Stylistics as a science. Problems of stylistic research.

Lecture 1.

Stylistics as a science. Problems of stylistic research.

Plan:

1. Problems of stylistic research.

2. Stylistics of Language and speech.

3. Types of stylistic research. Branches of Stylistics.

4. Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines.

5. Stylistic neutrality and stylistic colouring.

6. Stylistic function notion.

Basic notions: stylistic, style, stylistics of language, stylistics of speech, literary and linguistic stylistics, comparative stylistics, decoding stylistics, functional stylistics, stylistic lexicology, stylistic phonetics (phonostylistics), stylistic grammar, stylistic norm, stylistic neutrality, stylistic connotations (inherent/adherent); connotative meaning: 1) emotive; 2) evaluative; 3) expressive; 4) stylistic.

Problems of stylistic research.

1) the object and the material of studies;

2) the notion «style».

1) In 1955 the Academician V. V. Vinogradov defined style as “socially recognized and functionally conditioned internally united totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of lingual intercourse in the sphere of one national language or another...”

2) In 1971 Prof. I. R.Galperin offered his definition of style «as a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication.”.

3) According to Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev, «style is what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts (an individual text) from all other groups (other texts)... Style can be roughly defined as the peculiarity, the set of specific features of a text type or of a specific text.”

Functional styles:

Prof. I. R. Galperin suggests 5 styles for the English language.

1) belles-lettres style: poetry, emotive prose, and drama;

2) publicist style: oratory and speeches, essay, articles;

3) newspaper style: brief news items, headlines, advertisements, editorial;

4) scientific prose style;

5) official documents style.

Prof. I.V.Arnold distinguishes 4 styles:

1) poetic style;

2) scientific style;

3) newspaper style;

4) colloquial style.

Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev maintains that the number of sublanguages and styles is infinite (if we include individual styles, styles mentioned in linguistic literature such as telegraphic, oratorical, reference book, Shakespearean, short story, or the style of literature on electronics, computer language, etc.).

Stylistics is that branch of linguistics, which studies the principles, and effect of choice and usage of different language elements in rendering thought and emotion under different conditions of communication. Therefore it is concerned with such issues as

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 systems called style;

7) the interrelation between language and thought;

8) the individual manner of an author in making use of the language

Stylistics of Language and speech.

The stylistics of language analyses permanent or inherent stylistic properties of language elements.

The stylistics of speech studies stylistic properties, which appear in a context, and they are called adherent.

So stylistics of language describes and classifies the inherent stylistic colouring of language units. Stylistics of speech studies the composi­tion of the utterance—the arrangement, selection and distribution of different words, and their adherent qualities.

Stylistic function notion

The semantic structure (or the meaning) of a word consists of its grammatical meaning (noun, verb, adjective) and its lexical meaning. Lexical meaning can further on be subdivided into denotative (linked to the logical or nominative meaning) and connotative meanings.Connotative meaning is only connected with extra-linguistic circumstances such as the situation of communication and the participants of communication. Connotative meaning consists of four components:

1) emotive: express various feelings or emotions; the emotive component of meaning may be occasional or usual (i.e. inherent and adherent ); inherent: interjections: adherent: He is a BIG boy already!

2) evaluative: charges the word with negative, positive, ironic or other types of connotation conveying the speaker’s attitude in relation to the object of speech; eg: to sneak - “to move silently and secretly, usu. for a bad purpose”;

3) expressive: either increases or decreases the expres­siveness of the message; eg.: “ She was a small thin delicate thing with spectacles”; “intensifiers”, words like “absolutely, frightfully, really, quite”;

4) stylistic: a word possesses stylistic connotation if it belongs to a certain functional style or a spe­cific layer of vocabulary (such as archaisms, barbarisms, slang, jargon, etc). Stylistic connotation is usually immediately recogni­zable; eg.: y onder, slumber, thence immediately connote poetic or elevated writing; price index or negotiate assets are indicative of business language.

Литература:

1. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика декодирования. Курс лекций. Л., 1974.

2. Знаменская Т.А. Стилистика английского языка. Основы курса. М., 2004.

3. Мороховский А.Н. Cтилистика английского языка. Киев, 1989.

4. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. M., 1977.

5. Kucharenko V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. M., 1986.

6. Skrebnev Y.M. Fundamentals of English. М., 1994.

 

Lecture 2

General considerations.

The whole of the word-stock of the English language can be divided into three main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer and the collo­quial layer.

The as­pect of the literary layer is its markedly bookish character; t he aspect of the colloquial layer of words is its lively spoken character. It is this that makes it unstable, fleeting. The aspect of the neutral layer is its universal character. The literary layer of words consists of groups accepted as legitimate members of the English vocabulary. They have no local or dialectal character.

The colloquial layer of words as qualified in most English or Amer­ican dictionaries is not infrequently limited to a definite language community or confined to a special locality where it circulates.

The literary vocabulary: 1. common literary; 2. terms and learned words; 3. poetic words; 4. archaic words; 5. barbarisms and foreign words; 6. literary coinages including nonce-words.

The colloquial vocabulary: 1. com­mon colloquial words; 2. slang; 3. jargonisms; 4. professional words; 5. dialectal words; 6. vulgar words; 7. colloquial coinages.

