagery, generally concerns
concrete objects, which are generalized. The process of generalization is easily carried out with
the help of the definite article. Therefore instances of metonymy are very often used with the
definite article, or with no article at all as in "There was perfect sympathy between Pulpit and
Pew," where 'Pulpit' stands for the clergyman and 'Pew' for the congregation.
This is probably due to the fact that any definition of a word may be taken for metonymy,
inasmuch as it shows a property or an essential quality of the concept, thus disclosing a kind of
relation between the thing as a whole and a feature of it which may be regarded as part of it.
c)Irony
Irony is a stylistic device also based on the simultaneous realization of two logical meanings
dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings stand in opposition to each other. Thus in the
sentence:
"It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one's pocket."
the italicized word acquires a meaning quite the opposite to its primary dictionary meaning, that
is 'unpleasant', ^not delightful'. The word containing the irony is strongly marked by intonation.
It has an emphatic stress and is generally supplied with a special melody design, unless the
context itself renders this intonation pattern unnecessary, as in the following excerpt from
Dickens' "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club":
"Never mind," said the stranger, cutting the address very short, "said enough no more; smart
chap that cabman handled his fives well; but if I'd been your friend in the green jemmy
damn me punch his head , Cod I would pig's whisper pieman too, no gammon."
"This coherent speech was interrupted by the entrance of the Rochester coachman, to announce
that..."
The word 'coherent', which describes Mr. Jingle's speech, is inconsistent with the actual
utterance, and therefore becomes self-contradictory. In no other device where we can observe the
interplay of the dictionary and contextual meanings, is the latter so fluctuating, suggestive, and
dependent on the environment as is irony. That is why there are practically no cases of irony in
the language-as-a-system.

;Irony must not be confused with humour, although they have very much in common. Humour
always causes laughter. What is funny must come as a sudden clash of the positive and the
negative. In this respect irony can be likened to humour. But the function of irony is not confined
to producing a humorous effect. In a sentence like "How clever of you!" where, due to the
intonation pattern, the word 'clever' conveys a sense opposite to its literal signification, the irony
does not | cause a ludicrous effect. It rather expresses a feeling of irritation, displeasure, pity or
regret. A word used ironically may sometimes express very subtle, almost imperceptible nuances
of meaning, as the word] "like" in the following lines from "Beppo" by Byron.
XLVII
I like a parliamentary debate, Particularly when 'tis not too late.
XLVIII
I like the taxes, when they're not too many;
I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear; I like a beef-steak, too, as well as any;
Have no objection to a pot of beer; I like the weather, when it is not rainy,
That is I like two months of every year. And so God save the Regent, Church and King! Which
means that I like all and everything.
In the first line the word 'like' gives only a slight hint of irony. Parliamentary debates are usually
long. The word 'debate' itself suggests a lengthy discussion, therefore the word 'like' here should
be aken with some reservation. In other words, a hint of the interplay between positive and
negative begins with the first 'like'.
The second use of the word 'like' is definitely ironical. No one would be expected to like taxes. It
is so obvious that" no context is necessary to decode the true meaning of 'like'. The attributive
phrase 'when they're not too many' strengthens the irony.
Then Byron uses the word 'like' in its literal meaning. 'Like' in combinations with 'seacoal fire'
and 'a beef-steak' and with 'two months of every year' maintains its literal meaning, although in
the phrase "I like the weather" the notion is very general. But the last line again shows that the
word 'like' is used with an ironic touch, meaning 'to like' and 'to put up with' simultaneously.
Richard Altick says, "The effect of irony lies in the striking disparity between what is said and
what is meant." This "striking disparity" is achieved through the intentional interplay of the two
meanings, which are in opposition to each other.
Another important observation must be borne in mind when analysing the linguistic nature of
irony. Irony is generally used to convey a negative meaning, Therefore only positive concepts
may be used in their logical dictionary meanings. In the examples quoted above, irony is
embodied in such words as 'delightful', 'clever', 'coherent', 'like'. The contextual meaning always
conveys the negation of the positive concepts embodied in the dictionary meaning.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.
5. . . . . ., 1952, . 8.
6. See F. L. Lucas. Style. London. 1962.

Lecture #6

Lexical EMs and SDs:

1. Zeugma and Pun.
2.Epithet and Oxymoron.
3.Antonomasia.
Polysemy
Derivative logical meanings have a peculiar property, viz. they always retain some
semantic ties with the primary meaning and are strongly associated with it. Most of the
derivative logical meanings, when fixed in dictionaries, are usually shown with the words they
are connected with and are therefore frequently referred to as b n d logical meanings. The
primary and derivative meanings are sometimes called free and bound meanings respectively,
though some of the derivative meanings are not bound in present-day English.
Polysemy is a generic term the use of which must be confined to lexicology as an aspect of the
science of language. In actual speech polysemy vanishes unless it is deliberately retained for
certain stylistic purposes. A context that does not seek to produce any particular stylistic effect
generally materializes one definite meaning. That is why we state that polysemy vanishes in
speech, or language -in -action.
Let us analyse the following examples where the key-words are intentionally made to reveal two
or more meanings:
"Then hate me if thou wilt, if ever now." (Shakespeare)
The verb 'hate' here materializes several meanings. This becomes apparent when one reads
sonnet 90 to the end and compares the meaning of this word with other verbs used
synonymously. The principal meanings of this word are: 'dislike', 'stop loving', 'become indifferent to', feel aversion for', etc.
Another example:
"Massachusetts was hostile to the American flag, and she would not allow it to be hoisted on her
State House."
The word 'flag' is used in its primary meaning when it appears in combination with the verb 'to
hoist' and in its derivative (or contextual) meaning in the combination 'was hostile to.'
Zeugma and Pun
There are special stylistic devices which make a word materialize two distinct dictionary
meanings. They are z e g m a and the pun.
Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two
adjacent words in the context, the semantic relations being on the one hand literal, and on the
other, transferred.
"Dora, plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room". (B. Shaw)
'To plunge' (into the middle of the room) materializes the meaning 'to rush into' or 'enter
impetuously'. Here it is used m its concrete, primary, literal meaning; in 'to plunge into privileged
intimacy' the word 'plunge' is used in its transferred meaning.
The same can be said of the use of the verbs 'to stain' and 'to lose' in the following lines from
Pope's "The Rape of the Lock":
"...Whether the Nymph Shall stain her Honour or her new Brocade Or lose her Heart or
necklace at a Ball."
This stylistic device is particularly favoured in English emotive prose and in poetry. The
revival of the original meanings of words must be regarded as an essential quality of any work in
the belles-lettres style. A good writer always keeps the chief meanings of words from fading
away, provided the meanings are worth being kept fresh and vigorous.
Zeugma is a strong and effective device to maintain the purity of the primary meaning when the
two meanings clash. By making the two meanings conspicuous in this particular way, each of
them stands out clearly. The structure of zeugma may present variations from the patterns given
above. Thus in the sentence:
"...And May's mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot's mother never stood on anything
but her active little feet.'" (Dickens)

The word 'stood' is used twice. This structural variant of zeugma, though producing some slight
difference in meaning, does not violate the principle of the stylistic device. It still makes the
reader realize that the two meanings of the word 'stand' are simultaneously expressed, one literal
and the other transferred.
The p n another stylistic device based on the interaction of two well-known meanings
of a word or phrase. It is difficult to draw a hard and fast distinction between zeugma and the
pun. The only reliable distinguishing feature is a structural one: zeugma is the realization of two
meanings with the help of a verb which is made to refer, to different subjects or objects (direct or
indirect). The pun is more independent. There need not necessarily be a word in the sentence to
which the pun-word refers. This does not mean, however, that the pun is entirely free. Like any
other stylistic device, it must depend on a context. But the context may be of a more expanded
character, sometimes even as large as a whole work of emotive prose. Thus the title of one of
Oscar Wilde's plays, "The Importance of Being Earnest" has a pun in it, inasmuch as the name of
the hero and the adjective meaning 'seriously-minded' are both present in our mind.
Here is another example of a pun where a larger context for its realization is used:
" to the board," said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or three tears that were
lingering in his eyes; and seeing no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that.' (Dickens)
In fact the humorous effect is caused by the interplay, not of two meanings of one word, but of
two words. 'Board' as a group of officials with functions of administration and management and
'board' as a piece of furniture (a table) have become two distinct words.
Devices of simultaneously realizing the various meanings of words, which are of a more subtle
character than those embodied in puns and zeugma, are to be found in poetry and poetical
descriptions and in speculations in emotive prose. Men-of-letters are especially sensitive to the
nuances of meaning embodied in almost every common word, and to make these words live with
their multifarious semantic aspects is the task of a good writer. Those who can do it easily are
said to have talent.
In this respect it is worth subjecting to stylistic analysis words ordinarily perceived in
their primary meaning, but which in poetic diction begin to acquire some additional, contextual
meaning. This latter meaning sometimes overshadows the primary meaning and it may, in the
course of time, cease to denote the primary meaning, the derived meaning establishing itself as
the most recognizable one. But to deal with these cases means to leave the domain of stylistics
and find ourselves in the domain of lexicology.
To illustrate the interplay of primary and contextual meanings, let us take a few examples from
poetical works:
In Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" the poet, taking
delight in watching the snow fall on the woods, concludes his poem in the following words:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I
sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."
The word 'promises' here is made to signify two concepts, viz., 1) a previous engagement to be
fulfilled and 2) moral or legal obligation.
The plural form of the word as well as the whole context of the poem are convincing proof that
the second of the two meanings is the main one, in spite of the fact that in combination with the
verb 'to keep' (to keep a promise) the first meaning is more predictable.
Here is another example.
1 We shall here disregard the difference between polysemy and homonymy, it being irrelevant,
more or less, for stylistic purposes.
In Shakespearian sonnet 29 there are the following lines:
"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And think upon myself and curse my fate."

Almost every word here may be interpreted in different senses: sometimes the differences
are hardly perceptible, sometimes they are obviously antagonistic to the primary meaning.
But we shall confine our analysis only to the meaning of the word 'cries' which signifies both
prayer and lamentation. These two meanings are suggested by the relation of the word 'cries' to
'trouble deaf heaven'. But the word 'cries' suggests not only prayer, it also implies violent prayer
as if in deep despair, almost with tears (see the word 'beweep' in the second line of the part of the
sonnet quoted).
It is very important to be able to follow the author's intention from his manner of
expressing nuances of meaning which are potentially present in the semantic structure of existing
words. Those who fail to define the suggested meanings of poetic words will never understand
poetry because they are unable to decode the poetic language.
In various functional styles of language the capacity of a word to, signify several meanings
simultaneously manifests itself in different degrees. In scientific prose it almost equals zero. In
poetic style this is an essential property.
To observe the fluctuations of meanings in the belles-lettres style is not only important for a
better understanding of the purpose or intention of the writer, but also profitable to a linguistic
scholar engaged in the study of semantic changes in words.
The Epithet
From the strongest means of displaying the writer's or speaker's emotional attitude to his
communication, we now pass to a weaker but still forceful means the epithet. The epithet is
subtle and delicate in character. It is not so direct as the interjection. Some people even consider
that it can create an atmosphere of objective evaluation, whereas it actually conveys the
subjective attitude of the writer, showing that he is partial in one way or another.
The epithet is a stylistic device 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, and frequently imposing on him, some of the properties or features of the object with the aim of giving
an individual perception and evaluation of these features or properties. The epithet is markedly
subjective and evaluative. The logical attribute is purely objective, non-evaluating. It is
descriptive and indicates an inherent or prominent feature of the thing or phenomenon in
question.
Thus in green meadows, white snow, round table, blue skies, pale complexion, lofty
mountains and the like, the adjectives are more logical attributes than epithets. They indicate
those qualities of the objects which may be regarded as generally recognized. But in wild wind,
loud ocean, remorseless dash of billows, formidable waves, heartburning smile, the adjectives do
not point to inherent qualities of the objects described. They are subjectively evaluative.
The epithet makes a strong impact on the reader, so much so, that the reader unwittingly begins
to see and evaluate things as the writer wants him to. Indeed, in such word combinations as
destructive charms, glorious sight, encouraging smile, the interrelation between logical and
emotive meanings may be said to manifest itself in different degrees. The word destructive has
retained its logical meaning to a considerable extent, but at the same time an experienced reader
cannot help perceiving the emotive meaning of the word which in this combination will signify
conquering, irresistible, dangerous. The logical meaning of the word glorious in combination
with the word sight has almost entirely faded out. Glorious is already fixed in dictionaries as a
word having an emotive meaning alongside its primary, logical meaning. As to the word
encouraging (in the combination encouraging smile) ''it is half epithet and half logical attribute.
In fact, it is sometimes difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between epithet and logical
attribute. In some passages the logical attribute becomes so strongly enveloped in the emotional
aspect of the utterance that it begins to radiate emotiveness, though by nature it is logically
descriptive. Take for example, the adjectives green, white, blue, lofty (but somehow not round) in
the combinations given above. In a suitable context they may all have a definite emotional

impact on the reader. This is probably explained by the fact that the quality most characteristic of
the given object is attached to it, thus strengthening the quality.
Epithets may be classified from different standpoints: s e m a n-t i and structural.
Semantically,epithets may be divided into two groups: those associated with the noun following
and those unassociated with it.
Associated epithets are those which point to a feature which is essential to the objects
they describe: the idea expressed in the epithet is to a certain extent inherent in the concept of the
object. The associated epithet immediately refers the mind to the concept in question due to some
actual quality of the object it is attached to, for instance 'dark forest, dreary midnight, 'careful
attention', 'unwearying research', 'indefatigable assiduity', 'fantastic terrors', etc.
Unassociated epithets are attributes used to characterize the object by adding a feature not
inherent in it, i. e, a feature which may be so unexpected as to strike the reader by its novelty, as
for instance, heart-burning smile, 'bootless cries', 'sullen earth', 'voiceless sands', etc. The
adjectives here do not indicate any property inherent in the objects in question. They impose, as
it were, a property on them which is fitting only in the given circumstances. It may seem strange,
unusual, or even accidental.
In any combination of words it is very important to observe to what degree the
components of the combination are linked. When they are so closely linked that the component
parts become inseparable, we note that we are dealing with a set expression. When the link between the component parts is comparatively close, we say there is a stable word combination,
and when we can substitute any word of the same grammatical category for the one given, we
note what is called a free combination of words.
With regard to epithets, this division becomes of paramount importance, inasmuch as the
epithet is a powerful means for making the desired impact on the reader, and therefore its ties
with the noun are generally contextual. However there are combinations in which the ties
between the attribute and the noun defined are very close, and the whole combination is viewed
as a linguistic entity. Combinations of this type appear as a result of the frequent use of certain
definite epithets with definite nouns. They become stable word combinations. Examples are:
'bright face', valuable connections', 'sweet smile', 'unearthly beauty', 'pitch darkness', 'thirsty
deserts', 'deep feeling', 'classic example', 'powerful influence', 'sweet perfume' and the like. The
predictability of such epithets is very great.
The function of epithets of this kind remains basically the same: to show the evaluating,
subjective attitude of the writer towards the thing described. But for this purpose the author does
not create his own, new, unexpected epithets; he uses ones that have become traditional, and may
be termed "language epithets" as they belong to the language-as-a-system. Thus epithets may be
divided into language e p i t h e t s and speech epithets. Examples of speech epithets are: 'slavish
knees', 'sleepless bay.'
The process of strengthening the connection between the epithet and the noun may
sometimes go so far as to build a specific unit which does not lose its poetic flavour. Such
epithets are called fixed and are mostly used in ballads and folk songs. Here are some examples
of fixed epithets: 'true love', 'dark forest', 'sweet Sir', 'green wood', 'good ship', 'brave cavaliers'.
Structurally, epithets can be viewed from the angle of a) composition and b) distribution.
From the point of view of their m p s i t i n a I structure epithets may be divided into
simple, compound and phrase epithets. Simple epithets are ordinary adjectives. Examples have
been given above. Compound epithets are built like compound adjectives. Examples are:
'heart-burning sigh', 'sylph-like figures', 'cloud-shapen giant, "...curly-headed good-for-nothing.
And mtsc/iie/-ma^mg monkey from his birth." (Byron) The tendency to cram into one language
unit as much information as possible has led to new compositional models for epithets which we
shall call ph rase epithets.A phrase and even a whole sentence may become an epithet if the
main formal requirement of the epithet is maintained, viz. its attributive use. But unlike simple
and compound epithets, which may have pre- or post-position, phrase epithets are always placed
before the nouns they refer to.

An interesting observation in this respect has been made by Prof. O. S. Akhmanova. "The
syntactical combinations are, as it were, more explicit, descriptive, elaborate; the lexical are
more of an indication, a hint or a clue to some previously communicated or generally known
fact, as if one should say: 'You know what I mean and all I have to do now is to point it out to
you in this concise and familiar way'." i
This inner semantic quality of the attributive relations in lexical combinations, as they are called
by Prof. Akhmanova, is perhaps most striking in the phrase and sentence epithets. Here the
'concise way' is most effectively used.
Here are some examples of phrase epithets:
"It is this do-it-yourself, go-it-alone attitude that has thus far held back real development of the
Middle East's river resources." (^. Y. T. Magazine, 19 Oct., 1958.)
"Personally I detest her (Gioconda's) smug, mystery-making, come-hither but-go-away-againbecause-butter-wouldnt-melt-in-my-mouth expression [New Statesman and Nation, Jan. 5,
1957). "There is a sort of 'Oh-what a-wicked-world-this-is-and-how-I-wish-I-could-dosomething-to-make-it-better-and-nobler' expression about Montmorency that has been known
to bring the] tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gentlemen." (Jerome] K. Jerome, "Three
Men in a Boat".)
"Freddie was standing in front of the fireplace with a 'well-that's-the-story-what-are-we-goingto-do~about-it' air that made him a focal point." (Leslie Ford, "Siren in the Night".) An
interesting structural detail of phrase epithets is that they are generally followed by the
words.expression, air, attitude and others! which describe behaviour or facial expression. In other
words, such! epithets seem to transcribe into language symbols a communication! usually
conveyed by non-linguistic means.
Another structural feature of such phrase epithets is that after the! nouns they refer to,
there often comes a subordinate attributive clause beginning with that. This attributive clause, as
it were, serves the purpose of decoding the effect of the communication.,It must be noted that
phrase epithets are always hyphenated, thus pointing to the temporary structure of the compound
word.
These two structural features have predetermined the functioning of phrase epithets. Practically
any phrase or sentence which deals with the psychological state of a person may serve as an
epithet. The phrases and sentences transformed into epithets lose their independence and assume
a new quality which is revealed both in the intonation pattern (that of an attribute) and
graphically (by being hyphenated).
Another structural variety of the epithet is the one which we shall term reversed. The
reversed epithet is composed of two nouns linked in an o/-phrase. The subjective, evaluating,
emotional element is embodied not in the noun attribute but in the noun described, for example:
"the shadow of a smile"; "a devil of a job" (Maugham); "...he smiled brightly, neatly, efficiently,
a military abbreviation of a smile" (Graham Green); "A devil of a sea rolls in that bay" (Byron);
"A little Flying Dutchman of a cab" (Galsworthy); "a dog of a fellow" (Dickens); "her brute of a
brother" (Galsworthy); "...a long nightshirt of a mackintosh..." (Cronin)
It will be observed that such epithets are metaphorical. The noun to be assessed is contained in
the o/-phrase and the noun it qualifies is a metaphor {shadow, devil, military abbreviation,
Flying Dutchman, dog). The grammatical aspect, viz. attributive relation between the members
of the combination shows that the SD here is an epithet.
It has been acknowledged that it is sometimes difficult to draw a line of demarcation
between attributive and predicative relations. Some attributes carry so much information that
they may justly be considered bearers of predicativeness. This is particularly true of the epithet,
especially genuine or speech epithets, which belong to language-in-action and not to languageas-a-system. These epithets are predicative in essence, though not in form.
On the other hand, some word combinations where we have predicative relations, convey so
strongly the emotional assessment of the object spoken of, that in spite of their formal, structural
design, the predicatives can be classed as epithets. Here are some examples:

