Assignments on Stylistic Syntax

Exercise 1. State the type of each syntactical expressive means in the following cases:

1. KEITH (letting go her arms): My God! If the police come – find me here - (He dashes to the door. Then stops) (Galsworthy).

2. He notices a slight stain on the window-side rug. He cannot change it with the other rug, they are a different size (Christie).

3. You would get a scaffolding pole entangled, you would...

(Jerome).

4. And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there – the melancholy craving in his heart - because the sun was like enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves, and the wind's rustle was so gentle, and the yew- tree green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky

(Galsworthy).

5. I return it, but should you think fit to invest it for the benefit of the little chap (we call him Jolly) who bears our Christian and, by courtesy, our surname, 1 shall be very glad (Galsworthy).

Exercise 2 Specify the functions performed by syntactical expressive means in the following examples:

1 I've done everything for them. They've eaten my food and drunk my wine. I've run their errands for them. I've made their parties for them. I've turned myself inside out to do them favours. And what have I got out of it? Nothing, nothing, nothing... (Maugham).

2. «The result of an upright, sober and godly life», he laughed. «Plenty of work. Plenty of exercise...» (Maugham).

3 «You have a splendid rank. I don't want you to have any more rank. It might go to your head. Oh, darling, I'm awfully glad you're not conceited. I'd have married you even if you were conceited but it's very restful to have a husband who's not conceited» (Hemingway).

4. «I'm serious, y'know», he declared now, with the same dreary solemnity. «I'm not joking. You get me that job out there as soon as you can. I'm serious» (Priestley).

5. «You are. You are worse than sneaky. You are like snake, A snake with an Italian uniform: with a cape around your neck» (Hemingway).

Exercise 3. Classify the expressive devices based upon absence of logically indispensable syntactical units; specify their functions:

1. «...What part of the East was you from, any way?» - «New York State», said Shark Dodson... (O'Henry).

2. «Gar!» said the first man. «Northwestern Mounted Police! That must be a job! A good rifle and a good horse and no closed season on Indians! That's what I call Sport!» (Reed).

3. Then somebody I couldn't see yelled out, so hoarse he couldn't hardly speak, «Where'd he go?» - «Past the house and out back!» says I, and started to run (Reed).

4. «I love Nevada. Why, they don't even have mealtimes here. I never met so many people didn't own a watch» (Miller).

5. Pain and discomfort - that was all the future held. And meanwhile ugliness, sickness, fatigue (Huxley).

Exercise 4. Classify the expressive devices based upon the excess of syntactical units; specify the functions performed by them in the following examples:

...the photograph of Lotta Lindbeck he tore into small bits across and across and across (Ferber).

He sat, still and silent, until his future landlord accepted his proposals and brought writing materials to complete the business. He sat, still and silent, while the landlord wrote (Dickens).

Supposing his head had been held under water for a while. Supposing the first blow had been truer. Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been strangled. Supposing this way, that way, the other way. Supposing anything but getting unchained from the one idea for that was inexorably impossible (Dickens).

You know - how brilliant he is, what he should be doing. And it hurts me. It hurts me every day of my life (Deeping).

The whitewashed room was pure while as of old, the methodical book-keeping was in peaceful progress as of old, and some distant howler was hanging against a cell door as of old (Dickens).

Exercise 5 Comment on the stylistically relevant syntactical peculiarities in the following abstracts from «Mac-American» by J.Reed:

1....Mac looked at me with some distaste. «I'm not a religious man». He spat. «But I don't go around knocking God. There's too much risk in it». - «Risk of what?» - «Why, when you die - you know...» Now he was disgusted and angry.

2. «When I came down to Burlington to work in the lumber mill, I was only a kid about sixteen. My brother had been working there already a year, and he took me up to board at the same house as him. He was four years older than me - a big guy, too; but a little soft... Always kept bulling around about how wrong it was to fight, and that kind of stuff. Never would hit me – even when he got hot at me because he said I was smaller».

 

Exercise 6. Analyze the functions performed by syntactical expressive devices in the following abstracts; state the type of stylistic coloring imparted to the narration by these devices:

1. The sidewalks ran like Spring ice going out, grinding and hurried and packed close from bank to bank. Ferret-faced slim men, white-faced slim women, gleam of white shirtfronts, silk hats, nodding flowery broad hats, silver veils over dark hair, hard little somber hats with a dab of vermilion, satin slippers, petticoat-edges, patent-leathers, rouge and enamel and patches. Voluptuous exciting perfumes. Whiffs of cigarette smoke caught up to gold radiance, bluely. Cafe and restaurant music scarcely heard, rhythmical. Lights, sound, swift feverish pleasure... First the flood came slowly, then full tide - furs richer than in Russia, silks than the Orient, jewels than Paris, faces and eyes and bodies the desire of the world - then the rapid ebb, and the street-walkers (Reed).