The common literary, neutral and common colloquial words are grouped under the term standard English vocabu­lary. Other groups in the literary layer are regarded as special literary vocabulary and those in the colloquial layer are regarded as special collo­quial (non-literary) vocabulary.

Special literary vocabulary

a) Terms

A term is generally very easily coined and easily accepted: and new coinages as easily replace out-dated ones. One of the most characte­ristic features of a term is its direct relevance to the system or set of terms used in a particular science, discipline or art, i.e. to its nomenclature. A term is directly connected with the concept it de­notes.

Terms belong to the style of language of science. They may as well appear in other styles — in newspa­per style, in publicistic and practically in all other existing styles of language. But their function in this case changes. When used in the belles-lettres style, for instance, a term may acquire a stylistic function and consequently become a (sporadical) SD. This happens when a term is used in such a way that two meanings are materialized simultaneously.

The following is an example where a term is used as an SD.

“What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been,” Clump replied, “to go and marry a governess. There was something about the girl too.”

“Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal develop­ment,” Squill remarked. (W. M. Thackeray).

“I should like,” said young Jolyon, “to lecture on it: PROP­ERTY AND QUALITIES OF A FORSYTE. This little animal, disturbed by the ridicule (осмеяние, редк. - предмет насмешек) of his own sort, is unaffected (безучастный, не подвергающийся влиянию) in his motions by the laughter of strange creatures (you and I). Hered­itarily disposed to myopia/mai’oupiə/, he recognizes only the persons and habitats of his own species, among which he passes an existence of competitive tranquility (уравновешенность, безмятежность).” (Galsworthy)

In this connection it is interesting to analyse the stylistic effect of the medical terminology used by A. J. Cronin in his novel “The Citadel”. The frequent use of medical terms in the novel is explained by its subject­-matter—the life of a physician—and also by the fact that the writer himself is a physician and finds it natural to use medical terminology.

With the increase of general education and the expansion of technique to satisfy the ever growing needs and desires of mankind, many words that were once terms have gradually lost their quality as terms and have passed into the common literary or even neutral vocabulary. This process may be called “determinization”. Such words as ‘radio’, ‘television’ and the like have long been in common use and their terminological character is no longer evident.

Here is an example of a moderate use of special terminology bordering on common literary vocabulary.

“There was a long conversation—a long wait. His father came back to say it was doubtful whether they could make the loan. Eight percent, then being secured for money, was a small rate of interest, considering its need. For ten percent Mr. Kuzel might make a call-loan. Frank went back to his employer, whose commer­cial choler rose at the report.” (Theodore Dreiser, “The Financier”)

Whenever the terms used in the belles-lettres style set the reader at odds with the text, we can register a stylistic effect caused either by a specific use of terms in their proper meanings or by a simultaneous reali­zation of two meanings.

b) Poetic and highly literary words

Poetic words form a rather insignificant layer of the special literary vocabulary. They are mostly archaic or very rarely used highly literary words which aim at producing an elevated effect.

Poetical tradition has kept alive such archaic words and forms as y’clept (арх. шутл. – называемый, именуемый, нареченный) (p. p. of the old verb clipian —to call, name); quoth (1 и 3 л. прошед. времени) (p. t. of cwedan — to speak); eftsoons/eft’su:nz/ (eftsona,— again, soon after), which are used even by modern ballad-mongers:

Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:

Deserted is my own good hall, its hearth is desolate /’desələt/.

The striving for the unusual —the characteristic feature of some kinds of poetry—is akin to the sensational and is therefore to be found not only in poetry, but in many other styles. A modern English literary critic has remarked that in journalese a policeman never goes to an appointed spot; he proceeds to it. The picturesque reporter seldom talks of a horse, it is a steed or a charger. The sky is the welkin; the valley is the vale; fire is the devouring element...

Poetical words and word-combinations can be likened to terms in that they do not easily yield to polysemy. They are said to evoke emotive meanings.

Poetic words are not freely built in contrast to neutral, colloquial and common literary words, or terms. The commonest means is by com­pounding, e.g. ‘young-eyed’, ‘rosy-fingered’.

Some writers make abundant use of this word-building means. Thus Arthur Hailey in his novel “In High Places” has ‘serious-faced’, ‘high-ceilinger!’, ‘beige-carpeted’, ‘tall-backed!’, ‘horn-rimmed’ in almost close proximity.

There is, however, one means of creating new poetic words still recognized as productive even in present-day English, viz. the use of a contracted form of a word instead of the full one, e. g. ‘drear’ instead of dreary, ‘scant’ (scanty).

Poetical words and set expressions make the utterance understandable only to a limited number of readers. It is mainly due to poeticisms that poetical language is sometimes called poetical jargon.

