Шпаргалка по "Стилистике английского языка"

1. The subject of stylistics. Its connection with other disciplines.

 

Stylistics - branch of general linguistics. It has mainly with two tasks: St-s – is regarded as a lang-ge science which deals with the results of the act of communication. There are 2 basic objects of st-s: - stylistic devices and figures of speech; - functional styles. Branches of st-s: - Lexical st-s – studies functions of direct and figurative meanings, also the way contextual meaning of a word is realized in the text. L.S. deals with various types of connotations – expressive, evaluative, emotive; neologisms, dialectal words and their behavior in the text. - Grammatical st-s – is subdivided into morphological and syntactical. Morph-l s. views stylistic potential of gram-l categories of dif-t parts of speech. Potential of the number, pronouns…- Syntactical s. studies syntactic, expressive means, word order and word combinations, dif-t types of sentences and types of syntactic connections. Also deals with origin of the text, its division on the paragraphs, dialogs, direct and indirect speech, the connection of the sentences, types of sentences. - Phonostylistics – phonetical organization of prose and poetic texts. Here are included rhythm, rhythmical structure, rhyme, alliteration, assonance and correlation of the sound form and meaning. Also studies deviation in normative pronunciation. - Functional S (s. of decoding) – deals with all subdivisions of the language and its possible use (newspaper, colloquial style). Its object - correlation of the message and communicative situation. 

 

2. Lexico-syntactical stylistic devices (oxymoron, zeugma, simile,  periphrasis, euphemism, hyperbole)

 

Lexico-syntactical SD  –  SD based on the binary opposition of lexical meanings accompanied by fixed  syntactical   organization   of employed lexical units.

Oxymoron. This is stylistic devices which combines, in one phrase, two words( usually noun+adjective) whose meaning are opposite and incompatible:

Sweet sorrow, awfully nice.

 

Zeugma. This is a SD that plays upon two different meaning of the word – the direct and the figurative meanings, thus creating a pun. The effect comes from the use of a word in the same grammatical relation, but in different semantic relation with the surrounding words in the phrase or sentence, due to  the simultaneous realization of the literal and figurative meaning of a word:

The importance of being Earnest (O. Wilde), A leopard changes his spots, as often as he goes from one spot to another.

 

Simile – a structure of 2 components, also joined by a fixed range of link adverbs. They are: like, as, as ...as, as… though. Or they are no link adverbs: to remind, to resemble, to recollect, to seem. -> in order to show resemblance or similarity between 2 objects

  Ex.: Trite -> To be as obstinate as a mule;

  Genuine -> He stood immovable like a rock in a torrent.

  Traditional smile – The air was warm and felt like a kiss as we stepped off the plane.

  Original smile - I left her laughing. The sound was like a hen having hiccups

 

Periphrasis. This is a device by which a longer phrase is use instead of a shorter and plainer one. (King mat be replaced by the victor lord, the giver of lands; God= Heavens, Our Lord)

 

Euphemisms. This term denotes the use of a different, more gentle or favourable name for an object or phenomenon so a to avoid undesirable or unpleasant associations: the verb to die may be replaced by euphemism to be no more or to be gone; The Evil One = the Devil

 

Hyperbole denotes a deliberate extreme exaggeration of the quality of the object: the man-mountain; a woman of pocket size

 
 

3. Graphical and phonetic expressive means.

 

Graphical expressive means serve to convey in the written form those emotions which in the oral type of speech are expressed by intonation and stress.

  All types of punctuation can be used to reflect the emphatic intonation of the speaker. Ex.: And there, drinking at the bar was - Finney!

  The changed type of print, it may be italics, bold type etc.

  The changed type of spelling (multiplication - 'laaarge', 'rrruin'; hyphenation - 'des-pise',  'g-irl'). All of them are used to indicate. The additional stress on the emphasize word. There is no correlation between the type of graphical means & the type of intonation, they reflect for their choice is too inadequate since types & emotions can be described by intonation.

 

Phonetic expressive means deal with the sound instruments of the utterance; mainly found in poetry.There are alliteration, onomatopoeia, rhyme, rhythm.

 

Alliteration is a device based on repetition of the same or similar sounds at close distance, which makes speech more expressive.  It’s frequently used in idioms: neck or nothing; to dilly-dally.

 

Onomatoepoeia. This term denotes sound imitation. It may be imitation of the sounds produced by animals (buzz by bees, bow-wow by dog, mew by cat) or imitation of other natural noises (ding-dong, click, giggle).