Fools that they are'; 'Wicked as he is.' The inverted position of the predicatives 'fools' and
'wicked' as well as the intensifying 'that they are' and 'as he is' mark this borderline variety of
epithet.
Some language epithets, in spite of opposition on the part of orthodox language purists,
establish themselves in standard English as conventional symbols of assessment for a given
period. To these belong words we have already spoken of like terrible, awful, massive, top,
mighty, crucial (See p. 93).
From the point of view of the distribution of the epithets in the sentence, the first model to be
pointed out is the string of epithets. Here area few examples. In his depiction of New York, O.
Henry gives the following string of epithets:
"Such was the background of the wonderful ,cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city;"
Other examples are: a plump, rosy-cheeked, wholesome apple-faced young woman (Dickens); "a
well-matched, fairly-balanced give-and-take couple." (Dickens)
As in any enumeration the string of epithets gives a many-sided
Diction of the object. But in this many-sidedness there is always a suggestion of an ascending
order of emotive elements. This can easily be observed in the intonation pattern of a string of
epithets. There is generally an ascending scale which culminates in the last epithet; if the last
epithet is a language epithet (great), or not an epithet (young), the culminating point is the last
genuine epithet. The culminating point in the above examples is at fatal, apple-faced, and giveand-take.
Another distributional model is the transferred epithet. Transferred epithets are ordinary
logical attributes generally describing the state of a human being, but made to refer to an inanimate object, for example: sick chamber, sleepless pillow, restless pace, breathless eagerness,
unbreakfasted morning, merry hours, a disapproving finger, Isabel shrugged an indifferent
shoulder.
As may be seen, it is the force contributed to the attribute by its position, and not by its meaning,
that hallows it into an epithet. The main feature of the epithet, that of emotional assessment, is
greatly diminished in this model; but it never quite vanishes. The meaning of the logical
attributes in such combinations acquires a definite emotional colouring.
.
Language epithets as part of the emotional word stock of the language have a tendency to
become obsolescent. That is the fate of many emotional elements in the language. They
gradually lose their emotive charge and are replaced by new ones which in their turn will be
replaced by neologisms. Such was the fate of the language epithet good-natured. In the works of
Henry Fielding this epithet appears very often, as for example, 'a good-natured hole', 'goodnatured side'. The words vast and vastly were also used as epithets in the works of men-of-letters
of the 18th century, as in vast rains, vastly amused.
The problem of the epithet is too large and too significant to be fully dealt with in a short chapter.
Indeed, it may be regarded as the crucial problem in emotive language and correspondingly
among the stylistic devices of the language.
It remains only to say that the epithet is a direct and straightforward way of showing the
author's attitude towards the things described, whereas other stylistic devices, even imagebearing ones, will reveal the author's evaluation of the object only indirectly. That is probably
why those authors who wish to show a seeming impartiality and objectivity in depicting their
heroes and describing events use few epithets. Realistic authors use epithets much more
sparingly, as statistical data have shown. Roughly speaking, Romanticism on the other hand may
to some extent be characterized by its abundant use of epithets. In illustration we have taken at
random a few lines from a stanza in Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage":
The horrid crags, by toppling convent, crowned.
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,
The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrown'd.
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough...

Oxymoron
Oxymoron is a combination of two words (mostly an adjective and a noun or an adverb
with an adjective) in which the meanings of the two clash, being opposite in sense, for example:
'low skyscraper', 'sweet sorrow', 'nice rascal', 'pleasantly ugly face', 'horribly beautiful', 'a
deafening silence from Whitehall' {The Morning Star). If the primary meaning of the qualifying
word changes or weakens, the stylistic effect of oxymoron is lost. This is the case with what were
once oxymoronic combinations, as for example: 'awfully nice, 'awfully glad', 'terribly sorry' and
the like, where the words awfully and terribly have lost their primary logical meaning and are
now used with emotive meaning, only as intensifiers. The essence of oxymoron consists in the
capacity of the primary meaning of the adjective or adverb to resist for some time the
overwhelming power of semantic change which words undergo in combination. The forcible
combination of non-combinative words seems to develop what may be called a kind of
centrifugal force which keeps them apart, in contrast to ordinary word combinations where
centripetal force is in action.
We have already pointed out that there are different ratios of emotive-logical relations in
epithets. In some of them the logical meaning is hardly perceived, in others the two meanings coexist. In oxymoron the logical meaning holds fast because there is no true word combination,
only the juxtaposition of two non-combinative words.
But still we may notice a peculiar change in the meaning of the qualifying word. It assumes a
new life in oxymoron, definitely indicative of the assessing tendency in the writer's mind.
Let us take the following example from O. Henry's story "The Duel" in which one of the heroes
thus describes his attitude towards New York.
'I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the
haughtiest beggars, the plainest beauties, ihe lowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest pleasures of any
town I ever saw."
Even the superlative degree of the adjectives fails to extinguish the primary meaning of
the adjectives: poor, little, haughty, etc. But by some inner law of word combinations they also
show the attitude of the speaker, reinforced, of course, by the preceding sentence: "I despise its
very vastness and power."
It will not come amiss to, express this language phenomenon in terms of the theory of
information, which states that though the general tendency of entropy (the measure of the nonorganized, also the measure of probability) is to enlarge, the encoding tendency in the language,
which strives for an organized system of language symbols reduces entropy. Perhaps this is due
to the organizing spirit of the language, i. e. the striving after a system (which in its very essence
is an organized whole) that oxymoronic groups, if repeated frequently, lose their stylistic quality
and gradually fall into the group of acknowledged word combinations which consists of an
intensifier and the concept intensified.
Oxymoron as a rule has one structural model: adjective^ noun. It is in this structural
model that the resistance of the two component parts to fusion into one unit manifests itself most
strongly. In the adverb -{-adjective model the change of meaning in the first element, the adverb,
is more rapid, resistance to the unifying process not being so strong.
Sometimes the tendency to use oxymoron is the mark of certain literary trends and tastes.
There are poets in search of new shades of meaning in existing words, who make a point of
joining together words of contradictory meaning. "Two ordinary words may become almost
new," writes V. V. Vinogradov, "if they are joined for the first time or used in an unexpected
context." i
Thus 'peopled desert'; 'populous solitude'; 'proud humility' (Byron) are oxymoronic.
Sometimes, however, the tendency to combine the uncombinative is revealed in structurally
different forms, not in adjective-noun models. Gorki criticizes his own sentence: "I suffered then
from the fanaticism of knowledge," and calls it "a blunder". He points out that the acquiring of
knowledge is not blind as fanaticism' is. The syntactic relations here are not oxymoronic. But

combinations of this kind can be likened to oxymoron. The same can be said of the following
lines from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage:
"Fair Greece! sad relic of departed Worth! Immortal, though no more, though fallen, great!"
Oxymoronic relations in the italicized part can scarcely be felt, but still the contrary
signification is clearly perceived. Such structures may be looked upon as intermediate between
oxymoron and antithesis
Not every combination of words which we have called non-combinative should be
regarded as oxymoron, because new meanings developed in new combinations do not
necessarily give rise to opposition. They are not infrequently just obscure. Let us take for
example the following lines from T. S. Eliot's "The Love-song of Alfred Prufrock."
"And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time
for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions. And for a hundred visions and
revisions. Before the taking of a toast and tea."
Perhaps some readers will find new meanings infused into these common words "hands that lift
and drop a question on your plate," but to express them in linguistic terms is so far impossible
and probably unnecessary.
INTERACTION OF LOGICAL AND NOMINAL MEANINGS
Antonomasia
We have already pointed out the peculiarities of nominal meaning. The interplay between
logical and nominal meanings of a word is called antonomasia. As in other stylistic devices
based on the interaction of lexical meanings, the two kinds of meanings must be realized in the
word simultaneously. If only one meaning is materialized in the context there is no stylistic
device as in hooligan, boycott and other examples given earlier. Here are some examples of
genuine antonomasia.
"Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there are some, the reader
scarcely need be told, of character and credit. From personal intercourse with accomplished
gentlemen connected with publications of this class, I have derived both pleasure and profit. But
the name of these is Few, and of the other Legion, and the influence of the good is powerless to
counteract the mortal poison of the bad. (Dickens).
The use of the word 'name' made the author write the words 'Few' and 'Legion' with capital
letters. It is very important to note that this device is mainly realized in the written language,
because sometimes capital letters are the only signals to denote the presence of the stylistic
device. The same can also be observed in the following example from Byron's "Don Juan":
"Society is now one polished horde,
Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored."
In these two examples of the use of antonomasia the nominal meaning is hardly
perceived, the logical meaning of the words few, legion, bores, bored being too strong. But there
is another point that should be mentioned. Most proper names are built on some law of analogy.
Many of them end in -son (as Johnson) or -er {Fletcher). We easily recognize such words as
Smith, White, Brown, Green, Fowler and others as proper names. But such names as Miss BlueEyes (Carter Brown) or Scrooge or Mr. Zero may be called token or tell-tale names. They give
information to the reader about the bearer of the name. In this connection it is interesting to
recall the well-known remark by Karl Marx, who said that we do not know anything about a man
if we only know that he is called Jacob. The nominal meaning is not intended to give any
information about the person. It only serves the purpose of identification. Proper names, i. ., the
words with nominal meaning can etymologically, in the majority of cases, be traced to some
quality, property or trait of a person, or to his occupation. But this etymological meaning may be
forgotten and the word be understood as a proper name and nothing else. It is not so with
antonomasia (telltale or token names). Antonomasia is intended to point out the leading.
Most characteristic feature of a person or event, at the same time pinning this leading trait
as a proper name to the person or event concerned. In fact antonomasia is a revival of the initial

stage in naming individuals. Antonomasia may be likened to the epithet in essence if not in form.
It categorizes the person and thus simultaneously indicates both the general and the particular.
Antonomasia is a much favoured device in the belles-lettres style. In an article "What's in a
name?", Mr. R. Davis says: "In deciding on names for his characters, an author has an unfair
advantage over other parents. He knows so much better how his child will turn out. When Saul
Bellow named Augie March, he had already conceived a hero restlessly on the move, marching
ahead with august ideas of himself. Henry James saw in Adam Verver of "The Golden Bowl" a
self-made American, sprung from the soil, full of verve and zest for life. In choosing names like
'Murdstone', 'Scrooge', and 'Gradgrind', Dickens was being even more obvious."
In Russian literature this device is employed by many of our classic writers. It will suffice to
mention such names as Vralman, Molcha-liti, Korobochka and Sobakevich to illustrate this
efficient device for characterizing literary heroes, a device which is now falling out of use. These
Russian names are also coined on the analogy of generally acknowledged models for proper
names, with endings in -man, -in, -vich. An interesting literary device to emphasize tell-tale
names is employed by Byron in his "Don Juan" where the name is followed or preceded by an
explanatory remark as in the following:
"Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drintier." "There was the sage Miss Reading." "And the
two fair co-heiresses Giitlxdding." "There was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician,
Who loved philosophy and a good dinner; Angle, the soi-disant mathematician;
Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner."
The explanatory words, as it were, revive the logical meaning of the proper names thus making
more apparent the interplay of logical and nominal meanings.
The use of antonomasia is now not confined to the belles-lettres style. It is often found in
publicistic style, that is in magazine and newspaper articles, in essays and also in military
language. The following are examples:.
"I say this to our American friends. Mr. Facing-Both-Ways does not get very far in this world."
{The Times, March 1, 1956)
"I suspect that the Noes and Don't Knows would far outnumber the Yesses." {The Spectator, Feb.
17, 1959)
So far we have dealt with a variety of antonomasia in which common words with obvious
logical meaning are given nominal meaning without losing their primary, basic significance. But
antonomasia can also make a word which now has a basic nominal meaning acquire j a generic
signification, thus supplying the word with an additional logical meaning. The latter can only be
deciphered if the events connected with a certain place mentioned or with a conspicuous feature
of a person are well known. Thus the word Dunkirk now means 'the evacuation of troops under
heavy bombardment before it is too late', Sedan means 'a complete defeat', Coventry 'the
destruction of a city by air raids', a quizling now means 'a traitor who aids occupying enemy
forces'.
The spelling of these words demonstrates the stages by which proper nouns acquire new,
logical meanings: some of them are still spelt with capital letters (geographical names); others
are already spelt with small letters showing that a new word with a primary logical meaning has
already come into existence.
This variety of antonomasia is not so widely used as a stylistic device, most probably due to the
nature of words with nominal meaning: they tell very little or even nothing about the bearer of
the name.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.
5. . . . . ., 1952, . 8.

6.

See F. L. Lucas. Style. London. 1962

Lecture #7
Lexical EMs and SDs:
1.Intensification of a certain feature of thing or phenomenon
2.Simile
3.Trile and genuine devices.
4.Periphrasis and euphemism.
5.Hyperbole.
6.Peculiar use of set expressions.
7.The clich.
8.Proverbs and sayings.
9.Quotations.
10.Allusions.
11.Decomposition of set phrases.
INTENSIFICATION OF A CERTAIN FEATURE OF A THING OR PHENOMENON
In the third group of stylistic devices, which we now come to, we find that one of the qualities of
the object in question is made to sound essential. This is an entirely different principle from that
on which the second group is based, that of interaction between two lexical meanings
simultaneously materialized in the context. In this third group the quality picked out may be
seemingly unimportant, and it is frequently transitory, but for a special reason it is elevated to the
greatest importance and made into a telling feature.
Simile
Things are best of all learned by simile. V. G. Belinsky
The intensification of some feature of the concept in question is realized in a device
called simile. Ordinary comparison and simile must not be confused. They represent two diverse
processes. Comparison means weighing two objects belonging to one class of things with the
purpose of establishing the degree of their sameness or difference. To use a simile is to
characterize one object by bringing it into contact with another object belonging to an entirely
different class of things. Comparison takes into consideration all the properties of the two
objects, stressing the one that is compared. Simile excludes ^1 the properties of the two objects
except one which is made common to them. For example, 'The boy seems to be as clever as his
mother' is ordinary comparison. 'Boy' and 'mother' belong to the same class of objects human
beings and only one quality is being stressed to find the resemblance. But in the sentence:
'''Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare," (Byron), we have a simile. 'Maidens' and
'moths' belong to heterogeneous classes of objects and Byron has found the concept moth to
indicate one of the secondary features of the concept maiden, i. ., to be easily lured. Of the two
concepts brought together in the simile one characterized {maidens), and the other
characterizing {moths) the feature intensified will be more inherent in the latter than in the
former. Moreover the object characterized is seen in quite a new and unexpected light, because
the writer, as it were, imposes this feature on it.
Similes forcibly set one object against another regardless of the fact that they may be
completely alien to each other. And without our being aware of it, the simile gives rise to a new
understanding of the object characterizing as well as of the object characterized.
The properties of an object may be viewed from different angles, for example, its state, its
actions, manners, etc. Accordingly, similes may be based on adjective-attributes, adverbmodifiers, verb-predicates, etc.
Similes have formal elements in their structure: connective words such as like, as, such
as, as if, seem. Here are some examples of similes taken from various sources and illustrating the
variety of structural designs of this stylistic device.

"His mind was restless, but it worked perversely and thoughts jerked through hls brain like the
misfirings of a defective carburettor." (Maugham)
The structure of this simile is interesting, for it is sustained. Let us analyse it. The word
'jerked' in the microcontext, i. ., in combination with 'thoughts' is a metaphor, which led to the
simile 'like the misfirings of a defective carburettor' where the verb to jerk carries its direct
logical meaning. So the linking notion is the movement jerking which brings to the author's mind
a resemblance between the working of the man's brain and the badly working, i.e., misfiring
carburettor. In other words, it is action that is described by means of a simile. Another example:
"It was that moment of the year when the countryside seems to faint from its own loveliness,
from the intoxication of its scents and sounds." (J. Galsworthy)
This is an example of a simile which is half a metaphor. If not for the structural word
'seems', we would call it a metaphor. Indeed, if we drop the word 'seems' and say, "the
countryside faints from...," the clue-word 'faint' becomes a metaphor. But the word 'seems' keeps
apart the notions of stilln&ss and fainting. It is a simile where the second member the human
being is only suggested by the word faint.
The semantic nature of the simile-forming elements seem and as if is such that they only
remotely suggest resemblance. Quite different are the connectives like and as. These are more
categorical and establish quite straightforwardly the analogy between the two objects in question.
Sometimes the simile-forming tike is placed at the end of the phrase almost merging with it and
becoming half suffix, for example:
"Emily Barton was very pink, very Dresden-china-shepherdess like."
In simple non-figurative language, it will assume the following form:
"Emily Barton was very pink, and looked like a Dresden-china-shepherdess."
Similes may suggest analogies in the character of actions performed. In this case the two
members of the structural design of the simile will resemble each other through the actions they
perform. Thus:
"The Liberals have plunged for entry without considering its effects, while the Labour
leaders like cautious bathers have put a timorous toe into the water and promptly withdrawn it."
The simile in this passage from a newspaper article 'like cautious bathers' is based on the
simultaneous realization of the two meanings of the word 'plunged'. The primary meaning 'to
throw oneself into the water'^ prompted the figurative periphrasis 'have put a timorous toe into
the water and promptly withdrawn it' standing for 'have abstained from taking action.' ^_,
In the English language there is a long list of hackneyed similes pointing out the analogy
between the various qualities, states or actions of a human being and the animals supposed to be
the bearers of the given quality, etc, for example:
treacherous as a snake, sly as a fox, busy as a bee, industrious as an ant, blind as a bat,
faithful as a dog, to work like a horse, to be led like a sheep, to fly like a bird, to swim like a
duck, stubborn as a mule, hungry as a bear, thirsty as a camel, to act like a puppy, playful as a
kitten, vain {^proud') as a peacock, slow as a tortoise and many others of the same type.
These combinations, however, have ceased to be genuine similes and have become cliches (See
p. 175) in which the second component has become merely an adverbial intensifier. Its logical
meaning is only vaguely perceived.
Periphrasis
Periphrasis is the re-naming of an object by a phrase that brings out some particular
feature of the object. The essence of the device is that it is decipherable only in context. If a
periphrastic locution is understandable outside the context, it is not a stylistic device but merely a
synonymous expression. Such easily decipherable periphrases are also called traditional,
dictionary or language periphrases. The others are speech periphrases. Here are some examples
of well-known dictionary periphrases (periphrastic synonyms):
the cap and gown ('student body'); a gentleman of the long robe ('a lawyer'); the fair sex
('women'); my better half ('my wife').