In modern English poetry there is a strong tendency to use words in strange combinations:

‘the sound of shape’; ‘night-long eyes’; ‘to utter ponds of dream’; ‘wings of because’; ‘to reap one’s same’; ‘goldenly whole, prodigiously keen star whom she—and he—, —like ifs of am perceive...’ (E. E. Cummings).

c) Archaic, Obsolescent and Obsolete Words

We shall distinguish three stages in the aging process of words:

The beginning of the aging process when the word becomes rarely used. Such words are called obsolescent (выходящие из употребления): thou /ðau/ and its forms thee /ði:/, thy and thine; the corresponding verbal ending -est and the verb-forms art(be, wilt (thou makest, thou wilt); the ending -(e)th instead of -(e)s (he maketh) and the pronoun ye/ji:/.

To the category of obsolescent words belong many French borrow­ings which have been kept in the literary language as a means of pre­serving the spirit of earlier periods, e. g. a pallet (= a straw mattress); a palfrey (=a small horse); garniture (=furniture); to emplume (=to adorn with feathers or plumes).

The second group: those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by the English-speaking community: e.g. methinks (=it seems to me); nay (=no). These words are called obsolete.

The third group, archaic proper, are words which are no longer recognizable in modern English, words that were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have become unrecognizable, e. g. troth (= faith); a losel (=a worthless, lazy fellow).

The border lines between the groups are not distinct. In fact they interpenetrate. It is specially difficult to distinguish between obsolete and obsolescent words.

There is still another class of words which is erroneously classed as archaic, viz. historical words: thane (глава клана, шотландский лорд), yeoman (фермер средней руки, дворцовый страж), goblet(бокал, кубок), baldric (перевязь, портупея), mace (булава, жезл).

They are historical terms and remain as terms referring to definite stages in the development of society. Historical words have no synonyms, whereas archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms.

Archaic words are used in the creation of a realistic background to historical novels, but t hese elements must not be archaic in the narrow sense. They must be recognizable to the native reader and not hinder his understanding of the communication.

Archaic words and phrases have other functions found in other styles:

1) in the style of official documents. In business letters, in legal language, in all kinds of statutes, in diplomatic documents and in all kinds of legal documents (aforesaid (вышеупомянутый, вышеизложенный), hereby, therewith, herein, afternamed).

The function o f archaic words and constructions in official docu­ments is terminological in character. They are used here because they help to maintain that exactness of expression so necessary in this style.

2) in poetry.

Archaic words and particularly archaic forms of words are sometimes used for satirical purposes.

This is achieved through what is called Anticlimax (a sudden drop from the lofty or serious to the ridiculous: This war-like speech, received with many a cheer, Had filled them with desire of fame, and beer/ Byron). The situation in which the archaism is used is not appropriate to the context. There appears a sort of discrepancy between the words actually used and the ordinary situation which excludes the possibility of such a usage.

Here is an example of such a use of an archaic form in Shaw’s play “How He Lied to Her Husband” a youth of eighteen, speaking of his feelings towards a “female of thirty-seven” expresses himself in a lan­guage which is not in conformity with the situation. His words are: “Perfect love casteth off fear.”

Archaic words, word-forms and word-combinations are also used to create an elevated effect.

The stylistic significance of archaic words in historical novels and in other works of fiction (emotive literature - belles-lettres) is different. In historical novels they maintain “local colour”, i.e. they perform the function of creating the atmosphere of the past.

Not so when archaic words are encountered in a depiction of events of present-day life. Here archaisms assume the function of an SD proper. They are perceived in a twofold function, the typical quality of an SD, viz. diachronically and synchronically.

On the other hand, the crowding of such obsolete units of the vocabulary may be interpreted as a ‘parody on the “domain of the few”, whose adherents considered that real poetry should avoid using “mean” words.

In American English many words and forms of words which are obsolete or obsolescent in British English have survived as admissible in literary usage (cf: “there’s a new barn a-building down the road”. The form ‘a-building’ is obsolete, the present form being building (There is a house building = A house is being built).

Stylistic functions of archaic words are based on the temporal per­ception of events described.

d) Barbarisms and Foreignisms

Barbarisms are words of foreign origin which have not entirely been assimilated into the English lan­guage. Most of them have corresponding English synonyms; e. g. chic (—stylish); bon mot (= a clever witty saying, острота); en passant (мимоходом, между прочим) (= in passing); ad infinitum (до бесконечности) (= to infinity) and many other words and phrases.

Barbarisms are words which have already become facts of the English language. They are, as it were, part and parcel of the English word-stock, though they remain on the outskirts of the literary vocabulary. Foreign words, though used for certain stylistic purposes, do not belong to the English vocabulary.

In printed works foreign words and phrases are generally italicized to indicate their alien nature or their stylistic value. Barbarisms, on the contrary, are not made conspicuous in the text unless they bear a special load of stylistic information.

There are foreign words in the English vocabulary which fulfill a terminological function. Therefore, though they still retain their foreign appearance, they should not be regarded as barbarisms. Such words as ukase, udarnik, soviet, kolkhoz and the like denote certain concepts which reflect an objective reality not familiar to English-speaking communities. There are no names for them in English and so they have to be explained.

Further, such words as solo, tenor, concerto, bltizkrieg, luftwaffe and the like should also be distinguished from barbarisms. They are different not only in their functions but in their nature as well. They are terms. Terminological borrowings have no synonyms; barbarisms, on the contrary, may have almost exact synonyms.