 

ПРИМЕРНЫЙ ПЕРЕЧЕНЬ ВОПРОСОВ К ЗАЧЕТУ

1. Лингвостилистика и ее место в ряду других лингвистических дисциплин. Предмет и основные понятия лингвостилистики.

2. Основные направления стилистических исследований (описательная стилистика, функциональная стилистика, стилистика текста, практическая стилистика, сопоставительная стилистика).

3. Стилистика и языковое значение слова. Структура лексического значения.

4. Принципы стилистической дифференциации словарного состава современного английского языка.

5. Стилистическое использование различных пластов словаря.

6. Выразительные средства и стилистические приемы (фонетические, лексические, синтаксические).

7. Паралингвистические средства. Графой и его типы.

8. Метафора и ее типы.

9. Метафора и художественное сравнение.

10. Эпитет и логическое определение.

11. Стилистическое использование фразеологических единиц, сентенций, алюзий, цитат.

12. Несобственно-прямая речь.

13. Основные категориальные (структурно-семантические) особенности текста и их реализация в конкретных текстах.

14. Функционально-смысловые отрезки текста (повествование, описание, рассуждение, диалог, несобственно-прямая речь) и их особенности.

15. Структурно-композиционные особенности текста. Проблема сверхфразовых единств (сложное синтаксическое целое, абзац).

 

ПРИМЕРНАЯ ТЕМАТИКА РЕФЕРАТОВ, КУРСОВЫХ РАБОТ

1. Взаимосвязь стилистики, культуры речи и риторики.

2. Исследование нормативного и стилистически целесообразного использования языковых средств в процессе построения выразительной речи.

3. Исследование использования групп стилистически маркированной и немаркированной лексики в различных функционально-стилевых разновидностях текста.

4. Лексико-стилистические и структурно-композиционные особенности реализации прагматической установки текста.

5. Исследование лингвостилистических особенностей авторской и неавторской речи в тексте.

6. Исследование способов выражения текстовой информации (содержательно-фактуальная, содержательно-концептуальная содержательно-подтекстовая).

7. Лингвостилистический анализ художественного текста.

8. Лингвостилистический анализ газетно-публицистического текста.

9. Лингвостилистический анализ научно-технического текста.

10. Лингвостилистический анализ официально-делового текста.

 

GLOSSARY

A

Abbreviation

Absolutely specific units: Style-forming units: those chara­cteristic of sublanguage under consideration, but not met with in sublanguages characteristic of other types of speech

Accented verse

Adage: Proverb (see): current metaphorical saying of ins­tructive content; usually ano­nymous

Aesthetic function

Affective: showing unrestrained feeling, highly emotive

Alien: loan word (phrase) still felt as foreign

Allegory: work of art having metaphoric sense as a whole

Alliteration

Allusion

Amphibrach

Amplification: Convergence: strengthening achieved by several stylistic means combined

Anacoluthon: combination of anaphora and epiphora

Anadiplosis: Epanalepsis

Anapaest

Anaphora

Anti-climax: see Back gradation

Antiphrasis: set phrase literally expressing approval, but used only to blame

Antithesis

Antonomasia

Appended statement

Apperception: perception affected by what has been experienced

Aposiopesis: Stop-short sentence: intentionally unfinished ut­terance

Archaisms: 1 ) historical (material) 2) A. proper

Archaization

Articulatory-audial: characterizing both articulation and acoustic Impression

Assimilation (lexical): loss of foreign traits by borrowed words which thus become stylistically neutral

Assonance

Atheism: deprecation meant as approval

Attribution

Axiology: general theory of value

 

В

Back gradation: Anti-climax: Bathos

Ballad: poem in short stanzas narrating popular story

Ballad stanza

Barbarism

Bathos: see Back gradation

Belles-lettres style: that which characterizes imaginative literature

Blank verse

Bombastic: excessively high-flown

Bookish words: Learned words

Borderlands: imaginary strips of indefinite width separating sublanguages from one another and enclosing units, sublingual status of which is uncertain, also: Tolerance zones

Borderlines: imaginary lines assumed to separate one sublanguage from another

Breaking up of set expressions: delib­erate alteration in current phrases or their anthological treatment for humoristic purposes

С

Cab lese: sublanguage of cablegrams.

Cant

Carrier: unit of form carrying information

Catachresis: Mixed metaphors

Categorical forms: constituents of grammatical category (A. Smirnitzky)