Most periphrastic synonyms are strongly associated with the sphere of their application
and the epoch they were used in. Feudalism, for example, gave birth to a cluster of periphrastic
synonyms of the word king, as:
the leader of hosts; the giver of rings; the protector of earls; the victory lord; a play of swords
meant 'a battle'; a battle-seat was 'a saddle'; a shield-bearer was 'a warrior'.
'
Traditional, language or dictionary periphrases and the words they stand for are
synonyms by nature, the periphrasis being expressed by a word combination. Periphrasis as a
stylistic device is a new, genuine nomination of an object, a process which realizes the power of
language to coin new names for objects by disclosing some quality of the object, even though it
may be transitory, and making it alone represent the object, but at the same time preserving in the
mind the ordinary name of the concept. Here are some such stylistic periphrases:
"I understand you are poor, and wish to earn money by' nursing the little boy, my son, who has
been so prematurely deprived of what can never be replaced." (Dickens)
The object clause 'what, can never be replaced' is a periphrasis for the word mother. The
concept is easily understood by the reader within the given context, the latter being the only code
which makes the deciphering of the phrase possible. This is sufficiently proved by a simple
transformational operation, viz. taking the phrase out of its context. The meaning of 'what can
never be replaced' used independently will bear no reference to the concept mother and may be
interpreted in many ways. The periphrasis here expresses a very individual idea of the concept.
Here is another stylistic periphrasis which the last phrase in the | sentence deciphers:
"And Harold stands upon the place of skulls.
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo." (Byron)
In the following:
"The hoarse, dull drum would sleep.
And Man be happy yet." (Byron)the periphrasis can only be understood from a larger context,
referring | to the concept war. 'The hoarse, dull drum' is a metonymical periphrasis standing for
war.
In some cases periphrasis is regarded as a demerit and should have | no place in good,
precise writing. This kind of periphrasis is generally called circumlocution. Thus Richard Altick
states that one of the ways of obscuring truth "...is the use of circumlocutions and euphemisms."
A round-about way of speaking about common things has an unnecessarily bombastic, pompous
air and consequently is devoid of any! aesthetic value. That is why periphrasis has gained the
reputation of leading to redundancy of expression. Here is an example of the excessive use of
periphrasis by such an outstanding classic English writer as Dickens:
"The lamp-lighter made his nightly failure in attempting to brighten up the street with gas" (='lit the street lamps').
In spite of the danger of being called "blasphemer", I venture to state that Dickens
favoured redundant periphrastic expressions, seeing in them a powerful means to impose on his
readers his own assessment of events and people. Here is another of his periphrases:
"But an addition to the little party now made its appearance" (= 'another person came in').
In characterizing the individual manner of a bad writer, V. G. Belinsky says:
"One is particularly struck by the art he, displays in the use of periphrasis: one and the
same thought, simple and empty as, for example, 'wooden tables are made of wood', drags along
in a string of long sentences, periods, tropes and figures of speech; he turns it around and around,
extends it pages long and sprinkles it with punctuation marks. Everything is so flowery,
everywhere there is such an abundance of epithets and imagery that the inexperienced reader
marvels at these 'purple patches' of jewelled .prose, and his fascination vanishes only when he
puts a question to himself as to the content of the flamboyant article: for to his surprise in lieu of
any content he finds mere woolly phrases and fluffy self-conceit. This kind of writing often
appears in the West, particularly since the West began to rot; here in Russia where authorship has
not yet become a habit, such phenomena are hardly possible." i

The means supplied to enable the reader to decipher stylistic periphrasis are very subtle
and have aesthetic value. In the following example the word of address is the key to the
periphrasis:
"'Papa, love. am a mother. I have a child who will soon call Walter by the name by which I call
you." (Dickens)
In some cases the author relies entirely on the erudition of the reader to decipher the periphrasis.
Thus in the following example:
"Of his four sons, only two could be found sufficiently without the 'e' to go on making ploughs."
(Galsworthy)
The letter 'e' in some proper names is considered an indirect indication of noble or
supposed noble descent, cf. Moreton and Morton, Smythe and Smith, Browne and Brown, Wilde
(Oscar) and Wyld (Cecil). The italicized phrase is a roundabout way of stating that two of his
sons were unaristocratic enough to work at making ploughs.
Genuine poetical periphrasis sometimes depicts the effect without mentioning the cause,
gives particulars when having in view the general, points out one trait which will represent the
whole. Stylistic periphrasis, like almost all lexical stylistic means, must efficiently and intentionally introduce a dichotomy, in this case the dichotomy of two names for one object or
idea. If it fails to do so, there is no stylistic device, only a hackneyed phrase.
Periphrases, once original but now hackneyed, are often to be found in newspaper
language. Mr. J. Donald Adams, who has written a number of articles and books on the use of
English words in different contexts, says in one of his articles:
"We are all familiar with these examples of distended English, and I shall pause for only one,
quoted by Theodore M. Bernstein, who as assistant managing editor of this newspaper acts as
guardian over the English employed in its news columns. It appears in his recent book, "Watch
Your Language", and reads "Improved financial support and less onerous work loads." Translation (by Clifton Daniel): "High pay and less work."
Here is another example of a well-known, traditional periphrasis which has become established
as a periphrastic synonym:
"After only a short time of marriage, he wasn't prepared to offer advice to other youngsters
intending to tie the knot... But, he said, he's looking forward to having a family" (from a
newspaper article).
Here we have a periphrasis meaning to marry ('to tie the knot'). It has long been
hackneyed and may be called a cliche. The difference between a cliche and a periphrastic
synonym lies in the degree to which the periphrasis has lost its vigour. In cliches we still sense
the dichotomy of the original clash between the words forming a semantic unity; in periphrastic
synonyms the clash is no longer felt unless the synonyms are subjected to etymological analysis.
In such collocations as 'I am seeing things', or 'I'm hearing bells' we hardly ever perceive the
novelty of the phrases and are apt to understand them for what they stand for now in modern
colloquial English, i. e. to have hallucinations. Therefore these phrases must be recognized as
periphrastic colloquial synonyms of the concepts delirium or hallucinations.
Stylistic periphrasis can also be divided into logical, and figurative. Logical periphrasis is
based on one of the inherent properties or perhaps a passing feature of the object described, as in
instruments of destruction (Dickens) = 'pistols'; the most pardonable o-f human weaknesses
(Dickens) = 'love'; the object of his admiration (Dickens); that proportion of the population
which... is yet able to read words of more than one syllable, and to read them without
perceptible movement of the tips (D. Adams) = 'half-illiterate').
Figurative periphrasis is based either on metaphor or on metonymy, the key-word of the
collocation being the word used figuratively as in 'the punctual servant of all work' (Dickens) =
the sun; Hn disgrace with fortune and men's eyes' (Shakespeare) = misfortune; 'to tie the knot' =
to marry.

There is little difference between metaphor or metonymy on the one hand, and figurative
periphrasis on the other. It is the structural aspect of the periphrasis, which always presupposes a
word combination, that is the reason for the division.
Note this example of a string of figurative periphrases reinforced by the balanced constructions
they are moulded into:
"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." (Dickens)
Euphemism
There is a variety of periphrasis which we shall call euphemism.
Euphemism, as is known, is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression
by a conventionally more acceptable one, for example, the word 'to die' has bred the following
euphemisms: to pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to join the majority, and the more
facetious ones: to kick the bucket, to give up the ghost, to go west. So euphemisms are synonyms
which aim at producing a deliberately mild effect.
The origin of the term euphemism discloses the aim of the device very clearly, i. e.
speaking well (from Greek - eu = well pheme = speaking). In the vocabulary of any language,
synonyms can be found that soften an otherwise coarse or unpleasant idea. Euphemism is
sometimes figuratively called "a whitewashing device". The linguistic peculiarity of euphemism
lies in the fact that every euphemism must call up a definite synonym in the mind of the reader or
listener. This synonym, or dominant in a group of synonyms,, as it is often called, must follow
the euphemism like a shadow, as to possess a vivid imagination, or to tell stories in the proper
context will call up the unpleasant verb to lie. The euphemistic synonyms given above are part of
the lan-guage-as-a-system. They have not been freshly invented. They are expressive means of
the language and are to be found in all good dictionaries. They cannot be regarded as stylistic
devices because they do not call to mind the key-word or dominant of the group; in other words,
they refer the mind to the concept directly, not through the medium of another word. Compare
these euphemisms with the following from Dickens's Pickwick Papers:
"They think we have come by this horse in some dishonest manner." The italicized parts call
forth the word steal (have stolen it).
Euphemisms may be divided into several groups according to their spheres of application.
The most recognized are the following: 1) religious, 2) moral, 3) medical and 4) parliamentary.
The life of euphemisms is short. They very soon become closely associated with the referent (the
object named) and give way to a newly-coined word or combination of words, which, being the
sign of a sign, throws another veil over an unpleasant or indelicate concept. Here is an interesting
excerpt from an article on this subject.
"The evolution over the years of a civilized mental health service has been marked by
periodic changes in terminology. The madhouse became the lunatic asylum; the asylum made
way for the mental hospital even if the building remained the same. Idiots, imbeciles and the
feeble-minded became low, medium and high-grade mental defectives. All are now to be lumped
together as patients of severely subnormal personality. The insane became persons of unsound
mind, and are now to be men-' tally-ill patients. As each phrase develops the stigmata of popular
prejudice, it is abandoned in favour of another, sometimes less precise than the old. Unimportant
in themselves, these changes of name are the signposts of progress."
Albert Baugh gives another instance of such changes:
"...the common word for a woman's undergarment down to the eighteenth century was
'smock'. It was then replaced by the more delicate word 'shift'. In the nineteenth century the same
motive led to the substitution of the word 'chemise" and in the twentieth this has been replaced
by 'combinations', 'step-ins', and other euphemisms."
It is interesting to remark that shift has now become a name for 'a type of girl's or young
woman's outer garment', and smock is 'a little girl's dress', or 'an overgarment worn by artists'. '
Conventional euphemisms employed in conformity to social usages are best illustrated by the
parliamentary codes of expression. In an article headed "In Commons, a Lie is Inexactitude"

written by James Feron in The New York Times, we may find a number of words that are not to
be used in Parliamentary debate. "When Sir Winston Churchill, some years, ago," writes Feron,
"termed a parliamentary opponent a 'purveyor of terminological inexactitudes', every one in the
chamber knew he meant 'liar'. Sir Winston had been ordered by the Speaker to withdraw a
stronger epithet. So he used the euphemism, which became famous and is still used in the
Commons. It conveyed the insult without sounding offensive, and it satisfied the Speaker."
The author further points out that certain words, for instance traitor and coward, are
specifically banned in the House of Commons because earlier Speakers have ruled them
disorderly or unparliamentary. Speakers have decided that jackass is unparliamentary but goose
is acceptable; dog, rat and swine are out of order, but halfwit and Tory clot are in order.
We also learn from this article that "a word cannot become the subject of parliamentary ruling
unless a member directs the attention of the Speaker to it."^
The problem of euphemism as a linguistic device is directly connected with a more general
problem, that of semiotics. The changes in naming objects disclose the true nature of the
relations between words and their referents. We must admit that there is a positive magic in
words and, as Prof. Randolf Quirk has it,
"...we are liable to be dangerously misled through being mesmerized by a word or through
mistaking a word for its referent." ^
This becomes particularly noticeable in connection with what are called political euphemisms.
These are really understatements, the aim of which is to mislead public opinion and to express
what is unpleasant in a more delicate manner. Sometimes disagreeable facts are even distorted
with the help of a euphemistic expression. Thus the headline in one of the British newspapers
"Tension in Kashmir" was to hide the fact that there was a real uprising in that area; "Undernourishment of children in India" stood for starvation. In A. J. Cronin's novel 'The Stars look Down"
one of the members of Parliament, speaking of the word combination "Undernourishment of
children in India" says: "Honourable Members of the House understand the meaning of this
polite euphemism." By calling undernourishment a polite euphemism he discloses the true
meaning of the word.
An interesting article dealing with the question of "political euphemisms" appeared in
" " written by the Italian journalist Entzo Rava and headed "The Vocabulary
of the Bearers of the Burden of Power." In this article Entzo Rava wittily discusses the
euphemisms of the Italian capitalist press, which seem to have been borrowed from the American
and English press. Thus, for instance, he mockingly states that capitalists have disappeared from
Italy. When the adherents of capitalism find it necessary to mention capitalists, they replace the
word capitalist by the combination 'free enterprisers', the word profit is replaced by 'savings', the
building up of labour reserves stands for 'unemployment', dismissal {discharge, firing) of
workers is 'the reorganization of the enterprise', etc.
As has already been explained, genuine euphemism unavoidably calls up the word it
stands for. It is always the result of some deliberate clash between two synonyms. If a
euphemism fails to carry along with it the word it is intended to replace, it is not a euphemism,
but a deliberate veiling of the truth. All these building up of labour reserves, savings, free
enterprisers and the like are not intended to give the referent its true name, but to distort the
truth. The above expressions serve that purpose. Compare these word combinations with real euphemisms, like a four-letter word {= 'an obscenity'); or awoman of a certain type (='a prostitute,
a whore'); 'to glow' (='to sweat') all of which bring to our mind the other word (words) and only
through them the referent.
Here is another good example of euphemistic phrases used by Galsworthy in his "Silver
Spoon."
"In private I should merely call him a liar. In the Press you should use the words: 'Reckless
disregard for truth' and in Parliament that you regret he 'should have been so misinformed.' "

Periphrastic and euphemistic expressions were characteristic of certain literary trends and even
produced a term periphrastic style. But it soon gave way to a more straightforward way of describing things.
"The veiled forms of expression," writes G. H. McKnighl "which served when one was unwilling
to look facts in the face have been succeeded by naked expressions exhibiting reality." ^
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is deliberate overstatement or exaggeration, the aim of which is to intensify
one of the features of the object in question to such a degree as will show its utter absurdity. The
following is a good example of hyperbole:
"Those three words {Dombey and Son) conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey's life. The earth
was made for Dombey and Son to trade in and the sun and moon were made to give them light.
Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather;
winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits to preserve
inviolate a system of which they were the centre." (Dickens)
Another example which is not so absurd if subjected to logical analysis is this passage from
Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Annabel Lee."
"And this maiden she lived with no other thought : Than to love and be loved by me."
In order to depict the width of the river Dnieper Gogol uses the following hyperbole:
"It's a rare bird, that can fly to the middle of the Dnieper."
Like many stylistic devices, hyperbole may lose its quality as a stylistic device through frequent
repetition and become a unit of the language-as-a-system, reproduced in speech in its unaltered
form. Here are some examples of language hyperbole:
^ 'A thousand pardons'; 'scared to death', 'immensety obliged;' 'I'd give the world to see him.'
Byron says:
"When people say "I've told you fifty times" They mean to scold, and very often do."
Hyperbole differs from mere exaggeration in that it is intended to be understood as an
exaggeration. In this connection the following quotations deserve a passing note:
"Hyperbole is the result of a kind of intoxication by emotion, which prevents a person from
seeing things in their true dimensions... If the reader (listener) is not carried away by the emotion of the writer (speaker), hyperbole becomes a mere
lie.'
V. V. Vinogradov, developing Gorki's statement that "genuine art enjoys the right to exaggerate,"
states that hyperbole is the law of art which brings the existing phenomena of life, diffused as
they are, to the point of maximum clarity and conciseness. 2
Hyperbole is a device which sharpens the reader's ability to make a logical assessment of the
utterance. This is achieved, as is the case with other devices, by awakening the dichotomy of
thought and feeling where thought takes the upper hand though not to the detriment of feeling.
PECULIAR USE OF SET EXPRESSIONS
In language studies there are two very clearly-marked tendencies that the student should
never lose sight of, particularly when dealing with the problem of word combination. They are 1)
the a n a I y t i a I tendency, which seeks to dissever one component from! another and 2) t
h e synthetic tendency which seeks to integrate the parts of the combination into a stable
unit,
These two tendencies are treated in different ways in lexicology and stylistics. In
lexicology the parts of a stable lexical unit may be separated in order to make a scientific
investigation of the character of the combination and to analyse the components. In stylistics we
analyse the component parts in order to get at some communicative effect sought by the writer. It
is this communicative effect and the means employed to achieve it that lie within the domain of
stylistics.
The integrating tendency also is closely studied in the realm of lexicology, especially
when linguistic scholars seek to fix what seems to be a stable word combination and ascertain
the degree of its stability, its variants and so on. The integrating tendency is also within the

domain of stylistics, particularly when the word combination has not yet formed itself as a
lexical unit but is in the process of being so formed.
Here we are faced with the problem of what is called the clich
The Clich
A clich is generally defined as an expression that has become hackneyed and trite. It has
lost its precise meaning by constant reiteration; in other words it has become stereotyped. As
"Random House Dictionary" has it, "a clich... has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long
over-use..."
This definition lacks one point that should be emphasized; that is,"^ a clich strives after
originality, whereas it has lost the aesthetic generating power it once had. There is always a
contradiction between what is aimed at and what is actually attained. Examples of real clichs
are: rosy dreams of youth, the patter of little feet, deceptively simple.
Definitions taken from various dictionaries show that clich is a derogatory term and it is
therefore necessary to avoid anything that may be called by that name. But the fact is that most
of the widely-recognized word combinations which have been adopted by the language are
unjustly classified as clichs. The aversion for clichs has gone so far that most of the lexical
units based on simile (See p. 164) are brand-, ed as clichs. In an interesting article entitled
"Great Clich Debate" published in the New York Times Magazine"^ we can read the pros and
cons concerning clichs. This article is revealing on one main point. It illustrates the fact that an
uncertain or vague term will lead to various and even conflicting interpretations of the idea
embodied in the term. What, indeed, do the words stereotyped, hackneyed, trite convey to the
mind? First of all they indicate that the phrase is in common use. Is this a demerit? Not at all. On
the contrary: something common, habitual, devoid of novelty is the only admissible expression
in some types of communications. In the article just mentioned one of the debators objects to the
phrase "Jack-of-all-trades" and suggests that it should be "one who can turn his hand to any (or
to many kinds of) work." His opponent naturally rejects the substitute on the grounds that "Jack
of all trades" may, as he says, have long ceased to be vivid or original, but his substitute never
was. And it is fourteen words instead of four. "Determine to avoid clichs at all costs and you are
almost certain to be led into gobbledygook."
Debates of this kind proceed from a grossly mistaken notion that the term clich is used
to denote all stable word combinations, whereas it was coined to denote word combinations
which have long lost their novelty and become trite, but which are used as if they were fresh and
original and so have become irritating to people who are sensitive to the language they hear and
read. What is familiar should not be given a derogatory label. On the contrary, if it has become
familiar, that means it has won general recognition and by iteration has been accepted as a unit of
the language.
But the process of being acknowledged as a unit of language is slow. It is next to
impossible to foretell what may be accepted as a unit of the language and what may be rejected
and cast away as being unfit, inappropriate, alien to the internal laws of the language, or failing
to meet the demand of the language community for stable word combinations to designate new
notions. Hence the two conflicting ideas: language should always be fresh, vigorous and
expressive, and on the other hand, language, as a common tool for intercommunication should
make use of units that are easily understood and which require little or no effort to convey the
idea and to grasp it.
R. D. Altick in his "Preface to Critical Reading" condemns every word sequence in which
what follows can easily be predicted from what precedes.
"When does an expression become a clich? There can be no definite answer, because what is
trite to one person may still be fresh to another. But a great many expressions are universally
understood to be so threadbare as to be useless except in the most casual discourse... A good
practical test is this: If, when you are listening to a speaker, you can accurately anticipate what he
is going to say next, he is pretty certainly using clichs, otherwise he would be constantly
surprising you."