It is evident that barbarisms are a historical category. Many foreign words and phrases have little by little entered the class of words named barbarisms and many of these barbarisms have gradually lost their foreign peculiarities, become more or less naturalized and have merged with the native English stock of words. Conscious, retrograde, spurious (поддельный, подложный, иллюзорный) and strenuous (требующий силы, напряжения, энергичный, усердный) are word’s in Ben Jonson’s play “The Poetaster” which were made fun of in the author’s time as unnecessary borrowings from French.

Both foreign words and barbarisms are widely used in various styles of language.

One of these functions is to supply local colour.

In “Vanity Fair” Thackeray takes the reader to a small German town where a boy with a remarkable appetite is made the focus of attention. By introducing several German words into his ‘narrative, the author gives an indirect description of the peculia­rities of the German menu and the environment in general: “The little boy, too, we observed, had a famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten, and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam... with a gallantry that did honour to his nation.”

The function of the foreign words used in the context may be con­sidered to provide local colour as a background to the narrative: an example which is even more characteristic of the use of the local colour function of foreign words is the following stanza from Byron’s “Don Juan”:

... more than poet’s pen

Can point, - “Cost viaggino: Ricchi!”

(Excuse a foreign ‘slip-slop now and then,

If but to show I’ve travell’d: and what’s travel

Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil.

Another function of barbarisms and foreign words is to build-up the stylistic device of non-personal direct speech or represented speech. The use of a word, or a phrase, or a sentence in the reported speech of a local inhabitant helps to reproduce his actual words, manner of speech and the environment as well. Thus in James Aldridge’s “The Sea Eagle” – And the Cretans were very willing to feed and hide the Inglisi”-, the last word is intended to reproduce the actual speech of the local people by introducing a word actually spoken by them, a word which is very easily understood because of the root.

Barbarisms and foreign words are used in various styles of language, but are most often to be found in the style of belles-lettres and the publicistic style.

In the belles-lettres style, however, foreignisms are sometimes used not only as separate units incorporated in the English narrative. The author makes his character actually speak a foreign language, by putting a string of foreign words into his mouth, words which to many readers may be quite unfamiliar. These phrases or whole sentences are sometimes translated by the writer in a foot-note or by explaining the foreign utterance in English in the text. But this is seldom done.

Here is an example of the use of French by John Galsworthy:

“Revelation was alighting like a bird in his heart, singing: “Elle est ton rêve!” ( “In Chancery”)

Foreign words and phrases may sometimes be used to exalt the expression of the idea, to elevate the language.

The same effect is sometimes achieved by the slight distortion of an English word, or a distortion of English grammar in such a way that the morphological aspect of the distortion will bear a resemblance to the morphology of the foreign tongue, for example: “He look at Miss Forsyte so funny sometimes. I tell him all my story; he so sympatisch. ” (Galsworthy)

Barbarisms have still another function when used in the belles-lettres style. We may call it an “exactifying” function. Words of for­eign origin generally have a more or less monosemantic value. In other words, they do not tend to develop new meanings. The English So long, for example, clue to its conventional usage has lost its primary meaning. It has become a formal phrase of parting. Not so with the French “ Au revoir”. When used in English as a formal sign of parting it will either carry the exact meaning of the words it is composed of, viz. ‘See you again soon’, or have another stylistic function.

Here is an example: “She had said ‘Au revoir!’ Not good-bye!” (Galsworthy) The formal and conventional salutation at parting has become a meaningful sentence set against another formal salutation at parting which, in its turn, is revived by the process to its former significance of “God be with you,” i.e. a salutation used when parting for some time.

In publicistic style the use of barbarisms and foreign words is mainly confined to colouring the passage on the problem in question with a touch of authority. A person who uses so many foreign words and phrases is obviously a very educated person, the reader thinks, and therefore a “man who knows.” Here are some examples of the use of barbarisms in the publicistic style:

“Yet en passant I would like to ask here (and answer) what did Rockefeller think of Labour...” (Dreiser, “Essays and Ar­ticles”).

JOURNALESE

I was glad to read recently how incomprehensible the language of city planners is to newspapermen. I decided to call the author of the article and express my appreciation:

“Hello, I’d like to speak to a reporter of yours named Terrance Wills.”

“Is he on city side or the night rewrite desk ?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe he’s at his type-writer.”

The operator said something under his breath and then connected me to the third assistant executive city editor. After about 15 minutes of this I was finally able to communicate directly with Mr. Wills:

“That was a great story you did on ‘plannerese’, sir,” I told him. “Where did you get the idea for it?”

“Why, I just went to the morgue one day when there weren’t many obits to do and I got a few clippings. Then I talked with the copy-editor and he gave me a 32-point italic headline with an overhanging deck .”

“Is that good?”

“Sure it is. Even a cub knows that. Well I wrote a couple of takes and got it in the box just before the deadline for the second night final edition .”

“Is that hard to do?” I asked. My head was beginning to ache.

“What? Sure, I guess. Listen, I’d like to discuss this with you further but I’m on the rewrite desk and my legman is going to be calling in a scoop any minute now. Good-bye.”

d) Dialectal words

Dialectal words are those which in the process of integration of the English national language remained beyond its literary boundaries_; and their user is generally confined to a definite locality.

