Useful phrases to analyze the story

The title of the story/The story is entitled …

To my mind the title indicates …

The theme of the story is …

The main idea is/The story reveals the idea that…

Writing this story the author probably wanted to say that…

The story is devoted to the problem of…

 

The plot is rather simple/complicated.

All the events are ordered chronologically.

We can see that the events are not ordered chronologically. The author resorts to flashbacks to give some facts from the past, which are important for the situation.

The story begins with the exposition containing a short representation of time, place and characters of the story. The function of the setting in this story is…

From the lines … complication begins.

The author creates the atmosphere of growing suspense. Tension gradually increases up to the climax, the decisive moment, when…

What comes after this sentence/paragraph is denouement (the story ends right after climax, leaving up to a reader to judge what will be the outcome of the conflict).

 

The main characters/personages/heroes are…

The author presents the events …, so it’s a narrative written in... point of view.

The writer uses indirect/direct method of characterization.

He/she uses both/combines indirect and direct methods of characterization.

He states directly that …

At the same time we can see the nature of this character in his behavior, in his speech. For example…

We guess the main hero’s temper from his conflict and remarks.

Such words/phrases as… help us/a reader to understand this character better.

The author resorts to inner reported speech to characterize the personage/protagonist/antagonist, which makes us closer to his thoughts and feelings.

The writer employs interior monologue to render the thoughts and feelings of the characters, their emotional state.

The character changes/doesn’t change in the course of the story, so we may call him round/flat.

 

The scene is set in … (time, place).

Such details as… help to describe the characters indirectly/evoke necessary atmosphere.

The author vividly describes…

Such phrases as… make the description very convincing.

 

The main stylistic device of the story is …

Opposing … and … the author contrasts … and ….

Frequent antithesis deepens the conflict between … and ….

Wide use of antonyms performs the same function.

The aim of the author’s irony is…

Through the character of … he/she ridicules/satirizes such human qualities as….

Such stylistic means as … also contribute to/produce humorous effect.

The author makes fun of/laughs at … when he/she describes….

… is symbolic representation of …

 

The story is (not) rich in expressive means, the author uses tropes sparingly.

The author has a good sense of measure in using tropes.

The story lacks …, but it doesn’t make the text dull.

The story abounds in/is rich in tropes (e.g.).

The language is very emotional and picturesque/expressive, it appeals to our feelings, our imagination. This is achieved through such stylistic devices as ….

Such epithets as … express the author’s attitude towards the narrated events and/or the characters. We may clearly see that the writer sympathizes with the characters, he never stays aloof or detached.

The author’s sympathy lies with ….

The author avoids using stylistically neutral words, he/she prefers/there are a lot of… (words from elevated/poetic sphere/informal/colloquial words/slang/vulgar words etc.), e.g….

 The elevated words impart the text a general colouring of elevation/make the story poetic.

In this context such words produce a comic effect/an effect of comicality.

With the help of numerous archaisms the author manages to reproduce the atmosphere of bygone epoch/to create the historic atmosphere.

Various jargonisms in the character’s speech indicate the fact that he belongs to… (a certain professional/social group).

Dialect words show the social standing of the speaker/low social status of the hero//show the lack of proper school education/provincialism.

 

Ellipsis imparts a kind of emotional tension to the author’s narration.

The omission of subject contributes to the acceleration of the tempo of the3 narration.

The brevity of the sentences and abruptness of their intonation impart a certain tinge of sharpness to them.

The succession of nominative sentences reflects the state of mind of the hero and invigorates the dynamic force of narration.

Unfinished sentence (aposiopesis) is used to confine the mode of expression to a mere hint at what remains unsaid.

Asyndeton is used for the purpose of brevity/ to create acceleration of the tempo/to render colloquial character.

The use of zeugma serves the purpose of creating humorous effect.

Repetition emphasizes the significance of…, increases the emotional force of speech/makes the text more emphatic.

The repetition of the conjunction “and” underlines close connection of the successive statements (occasionally, it may create a general impression of solemnity due to a certain association with the style of the Bible).

The author resorts to inversion for the purpose of emphasis.