4.Lexical Stylistic Devices

 

Lexical SD - SD based on the binary opposition of lexical meanings regardless of the syntactical organization of the utterance.

Metaphor denotes a transference of meaning based on a covert comparison. Metaphor can be simple, when expressed by a word or phrase (Man can’t live by bread alone) and complex, when the metaphor includes more than one element of the text. A trite metaphor is one that is overued in speech (seeds of evil, a fight of imagination)

Metonymy  denotes a transference of meaning which is based on contiguity of notions. In cases of metonymy , the name of one object is used instead of another, closely connected with it. This may include:

1. The name of a part instead of the name of a whole. (Washington and London agree on most issues)

2. The name of a container instead of a contents. (He drank a whole glass of whiskey)

3. The name of a characteristic feature of an object instead of the object. (The massacre of the innocents)

4. The name of an instrument instead of an action or the doer of an action. (let us turn swords into ploughs)

Epithet is the most explicitly subjective stylistic device structurally falls into the following groups:

• Word – epithets (a lipsticky smile)
• Two-step epithets (marvelously radiant smile)
• Syntactical epithets (the brute of a boy)
• Phrase- epithets (sunshine-in-the-breakfast-room)
• Sentence epithets (Fool!)

  In the sentence, epithets are distributed:

• Singly (a dirty look)
• In pails (a wonderful & happy summer)
• In strings (a dreamy, gloomy, friendly trees)

Antonomasia. This device  consist in the use of a proper name instead of a common name or vise versa. Thus, we may use a description instead of a person’s name, creating a kind of nickname: Miss Sharp, Mr. Scrooge; He is Napoleon of crime.

As we can see, on the one hand antonomasia is a subtype of periphrasis, on the other, it’s a subtype of metonymy.

 
 

5. The notion of stylistic devices, their classification. Syntactical stylistic devices

 

Stylistic devices (tropes, figures of speech) unlike expressive means are not language phenomena. They are formed in speech and most of them do not exist out of context.

According to principles of their formation, stylistic devices are grouped into phonetic, lexico-semantic and syntactic types. Basically, all stylistic devices are the result of revaluation of neutral words, word-combinations and syntactic structures.

 

Syntactical style device (SD) - SD based on the binary opposition of syntactical meaning regardless of semantics.

Rhetorical question is a statement in the form of the question & it presupposes the possible though not demanded answer. The positive form of the rhetorical question predicts the negative answer & the negative form – the positive answer. Ex.: Can we fly, my friends? Why can’t we fly?

Repetition is often used to increase the degree of emotion

• Ordinary repetition offers no fixed place for the repeated unit (he tore photo into small bits across and across and across)
• anaphora (a. . ., a. . . ., a. . . . .);The repetition of the same elements at the beginning of several sentence
• epiphora ( . . .a, a, . .a, . . .a);

  We should also distinguish morphological repetition, when a morpheme’s repeated usually in order to create a humorous effect. (She unchained, unbottled and unknocked the door)

Chaismus. This term denotes repetition of the same structure but with the opposite order of elements. (Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down)

Climax is repetition of elements of the sentence, which is combined with gradual increase in the degree of some quality or in quantity, or in the emotional coloring of the sentence.

Polysyndeton is also a kind of repetition where conjunctions & connecting words are repeated. ( And the coach, and the coachman, and the horses, rattled, and jangled, and whipped, and cursed, and swore, and tumbled on together, till they came to olden Square)

Asyndeton it offers no conjunctions & connectives for the syntactical connection. It’s mostly used to indicate tense energetic, organized activities or to show the succession of minute immediately following ach other action. (People sang. People cried. People fought. People loved. People hated... )

 

Ellipsis is the omission of one of the main parts of the sentence or both of them. Here, we must differentiate between the ellipsis used in the author’s narration in order to change its tempo & condense its structure & second – which is used in the heroes speech to reflect the oral norms & create the effect of the naturalness & affectivity of the dialogue. Ex.: A poor boy! (неполный) No father, no mother, no any one (полный). And if his feelings about the war got known, he’d be nicely in the soup. Arrested. Perhaps – got rid of, somehow.