With reference to this group there is a confusion of terms, particularly between the terms dialectal and vernacular.

Cecil Wyld’s “A History of Modern Colloquial English”:

“The history of a very large part of the vocabulary of the present-day English dialects is still very obscure, and it is doubtful whether much of it is of any antiquity. So far very little attempt has been made to sift the chaff from the grain in that very vast receptacle of the English Dialect Dictionary, and to decide which elements are really genuine ‘corruptions’ of words which the yokel /’joukəl/ (деревенщина, мужлан) has heard from educated speakers, or read, misheard, or misread, and ignorantly altered, and adopted, often with a slightly twisted significance. Probably many hundreds of ‘dialect’ words are of this origin, and have no historical value whatever, except inasmuch as they illustrate a general principle in the modification of speech. Such words are not, as a rule, characteristic of any Regional Dialect, although they may be ascribed to one of these, simply because some collector of dialect forms has happened to hear them in a particular area. They belong rather to the category of ‘mistakes’ which any ignorant speaker may make, and which such persons do make, again and again, in every part of the country.”

There is a definite similarity of functions in the use of slang, cockney and any other form of non-literary English and that of dialectal words. All these groups when used in emotive prose are meant to characterize the speaker as a person of a certain locality, breeding, and education etc.

There is sometimes a difficulty in distinguishing dialectal words from colloquial words: lass ‘a girl or a beloved girl’, lad ‘a boy or a young man’, ‘ daft’ from the Scottish and the northern dialect, meaning ‘of unsound mind, silly’; fash also Scottish, with the meaning of ‘trouble, cares’

Of quite a different nature are dialectal words which are easily recognized as corruption of standard English words: hinny from h oney; tittie apparently from sister, a children corruption of the word; cutty meaning a testy (вспыльчивый, раздражительный, брюзгливый) or naughty girl or woman’.

Most of the examples so far quoted come from the Scottish and the northern dialects.

Among other dialects used for stylistic purposes in literature is the southern dialect (in particular that of Somersetshire): ‘volk’ (folk), ‘vound’ (found), ‘zee’ (see), ‘zinking’ (sinking).

Galsworthy’s “A Bit of Love.”:

“Mrs. Burlacomble: Zurely I give ‘im a nummit afore ‘e gets up; an’ ‘e ‘as ‘is brekjus reg’lar at nine. Must feed un up. He’m on ‘is feet all day, goin’ to zee folk that widden want to zee an angel, they’m that busy; an’ when ‘e comes in ‘e ‘U play ‘is flute there. He’m wastin’ away for want of ‘is wife. That’s what’tis. On’ ‘im so zweet- spoken, tu, ‘tis a pleasure to year ‘im — Never zays a word!”

Dialectal words are only to be found in the style of emotive prose, very rarely in other styles.

The unifying tendency of the literary language is so strong that language elements used only in dialect are doomed to vanish, except, perhaps, those which, because of their vigour and beauty, have withstood the integrating power of the written language.

Words which are easily understood by the average Englishman are: maister, wee (омут, водоворот), eneu/u/gh (достаточно), laird/leid/ (помещик), naething /nei/.

Dialectal. words, unlike professionalisms, are confined in their use to a definite locality and most of the words deal, as H. C. Wyld points out, with the everyday life of the country.

“Such words will for the most part be of a more or less technical character, and connected with agriculture, horses, cattle and sport.”

Lecture 3.

Figures based on opposition

1. Antithesis - choice or arrangement of words that emphasizes a contrast: Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, wise men use them; Give me liberty or give me death.

2. Paradiastola - the lengthening of a syllable regularly short (in Greek poetry).

3. Anastrophe - a term of rhetoric, meaning, the upsetting for effect of the normal order of words (inversion in contemporary terms): Me he restored, him he hanged.

Types of speech

Respectively all kinds of speech were labeled and repre­sented in a kind of hierarchy including the following types: elevated; flowery exquisite; poetic; normal; dry; scanty; hackneyed; tasteless.

Demetrius of Alexandria ( Greece, 3d century BC): The Plain Style, he said, is simple, using many active verbs and keeping its subjects (nouns) spare. Its purposes include lucidity, clarity, familiarity, and the necessity to get its work done crisply and well. T his style uses few difficult compounds, coinages or qualifications (such as epithets or modifiers). It avoids harsh sounds, or odd orders. It employs helpful connective terms and clear clauses with firm endings. In every way it tries to be natural, following the order of events themselves with moderation and repetition as hi dialogue.

The Eloquent Style in contrast changes the natural order of events to effect control over them and give the narration expressive power rather than sequential account. So this style may be called passive in contrast to active. Sentences are lengthy, rounded, well balanced, with a great deal of elaborately connected material. Words can be unusual, coined; meanings can be im­plied, oblique, and symbolic. Sounds can fill the mouth, perhaps, harshly.

Dionysius of Halicanassus (Rome, lst century BC): “On Imitation”, “Commentaries on the Ancient Orators” and “On the Arrangement of Words”.

Gradually the choices of certain stylistic features in different combi­nations settled into three types - plain, middle and high.

Proverbs and sayings.