Unusual position of this word makes it prominent/ more conspicuous than their surroundings.

Anaphora imprints … (the elements emphasized by repetition) in the reader’s memory/imparts a peculiar kind of rhythm to the story (the speech of a character) and increases the sound harmony.

Epiphora contributes to rhythmical regularity of the text, making prose resemble poetry.

Detachment makes the word… prominent.

Parenthetic elements reproduce two parallel lines of thought, two different planes of narration/make the sentence (or clause) more conspicuous, more emphatic/strengthen the emotional force by making part of the passage interrogative/exclamatory//allow to avoid monotonous repetition of similar constructions/impart colloquial character to the author’s narration.

 

SELF-ASSESSMENT MODULE

PHONETIC STYLISTICS

1.INDICATE the effects of the following cases of alliteration, assonance and onomatopoeia:

1. Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents…

(Sonnet 55, W. Shakespeare)

2. As to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn… 

(Sonnet 66, W. Shakespeare)

3. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games to listen to them.

(«The Selfish Giant», O. Wilde)

4. Hear the sledges with the bells —

Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

("The Bells", E. Poe)

5. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

  («The Raven», E. Poe)

6. He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
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.”  

  (“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Robert Frost)

7. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful;

and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and

awhippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the

wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it

was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me.   

(“Huckleberry Finn”, Mark Twain)

8. He clamped it in his paw and scowled down at it. “Who's M'Gee?” he snapped. 

(“Playback”, Raymond Chandler)

9. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

 («The Gift of the Magi», O. Henry)

10. Zip! Splash! She shook the water from her eyes, squirming the while as some

of it ran down her warm back.

  (“A Daughter of the Snows”, Jack London)

 

2. COMPLETE the sentence “There is an example of… in this sentence” using the following variants:

1. The b-b-b-b-bas-tud-he seen me c-c-c-c-com-ing.

(“All the King's Men”, Robert Penn Warren)

a) alliteration

b) paronomasia

c) graphon

 

2. Look up…

From bleakening hills

Blows down the light, first breath

Of wintry wind… look up, and scent

The snow!

(“The Snow”, Adelaide Crapsey)

a) blank verse

b) assonance

c) onomatopoeia

3. "BAD ROCKET? BAD ROCKET?" he said, as he whirled through the air; "impossible! GRAND ROCKET, that is what the man said. BAD and GRAND sound very much the same, indeed they often are the same; and he fell into the mud.

  (“The Remarkable Rocket”, Oscar Wilde)

a) irony

b) capitalization

c) blank verse

 

4. “Well,” thought Alice to herself, “after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs. How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house (Which was very likely true).

(“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, Lewis Caroll)

a) stanza

b) ballad stanza

c) irony

3. Match the devices and their definitions:

1	Graphon	A	is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events.
2	Capitalization	B	is a poetic device defined as a metrical foot in a line of a poem that contains three syllables wherein the first two syllables are short and unstressed followed by a third syllable that is and stressed as given in this line “I must fi nish my jour ney a lone. ” Here the anapestic foot is marked in bold.
3	Assonance	C	is a rhetorical device which can be defined as a phrase intentionally used to exploit the confusion between words having similar sounds but different meanings.
4	Paranomasia	D	is writing a word with its first letter as a capital letter (upper-case letter) and the remaining letters in lower case in writing systems with a case distinction.
5	Anapest	E	is a figure of speech when takes place when two or more words close to one another repeat the same vowel sound but start with different consonant sounds.
6	Allegory	F	is intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word (or word combination) used to reflect its authentic pronunciation, to recreate the individual and social peculiarities of the speaker, the atmosphere of the communication act; is referred to all changes of the type (italics, CapiTaliSation), s p a c i n g of graphemes (hy-phe-na-ti-on, m-m-multiplication) and of lines.
7	Catharsis	G	is a metrical foot used in Latin and Greek prosody; consists of a long syllable between two short syllables; combination of unstressed, stressed and unstressed syllable – (daDUMda)
8	Amphibrach	H	is an emotional discharge through which one can achieve a state of moral or spiritual renewal or achieve a state of liberation from anxiety and stress.

FIGURES OF SPEECH