Then he gives examples, like We are gathered here to-day to mourn ('the untimely death') of our
beloved leader...; Words are inadequate ('to express the grief that is in our hearts').
"Similarly when you read," he goes on, "if one word almost inevitably invites another, if you can
read half of the words and know pretty certainly what the other half are, you are reading cliches."
And then again come illustrations, like We watched the flames {'licking') at the side of the
building. A pall ('of smoke') hung thick over the neighbourhood...; He heard a dull ('thud') which
was followed by an ominous ('silence').
This passage shows that the author has been led into the erroneous notion that everything
that is predictable is a clich. He is confusing useful word combinations circulating in speech as
members of the word stock of the language with what claims to be genuine, original and
vigorous. All word combinations that do not surprise are labelled as clichs. If we agree with
such an understanding of the term, we must admit that the following stable and necessary word
combinations used in newspaper language must be viewed as clichs: 'effective guarantees',
'immediate issues', 'the whip and carrot policy', 'statement of policy', 'to maintain some
equilibrium between reliable sources', 'buffer zone', 'he laid it down equally clearly that...' and
soon.
R. D. Altick thus denounces as clichs such verb and noun phrases as 'to live to a ripe old
age', 'to grow by leaps and bounds', 'to witbstand the test of time'^ 'to let bygones be bygones', 'to
be unable to see the wood for the trees', 'to upset the applecart', 'to have an ace up one's sleeve'.
And finally he rejects such word combinations as 'the full flush of victory', 'the patter of rain',
'part and parcel', 'a diamond in the rough' and the like on the grounds that they have outlasted
their freshness.'*
In his protest against hackneyed phrases, Altick has gone so far as to declare that people
have adopted phrases like 'clock-work precision', 'tight-lipped (or stony) silence',, 'crushing
defeat', 'bumper-to-bumper traffic', sky-rocketing costs' and the like "...as a way of evading their
obligation to make their own language."
Of course, if instead of making use of the existing means of communication, i.e., the
language of the community, people are to coin "their own language," then Altick is right. But
nobody would ever think such an idea either sound or reasonable. The set expressions of a
language are 'part and parcel' of the vocabulary of the language and cannot be dispensed with by
merely labelling them clichs.
However at every period in the development of a language, there appear strange combinations of
words which arouse suspicion as to their meaning and connotation. Many of the new-born word
combinations in modern English, both in their American and British variants, have been made
fun of because their meaning is still obscure, and therefore they are used rather loosely. Recently
in the New York Times such clichs as speaking realization', growing awareness', ^rising
expectations', 'to think unthinkable thoughts' and others were wittily criticized by a journalist
who showed that ordinary rank and file American people do not understand these new word
combinations, just as they fail to understand certain neologisms as opt (= 'to make a choice'), and
revived words as deem (= 'to consider', 'to believe to be') and others and reject them or use them
wrongly.
But as history has proved, the protest of too-zealous purists often fails to bar the way to
all kinds of innovations into standard English. Illustrative in this respect is the protest made by
Byron in his "Don Juan":
"... 'free to confess' -(whence comes this phrase?
Is't English? No -- 'tis only parliamentary)."
and also:
"A strange coincidence to use a phrase
By which such things are settled nowadays."
Or
"The march of Science (How delightful these clichs are!)..."(Aldington)

Byron, being very sensitive to the aesthetic aspect of his native language, could not help
observing the triteness of the phrases he comments on, but at the same time he accepts them as
ready-made, units. Language has its strength and its weaknesses. A linguistic scholar must be
equipped with methods of stylistic analysis to ascertain the writer's aim, the situation in which
the communication takes place and possibly the impact on the reader to decide whether or not a
phrase is a clich or "the right word in the right place." If he does not take into consideration all
the properties of the given word or word combination, the intricacies of language units may
become a trap for him.
Men-of-letters, if they are real artists, use the stock of expressive phrases contained in the
language naturally and easily, and well-known phrases never produce the impression of being
clichs.
Here are a few examples taken from various sources:
"Suzanne, excited, went on talking nineteen to the dozen.'"
(Maugham)
"She was unreal, like a picture and yet had an elegance which made Kitty feel all thumbs."
(Maugham)
"Because the publisher declares in sooth
Through needles' eyes it easier for the camel is
To pass, than those two cantos into families." (Byron)
"Redda had that quality... found in those women who... put all their eggs in one basket."
(Galsworthy)
"As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back, this piece of underground information crushed
the sinking spirits of Mr. Dombey." (Dickens) ^
Proverbs and Sayings
Almost every good writer will make use of language idioms, by-phrases and proverbs. As
Gorki has it, they are the natural ways in which speech develops.
Proverbs and sayings have certain purely linguistic features which must always be taken into
account in order to distinguish them from ordinary sentences. Proverbs are brief statements
showing in condensed form, the accumulated life experience of the community and serving as
conventional practical symbols for abstract ideas. They are usually didactic and image bearing.
Many of them through frequency of repetition have became polished and wrought into verse-like
shape, i.e., they have metre, rhyme and alliteration, as in the following:
"to cut one's coat according to one's cloth."
"Early to bed and early to rise.
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."
Brevity in proverbs manifests itself also in the omission of connectives, as in:
"First come, first served." "Out of sight, out of mind."
But the main feature distinguishing proverbs and sayings from ordinary utterances
remains their semantic aspect. Their literal meaning is suppressed by what may be termed their
transferred meaning. In other words, one meaning (literal) is the form for another meaning
(transferred) which contains the idea. Proverbs and sayings are the concentrated wisdom of the
people, and if used appropriately, will never lose their freshness and vigour. The most noticeable
thing about the functioning of sayings, proverbs and catch-phrases is that they may be handled
not in their fixed form (the traditional model) but with modifications. These modifications,
however, will never break away from the invariants to such a degree that the correlation between
the invariant model of a word combination and its variant ceases to be perceived by the reader.
The predictability of a variant of a word combination is lower in comparison with its invariant.
Therefore the use of such a unit in a modified form will always arrest our attention, causing a
much closer examination of the wording of the utterance in order to get at the idea. Thus, the
proverb 'all is not gold that glitters' appears in Byron's Don Juan in the following form and
environment where at first the meaning may seem obscure:
"How all the needy honourable misters,

Each out-at-elbow peer or desperate dandy.

The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters (Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy
At making matches where "js gold that glisters" Than their he relatives), like flies o'er candy
Buzz round the Fortune with their busy battery,
To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery."
Out of the well-known proverb Byron builds a periphrasis,the meaning of which is deciphered
two lines below: 'the Fortune', that is, 'a marriageable heiress').
It has already been pointed out that Byron is fond of playing,with stable word combinations,
sometimes injecting new vigour into the components, sometimes entirely disregarding the g e s t
a I tIn the following lines, for instance, each word of the phrase safe and sound gets its full
meaning.
"I leave Don Juan for the present, safe
Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded;"
The proverb: Hell is paved with good intentions and the set expression: to mean well are used by
Byron in a peculiar way, thus making the reader appraise the hackneyed phrases.
". . ............if he warr'd
Or loved, it was with what we call the best
Intentions, which form all mankind's trump card,
To be produced when brought up to the test.
he statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer ward
Off each attack, when people are in quest
Of their designs, by saying they meant well. '
Tis pity that such meaning should pave hell."
We shall take only a few of the numerous examples of the stylistic use of proverbs and
sayings to illustrate the possible ways of decomposing the units in order simply to suggest the
idea behind them:
"Come!" he said, "milk's spilt." (Galsworthy)
(from 'It is no use crying over spilt milk!').
"But to all that moving experience there had been a shadow {a dark lining to the silver cloud),
insistent and plain, which disconcerted her." (Maugham) (from 'Every cloud has a silver ;
lining').
"We were dashed uncomfortable in the frying pan, but we should have been a damned
sight worse off in the fire." (Maugham) (from 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire').
"You know which side the law's buttered." (Galsworthy) , (from 'His bread is buttered on both
sides').
This device is used not only in the belles-lettres style. Here are some instances from
newspapers and magazines illustrating the stylistic use of proverbs, sayings and other word
combinations
"...and whether the Ministry of Economic Warfare is being allowed enough financial rope to do
its worst" [Daily Worker) (from 'Give a thief rope enough and he'll hang himself).
"The waters will remain sufficiently troubled for, somebody's fishing to be profitable"
{Economist) (from '// is good fishing in troubled waters').
One of the editorials in the Daily Worker had the following headline:
'^Proof of the Pudding" (from 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating').
Here is a recast of a well-known proverb used by an advertising agency:
''Early to bed and early to rise No use unless you advertise" (from 'Early to bed and early to
rise Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise').
Uses of language set expressions such as these should not lead to the inference that stylistic
effects can only be reached by introducing all kinds of changes into the invariant of the unit. The

efficient use of the invariant of proverbs, sayings, etc. will always make both spoken and written
language emotional, concrete, figurative, catching and lively. It will call forth a ready impact and
the desired associations on the part of the hearer or reader. Modified forms of. the unit require
great skill in handling them and only few have the power and therefore the right to violate the
fixed idiom.
Epigrams
An epigram is a stylistic device akin to a proverb, the only
difference being that epigrams are coined by individuals whose names
"we know, while proverbs are the coinage of the people. In other words, we are always aware of
the parentage of an epigram and therefore, when using one, we usually make a reference to its
author.
Epigrams are terse, witty, pointed statements, showing the ingenious turn of mind of the
originator. They always have a literary-bookish air about them that distinguishes them from
proverbs. Epigrams possess a great degree of independence and therefore, if taken out of the
context, will retain the wholeness of the idea they express. They have a generalizing function.
The most characteristic feature of an epigram is that the sentence gets accepted as a word
combination and often becomes part of the language as a whole. Like proverbs, epigrams can be
expanded to apply to abstract notions (thus embodying different spheres of application). Brevity
is the essential quality of the epigram. A. Chekhov once said that brevity is the sister of talent;
Brevity is the soul of the wit' holds true of any epigram.
Epigrams are often confused with aphorisms and paradoxes. It is difficult to draw a demarcation
line between them, the distinction being very subtle. Real epigrams are true to fact and that is
why they win general recognition and acceptance.
Let us turn to examples.
Somerset Maugham in "The Razor's Edge" says:
"Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose."
This statement is interesting from more than one point of view. It shows the ingenious turn of
mind of the writer, it gives an indirect definition of art as Maugham understands it, it is complete
in itself even if taken out of the context. But still this sentence is not a model epigram because it
lacks one essential quality, viz. brevity. It is too long and therefore cannot function in speech as a
ready-made language unit. Besides, it lacks other features which are inherent in epigrams and
make them similar to proverbs, i.e., rhythm, alliteration and often rhyme. It cannot be expanded
to other spheres of life, it does not generalize.
Compare this sentence with the following used by the same author in the same novel.
"A God that can be understood is no God."
This sentence seems to meet all the necessary requirements of the epigram: it is brief,
generalizing, witty and can be expanded in its application. The same applies to Byron's
"...in the days of old men made manners; Manners now make men" ("Don Juan") or Keats'
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever."
Writers who seek aesthetic precision use the epigram abundantly; others use it to characterize the
hero of their work. Somerset Maugham is particularly fond of it and many of his novels and
stories abound in epigrams. Here are some from "The Painted Veil."
"He that bends shall be made straight." "Failure is the foundation of success and success is the
lurking place of failure..."
"Mighty is he who conquers himself."
There are utterances which in form are epigrammatic these are verses and in particular
definite kinds of verses. The last two lines of a sonnet are called epigrammatic because according
to the semantic structure of this form of verse, they sum up and synthesize what has been said
before. The heroic couplet, a special compositional form of verse, is also a suitable medium for
epigrams, for instance
"To observations which ourselves, we make.
We grow more partial for th' observer's sake." (Alexander Pope)

There are special dictionaries which are called "Dictionaries of Quotations." These in
fact, are mostly dictionaries of epigrams. What is worth quoting must always contain some
degree of the generalizing quality and if it comes from a work of poetry will have metre (and
sometimes rhyme). That is why the works of Shakespeare, Pope, Byron and many other great
English poets are said to be full of epigrammatic statements.
The epigram is in fact a syntactical who le (See p. 193), though a syntactical whole need not
necessarily be epigrammatic.
As is known, poetry is epigrammatic in its essence. It always strives for brevity of expression,
leaving to the mind of the reader the pleasure of amplifying the idea. Byron's
"The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore,"is a strongly worded epigram, which impresses the
reader with its generalizing truth. It may of course be regarded as a syntactical whole, inasmuch
as it is semantically connected with the preceding lines and at the same time enjoys a
considerable degree of independence.
Quotations
A q o t a t i o n Is a repetition of a phrase or statement from a book, speech and the
like used by way of authority, illustration, proof or as a basis for further speculation on the matter
in hand.
By repeating a passage in a new environment, we attach to the utterance an importance it might
not have had in the context whence it was taken. Moreover, we give it the status, temporary
though it may be, of a stable language unit. What is quoted must be worth quoting, since a
quotation will inevitably acquire some degree of generalization. If repeated frequently, it may be
recognized as an epigram, if, of course, it has at least some of the linguistic properties of the
latter.
Quotations are usually marked off in the text by inverted commas (" "), dashes (), italics or
other graphical means.
They are mostly used accompanied by a reference to the author of the quotation, unless
he is well known to the reader or audience. The reference is made either in the text or in a footnote and assumes various forms, as for instance:
"as (so and so) has it"; "(So and so) once said that"...; "Here we quote (so and so)" or in the
manner the reference to Emerson has been made in the epigraph to this chapter.
A quotation is the exact reproduction of an actual utterance made by a certain author. The work
containing the utterance quoted must have been published or at least spoken in public; for
quotations are echoes of somebody else's words.
Utterances, when quoted, undergo a peculiar and subtle change. They are rank and file
members of the text they belong to, merging with other sentences in this text in the most natural
and organic way, bearing some part of the general sense the text as a whole embodies; yet, when
they are quoted, their significance is heightened and they become different from other parts of
the text. Once quoted, they are no longer rank-and-file units. If they are used to back up the idea
expressed in the new text, they become "parent sentences" with the corresponding authority and
respect and acquire a symbolizing function; in short, they not infrequently become epigrams, for
example, Hamlet's "To be or not to be!"
A quotation is always set against the other sentences in the text by its greater volume of
sense and significance. This singles it out particularly if frequently repeated, as an utterance
worth committing to memory generally is. The use of quotations presupposes a good knowledge,
o.f the past experience of the nation, its literature and culture. ^ The stylistic value of a quotation
lies mainly in the fact that it comprises two meanings: the primary meaning, the one which it has
in its original surroundings, and the applicative meaning, i.e., the one which it acquires in the
new context.
Quotations, unlike epigrams, need not necessarily be short. A whole paragraph or a long
passage may be quoted if it suits the purpose. It is to be noted, however, that sometimes in spite
of the fact that the exact wording is used, a quotation in a new environment may assume a new

shade of meaning, a shade necessary or sought by the quoter, but not intended by the writer of
the original work.
Here we give a few examples of the use of quotations.
"Socrates said, our only knowledge was "To know that nothing could be known" a pleasant
Science enough, which levels to an ass
Each man of Wisdom, future, past or present.
Newton (that proverb of the mind) alas!
Declared with all his grand discoveries recent
That he himself felt only "like a youth
Picking up shells by the great ocean Truth." (Byron)
"Ecclesiastes said, "that all is vanity" Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By
their examples of the Christianity.:." (Byron)
Quotations are used as a stylistic device, as is seen from these examples, with the aim of
expanding the meaning of the sentence quoted and setting two meanings one against the other,
thus modifying the original meaning. In this quality they are used mostly in the belles-lettres
style. Quotations used in other styles of speech allow no modifications of meaning, unless actual
distortion of meaning is the aim of the quoter.
Quotations are also used in epigraphs. The quotation in this case possesses great associative
power and calls forth much connotative meaning.
Allusions
An a I I s i o n is an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary,
mythological, biblical fact or to a fact of everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing.
The use of allusion presupposes knowledge of the fact, thing or person alluded to on the part of
the reader or listener. As a rule no indication of the source is given. This is one of the notable
differences between quotation and allusion. Another difference is of a structural nature: a
quotation must repeat the exact wording of the original even though the meaning may be
modified by the new context; an allusion is only a mention of a word or phrase which may be
regarded as the key-word of the utterance. An allusion has certain important semantic
peculiarities, in that the meaning of the word (the allusion) should be regarded as a form for the
new meaning. In other words, the primary meaning of the word or phrase which is assumed to be
known (i.e., the allusion) serves as a vessel into which new meaning is poured. So here there is
also a kind of interplay between two meanings.
Here is a passage in which an allusion is made to the coachman. Old Mr. Weller, the
father of Dickens's famous character, Sam Weller.
In this case the nominal meaning is broadened into a generalized concept:
"Where is the road now, and its merry incidents of life!.. old honest, pimple-nosed coachman? I
wonder where are they, those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead?" (Thackeray)
The volume of meaning in this allusion goes beyond the actual knowledge of the character's
traits. Even the phrases about the road and the coachmen bear indirect reference to Dickens's
"Pickwick Papers."
Here is another instance of allusion which requires a good knowledge of mythology, history and
geography if it is to be completely understood.
"Shakespeare talks of ihe-herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
And some such visions cross'd her majesty
While her young herald knelt before her still.
'Tis Aery true the hill seem'd rather high.
For a lieutenant to climb up; but skill Smooth'd even the Simplon's steep, and by God's
blessing
With youth and health all kisses are heaven-kissing." (Byron)
Mercury, Jupiter's messenger, is referred to here because Don Juan brings a dispatch to Catherine
II of Russia and is therefore her majesty's herald. But the phrase "...skill smooth'd even the