Typical features: 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: brevity + the actual wording becomes a pattern which needs no new wording to suggest extensions of meaning which are contextual

Proverbs are brief statements showing in condensed form the accumulated life experience of the community and serving as conventional practical symbols for abstract ideas:

To cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth.

Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Come! he said, milk’s spilt. (Galsworthy).

First come, first served.

Out of sight, out of mind.

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:

Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instru­ment of its own purpose. A God that can be understood is no God.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. (Keats)

Quotations:

A quotation 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. Quotations are usually marked off in the text by inverted commas (“ “), dashes (—), italics or other graphical means: Ecclesiastes said, ‘that all is vanity’. (Byron)

Allusions:

An allusion 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. An allusion is only a mention of a word or phrase which may be regarded as the key-word of the utterance:

“ Where is the road now, and its merry incidents of life’, old honest, pimple-nosed coachmen? I wonder where are they, those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead?” (Thackeray).

“Shakespeare talks of the 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 very 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)

Basic types of inversion.

1. The object is placed at the beginning of the sentence:

“Talent Mr. Micawber /mi’ko:bə/ has; capital Mr. Micawber has not.” (David Copperfield).

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:

“With fingers weary and worn...” (Thomas Hood); “Once upon a midnight dreary” (E. A. Poe)

3. a) The predicative is placed before the subject, as in “A good generous prayer it was.” (Mark Twain)

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 sentence, as in:

“Eagerly I wished the morrow.” (Poe) “My dearest daughter, at your feet I fall.” (Dryden)

A tone 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).

Detached constructions - s ometimes one of the secondary parts of a sentence by some specific consideration of the writer is placed so that it seems formally independent of the word it logically refers to:

She was lovely: all of her-delightful. (Dreiser).

Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in his eyes. (Thackeray)

Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather un­steady in his gait. (Thackeray).

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 characteristic into­nation and indicated in writing by commas, brackets or dashes.

Parallel constructions:

The seeds ye sow—another reaps, The robes ye weave—another wears The arms ye forge—another bean (Shelley).

Parallel construction’s device which may be encoun­tered not so much in the sentence as in the macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the SPU(Supra-Phrasal Unit) 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 in close succession, 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 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)

Chiasmus (reversed parallel construction) – a stylistic devices based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern, but it has a cross order of words and phrases:

In the days of old men made manners Manners now make men. (Byron).

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:

Paradigmatic stylistics

(Stylistics of units)←1. Phonetics → Syntagmatic stylistics

←2. Morphology →(Stylistics of sequences)

←3. Lexicology

←4. Syntax

←5. Semasiology

Paradigmatic stylistics

Paradigmatic phonetics actually describes phonographical stylistic features of a written text.

“Graphons” (a term borrowed from V.A. Kucharenko):

I know these Eye- talians! (Lawrence).

“Father, said one of the children at breakfast.—I want some more ‘am please”,—You mustn’t say ‘am, my child, the correct form is ‘am, — retorted his father, passing the plate with sliced ham on it. “But I did say ‘am, pleaded the boy”. “No, you didn’t: you said ‘am instead of ‘am”. The mother turned to the guest smiling: «Oh, don’t mind them, sir, pray. They are both trying to say ‘am and both think it is ‘am they are saying”.

Other graphic means to emphasize the “unheard” phonetic character­istics such as the pitch of voice, the stress, and other melodic features are italics, capitalisation, repetition of letters, onomatopoeia (sound mutation):

I AM sorry; «Appeeee Noooooyeeeeerr» (Happy New Year); cock-a-doodle-doo.

Paradigmatic morphology observes the stylistic potentials of grammar forms, which Leech would describe as deviant.

Historical present: What else do I remember? Let me see. There comes out of the cloud our house... (Dickens).

Stylistic colouring of gender (personification and depersonification).

In modern English special rules concern whole classes of nouns that are traditionally associated with feminine or masculine gender: thus, countries are generally classed as feminine (France sent her representative to the conference.); a bstract notions associated with strength and fiercenessare personified as masculine while feminine is associated with beauty or gentleness (death, fear, war, anger— he, spring, peace, kindness— she); n ames of vessels and other vehicles (ship, boat, carriage, coach, car) are treated as feminine.

Person: One never knows what happens next/we never know; you never know.

The plural of majesty: By the grace of Our Lord, We, Charles the Second…

The plural of modesty: Now, we come to the conclusion that…

The plural of humility: Oh, we are proud /Мы, стало быть, деревенские…

Pronouns: How is one to know that?/How should a body know it?

Number: Now, what’s that? Reading books instead of working?

How dare he talk like that to ladies?

This is what the student is supposed to know.

Paradigmatic lexicology subdivides English vocabulary into stylistic layers: neutral, positive (elevated) and negative (degraded.)

Positive/elevated

poetic;

official;

professional.

Bookish and archaic words occupy a peculiar place among the other positive words due to the fact that they can be found in any other group (poetic, official or professional).

Neutral Negative/degraded

colloquial; neologisms; jargon; slang;

nonce-words; vulgar words.

Special mention is made of terms.