 

Aposiopesis It is the sudden break of the narration. It’s the norm of the oral excited speech or the character’s deliberate stop in the utterance to conscal its meaning. Certain phrases often repeated with the intonation of the non-finished sentence become trite aposiopesis, they indicate that the speaker’s  idea of the possible continuation of the utterance exists in a very general non-detailed vague form. Ex.: Well, I never! (trite)   “She must leave – or – or, better yet – maybe drown herself – make away  with herself in some way – or – “ (original) 

Parallelism consists in the repetition of the whole structure of the sentence

• Complete parallelism – the presents identical structures of two or more successive clauses or sentence (Ex.: He was a sallow man – all cobblers are; and had a strong bristly beard – all cobblers have)
• Partial parallelism – the repeated sentence pattern may vary. Ex.: What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it? How was it? (ex.: Passage after passage did he explore; room after room did he peep into )

 

6.Functional styles. The general characteristics.

 

Functional style of language – it is a system of interrelated language means, which serve a definite aim in communication. A functional style is to be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of a message. Functional style appear, mainly, in the literary standard of the language.

 
 

1. Galperin’s classification. The English literary standard includes 5 functional styles
• Belles-letters style
1. the language style of poetry
2. the language style of emotive prose
3. the language style of drama

 
 

• The publicistic functional style
1. the language style of oratory
2. the language style of essays
3. the language style of feature articles in newspapers and journals

 
 

• The newspaper functional style

1. the language style of brief news items and communiqués;                    

2. the language style of newspaper headings;                                  
3. the language style of notices and advertisements.

 
 

• The scientific prose functional style

1. the language style of humanitarian sciences

2. the language style of “exact” sciences
3. the language style of popular scientific prose

 
 

• The official document functional style

1. the language style of diplomatic documents

2. the language style of business documents
3. the language style of legal documents
4. the language style of military documents

 
 

2. Arnold in her turn, mentions 4 style
• Poetic style
• Scientific style
• Newspaper style
• Colloquial style

7. The peculiarities of the belles-lettres style and the newspaper style.

Belles-letters style

1. genuine, not trite imagery
2. the usage of words is in contextual & very often is more than one dictionary meaning
3. a vocabulary reflecting. The author’s personal evaluation of thing or phenomena
4. a peculiar individual system of vocabulary & syntax
5. the introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree in emotive prose & poetry

Newspaper style

1. Vocabulary
• special political & economic terms (inflation)
• non-term political vocabulary (for general usage to election)
• newspaper clichés (stereotyped common placed expressions which are familiar to the reader -> vital issue, pressing problem, informed sources, danger of war, to escalate a war, war mystery, overwhelming majority, amid stormy applause)
• the use of abbreviation (TUG (Trades Union Congress), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), EEC (European Economic Community)
• neologisms (the usage of them) Ex.: white backlash (a violent reaction of American racists to the Negroes' struggle for civil rights);                                        stop-go policies (contradictory, indecisive and inefficient policies)
• the vocabulary of brief news items (peaces of news) is mostly devoid of emotional coloring

8.The general survey of the layers of the English vocabulary.

 

Some linguists say that the word-stock of any language is so large and heterogeneous that it is impossible to formalize it and present it in any system. In accordance with the division of language into literary and colloquial our scientist Galperin represent the whole of the word-stock of English language as being divided into three main layers:

    1. the literary layer; 2. the neutral layer; 3. the colloquial (разговорный) layer.

 

   The common properties which units the different groups of words within the layer, may be called its aspects.   1. The aspect of the literary layer is its bookish character, it makes the layer more or less stable. 2. The aspect of the colloquial layer is its lively spoken character, it makes the layer unstable, fleeting. 3. The aspect of the neutral layer is it universal character that means that it is unrestricted in use, it can be employed in all styles of language and in all the spheres of human activity, it makes the layer the most layer of all.

 

9.The colloquial layer of words.

This is style of informal, friendly oral communication. The vocabulary of CS is usually lower than that of the formal or neutral styles, it’s often emotionally coloured and characterized by connotation (daddy, kid).

CS I characterized by the frequent use of words with a broad meaning: speakers tend to use a small group of words in quite different meanings. For example the different uses of the verb “get”, which frequently replaces in oral colloquial speech its more specific synonyms (I got(=received) a letter today.; You got(=understood) my answer wrong.).

 

There are phrases and constructions typical of CS: (what’s up?=What’s happened; so-so=not especially good).

 

In grammar there may be:

1) the use of shortened variants of word-forms (isn’t; I’d say)