Simplon's steep..." will be quite incomprehensible to those readers who do not know that
Napoleon built a carriage road near the village of Simplon in the pass 6590 feet over the Alps
and founded a hospice at the summit. Then the words 'Simplon's steep' become charged with
significance and implications which now need no futher comment.
Allusions are based on the accumulated experience and the knowledge of the writer who
presupposes a similar experience and knowledge in the reader. But the knowledge stored in our
minds is called forth by an allusion in a peculiar manner. All kinds of associations we may not
yet have realized cluster round the facts alluded to. Illustrative in this respect is the quotationallusion made in Somerset Maugham's novel "The Painted Veil". The last words uttered by the
dying man are "The dog it was that died." These are the concluding lines of Gold-smith's "Elegy
on the Death of a Mad Dog." Unless the reader knows-the Elegy, he will not understand the
implication embodied in this quotation. Consequently the quotation here becomes an allusion
which runs through the whole plot of the novel. Moreover the psychological tuning of the novel
can be deciphered only by drawing a parallel between the poem and the plot of the novel.
The main character is dying, having failed to revenge himself upon his unfaithful wife. He was
punished by death for having plotted evil. This is the inference to be drawn from the allusion.
The following passage from Dickens's "Hard Times" will serve to prove how remote may be the
associations called up by an allusion.
"No little Grandgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the
crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt, or
with that yet more famous cow that swallowed Tom Thumb; it had never heard of those
celebrities."
The meaning that can be derived from the two allusions, one to the nursery rhyme "The
House that Jack built" and the other to the old tale "The History of Tom Thumb" is the following:
No one was permitted to teach the little Grandgrind children the lively, vivid nursery rhymes and
tales that every English child knows by heart. They were subjected to nothing but dry abstract
drilling. The word cow in the two allusions becomes impregnated with concrete meaning set
against the abstract meaning of cow-in-a-field, or cow-in-general. To put it into the terms of
theoretical linguistics, cow-in-a-field refers to the nominating rather than to the signifying aspect
of the word.
Allusions and quotations may be termed nonce-set-expressions because they are used
only for the occasion.
Allusion, as has been pointed out, needs no indication of the source. It is assumed to be known.
Therefore most allusions are made to facts with which the general reader should be familiar.
However allusions are sometimes made to things and facts which need commentary before they
are understood. To these belongs the allusion -par a-dox, for example:
"A nephew called Charlie is something I can't Put up with at alt since it makes me his aunt."
The allusion here is made to a well-known play and later film called "Charlie's Aunt" in which a
man is disguised as a woman.
Allusions are used in different styles, but their function is everywhere the same. The deciphering
of an allusion, however, is not always easy.. In newspaper headlines allusions may be decoded at
first glance as, for instance:
" 'Pie in the sky' for Railmen"
Most people in the USA and Britain know the refrain of the workers' song: "You'll get pie in the
sky when you die."
The use of part of the sentence-refrain implies that the railmen had been given many
promises but nothing at the present moment. Linguistically the allusion 'pie in the sky' assumes a
new meaning, viz., nothing but promises. Through frequency of repetition it may enter into the
word stock of the English language as a figurative synonym.
Decomposition of Set Phrases
Linguistic fusions are set phrases, the meaning of which is understood only from the
combination as a whole, as to pull a person's leg or to have something at one's finger tips. The

meaning of the whole cannot be derived from the meanings of the component parts. The stylistic
device of decomposition of fused set phrases consists in reviving the independent meanings
which make up the component parts of the fusion. In other words it makes each word of the
combination acquire its literal meaning which, of course, in many cases leads to the realization
of an absurdity. Here is an example of this device as employed by Dickens:
"Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead
about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece
of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my
unhallowed hands shall not disturb it or the Country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to
repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a door-nail." (Dickens)
As is seen in this excerpt, the fusion 'as dead as a door-nail' which simply means
completely dead is decomposed by being used in a different structural pattern. This causes the
violation of the generally recognized meaning of the combination which has grown into a mere
emotional intensifier. The reader, being presented with the parts of the unit, becomes aware of
the meaning of the parts, which, be it repeated, have little in common with the meanings of the
whole. When as Dickens does, the unit is re-established in its original form, the phrase acquires a
refreshed vigour and effect, qualities important in this utterance because the unit itself was meant
to carry the strongest possible proof that the man was actually dead.
Another example from the same story:
"Scrooge had often heard it said that money had no bowels, . but he had never believed it until
now."
The bowels (guts, intestines) were supposed to be the seat of the emotions of pity and
compassion. But here Dickens uses the phrase 'to have no bowels' in its literal meaning: Scrooge
is looking at Marley's ghost and does not see any intestines.
In the sentence "It was raining cats and dogs, and two kittens and a puppy landed on my
window-sill" (Chesterton) the fusion 'to rain cats and dogs' is refreshed by the introduction of
"kittens and a puppy,"
which changes the unmotivated combination into a metaphor which in its turn is sustained.
The expression 'to save one's bacon' means to escape from injury or loss. Byron in his
"Don Juan" decomposes this unit by setting it against the word hog in its logical meaning:
"But here say the Turks were much mistaken. Who hating hogs, yet wish'd to save their
bacon."
Byron particularly favoured the device of simultaneous materialization of t meanings:
the meaning of the whole set phrase and the independent meanings of its components, with the
result that the independent meanings unite anew and give the whole a fresh significance.
Here is a good example of the effective use of this device. The poet mocks at the absurd notion
of idealists who deny the existence of every kind of matter whatsoever:
"When Bishop Berkley said: "there was no matter" And proved it 'twas no matter what he
said."
(Byron)
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.
5. . . . . ., 1952, . 8.
6. See F. L. Lucas. Style. London. 1962.
Lecture #8

Syntactical EMs and SDs:

1. Compositional patterns of syntactical arrangement.
2. Stylistic inversion.
3. Detached Constructions
4. Parallel Construction.
5. Chiasmus
1. Compositional patterns of syntactical arrangement.
The structural syntactical aspect is sometimes regarded as the crucial issue in stylistic
analysis, although the peculiarities of syntactical arrangement are not so conspicuous as the lexical
and phraseological properties of the utterance. Syntax is figuratively called the "sinews of
style".
S t r u c t u r a l s y n t a c t i c a l s t y l i s t i c d e v i c e s are in special relations with the
intonation involved. Prof. Peshkovsky points out that there is an interdependence between
the intonation and other syntactical properties of the sentence, which may be worded in the
following manner: the more explicitly the structural syntactical relations are expressed, the
weaker will be the intonation-pattern of the utterance (up to complete disappearance) and viceversa, the stronger the intonation,
the weaker grow the evident syntactical relations (also up to
complete disappearance)1. This can be illustrated by means of the following two pairs of
sentences: "Only afler dinner did I make up my mind to go there" and "/ made up my mind to
go there only after dinner" "// was in Bucharest that the Xth International Congress of
Linguists took place" and 'The Xth International Congress of Linguists took place in
Bucharest."
The second sentences in these pairs can be made emphatic only by intonation; the first
sentences are made emphatic by means of the syntactical patterns: "Only after dinner did I.."
and "It was... that."
The problem of syntactical stylistic devices appears to be closely linked not only with what
makes an utterance more emphatic but also with the more general problem of predication. As
is known, the English affirmative sentence is regarded as neutral if it maintains the regular
word order, i.e., subject predicate object (or other secondary members of the sentence,
as they are called). Any other order of the parts of the sentence may also carry the necessary
information, but the impact on the reader will be different. Even a slight change in the word
order of a sentence or in the order of the sentences in a more complicated syntactical unit will
inevitably cause a definite modification of the meaning of the whole. An almost imperceptible
rhythmical design introduced into a prose sentence, or a sudden break in the sequence of the
parts of the sentence, or any other change will add something to the volume of information
contained in the original sentence. It follows that the very concept of inversion has appeared
as a counterpart to the regular word order, the tatter being a relatively unemotional, unemphatic,
neutral mode of expression.
Unlike the syntactical expressive means of the language, which are naturally used in
discourse in a straight-forward natural manner,syntactical stylistic devices are perceived as
elaborate designs aimed at having a definite impact on the reader. It will be borne in mind
lhat any SD is meant to be understood as a device and is calculated to produce a desired
stylistic effect.
When viewing the stylistic functions of different syntactical de signs we must first of all
take into consideration two aspects:
1. The juxtaposition of different parts of the utterance.
2. The way the parts are connected with each other.
In addition to these two large groups of EMs and SDs two other groups may be
distinguished:
1. Those based on the peculiar use of colloquial constructions.
2. Those based on the transferred use of structural meaning.
2. Stylistic Inversion
Word o r d e r is a crucial syntactical problem in many languages. In English it has
peculiarities which have been caused by the concrete and specific way the language has
developed. O. Jespersen states that the English language "...has developed a tolerably fixed
word order
which in the great majority of cases shows without fail what is the Subject of the
sentence."1 This "tolerably fixed word order" is Subject Verb (Predicate) Object (S P
0). Further, Jespersen mentions a statistical investigation of word order made on the basis of a
series of representative 19th century writers. It was found that the order S P O was
used in from 82 to 97 per cent of all sentences containing all three members, while the
percentage for Beowulf was 16 and for King Alfred's prose 40.

This predominance of S P O word order makes conspicious any change in the

structure of the sentence and inevitably calls forth a modification in the intonation design.
The most conspicious places in the sentence are considered to be the first and the last: the
first place because the full force of the stress can be felt at the beginning of an utterance and the
last place because there is a pause after it. This traditional word order has developed a definite
intonation design. Through frequency of repetition this design has imposed itself on any sentence
even though there are changes introduced in the sequence of the component parts. Hence the clash
between semantically insignificant elements of the sentence .when they are placed in
structurally significant position and the intonation which follows the recognized pattern.
Thus in Dickens' much quoted sentence:
"Talent Mr. Micawber has; capital Mr. Micawber has not."
The first and the last positions being prominent, the verb has and the negative not get a
fuller volume of stress than they would in ordinary (uninverted) word order, in the traditional
word order the predicates has and has not are closely attached
to their objects talent and
capital. English predicate-object groups are so bound together 1 that when we tear the object
away from its predicate, the latter remains dangling in the sentence and in this position
sometimes calls forth a change in meaning of the predicate word. In the inverted word order
not only the objects talent and capital become conspicuous but also the predicates has and
has not.
In this example the effect of the inverted word order is backed up by two other stylistic
devices: antithesis and parallel construction. Unlike grammatical inversion stylistic inversion
does not change the structural meaning of the sentence, that is, the change in the juxtapo sition
of the members of the sentence docs not indicate structural meaning but has some
superstructural function. S t y l i s t i c I n ve r si on aims at attaching logical stress or
additional emotional colouring to the surface meaning of the utterance. Therefore a specific
intonation pattern is the inevitable satellite of inversion.
Stylistic inversion in Modern English should not be regarded as a violation of the norms of
standard English. It is only the practical realization of what is potential in the language
itself.
The following patterns of stylistic inversion arc most frequently met in both English
prose and English poetry.
1. The object is placed al the beginning of the sentence (see the
example above).
2. The
attribute
is
placed
after
the
word
it
modifies
(postposition
of the attribute). This model is often used when there is more than one
attribute, for example:
'LWith fingers weary and worn..." (Thomas Hood) "Once upon a midnight
dreary..." (E. A. Poe)
3. a)
The
predicative
is
placed
before
"A good generous prayer it was." (Mark Twain)

the

subject

as

in

or b) the predicative stands before the link verb and both are placed before the subject
as in
"Rude am I in my speech..." (Shakespeare)
4. The adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sen
tence, as -in
"Eagerly I wished the morrow." (Poe) "My dearest daughter, at your feel I fall."
(Dryden) "A lone of most extraordinary comparison Miss Tox said it in".
(Dickens)
5. Both modifier and predicate stand before the subject, as in
"In went Mr. Pickwick." (Dickens) "Down dropped the breeze..."
(Coleridge)
These five models comprise the most common and recognized models of inversion. No other
form of inversion can be a basis for a model, though occasionally a word order appears which is in
violation of the recognized norms of the English sentence. In this respect Henry Sweet is wrong
when in his "New English Grammar" he maintains that in order to make a word emphatic it
must be placed in any abnormal position. The position of a word in the sentence may be
changed within the recognized variants and the above models are the materialization of these
variants.
Inversion as a stylistic device is always sense-motivated. There is a tendency to account for
inversion in poetry by rhythmical considerations. This may sometimes be true, but really
talented poets will never sacrifice sense for form and in the majority of cases inversion in poetry
is called forth by considerations of content rather than rhythm.

Inverted word order, or inversion, is one of the forms of what are known as emphatic
constructions. What is generally called traditional word order is nothing more than unemphatic
construction. Emphatic constructions have so far been regarded as non-typical structures and
therefore are considered as violations of the regular word order in the sentence. But in practice
these structures are as common as the f i x e d or t r a d i t i o n a I word order structures.
Therefore inversion must be regarded as an expressive means of the language having typical
structural models.
3. Detached Constructions
Sometimes one of the secondary parts of the sentence by some specific consideration of the
writer is placed so that it seems formally independent of the word it logically refers to. Such
parts of structures are called d e l a c k e d . They seem to dangle in the sentence as isolated
parts.
The detached part, being torn away from its referent, assumes a greater degree of
significance and is given prominence by intonation. The structural patterns of detached
constructions have not yet been classified, but the most noticeable cases are those in which an
attribute or an adverbial modifier is placed not in immediate proximity to its referent, but in
some other position, as in the following examples:
1) "Steyne rose up, grinding
his eyes."
2) "Sir Pitt came in first,
steady in his gait" (Thackeray)

his
very

teeth,
much

pale,

and

flushed,

with
and

fury

in

rather

un

Sometimes a nominal phrase is thrown into the sentence forming a syntactical unit with the
rest of the sentence, as in
"And he walked slowly past again, along the river an evening of clear, quiet beauty, all
harmony and comfort, except within his heart." (Galsworthy)
The essential quality of detached construction lies in the fact that the isolated parts
represent a kind of independent whole thrust into the sentence or placed in a position which
will make the phrase (or word) seem independent. But a detached phrase cannot rise to the
rank of a primary member of the sentence it always remains secondary from the semantic
point of view, although structurally it possesses a l l the features of a primary member. This
clash of the structural and semantic aspects of detached constructions produces the desired
effect forcing the reader to interpret the logical connections between the component parts of
the sentence. Logical ties between them always exist in spite of the absence of syntactical
indicators.
Detached constructions in their common forms make the written variety of language akin
to the spoken variety where the relation between the component parts is effectively
materialized by means of intonation. Detached construction, as it were, becomes a peculiar
device bridging the norms of written and spoken language.
This stylistic device is akin to inversion. The functions are almost the same. But detached
construction produces a much stronger effect, inasmuch as it presents parts of the utterance
significant from the author's point of view in a more or less independent manner.
Here are some more examples of detached constructions:
"Daylight was dying, the moon rising, gold behind the poplars." (Galsworthy)
"'I want to go,' he said, miserable." (Galsworthy) "She was lovely: all of her
delightful" (Dreiser)
The italicized phrases and words in these sentences seem to be isolated, but still the
connection with the primary members of the corresponding sentences is clearly implied. Thus
gold behind the poplars may be interpreted as a simile or a metaphor: the moon like gold was
rising behind the poplars, or the moon rising, it was gold...
Detached construction sometimes causes the simultaneous realization of two grammatical
meanings of a word. In the sentence "' I want to go,' he said, miserable" the last word might
possibly have been understood as an adverbial modifier to the word said if not for the comma,
though grammatically miserably would be expected. The pause indicated by the comma
implies that miserable is an adjective used absolutely and referring to the pronoun he.
The same can be said about Dreiser's sentence with the word delightful. Here again the mark
of punctuation plays an important role.
The dash standing before the word makes the word conspicuous and being isolated, it becomes
the culminating point of the climax lovely.., delightful, i.e. the peak of the whole
utterance. The phrase all of her is also somehow isolated. The general impression suggested by
the implied intonation, is a strong feeling of admiration; and as is usually the case, strong
feelings reject coherent and logical syntax. In the English language detached constructions

are generally used in the belles-lettres prose style and mainly with words that have some
explanatory function, for example:
"June stood in front, fending off this idle curiosity a little bit of a thing, as
somebody said, 'all hair and spirit'... 1 '
(Galsworthy)
Detached construction as a stylistic device is a typification of the syntactical peculiarities of
colloquial language.
Detached construction is a stylistic phenomenon which has so far been little investigated.
The device itself is closely connected with the intonation pattern of the utterance. In conversation
any word or phrase or even sentence may be made more conspicuous by means of intonation.
Therefore precision in the syntactical structure of the sentence is not so 1necessary from the
communicative point of view. But it becomes vitally important in writing. Here precision of
syntactical relations is the only way to make the utterance fully communicative. Therefore when
the syntactical relations become obscure, each member of the sentence that seems to be
dangling becomes logically significant.
A variant of detached construction is p a r e n t h e s i s .
"Parenthesis is a qualifying, explanatory or appositive word, phrase, clause,
sentence, or other sequence which interrupts a syntactic construction without otherwise
affecting it, having often a 2characteristic intonation and indicated in writi n g by
commas, brackets or dashes."
In fact parenthesis sometimes embodies a considerable volume of predicativeness, thus
giving the utterance an additional nuance of meaning or a tinge of emotional colouring.
4. Parallel Construction
P a r a l l e I c o n s t r u c t i o n is a device which may be encountered not so much in the
sentence as in the macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the syntactical whole and the
paragraph. The necessary condition in parallel construction is identical, or similar, syntactical
structure in two or more sentences or parts of a sentence, as in:
There were, ..., real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it
out of, and plates of the same to hold the cakes and toast in. " (Dickens)
Parallel constructions are often backed up by repetition of words (lexical repetition) and
conjunctions and prepositions (polysyndeton). Pure parallel construction, however, does not
depend on any other kind of repetition but the repetition of the syntactical design of the
sentence.
Parallel constructions may be partial or complete. Partial parallel arrangement is the
repetition of some parts of successive sentences or clauses as in:
"It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses that man your
navy and recruit your army, that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also
defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair." (Byron)
The attributive clauses here all begin with the subordinate conjunction that which is
followed by a verb in the same tense form, except the last (have enabled). The verbs however
are followed either by adverbial modifiers of place (in your fields, in your houses) or by direct
objects (your
navy, your army). The third attributive clause is not built on the pattern of the
first two,1 although it preserves the parallel structure in general (that-verb predicate+ object),
while the fourth has broken away entirely.
Complete parallel arrangement, also called b a l a n c e , maintains the principle of identical
structures throughout the corresponding sentences, as in
'The seeds ye sow another reaps,
The robes ye weave another wears,
The arms ye forge another bears."
(P. B. Shelley)
Parallel construction is most frequently used in enumeration, antithesis and in climax, thus
consolidating the general effect achieved by these stylistic devices.
There are two main functions of parallel construction: s e m a n t i c and s t r u c t u r a l .
On the one hand a parallel arrangement suggests equal semantic significance of the component
parts, on the other hand, it gives a rhythmical design to these component parts, which makes
itself most keenly felt in balanced constructions.
Parallel construction is used in different styles of writing with slightly different functions.
When used in the matter-of-fact styles it carries, in the main, the idea of semantic equality of
the parts, as in scientific prose, where the logical principle of arranging ideas predominates. In

the belles-lettres style parallel construction carries

mainly used as a technical means in b u i l d i n g u p
a n t i t h e s i s and c I i m a x.
It is natural that parallel construction should
structures. Alternation of similar units being the basic
units i.e. in the stanza, is to be expected.

an emotive function. That is why it is

other stylistic devices, in particular
very frequently be used in poetical
principle of verse, similarity in longer

5.Chiasmus (Reversed Parallel Construction)

C h i a s m u s belongs to the group of stylistic devices based on the repetition of a syntactical
pattern, but it has a cross order of words and phrases. The structure of two successive sentences or
parts of a sentence may be described as reversed parallel construction, the word order of one of
the sentences being inverted as compared to that of the other as in:
"As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low." (Wordsworth)
"Down dropped the breeze,
The sails dropped down." (Coleridge)
Chiasmus is sometimes achieved by a sudden change from active voice to passive or vice
versa, for example:
"The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. (Dickens)
This device is effective in that it helps to lay stress on the second part of the utterance,
which is opposite in structure, as in our dejection; Scrooge signed it. This is due to the sudden
change in the structure which by its very unexpectedness linguistically requires a slight pause
before it.
As is seen from the examples above, chiasmus can appear only when there are two successive
sentences or coordinate parts of a sentence. So distribution, here close succession, is the
factor which predetermines the birth of the device.
There are different variants of the structural design of chiasmus. The first example given
shows chiasmus appearing in a complex sentence where the second part has an opposite
arrangement. The second example demonstrates chiasmus in a sentence expressing semantically
the relation of cause and effect. Structurally, however, the two parts are presented as
independent sentences, and it is the chiasmatic structure which supports the idea of
subordination. The third example is composed of two independent sentences and the chiasmus
serves to increase the effect of climax. Here is another example of chiasmus where two parallel
constructions are followed by a reversed parallel construction linked to the former by the
conjunction and:
"The night winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the w i l d seamew." (Byron)
It must be remembered that chiasmus is a syntactical, not a lexi cal device, i.e. it is
only the arrangement of the parts of the utterance which constitutes this s t yl i s t i c device.
In the famous epigram by Byron:
"In the days of o l d men made the manners;
Manners now make men," there is no inversion, but a lexical device. Both parts
of the parallel construction have the same, the normal word order. However the
witty arrangement of the words has given the utterance an epigrammatic
character. This device may be classed as l e x i c a l c h i a s m u s or chiasmatic
repetition, Byron particularly favoured i t . Here are some other examples:
"His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes." "'T is strange, but true;
for truth is always strange." "But Tom's no more and so no more of
Tom." '''True, 'tis a pity pity 'tis, ' t i s true."
"Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstances
seem the sport of men."
"'Tis a pity though, in this sublime world that Pleasured a sin, and
sometimes sin's a pleasure."
Note the difference in meaning of the repeated words on which the epigrammatic effect
rests: 'strangestrange;' 'no more no more', 'jokes jokes/