Paradigmatic syntax has to do with the sentence paradigm: complete­ness of sentence structure, communicative types of sentences, word order, and type of syntactical connection.

Word order

Inversion of sentence members:

Down came the storm, and smote again

The vessel in its strength... (Longfellow)

In she plunged boldly,

No matter how coldly

The rough river ran... (Hood)

Revaluation of syntactical meanings:

Syntagmatic styllstics

Syntagmatic stylistics (stylistics of sequences) deals with the stylistic functions of linguistic units used in syntagmatic chains, in linear combinations, not separately but in connection with other units. Syntagmatic stylistics falls into the same level determined branches.

Syntagmatic phonetics deals with the interaction of speech sounds and intonation, sentence stress, tempo.

Alliteration -recurrence of the initial consonant in two or more words in close succession:

Now or never, Last but not least; As good as gold.

With time its function broadened into prose and other types of texts.

It became very popular in titles, headlines and slogans:

Pride and Prejudice. (Austin)

Posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club. (Dickens)

Work or wages! Workers of the world, unite!

Today alliteration is one of the favourite devices of commercials and advertising language:

New whipped cream’. No mixing or measuring. No beating or bothering.

Colgate toothpaste: The Flavor’s Fresher than ever - It’s New. Improved. Fortified.

Assonance (the recurrence of stressed vowels):

...Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden; I shall clasp a sainted maiden, -whom the angels name Lenore. (Poe)

Paronomasia (using words similar in sound but different in meaning with euphonic effect):

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting. ( E.A. Poe’s Raven)

Rhythm and meter

The pattern of interchange of strong and weak segments is called rhythm. It’s a regular recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables that make a poetic text. Various combinations of stressed and un stressed syllables determine the metre. Disyllabic metres are trochee and iambus; trisyllabic are dactyl, amphibrach and anapaest:

Disyllabic metres:

1. Trochee. The foot consists of two syllables; the first is stressed: 'u. Disyllabic words with the first syllable stressed demonstrate the trochaic metre: duty, evening, honey, pretty (and many others, including the word trochee itself).

Men of England, wherefore plough

For the lords who lay ye low?

Wherefore weave with toil and care

The rich robes your tyrants wear? (Shelley)

2. Iambus. Two syllables. The first is unstressed: u'. Examples of iambic words: mistake, prepare, enjoy, behind, again, etc.

There went three kings into the east

Three kings both great and high

And they had sworn a solemn oath

John Barleycorn should die. (Barns)

Trisyllabic metres:

3. Dactyl. The stress is upon the first syllable; the subsequent two are unstressed: 'uu. Examples of dactylic words: wonderful, beautiful, certainly, dignity, etc.

Take her up tenderly

Lift her with care,

Fashion’d so slenderly

Young and so fair. (Hood)

4. Amphibrach. The stress falls on the second (medial) syllable of the foot; the first and the last are unstressed: u'u. Examples: umbrella, returning, continue, pretending, etc.

I sprang to the stirrup and Joris and he,

I galloped, Dick galloped, we galloped all three. (Browning)

5. Anapaest. The last (third) syllable is stressed: uu'. Examples: understand, interfere, disagree, etc.

I am monarch of all I survey

From the central all round to the sea. (Pope)

Rhyme consists in the acoustic coincidence of stressed syllables at the end of verse lines.

1. Rhymes in words ending with a stressed syllable (i.e. monosyllabic rhymes) are called mate (masculine, or single) rhymes: dreams — streams; obey - away understand — hand.

2. Rhymes in words (or word combinations) with the last syllable unstressed are female (feminine, or double) rhymes: duty-beauty; berry-merry, Bicket — kick it (Galsworthy)

3. Rhymes in which the stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed ones are 'dactylic' rhymes (in English, they are preferably called 'triple', or 'treble’ rhymes):

tenderly – slenderly; battery — flattery.

'Eye-rhymes' (or: 'rhymes for the eye'):

Thus, Byron rhymes the words supply and memory:

For us, even banquets fond regret supply In the red cup that crowns our memory.

In the well-known poem My Heart's in the Highlands by Robert Burns we encounter:

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

'Inner', or 'internal' rhyme:

I am the daughter of earth and water... (Shelley)

Rhymeless verse is called 'blank verse':

Should you ask me whence these stories,

Whence these legends and traditions

With the odor of the forest,

With the dew and damp of meadows (The Song of Hiawatha by H.W. Longfellow).

The heroic couplet.

The rhyming is aa, bb, cc, etc., the metre, iambic pentameter:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed euery vein in swich licour

Of which vertu engendered is the floor...(Canterbury Tales G. Chaucer)

The Spenserian stanza (introduced by Edmund Spenser in the six­teenth century).

Nine lines, eight of them iambic pentameter, the ninth iambic hexameter. The rhyme pattern is: a b a b b c b c c.

Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth,

Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight;

But spent his days in riot most uncouth,

And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night,

Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,

Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;

Few earthly things found favour in his sight

Save concubines and carnal companie,

And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. (Byron)

The ottava rima (from Latin octo, Italian otto, otta 'eight'). A stanza consisting of eight lines, each of them iambic pentameter. The rhyming pattern is very strict: ab ab ab cc. This stanza came to England from Italy in the sixteenth century:

In Seville was he born, a pleasant city,

Famous for oranges and women - he

Who has not seen it will be much to pity,

So says the proverb - and I quite agree;

Of all the Spanish towns is none so pretty Cadiz perhaps - but that you soon may see; -

Don Juan's parents lived beside the river,

A noble stream, and called the Guadalquivir. (Don Juan by Lord Byron)

Четырехстопный ямб мне надоел:

Им пишет всякий. Мальчикам в забаву

Пора б его оставить. Я хотел

Давным-давно приняться за октаву.

А в самом деле, я бы совладел

С тройным созвучием. Пущусь на славу.

Ведь рифмы запросто со мной живут:

Две придут сами, третью приведут. (A.S. Pushkin ‘A Cottage in Kolomna’)

The sonnet (from the Italian sonetto) is a stanza which at the same time is a complete poem in itself.

A sonnet is a verse of fourteen lines (iambic pentameter). The classical pattern is as follows: two quatrains (i.e. four-line stanzas) with only two rhymes in both: abba abba. The two quatrains are followed by two tercets (i.e. three-line stanzas). The rhymes in the tercets are usually cdc ded. It is preferable to alternate female (a) and male (b) rhymes (alternation of male and female is also typical of the tercets).

Shakespeare makes his sonnet of three quatrains (each with rhymes of its own) plus one couplet:

My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfume is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, — yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go, —

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she, belied with false compare. (Sonnet 130)

Syntagmatic morphology deals with the importance of grammar forms used in a paragraph or text that help in creating a certain stylistic effect.

We find much in common between Skrebnev’s description of this area and Leech’s definition of syntagmatic deviant figures. Skrebnev writes: “Varying the morphological means of expressing grammatical notions is based... upon the general rule: monotonous repetition of morphemes or frequent recurrence of morphological meanings expressed differently...”

He also indicates that while it is normally considered a stylis­tic fault it acquires special meaning when used on purpose. He describes the effect achieved by the use of morphological syn­onyms of the genetive with Shakespeare—the possessive case (Shake­speare’s plays), prepositional of-phrase (the plays of Shakespeare) and an attributive noun (Shakespeare plays) as “elegant variation” of style.

Syntagmatlc lexicology studies the «word-and-context» juxtaposition that presents a number of stylistic problems - especially those con­nected with co-occurrence of words of various stylistic colourings.

We have met this man before.

1. We have met this individual before.

2. We have met this person before.

3. We have met this chap before.

4. We have met this guy before.

"‘Overlooking such a trivial little peccadillo as the habit of manslaughter,' says I, 'what have you accomplished... that you could point to... as an evidence of your qualification for the position?'

"'Why,' says he, in his kind of Southern system of procrasti­nated accents, 'hain't you heard tell? There ain't any man, black or white... that can tote off a shoat [= carry away, steal a pig] as easy as I can without bein' heard, seen or cotched [= caught]... Some day... I hope to become reckernized [= recognized] as the champion shoat-stealer of the world.'"( O. Henry)

Macaronic verses are those in which two or more languages in­termingle.

Byron's description of a door in the last canto of Don Juan (canto = 'song', 'chapter'):

It opened with a most infernal creak,

Like that of hell. "Lasciate ogni speranza

Voi che entrate!" The hinge seemed to speak,

Dreadful as Dante's rhima, or this stanza...

(The Italian quotation means: "Leave behind every hope you who enter!")

Lexical recurrence (reappearance of the same word in the text):

To live again in the youth of the young; the dodgerest of all the dodges; a brutish brute.

A variety of root repetition (polyptoton) is the recurrence of the same noun in different case forms, or, as regards English (with practically no case forms in nouns), in varying case-like syntactic positions: They always disliked their neighbour, their neighbour's noisy company, the very sight of their neighbour, in fact.

A tall, snub-nosed, fair-haired woman stood at the gate would be an example of redundance of syntactical elements and should, therefore, be treated in paradigmatic syntax

He thought and thought and thought it over and over and over – lexical repetition.

Repetition as an expressive device, as a means of emphasis, should be differentiated from cases of chance recurrence of the same word in unprepared, confused, or stuttering colloquial speech: "I - I – I- never — never met her there".

There are practically no rules to diagnose whether the recurrence of a word is a stylistic fault or an intentional stylistic device.

Syntagmatic syntax deals mainly with a chain of sentences, the sequence of sentences constituting a text. Here we search for stylistic functions in the sequence of sentence forms.

Skrebnev distinguishes purely syntactical repetition to which he refers parallelism as structural repetition of sentences though often accom­panied by the lexical repetition:

The cock is crowing, The stream is flowing... (Wordsworth) and lexico-syntactical devices such as

Anaphora (identity of beginnings, initial elements):

If only little Edward were twenty, old enough to marry well and fend for himself, instead often. If only if were not necessary to provide a do-wary for his daughter. If only his own debts were less. (Rutherfurd)

Epiphora (opposite of the anaphora, identical elements at the end of sentences, paragraphs, chapters, stanzas):

For all averred, I had killed the bird. That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow.’ (Coleridge)

Framing (repetition of some element at the be