Syntactical chiasmus is sometimes used to break the monotony of parallel constructions. But
whatever the purpose of chiasmus, it will always bring in some new shade of meaning or
additional emphasis on some portion of the second part.
The stylistic effect of this construction has been so far little investigated. But even casual
observation will show that chiasmus should be perceived as a complete unit. One cannot
help noticing that the first part in chiasmus is somewhat incomplete, it calls for continuation,
and the anticipation is rewarded by the second part of the construc tion, which is, as it were,
the completion of the idea.
Like parallel construction, chiasmus contributes to the rhythmical quality of the utterance,
and the pause caused by the change in the syntactical pattern may be likened to a caesura in
prosody.
As can be seen from this short analysis of chiasmus, it has developed, like all stylistic devices,
within the framework of the literary form of the language. However its prototype may be found
in the norms of1 expressions of the spoken language, as in the emphatic: 'He was a brave
man, was John.
Literature:
5. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
6. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
7. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
8. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

Lecture #9
Syntactical EMs and SDs:
1. Repetition and its types.
2. Stylistic enumeration.
1. Repetition and its types.
It has already been pointed out that r e p e t i t i o n , is an expressive means of
language used when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion. It shows the
state of mind of the speaker, as in the following passage from Galsworthy:
"Stop!" she cried, "Don't tell me! / don't want to hear; I don I want to
hear what you've come for. / don' i want to hear."
The repetition of / don't want to hear is not a stylistic device; it is a means by which the
excited state of mind of the speaker is shown. This state of mind always manifests itself
through intonation, which is suggested here by the words, she cried. In the written language
before direct speech is introduced one can always find words indicating the intonation as
sobbed, shrieked, passionately, etc. J. Vandryes writes:
''Repetition is also one of the devices having its origin in the emotive language.
Repetition when applied to the logical language becomes simply an instrument of
grammar. Its origin is to be seen in the excitement
accompanying the expression of a
feeling being brought to its highest tension." 1
When used as a stylistic device, repetition acquires-quite different functions. It does not
aim at making a direct emotional impact, On the contrary, the stylistic device of repetition
aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the key word of the utterance. For example:
"For that was it! Ignorant of the long and stealthy march of passion, and of the
state to which it had reduced Fleur; ignorant of how Soarnes had watched her, ignorant
of Fleur's reckless desperation... ignorant of all this, everybody felt aggrieved."
(Galsworthy)
Repetition is classified according to compositional design. If the repeated word (or
phrase) comes at the beginning of two or more consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases, we
have a n a p h o r a , as in the example above. If the repeated unit is placed at the end of
consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases we have the type of repetition called e p i p h o r a ,
as in:
"I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I
am above the rest of mankind, in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such
a case as that.
(Dickens)
Here the repetition has a slightly different function: it becomes a background against which
the statements preceding the repeated unit are made to stand out more conspicuously. This may
be called
ihe b a c k g r o u n d function. It must be observed, however, that the logical function of
the repetition, to give emphasis, does not fade when it assumes the background function. This is
an additional function. Repetition may also be arranged in the form of a frame: the initial parts
of a syntactical unit, inmost cases of a paragraph, are repeated at the end of it as in:
"Poor doll's dressmaker) How often so dragged down by hands that should have
raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road and
asking guidance. Poor, little doll's dressmaker" (Dickens)
This compositional design of repetition is called f r a m i n g . The semantic nuances of
different compositional structures of repetition have been little looked into. But even a
superficial examination will show that framing, for example, makes the whole utterance more
compact and more complete. Framing is most effective in singling out paragraphs.
Among other compositional models of repetition is l i n k i n g or r e d u p l i c a t i o n
(also known as anadiplosis). The structure of this device is the following: the last word or phrase
of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part, thus hooking the two
parts together. The writer, instead of moving on, seems to double back on his tracks and
pick up his last word.
"Freeman and slave... carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a
fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large,
or in the common ruin of the contending classes." (Marx, Engels)

Any repetition of a unit of language will inevitably cause some slight modification of
meaning, a modification suggested by a noticeable change in the intonation with which the
repeated word is pronounced.
Sometimes a writer may use the linking device several times in one utterance, for
example:
"A smile would come into Mr. Pickwick's face: the smile extended into a laugh: the
laugh into a roar, and the roar became general." (Dickens)
:
"For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a
letter." (Byron)
This compositional form of repetition is also called c h a i n - r e p e t i t i o n .
What are the most obvious stylistic functions of repetition? The first, the primary one,
is to intensify the utterance. Intensification is the direct outcome of the use of the
expressive means employed in ordinary intercourse; but when used in other compositional
designs, the immediate emotional charge is greatly suppressed and is replaced by a purely
aesthetic aim as in the following example:
THE ROVER
A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thinel To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine. A lightsome eye, a soldier's
mien
A feather of the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green
No more of me you knew
My Love! No more of me you knew.
(Walter Scott)
The repetition of the whole line in its full form requires interpretation. Superlinear analysis
based on associations aroused by the sense of the whole poem suggests that this repetition
expresses the regret of the Rover for his Loves unhappy lot. Compare also the repetition in
the line of Thomas Moore's:
"Those evening bells! Those evening bells!"
Meditation, sadness, reminiscence and other psychological and emotional states of mind
are suggested by the repetition.
The distributional model of repetition, the aim of which is intensification, is simple: it is
immediate succession of the parts repeated.
Repetition may also stress monotony of action, it may suggest fatigue or despair, or
hopelessness, or doom, as in:
"What has my l i f e been? Fag and grind, fag and grind. Tarn the wheel, turn the
wheel." (Dickens)
Here the rhythm of the repeated parts makes the monotony and hopelessness of the speaker's
l i f e still more keenly felt.
This function of repetition is to be observed in Thomas Hood's poem "The Song of the
Shirt" where different forms of repetition are employed.
"Work work work!
Till the brain begins to swim! Work work work
T i l l the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and
band,
Baud, and gusset and seam,
T i l l over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a
dream."
Of course the main idea, that of long and exhausting work, is expressed by lexical means:
work 'till the brain begins to swim' and 'the eyes are heavy and dim', ti ll , finally, 'I f a l l
asleep.' But the repetition here strongly enforces this idea and, moreover, brings in
additional nuances of meaning.
In grammars it is pointed out that the repetition of words connected by the conjunction
andwiU express reiteration or frequentative action. For example:
"Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but no one came."
There are phrases containing repetition which have become lexical units of the English
language, as on and on, over and over, again and again and others. They al l express
repetition or continuity of the action, as in:
"He played the tune over and over again."

Sometimes this shade of meaning is backed up by meaningful words, as in:

"I sat desperately, working and working."
"They talked and talked all night."
"The telephone rang and rang but no one answered."
The idea of continuity is expressed here not only by the repetition but also by modifiers
such as all night.
Background repetition, which we have already pointed out, is sometimes used to stress the
ordinarily unstressed elements of the utterance. Here is a good example:
"I am attached to you. But / can't consent and won't consent and I never did
consent and / never will consent to be lost in you." (Dickens)
The emphatic element in this utterance is not the repeated word 'consent' but the modal
words 'can't', 'won't', 'will', and also the emphatic 'did 1 . Thus the repetition here loses its main
function and only serves as a means by which other elements are made to stand out clearly. It is
worthy of note that in this sentence very strong stress falls on the modal verbs and 'did' but
not on the repeated 'consent' as is usually the case with the stylistic device.
Like many stylistic devices, repetition is polyfunctional. The functions enumerated do not
cover all its varieties. One of those already mentioned, the rhythmical function, must not be
underestimated when studying the effects produced by repetition. Most of the examples
given above give rhythm
to
the utterance. In fact any repetition enhances the
rhythmical aspect of the utterance.
And to conclude, there is a variety of repetition which we shall call "root-repetition",
as in:
"To live again in the youth of the young." (Galsworthy) or,
"He loves a dodge for its own sake; being... the dodgerest of all the dodgers." (Dickens)
or,
"Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute." (London)
In root-repetition it is not the same words that are repeated but
the same root. Consequently we are faced with different words having
different meanings (Youth : young; brutish: brute), but the shades of
meaning are perfectly clear.
Another variety of repetition may be called s y n o n y m r e p e-t i t i o n. This is the
repetition of the same idea by using synonymous words and phrases which by adding a slightly
different nuance of meaning intensify the impact of the utterance, as in
"...are there not capital punishments sufficient in your statutes? Is there not blood enough
upon your penal code?" (Byron)
Here the meaning of the words capital punishments and statutes is repeated in the next
sentence by the contextual synonyms blood and penal code.
Here is another example from Keats' sonnet "The Grasshopper and the Cricket."
"The poetry of earth is never dead... The poetry of earth is ceasing
never..."
There arc two terms frequently used to show the negative attitude of the critic to all kinds
of synonym repetitions. These are p I e on a s m and t a u t o I o g y. The "Shorter Oxford
Dictionary" defines pleonasm as "the use of more words in a sentence than are necessary to
express the meaning; redundancy of expression." Tautology is defined as "the repetition of the
same statement; the repetition (especially in the immediate context) of the same word or
phrase or of the same idea or statement in other words; usually as a fault of style."
Here are two examples generally given as illustrations:
"It was a clear starry night, and not a cloud was to be seen." "He was the only
survivor; no one else was saved."
It is not necessary to distinguish between these two terms, the distinction being very fine.
Any repetition may be found faulty if it is not motivated by the aesthetic purport of the
writer. On the other hand, any seemingly unnecessary repetition of words or of ideas
expressed in different words may be justified by the aim of the communication.
For example, "The daylight is fading, the sun is setting, and night is coming on" as given in
a textbook of English composition is regarded as tautological, whereas the same sentence may
serve as an artistic example depicting the approach of night.
A certain Russian literary critic has wittily called pleonasm "stylistic elephantiasis," a
disease in which the expression of the idea swells up and loses its force. Pleonasm may also be
called "the art of wordy silence."

Both pleonasm and tautology may be acceptable in oratory inasmuch as they help the
audience to grasp the meaning of the utterance. In this case, however, the repetition of ideas is
not considered a fault although it may have no aesthetic function.
2. Stylistic enumeration.
E n u me r a t i o n is a stylistic device by means of which homogeneous parts of an
utterance are made heterogeneous from the semantic point of view. Let us examine the following
cases of enumeration:
"'Famine, despair, cold, thirst and heat had done Their work on them by turns,
and thinn'd them too..."
(Byron)
There is hardly anything in this enumeration that could be regarded as making some extra
impact on the reader. Each word is closely associated semantically with the following and
preceding words in the enumeration, and the effect is what the reader associates with all kinds of
consecutive disasters. The utterance is perfectly coherent and there is no halt in the natural
flow of the communication. In other words, there is nothing specially to arrest the reader's
attention; no effort is required to decipher the message: it yields itself easily to immediate
perception.
That is not the case in the following passage:
"Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole
residuary legatee, h i s sole friend and his sole mourner." (Dickens)
The enumeration here is h e t e r o g e n e o u s s; the legal terms placed in a string with
such words as 'friend' and 'mourner' result in a kind of clash, a thing typical of any stylistic
device. Here there is a clash between terminological vocabulary and common neutral words.
In addition there is a clash of concepts: 'friend' and 'mourner' by force of enumeration are
equal in significance to the business office of 'executor', 'administrator', etc. and also to
that of 'legatee'.
Enumeration is frequently used as a device to depict scenery through a tourist's eyes as in
Galsworthy's "To Let":
"Fleur's wisdom in refusing to write to him was profound, for he reached each new
place entirely without hope or fever, and could concentrate immediate attention on the
donkeys and tumbling bells, the priests, patios, beggars, children, crowing cocks,
sombreros, cactus-hedges, old high white villages, goats, olive-trees, greening plains,
singing birds in tiny cages, water-sellers, sunsets, melons, mules, great churches, pictures,
and swimming grey-brown mountains of a fascinating land."
The enumeration here is worth analysing. The various elements o! this enumeration can
be approximately grouped in semantic clusters :
1) donkeys, mules, crowing cocks, goats, singing birds;
2) priests, beggars, children, watersellers;
3) villages,
patios,
cactus
hedges,
churches,
tumbling
bells,
sombreros, pictures;
4) sunsets,
swimming
grey-brown
mountains,
greening
plains,
olive-trees, melons.
Galsworthy found it necessary to arrange them not according to logical semantic centres,
but in some other order; in one which, apparently, would suggest the rapidly changing
impressions of a tourist. Enumeration of this kind assumes a stylistic function and may therefore be regarded as a stylistic device, inasmuch as the objects in the enumeration are not
distributed in logical order and therefore become striking.
This h e t e r o g e n e o u s e n u m e r a t i o n gives one an insight into the mind of the
observer, into his love of the exotic, into the great variety of miscellaneous objects which
caught his eye, it gives an idea of the progress of his travels and the most striking fea tures of
the land of Spain as seen by one who is in love with the country. The parts of the enumeration
may be likened to the strokes of a painter's brush who by an inimitable choice of colours
presents to our eyes an unforgettable image of the life and scenery of Spain. The passage itself
can be likened to a picture drawn for you while you wait.
Here is another example of heterogeneous enumeration:
"The principle production of these towns... appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk,
shrimps, officers and dock-yard men." (Dickens. "Pickwick Papers")
Literature:
9. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
10.
Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics.
. 1986.

11.
12.

Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.

Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

Lecture #10
Syntactical EMs and SDs:
1. Suspense.
2. Climax (Gradation).
3. Antithesis.
1. Suspense.
S u s p e n s e \ s a compositional device which consists in arranging the matter of a
communication in such a way that the less important, descriptive, subordinate parts are
amassed at the beginning, the main idea being withheld till the end of the sentence.
Thus the reader's attention is held and his interest kept up, for example:
"Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging
enough to read and explain to me, for the f i r s t seventy thousand ages ate their
meat raw." (Charles Lamb)
Sentences of this type are called p e r i o d i c s e n t e n c e s , or p e r i o d s.
Their function is to create suspense, to keep the reader in a state of uncertainly and
expectation.
Here is a good example of the piling up of details so as to create a state of suspense
in the listeners:
"But suppose it' passed; suppose one of these men, as I have seen them,
meagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a l i f e which your Lordships
are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking-frame:
suppose this man surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure
bread at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn Tor ever from a family
which he lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not hi s fault that he
can no longer so support; suppose this man, and there are ten thousand such
from whom you may select your victims, dragged into court, to be tried for this
new offence, by this new law; s t i l l there are two things wanting to convict and
condemn him; and these are, in my opinion, twetve butchers for a jury, and a
Jeffreys for a judgcV (Byron)
Here the subject of the subordinate clause of concession ('one of these men') is
repeated twice ( ' t h i s man', 'this man'), each lime followed by a number of subordinate
parts, before the predicate 'dragged' is reached. A l l this is drawn together in the
principal clause there are two things wanting..., which was expected and prepared
for by the logically incomplete preceding statements. But the suspense is not yet
broken: what these two things are,
is s t i l l withheld until the orator comes to the words
'and these are, in my opinion. 1
Suspense and climax sometimes go together. In this case all the information contained
in the series of statement-clauses preceding the solution-statement are arranged in the
order of gradation, as in the example above from Byron's maiden speech in the House of
Lords.
The device of suspense is especially favoured by orators. This is apparently due to the
strong influence of intonation which helps to create the desired atmosphere of
expectation and emotional tension which goes with i t .
Suspense always requires long stretches of speech or writing. Some times the whole of
a poem is built on this stylistic device, as is the case with Kipling's poem "If" where
a l l the eight stanzas consist of ^/-clauses and only the last two lines constitute the principal
clause.
"If you can keep your head when a l l about you Are losing theirs and
blaming it on you, // you can trust yourself when all men doubt you And
make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can dream and not make dreams your master, // you can think and not
make thoughts your aim,
Yours is the earth and everything that's in i t , . . . And which is more,
you'll be a Man, my son."

This device is effective in more than one way, but the main purpose is to prepare the reader
for the only logical conclusion of the utterance. It is a psychological effect that is aimed at
in particular.
A series of parallel question-sentences containing subordinate parts is another structural
pattern based on the principle of suspense, for the answer is withheld for a time, as in Byron's
"The Bride of Abydos":
"Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle... Know ye the land of the
cedar and vine...
'77s the clime of the East 'tis the land of the Sun."
The end of an utterance is a specially emphatic part of it. Therefore if we keep the secret
of a communication until we reach the end, it will lead to concentration of the reader's or
listener's attention, and this is the effect sought.
One more example to show how suspense can be maintained:
"Proud of his "Hear him!" proud, too of his vote, And lost virginity of
oratory, Proud of his learning (just enough to quote) He revell'd in his
Ciceronian glory." (Byron)
It must be noted that suspense, due to its partly psychological nature (it arouses a feeling
of expectation), is framed in one sentence, for there must not be any break in the intonation
pattern. Separate sentences would violate the principle of constant emotional tension which
is characteristic of this device.
2. Climax (Gradation).
C I i in a x is an arrangement of sentences (or of the homogeneous parts of one sentence)
which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or emotional tension in the
utterance as in:
"It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a f a i r city, a veritable gem of a city.
or in
"Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide,
Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul" (Byron)
Gradual increase in emotional evaluation in the first illustration and in significance in
the second are realized by the distribution of the corresponding lexical items. Each successive
unit is perceived as stronger than the preceding one. Of course, there are no objective linguistic
criteria to estimate the degree of importance or significance of each constituent. It is only the
formal homogeneity of these component parts and the test of synonymy in the words 'lovely',
'beautiful,' 'fair,' veritable 'gem' in the first example and the relative inacces sibility of the
barriers ' w a l l ' , 'river',
'crags', 'mountains' together with the epithets 'deep and wide',
'horrid', 'dark and tall 1 that make us feel the increase in importance of each.
A gradual increase in significance may be maintained in three ways: logical, emotional
and quantitative.
L o g i c a l I i m a x is based on the relative importance of the component parts
looked at from the point of view of the concepts embodied in them. This relative importance may
be evaluated both objectively and subjectively, the author's attitude towards the objects or
phenomena in question being disclosed. Thus the following paragraph from Dickens'
"Christmas Carol" shows the relative importance in the author's mind of the things and
phenomena described:
"Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge,
how are you? When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored him to bestow a
trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his
life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs
appeared to know him, and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into
doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails, as though they said, 'No eye at
all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'"
The order of the statements shows what the author considers the culmination of the climax.
The passage by Dickens should be considered subjective, because there is no general recognition
of the relative significance of the statements in the paragraph. The climax in the lines from
Byron's "ne barrier,.." may be considered objective because such things as 'wall', 'river',
'crags', 'mountains' are objectively .ranked according to their accessibility.
E m t i n a I c lima x is based on the relative emotional tension produced by words
with emotive meaning, as in the first example, with the words 'lovely', 'beautiful', 'fair',

Of course, emotional climax, based on synonymous strings of words with emotional meaning
will inevitably cause certain semantic differences in these words such is the linguistic nature
of stylistic synonyms ,but emotional meaning will be the prevailing one.
Emotional climax is mainly found in sentences, more rarely in longer syntactical units.
This is natural. Emotional charge cannot hold long.
As becomes obvious from the analysis of the above examples of climatic order, the
arrangement of the component parts calls for parallel construction which, being a kind of
syntactical repetition, is frequently accompanied by lexical repetition. Here is another example
of emotional climax built on "this pattern:
"He was pleased when the child began to adventure across floors on hand and knees;
he was gratified, when she managed the trick of balancing herself on two legs; he was
delighted when11she first said 'ta-ta'; and he was rejoiced when she recognized him and
smiled at him. (Alan Paton)
Finally we come to q u a n t i t a t i v e c I i m a x. This is an evident increase in the
volume of the corresponding concepts, as in:
"They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of
inspected innumerable kitchens,"
(Somerset Maugham)

stairs;

they

Here the climax is achieved by simple numerical increase. In the following example climax is
materialized by setting side by side concepts of measure and time:
"Little by little, bit by bit, and day by day, and year by year the baron got the worst of
some disputed question." (Dickens)
What then are the indispensable constituents of climax? They are:
a) the
distributional
constituent:
close
proximity
of
the
component
parts arranged in increasing order of importance or significance;
b) the syntactical pattern: structure of each of the clauses or sen
tences with possible lexical repetition;
c) the connotative constituent:
the "explanatory
context
which
helps the reader to grasp the gradation, as no... ever once in all his
life, nobody ever, nobody, Ah beggars (Dickens); deep and wide, horrid,
dark and tall (Byron); veritable (gem of a city).
Climax, like many other stylistic devices, is a means by which the author discloses his world
outlook, his evaluation of objective facts and phenomena. The concrete stylistic function of
this device is to show the relative importance of things as seen by the author (especially in
emotional climax), or to impress upon the reader the significance
of the things described by
suggested comparison, or to depict phenomena dynamically.1
3. Antithesis.
In order to characterize a thing or phenomenon from a specific point of view, it may be
necessary not to find points of resemblance or association between it and some other thing or
phenomenon, but to find points of sharp contrast, that is, to set one against the other, for
example:
"A saint abroad, and a devil at home." (Bunyan) "Better to reign in helt than serve
in heaven." (Milton)
A line of demarcation must be drawn between logical opposition and stylistic opposition.
Any opposition will be based on the contrasting features of two objects. These contrasting
features are represented in pairs of words which we call antonyms, provided that all the properties of the two objects in question may be set one against another as 'saint' 'devil', 'reign'
'serve', 'hell' 'heaven'. Many word combinations are built up by means of contrasting
pairs, as ' u p and down', 'inside and out', 'from top to bottom' and the like.
Stylistic opposition, which is given a special name, the term a n-t i th e s i s, is of a
different linguistic nature: it is based on relative opposition which arises out of the context
through the expansion of objectively contrasting pairs, as in:
Youth is lovely, age is lonely,
Youth is fiery, age is frosty; (Longfellow)
1
There is a device (not linguistic but literary) which is called a n t i c l i m a x .
The ideas expressed may be arranged in ascending order of significance, or they may be
poetical or elevated, but the final one, which the reader expects to be the culminating one, as in
climax, is trifling or farcical. There is a sudden drop from the lofty or serious to the
ridiculous. A typical example is Aesop's fable "The Mountain in Labour."

"In days of yore, a mighty rumbling was heard in a Mountain. It was said to be in
labour, and multitudes flocked together, from far and near, to see what it would
produce. After long expectation and many wise conjectures from the by-standersout
popped, a Mouse!"
Here we have deliberate anticlimax, which is a recognized form of humour. Anticlimax is
frequently used by humorists l ik e Mark Twain and Jerome K- Jerome.
In "Three Men in a Boat", for example, a poetical passage is invariably followed by a
ludicrous scene. For example, the author expands on the beauties of the sunset on the river and
concludes:
"But we didn't sail intp the world of golden sunset: we went slap into that . old punt
where (he gentlemen were fishing."
Another example is:
"This war-like speech, received with 1 many a cheer, Had filled them
with desire of fame, and beer
Here the objectively contrasted pair is 'youth' and 'age'. 'Lovely' and 'lonely' cannot be
regarded as objectively opposite concepts, but being drawn into the scheme contrasting 'youth'
and 'age', they display certain features which may be counted as anlonymical. This is strengthened also by the next line where not only 'youth' and 'age' but also 'fiery' and 'frosty' are
objective antonyms.
It Is not only the semantic aspect which explains the linguistic nature of antithesis, the
structural pattern also plays an important role. Antithesis is generally moulded in parallel
construction. The antagonistic features of the two objects or phenomena are more easily
perceived when they stand out in similar structures. This is particu larly advantageous when
the antagonistic features are not inherent in the objects in question but imposed on them. The
structural design of antithesis is so important that unless it is conspicuously marked in the
utterance, the effect might be lost.
It must be remembered however that so strong is the impact of the various stylistic devices,
that they draw into their orbit stylistic elements not specified as integral parts of the device. As
we have pointed out, this is often the case with the epithet. The same concerns antith esis.
Sometimes it is difficult to single out the elements which distinguish
it from logical
opposition.
Thus in Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" the first paragraph is practically
built on
opposing pairs.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the
season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the
winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all
going direct to Heaven, we are all going direct the other way...'' (Dickens)
The structural pattern of the utterance, the pairs of objective antonyms as well as of those
on which antonymical meanings are imposed by the force of analogy makes the whole paragraph
stylistically significant, and the general device which makes it so is antithesis.
This device is often signalled by the introductory connective but as in
'The cold in clime are cold in blood Their love can scarce deserve the
name; But mine was l i k e a lava flood. That boils in Etna's breast of
flame." (Byron)
When but is used as a signal of antithesis, the other structural sig nal, the parallel
arrangement, may not be evident. It may be unnecessary, as in the example above.
Antithesis is a device bordering between stylistics and logic. The extremes are easily
discernible but most of the cases are intermediate.
223
However it is essential to distinguish between antithesis and what is termed c o n t r a s t.
Contrast is a literary (not a linguistic) device, based on logical opposition between the
phenomena set one against another. Here is a good example of contrast.
THE RIVER
"The river with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold the
grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, chasing shadows
o'er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies,
wantoning with the weir's white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges,
brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in the
rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a far sail, making
soft the air with glory is a golden fairy stream.
But the river chill and weary, with the ceaseless rain drops falling on its brown
and sluggish waters, with the sound as of a woman, weeping low in some dark chamber,

while the woods all dark and silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts
upon the margin, silent ghosts with eyes reproachful like the ghosts of evil actions, like
the ghosts of friends neglected is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vain
regrets." (Jerome K- Jerome)
The two paragraphs are made into one long span of thought by the signal Bui and the
repetition of the word river after which in both cases a pause is indicated by a dash which
suggests a different intonation pattern of the word river. The opposing members of the
contrast are the 'sunlight flashing' 'ceaseless rain drops falling'; 'gilding gold the greygreen beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood-paths' 'the woods, all dark and
silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts...'; 'golden fairy stream' 'spirithaunted water'.
Still there are several things lacking to show a clear case of a sty listic device, viz. the words
involved in the opposition do not display any additional nuance of meaning caused by being
opposed one to another; there are no true parallel constructions except perhaps the general
pattern of the two paragraphs, with all the descriptive parts placed between the grammatical
subject and predicate, the two predicates serving as a kind of summing up, thus completing
the contrast.
'The river... is a golden fairy stream.' 'But the river ... is a spirit-haunted water through
the land of vain regrets.' The contrast embodied in these two paragraphs is, however, akin to
the stylistic device of antithesis.
Antithesis has the following basic functions: rhythm-forming (because of the parallel
arrangement on which it is founded); copulative; dissevering; comparative. These functions often
go together and intermingle in their own peculiar manner. But as a rule antithesis dis plays one
of the functions more clearly than the others. This particular function will then be the leading
one in the given utterance. An interesting example of antithesis where the comparative function
is predominant is the madrigal ascribed to Shakespeare:
A MADRIGAL
"Crabbed age and youth Cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance, Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, Age like winter weather,
Youth like summer brave, Age like winter bare:
Youth is full of sport, Age's breath is short, Youth is
nimble, Age is lame:
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold, Youth is wild, and Age is tame:
Age, I do abhore thee,
Youth, I do adore thee; O my Love, my Love is young!
Age, 1 do defy thee
O sweet shepherd, hie thee.
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2.Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

Lecture #11
Syntactical EMs and SDs:
1. Particular ways of combining parts of the utterance (Linkage).
2. Asyndeton.
3. Polysendeton.
1. Particular ways of combining parts of the utterance (Linkage).
The analysis of syntactical structures, their variety, their super- linear meaning, their
stylistic functions cannot be effectively maintained without a thorough investigation of the
l i n g u i s t i c features of the means and types of connection between parts of the sentence,
between sentences themselves, between syntactical wholes and within the paragraph.
For a long time only two types of connection have been under the observation of
linguists: c o o r d i n a t i o n a n d s u b o r-d i n a t i o n ( p a r a t a x i s a n d h y p o t a
x i s). The language means of expressing these two types of logical connection of ideas are
correspondingly divided into coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
Thus and, bat are coordinating, when, because, since and the like are subordinating.
Now linguists, getting deeper into the essence of interconnections between parts of the
utterance, have come to the conclusion that there are more than these two manners of combining
ideas. The interdependence between different parts of the utterance presents a far great ei
diversity of relations than coordination and subordination alone, Consequently the means of
connection conjunctions .and adverbial connectives have been discovered to possess a
more varied range of grammatical meanings. It now becomes obvious that the division of
connectives into two categories is no longer acceptable, especially in stylistics. Moreover the
division itself does not reflect the real functions of the connectives. Let us take the following
example:
"He was sitting quietly at the door of his cottage when sud denly he heard a terrible
explosion."
Subordinating conjunction when does not introduce a subordinate idea, although from the
point of view of traditional grammar the clause which follows the conjunction when will introduce
a subordinate clause of time. And it is assumed that what is subordinate in form must also be
subordinate in matter.
Here again we are faced with the discrepancy between the logical and linguistic approaches
to language facts. From a purely grammatical point of view the clause 'when he suddenly...' is
subordinate; while from the logical point of view the main idea is embodied in what is
formally a subordinate clause.
All this goes to show that the means of connection have become polysemantic. They may
express different types of interrelation and their meanings will, as is the case with meaningful
words, be realized in the given context.
On the other hand, the necessity of expressing the exact relation between the parts of the
utterance in the written language ynd espec i a l l y in the case of larger utterances
demands new connectives.
Language provides these means to meet this requirement. Some adverbs and adverbial
phrases have begun to function as connectives and are recognized as such from the
morphological point of view.
There is a tendency to consider the parts of a two-member coordinate sentence as equal in rank.
Therefore whenever we see the coordinating conjunctions and, but, we expect to find equality
in the semantic weights of the two parts. But it is not so. Even a superfluous semantic analysis of
a few coordinate sentences will prove the contrary.
Let us take the following sentence:
"The soldier's wound was carefully bandaged and in a few days he was again able
to fight."
The second clause is clearly semantically dependent on the first. The relation between them
is that of cause and effect, and this type of relation implies inequality of rank, which in
grammatical terms would be specified as subordination. Consequently the copulative conjunction and here indicates a relation which it is taken for granted that this conjunction does not
express. In other words and may also be used to express subordination of ideas.
Thus it follows that the terms coordination and subordination are inadequate to convey the
various forms of interrelation between the component parts of an utterance. Likewise the terms
compound and complex sentences do not cover all varieties of utterances that combine two or
more ideas.

Anyway for stylistic purposes, the division of types of sentences into compound and
complex is inapplicable. Another classification is required, and this classification must be based
on the relative importance of the utterance or its parts in a larger semantic unit. This relative
importance is revealed by different means; for example, by means of mood, tense, word order,
use of pronouns and other formal language means. Conjunctions are used not only in their
direct syntactical function, but in other functions as well. Thus and in the Shakespeare Sonnet
JV 66 is used to make each following statement stand out more clearly,
On the other hand, subordination and coordination may be effectively expressed by means
of participial phrases as, for instance, in:
'He stood at the door, listening to the hum of voices from inside, and thinking
comfortably of the cold bath that would come later in the day."
The participles 'listening' and 'thinking' may also be regarded as means of subordination of
ideas, although, be it repeated, this is a formal grammatical approach. According to the
semantic criterion, the ideas embodied in the participial phrases in the example above are the
main ideas of the utterance. After all, subordination of ideas cannot be discovered by a purely
grammatical analysis of the component parts of the sentence; it is the
difference in the
character of the actions performed that counts here ('stood', "listening 1 , ' thinking' ).
There are many grammatical forms and structures which express the interrelations
of the parts of an utterance without the help of conjunctions (signals though they a r e
p o i n t i n g out these interrelations). Thus nominative absolute is a grammatical model
capable of expressing a subordinate or other relation.
The semantic approach however will always outweigh the formal one when a
stylistic interpretation of the utterance is necessary. I n deed, in the sentence:
"And the first cab having been fetched from the public house, ...Mr. Pickwick and his
portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle",
the relation between the parts is obvious; it is one of sequence of events. But
why should sequence be regarded as a form of subordination? It would be more
appropriate to consider both parts semantically equal in rank.
Let us compare this sentence with i t s possible transforms:
1. 'The first cab was fetched from the public house and Mr. Pickwick
and his portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle.'
or,
2. 'When the first cab was fetched from the public house, Mr. Pick
wick and his portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle.'
or,
3. 'After the first cab had been fetched from t h e public house, Mr.
Pickwick and his portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle.'
Each of these variants gives a slightly different shade of meaning in regard to the
interrelation between the two component parts. The first transform lays equal stress on
both parts. The sequence of events is not clearly expressed. It is merely implied. The
pause before and is somewhat longer than in the following transforms, thus contributing
to the inner rhythm of the utterance.
The second transform stresses the more rapid sequence, almost simultaneous, of the
two actions.. The when here reduces the pause between the two parts and makes the
whole utterance more integrated than in the first transform.
The third transform lays strong emphasis on the sequence of events as if this
sequence were of great significance to the issue in question. The adverb after and the
tense form had been fetched stress completion of the first action before the
commencement of the second.
Now it becomes clear that the third transform could not have been chosen by the author
because too much emphasis is l ai d on the sequence relation. This would have shown a
pedantic approach alien to the principles of emotive prose. The second transform
seems likewise to be inappropriate to the purport of the author for the same reason. Neither the
simultaneousness nor the sequence of actions concern the writer.
So there remain only two variants: the one given by the author and our first transform. The
choice in favour of the participial construction is apparently due to two reasons: 1) the
humorous character of the whole of the "Papers", this utterance included, and 2) the aesthetic
principle to avoid the repetition of and in close succession. The first principle manifests
itself in the mixture of two stylistic aspects, viz. the official atmosphere of the nominative
absolute construction on
the one hand and the information itself, which is far from being
official, viz. the 'first cab1, 'Mr. Pickwick and his portmanteau,' 'were thrown1.
A comparatively wide range of relations is expressed through the nominative absolute and
other participial constructions.

Infinitive constructions, being formally dependent on a part of the sentence containing a finite
verb, may also be regarded as a means of subordination. In the sentence: "He was too i l l to
attend the lecture," the infinitive construction performs the function of a subordinate clause
expressing result.
For stylistic purposes it is important to distinguish degrees of subordination between the
parts of a sentence as well as the closeness of the connection between relatively independent
statements. An estimation of the degree of independence will contribute to the correct
interpretation of the intonation pattern of the utterance and thus help to get at the purport of
the author.
2. Asyndeton.
Asyndeton, that is, connection between parts of a sentence or between sentences without
any formal sign, becomes a stylis tic device if there is a deliberate omission of the connective
where it is generally expected to be according to the norms of the literary language. Here is an
example:
"Soames turned away; he had an utter disinclination for talk, like one standing
before an open grave, watching a coffin slowly lowered." (Galsworthy)
The deliberate omission of the subordinate conjunction because or for makes the sentence
'he had an utter...' almost entirely independent. It might be perceived as a characteristic
feature of Soames in general, but for the comparison, beginning with tike, which shows that
Soames's mood was temporary.
Here a reminder is necessary that there is an essential difference between the ordinary norms
of language, both literary and colloquial, and stylistic devices which are skilfully wrought for
special informative and aesthetic purposes. In the sentence:
"Bicket did not answer his throat felt too dry." (Galsworthy) the absence of the
conjunction and a punctuation mark may be regarded as a deliberate introduction of the norms of
colloquial speech into the literary language. Such structures make the utterance sound like one
syntactical unit to be pronounced in one breath group. This determines the intonation pattern.
It is interesting to compare the preceding two utterances from the point of view of the length
of the pause between the constituent parts. In the first utterance (Soames...), there is a semicolon
which, being the indication of a longish pause, breaks the utterance into two parts. In the
second utterance (Bicket...), no pause should be made and the whole of the utterance
pronounced as one syntagm.
The crucial problem in ascertaining the true intonation pattern of a sentence composed of
two or more parts lies in a deeper analysis of the functions of the connectives on the one hand,
and a more detailed investigation of graphical means the signals indicating the correct
interpretation of the utterance on the other.
3. Polysendeton.
P o l y s y n d e t o n is the stylistic device of connecting sentences or phrases or syntagms or
words by using connectives (mostly conjunctions and prepositions) before each component part
as in:
"The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage
over h i m in only one respect." (Dickens)
In this passage from Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha", there is repetition both of
conjunctions and prepositions.
"Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odours of the forest,
With the dew, and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,..."
The repetition of conjunctions and other means of connection makes an utterance more
rhythmical; so much so that prose may even seem like verse. The conjunctions and other
connectives, being generally unstressed elements, when placed before each meaningful member
will cause the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables the essential requirement of
rhythm in verse. Hence one of the functions of polysyndeton is a rhythmical one.
In addition to this, polysyndeton has a disintegrating function. It generally combines
homogeneous elements of thought into one whole resembling enumeration. But unlike
enumeration, which integrates both homogeneous and heterogeneous elements into one
whole, polysyndeton causes each member of a string of facts to stand nut conspicuously. That is

why we say that polysyndeton has a disintegrating function. Enumeration shows things united;
polysyndeton shows them isolated.
Polysyndeton has also the function of expressing sequence, as in:
"Then Mr. Boffin... sat staring at a little bookcase of Law Practice and Law Reports,
and at a window, and at an empty blue bag, and a stick of sealing-wax, and at a pen, and a
box of wafers, and an apple, and a writing-pad a l l very dusty and at a number of
inky smears and blots, and at an imperfectly disguised gun-case pretending to be
something legal, and at an iron box labelled "Harmon Estate", until Mr. Lightwood
appeared." (Dickens)
A l l these ands may easily be replaced by thens. But in this case too much stress would be
laid on the logical aspects of the utterance, whereas and expresses both sequence and
disintegration.
Note also that Dickens begins by repeating not only and, but also at. But in the middle of
the utterance he drops the at, picks it up again, drops it once more and then f i n a l l y picks
it up and uses it with the last three items.
Literature:
5. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
6. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .
1986.
7. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
8. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

Lecture#12
Syntactical EMs and SDs:
1. Particular use of colloquial constructions.
2. Ellipses.
3. Break-in-the narrative (Apostopesis).
4. Question-in-the narrative
1. Particular use of colloquial constructions.
Emotional syntactical structures typical of the spoken language are those used in informal
and intimate conversation where personal feelings are introduced into the utterance. They are
common in dialogue and in dialogue are hardly perceived as special devices, but they stand
out in the written language.
2. Ellipses.
E l l i p s i s is a typical phenomenon; in conversation, arising out of the situation. We
mentioned this peculiar feature of the spoken language when we characterized its essential
qualities and properties.
But t h i s typical feature of the spoken language assumes a new quality when used in the
written language. It becomes a stylistic device, inasmuch as it supplies supersegmental
information. An elliptical sentence in direct intercourse is not a stylistic device. It is
simply a norm of the spoken language.
Let us take a few examples.
"So Justice Oberwaitzer solemnly and didactically from his high seal to the
jury/ 1 (Dreiser)
One feels very acutely the absence of the predicate in this sentence. Why was it omitted? Did
the author pursue any special purpose in leaving out a primary member of the sentence? Or is it
just due to carelessness? The answer is obvious: it is a deliberate device. This particular model
of sentence suggests the author's personal state of mind, viz. his indignation at the
shameless speech of the Justice. It is a common fact that any excited state of mind will
manifest itself in some kind of violation of the recognized literary sentence structure.
Ellipsis, when used as a stylistic device, always imitates the common features of colloquial
language, where the situation predetermines not the omission of certain members of the sentence,
but their absence. It would perhaps be adequate to call sentences lacking certain mem bers
"incomplete sentences", leaving the term e l l i p s i s to specify structures where we
recognize a digression from the traditional literary sentence structure.
Thus the sentences 'See you to-morrow.', 'Had a good time. 1 , 'Won't do.', 'You say that?'
are typical of the colloquial language. Nothing is omitted here. These are normal
syntactical structures in the spoken language and to call them elliptical, means to judge
every sentence structure according to the structural models of the written language. Likewise
such sentences as the following can hardly be called elliptical.
'"There s somebody wants to speak to you." "There was no breeze came through
the open window."
(Hemingway)
"There's many a man in this Borough would be glad to have the blood that runs in my
veins." (Cronin) The relative pronouns who, which, who after 'somebody', 'breeze', 'a man in
this Borough' could
not be regarded as "omitted" this is the norm of colloquial
language, though now not in frequent use except perhaps with the there is {are)
constructions as above. This is due, perhaps, to the standardizing power of the literary
language. O. Jespersen, in his analysis of such structures, writes:
"If we speak here of 'omission' or 'subaudition' or 'ellipsis,' the reader is apt to get the
false impression that the fuller expression is the better one as being complete, and that
the shorter expression is to some extent faulty or defective, or something that has come into
existence in recent times out of slovenliness. This is wrong: the constructions are very old
in the language and have not come into existence through the dropping of a previously
necessary relative pronoun."1 Here are. some examples quoted by Jespersen:
"/ bring him news will raise his drooping spirits." "...or like the snow falls in the river."
"...when at her door arose a clatter might awake the dead." However when the reader
encounters such structures in literary texts, even though they a i m at representing the
lively norms of the spoken language, he is apt to regard them as bearing some definite
stylistic function. This is due to a psychological effect produced by the relative rarity of the
construction, on the one hand, and the non-expectancy of any strikingly colloquial
expression in literary narrative.

It must be repeated here that the most characteristic feature of the written variety of
language is amplification which by its very nature is opposite to ellipsis. Amplification
generally demands expansion of the ideas with as full and as exact relations between the parts
of the utterance as possible. Ellipsis being the property of colloquial language, on the contrary,
does not express what can easily be supplied by the situation. This is perhaps the reason that
elliptical sentences are rarely used as stylistic devices. Sometimes the omission of a link verb
adds emotional colouring and makes the sentence sound more emphatic, as in these lines
from Byron: "Thrice happy he who, after survey of the good company, can win a corner."
"Nothing so difficult as a beginning."
"Denotes how soft the chin which bears his touch."
It is wrong to suppose that the omission of the link verbs in these sentences is due to the
requirements of the rhythm.
3. Break-in-the narrative (Apostopesis).
A p o s i o p e s i s is a device which dictionaries define as "A stopping short for rhetorical
effect." This is true. But this definition is too general to disclose the stylistic functions of
the device.
In the spoken variety of the language a break in the narrative is usually caused by
unwillingness to proceed; or by the supposition that what remains to be said can be
understood by the implication embodied in what was said; or by uncertainty as to what
should be said.
In the written variety a break in the narrative is always a stylistic device used for some
stylistic effect. It is d i ff i c u l t , however, to draw a hard and fast distinction between break-inthe-narrative as a typical feature of lively colloquial language and as a specific stylistic
device. The only criterion which may serve as a guide is that in conversation the implication
can be conveyed by an adequate gesture. In writing it is the context, which suggests the
adequate intonation, that is the only key to decoding the aposiopesis.
In the following example the implication of the aposiopesis is a warning:
"If you continue your intemperate way of living, in six months' time ..."
In the sentence:
"You just come home or I ' l l ..."
the implication is a threat. The second example shows that without a context the
implication can only be vague. But when one knows that the words were said by an angry
father to his son over the telephone the implication becomes apparent.
Aposiopesis is a stylistic syntactical device to convey to the reader a very strong upsurge of
emotions. The idea of this s t yl i s t i c device is that the speaker cannot proceed, his feelings
depriving him of the a bi li t y to express himself in terms of language. Thus in Don Juan's
address to J u l i a , who is left behind:
"And oh! if e'er 1 should forget, / swear But that's impossible, and
cannot be." (Byron)
Break-in-the-narrative has a strong degree of predictability, which is ensured by the
structure of the sentence. As a stylistic device it is used in complex sentences, in particular
in conditional sentences, the //-clause being given in full and the second part only implied.
However aposiopesis may be noted in different syntactical structures.
Thus one of Shelley's poems is entitled "To " which is an aposiopesis of a different
character inasmuch as the implication here is so vague that it can be likened to a secret code.
Indeed, no one except those in the know would be able to find out to whom the poem was
addressed.
Sometimes a break in the narrative is caused by euphemistic considerations
unwillingness to name a thing on the ground of its being offensive to the ear, for example:
"Then, Mamma, I hardly like to let the words cross my lips, but they have wicked,
wicked attractions out there l i k e dancing girls that that charm snakes and dance
without Miss Moir with downcast eyes, broke off significantly and blushed, whilst
the down on her upper l i p quivered modestly."
(A. J. Cronin)
Break-in-the-narrative is a device which, on the one hand, offers a number of variants in
deciphering the implication and, on the other, is highly predictable. The problem of
implication is, as it were, a crucial one in sty list ics. What is implied sometimes
outweighs what is expressed. In other stylistic devices the degree of implication is not so
high as in break-in-the-narrative. A sudden break in the narrative will inevitably focus the
attention on what is left unsaid. Therefore the interrelation between what is given and what is
new becomes more significant, inasmuch as the given is what is said and the new what is
left unsaid. There is a phrase in colloquial English which has become very familiar.

"Good intentions but "

The implication here is that nothing has come of what it was planned to accomplish.
Aposiopesis is a stylistic device in which the role of the intonation implied cannot be
overestimated. The pause after the break is general l y charged with meaning and it is the
intonation only that w i l l decode the communicative significance of the utterance.
4. Question-in-the narrative
Questions, being both structurally and semantically one of the types of sentences, are
asked by one person and expected to be answered by another. This is the main, and the most
characteristic property of the question, i. e. it exists as a syntactical unit of language to bear
t h i s particular function in communication. Essentially, questions belong to the spoken
language and presuppose the presence of an interlocutor, that is, they are commonly encountered
in dialogue. The questioner is presumed not to know the answer.
Q u e s t i o n - i n - t h e - n a r r a t i v e changes the real nature of a question and turns it into a
stylistic device. A question in the narrative is asked and answered by one and the same
person, usually the author. It becomes akin to a parenthetical statement with strong emotional
implications. Here are some cases of question-in-the-narrativc taken from Byron's "Don
Juan":
1) "For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush for Greece a tear."
2) "And starting, she awoke, and what to view}
Oh, Powers of Heaven. What dark eye meets she there} 'Tis 'tis her father's
f i x ' d upon the pair."
As is seen from these examples the questions asked, unlike rhe torical questions (See p. 248)
do not contain statements. But being answered by one who knows the answer, they assume a
semi-exclamatory nature, as in 'what to view?'
Sometimes question-in-the-narrative gives the impression of an intimate t a l k between the
writer and the reader. For example:
"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." (Dickens)
Question-in-the-narrativc is very often used in oratory. This is explained by one of the
leading features of oratorical style to induce the desired reaction to the content of the
speech. Questions here chain the attention of the listeners to the matter the orator is dealing
with and prevent it from wandering. They also give the listeners time to absorb what has
been said, and prepare for the next point.
Question-in-the-narrative may also remain unanswered as in:
"How long must it go on? How long must we suffer? Where is the end? What is the
end?" (Morris)
These sentences show a gradual transition to rhetorical questions. There are only hints of the
possible answers. Indeed, the first and the second questions suggest that the existing state of
affairs should be put an end to and that we should not suffer any longer. The third and the
fourth questions suggest that the orator himself could not find a solution to the problem.
"The specific nature of interrogative sentences," writes P. S. Popov, "which are
transitional stages from what we know to what we do not yet know,, is reflected in the
interconnection between the question and the answer. The interrogative sentence is
connected with the answer-sentence far more closely than the inference is connected with
two interrelated pronouncements, because each of the two pronouncements has its own
significance; whereas tlie
significance of the interrogative sentence is only in the process
of seeking the answer." 1
This very interesting statement concerning the psychological nature of the
question however, does not take into consideration the stimulating aspect of the
question.
When a question begins to fulfil a function not directly arising from its linguistic
and psychological nature, it may have a certain volume of emotional charge.
Question-in-the-narrative is a case of this kind. Here its function deviates slightly from
its general signification.
This deviation (being in fact a modification of the general function of interrogative
sentences), is much more clearly apparent in rhetorical questions.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.

2. Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics. .

1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

Lecture #13
Syntactical EMs and SDs:
1. Syntactical use of structural meaning.
2. Rhetorical questions.
3.Litotes.
1. Syntactical use of structural meaning.
On analogy with transference of lexical meaning, in which words are used other than in
their primary logical sense, syntactical structures may also be used in meanings other than
their primary ones. Every syntactical structure has its definite function, which is sometimes
called its s t r u c t u r a l m e a n i n g . When a structure is used in some other function it
may be said to assume a new meaning which is similar to lexical transferred meaning.
Among syntactical stylistic devices there are two in which this transference of structural
meaning is to be seen. They are rhetorical questions and litotes.
2. Rhetorical questions.
T h e r h e t o r i c a l q u e s t i o n is a special syntactical stylistic device the essence of
which consists in reshaping the grammatical meaning of the interrogative sentence. Tn other
words, the question is no longer a question but a statement expressed in the form of an
interrogative sentence. Thus there is an interplay of two structural meanings: 1) that of the
question and 2) that of the statement. Both are materialized simultaneously. For example:
"Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace?"
"Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to
ascend to Heaven and testify against you?" (Byron)
One can agree with Prof. Popov who states: "...the rhetorical question is equal to a
categorical pronouncement plus an exclamation."1 Indeed, if we compare a pronouncement
expressed as a statement with the same pronouncement expressed as a rhetorical question by
means of transformational analysis, we will find ourselves compelled to assert that the
interrogative form makes the pronouncement still more categorical, in that it excludes any
interpretation beyond that contained in the rhetorical question.
From the examples given above, we can see that rhetorical questions are generally
structurally embodied in complex sentences with the subordinate clause containing the
pronouncement. Here is another example:
"...Shall the sons of Chimary
Who never forgive the fault of a friend
Bid an enemy live?..." (Byron)
Without the attributive clause the rhetorical question would lose its specific quality
and might be regarded as an ordinary question.
The subordinate clause, as it were, signalizes the rhetorical question. The meaning ol the
above utterance can hardly fail to be understood: i.e., The sons of Chimary will never bid an
enemy live.
There is another structural pattern of rhetorical questions, which is based on negation. In
this case the question may be a simple sentence, as in
"Did not the Italian Mosico Cazzani
Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?" (Byron)
"Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?" (Byron)
Negative-interrogative sentences generally have a peculiar nature. There is always an
additional shade of meaning implied in them: sometimes doubt, sometimes assertion,
sometimes suggestion. In other words they are full of emotive meaning and modality.
We have already stated that rhetorical questions may be looked upon as a transference of
grammatical meaning. But just as in the case of the transference of lexical meaning the stylistic
effect of the transference of grammatical meaning can only be achieved if there is a simultaneous
realization of the two meanings: direct and transferred. So it is with rhetorical questions. Both
the question-meaning and the statement-meaning are materialized with an emotional charge,
the weight of which can be judged by the intonation of the speaker.
The intonation of rhetorical questions, according to the most recent investigations,
differs materially from the intonation of ordinary questions. This is also an additional
indirect proof of the double nature of this stylistic device.

The nature of the rhetorical question has not been fully studied and what structural
peculiarities cause an ordinary question to turn into a rhetorical one is still to be discovered.
In the question-sentence
'Is the poor privilege to turn the key Upon the captive, freedom?"
(Byron)
instead of a categorical pronouncement one can detect doubt. It is the word 'poor' that
prompts this interpretation of the utterance.
A more detailed analysis of the semantic aspect of different question-sentences leads to the
conclusion that these structural models have various functions. Not only ordinary questions,
not only categorical pronouncements are expressed in question form. In fact there are
various nuances of emotive meaning embodied in question-sentences. We have already given
an example of one of these meanings, viz. doubt. In Shakespeare's
"Who is here so vile that will not love his country?" there is a meaning of challenge
openly and unequivocally declared. It is impossible to regard it as a rhetorical question
making a categorical pronouncement. In the rhetorical question from Byron's maiden speech
given above ( ' I s there not blood...') there is a clear implication of scorn and contempt for
Parliament and the laws it passes.
So rhetorical questions may also be defined as utterances in the form of questions which
pronounce judgments and also express various kinds of modal shades of meaning as doubt,
challenge, scorn and so on.
It has been stated elsewhere that questions are more emotional than statements. When a
question is repeated as in these lines from Poe's "The Raven:"
" Is there is there balm in Gilead?! Tell me tell meI implore! "
the degree of emotiveness increases and the particular shade of meaning (in this case, despair)
becomes more apparent. The rhetorical question re-enforces this essential quality of
interrogative sentences and uses it to convey a stronger shade of emotional meaning.
Rhetorical questions, due to their power of expressing a variety of modal shades of
meaning, are most often used in publicists style and particularly in oratory, where the rousing
of emotions is the effect generally aimed at.
3.Litotes.
L i t o t e s is a stylistic device consisting of a peculiar use of negative constructions.
The negation plus noun or adjective serves to establish a positive feature in a person or
thing. This positive feature, however, is somewhat diminished in quality as compared with
a synonymous expression making a straightforward assertion of the positive feature. Let us
compare the following two pairs of sentences:
1. It's not a bad thing It's a good thing.
2. He is no coward Me is a brave man.
'Not bad' is not equal to 'good' although the two constructions are synonymous. The
same can be said about the second pair, 'no coward' and 'a brave man'. In both cases the
negative construction is weaker than the affirmative one. S till we cannot say that the two
negative constructions produce a lesser effect than the corresponding affirmative ones.
Moreover, it should be noted that the negative constructions here have a stronger impact on
the reader than the affirmative ones. The latter have no additional connotation; the former
have. That is why such constructions are regarded as stylistic devices. Litotes is a deliberate
understatement used to produce a stylistic effect. It is not a pure negation, but a negation that
includes affirmation. Therefore here, as in the case of rhetorical questions, we may speak of
transference of meaning, i.e., a device with the help of which two meanings are materialized
simultaneously: the direct (negative) and transferred (affirmative).
So the negation in litotes should not be regarded as a mere denial of the quality mentioned.
The structural aspect of the negative combination backs up the semantic aspect:
the
negatives no and not are more emphatically pronounced than in ordinary negative sentences,
thus bringing to mind the corresponding antonym.
The stylistic effect of litotes depends mainly on intonation, on intonation only. If we
compare two intonation patterns, one which suggests a mere denial (It is not bad as a contrary
to It is bad) with the other which suggests the assertion of a positive quality of the object (It
is not bad = it is good) the difference will become apparent. The degree to which litotes
carries the positive quality in itself can be estimated by analysing the semantic structure of
the word which is negated.
Let us examine the following sentences in which litotes is used:
1. "Whatever
defects
the
tale
possessed

and
they
were
not a few it had, as delivered by her, the one merit
of seeming l i k e truth."
2. "He was not without taste..."
3. "It troubled him not a little..."
4. "He found that this was no easy task."
5. "He was no gentle lamb, and the part of second fiddle

(Dickens)

would
never
do
for
the
high-pitched
dominance
of
his
nature." (Jack London)
6. "Mr. Bardell was a man of honour Mr. Bardell was a
man of his word Mr. Bardell was no deceiver..."

7. "She was wearing a fur coat...

Carr,
the enthusiastic
appreciator of smart women and as good a judge of dress
as any man to be met in a Pall Mall club, saw that she
was no country cousin. She had style, or
'devil', as he
preferred to call it." (Warwick Deeping)
Even a superfluous analysis of the litotes in the above sentences clearly shows that the
negation does not merely indicate the absence of the quality mentioned but suggests the
presence of the opposite quality. Charles Bally, a well-known Swiss linguist, states that nega tive sentences are used with the purpose of "refusing to affirm."
In sentences 5, 6 and 7 where it is explained by the context, l i totes reveals its true function.
The idea of 'no gentle lamb' is further strengthened by the 'high-pitched dominance of h i s
nature', the litotes 'no deceiver' is clearer and more emphatic because of the preceding
phrases 'a man of honour', 'a man of his word', and finally the function and meaning of 'no
country cousin' is made clear by 'as good a judge of dress...', 'she had style...'. Thus like other
stylistic devices litotes displays a simultaneous materialization of two mean ings: one negative,
the other affirmative. This interplay of two grammatical meanings is keenly felt, so much so
indeed, that the affirmation suppresses the negation, the latter being only the form in
which the real pronouncement is moulded. According to the science of logic, negation as a
category can hardly express a pronouncement.
Only an assertion can do so. That is why we may say that any nega tion only suggests an
assertion. Litotes is a means by which t h i s natural logical and l i n g u i s t i c property of
negation can be strengthened. The two senses of the l i t o t i c expression, negative and
positive, serve a definite s t yl i s t i c purpose.
A variant of litotes is a construction with two negations, as in not unlike, not
unpromising, not displeased and the like. Here, according to general logical and mathematical
principles, two negatives make a positive. Thus in the sentence "Soames, with his lips
and his squared chin was not unlike a bull dog" (Galsworthy), the litotes may be interpreted
as somewhat resembling. In spite of the fact that such constructions make the assertion more
logically apparent, they lack precision. They may truly be regarded as deliberate understatements, whereas the pattern structure of litotes, i.e. those that have only one negative are
much more categorical in stating the positive q u a l i t y of a person or thing.
An interesting jest at the expense of an English statesman who over-used the device of
double negation was published in the Spectator, May 23, 1958. Here it is:
"Anyway, as the pre-Whitsun dog-days barked themselves into silence, a good deal of
pleasure could be obtained by a connoisseur who knew where to seek it. On Monday, for
instance, from Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. His trick of seizing upon a phrase that has struck
him (erroneously, as a rule) as a happy one, and doggedly sticking to it thereafter is one
typical of a speaker who lacks all confidence. On Monday it was 'not unpromising';
three times he declared that various aspects of the Summit preparations were 'not
unpromising', and I was moved in the end to conclude that Mr. Lloyd is a not
unpoor Foreign Secretary, and that if he should not unshortly leave that office the not
unbetter it would be for a l l of us, not unhim included."
Litotes is used in different styles of speech, excluding those which may be called the matterof-fact styles, like official style and scient i f i c prose. In poetry it is sometimes used to
suggest that language fails to adequately convey the poet's feelings and therefore he uses
negations to express the inexpressible. Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 130 is to some extent
illustrative in this respect. Here a l l the hackneyed phrases used by the poet to depict his
beloved are negated with the purpose of showing the superiority of the earthly qualities of "My
mistress." The first line of this sonnet 'My mistress' eyes are nothing l i k e the sun' is a clearcut litotes although the object to which the eyes are compared is generally perceived as
having only positive qualities.
The analysis of the semantic structure of words that can be used in litotes is an
interesting study which still awaits investigators.
Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2.
Kukharenko Y.A.A book of practice in stylistics.
. 1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.

4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.