EXPRESSIVE MEANS (STYLISTIC DEVICES): FIGURES OF SPEECH, TROPES

 

EXPRESSIVE MEANS are phonetic, lexical, word-building, phraseological, syntactical forms which exist in the language as a system for the purpose of logical and emotional intensification of the utterance, for example here belong the diminutive suffixes -ie, -y, -let, interjections and exclamations, slangisms and jargonisms, proverbs, sayings and set expressions, syntactical emphatic constructions ( e. g.: You do look smart today. It was he who came the first.), inversion (e.g.; Up went the curtain.), the use of "shall" in the second and third persons (e.g.: You shall be punished!)

Expressive means are concrete facts of the language, they already exist ready for the usage and are not specially created by the writer

STYLISTIC DEVICES do not exist in the language as the units ready for use. They are abstract patterns of the language filled with a definite content when used in speech. The stylistic effect of this or that device is based upon the clash of two meanings of a lexical unit: dictionary and contextual. Compare: She gave me a sweet bun. She gave me a sweet smile.

The word "sweet" in the second sentence is a stylistic device – epithet, whereas in the first sentence it is a simple adjective used in its direct dictionary meaning.

 

TROPES (the devices which make use of the vocabulary of the language)

 

EPITHET is a stylistic device based on interplay of contextual and dictionary meaning in an attribute word, phrase or sentence. It is necessary to differentiate between simple adjectives and poetic epithets. Epithets are subjectively evaluative; they create an image, whereas simple adjectives indicate those features of the object which are generally recognized as inherent properties of the things spoken about.

Adjectives:

a bright sun

a sweet bun

snow-white peaks of the mountains

a voiceless man

a blue sky

Epithets:

a bloody sun

a sweet smile

a snow-white skin

voiceless sands

a copper sky

 

According to the compositional structure we distinguish the following types of epithets:

1) Simple (a dark forest; a true love)

2) Compound (snow-white skin, heart-burning sigh)

3) Phrase (It was this do-it-yourself attitude; a tired end-of-the day gesture)

4) Sentence (Those innocent I-don't-know-what you-are-talking-about-eyes)

Another structural variety is the type called reversed. Reversed epithets are composed of two nouns linked in an "of-phrase"; (an angel of a girl, a doll of a wife, a rascal of a husband, a shadow of a smile).

According to the principle of semantics epithets are subdivided into associated and unassociated.

Associated epithets are those which point to a feature which is essential to the object they describe its inherent feature E g: dark forest; dreary midnight, careful attention: fantastic terrors

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. These epithets may seem strange and unusual, for them, so to say, impose a property on the objects, which is fining exclusively in the given circumstances, e.g.: heart-burning smile, sullen earth; voiceless sands.

From the point of view of the distribution of the epithets in the sentence we distinguish the string of epithets and the transferred epithet. Transferred epithets are ordinary logical attributes used to characterize human beings, but referred to lifeless things: (a sleepless pillow, an angry sky, laughing valleys). If there are a number of epithets appearing usually in an ascending order we have a string of epithets. E.g.: 1. And then in a nice, old-fashioned, lady-like, maiden-lady way she blushed. (A. Christie) 2. Such was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city (О. Henry.)

 

METAPHOR is a stylistic device based on the principle of comparison of two objects. Some important quality is transferred from one object to another, this second object being devoid of this quality, thus, by this comparison a significant feature of the second object is revealed in an imaginary way. E.g.:

O, never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seemed my flame to qualify. (Shakespeare)

The word "flame" here is used metaphorically; it stands for "love" and accentuates the passion of this feeling.

Some more examples of metaphors:

Her eyes were two profound menacing gun barrels. (Eyes and gun barrels are compared.) Gusts of wind whispering here and there. ( The sound produced by the gusts of wind is compared with whisper.) These metaphors are unpredictable. They are called fresh (genuine, original). There are metaphors which are commonly used in speech and sometimes even fixed in the dictionaries. They are called trite (dead, hackneyed). E. g.: time flies, floods of tears, the apple of one's eye, seeds (roots) of evil, a flight of imagination, to burn with desire, etc.

Metaphor has no formal limitations; it can be a word, a phrase, a sentence. There are not only simple, but also sustained (prolonged) metaphors. The latter occur whenever one metaphorical statement, creating an image, is followed by another, containing a continuation or logical development of the previous metaphor

E. g.: "In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers Over on the East side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman... "(O. Henry. "The last leaf.")

This sustained metaphor is a sample of personification which consists in transferring human features to abstract notions and lifeless objects. The objects personified may be substituted by personal pronouns he/she and used with the verbs of speech, mental activity, wish, etc. Sometimes they are spelt with the capital letter. E.g.:

And Time, that gave doth now this gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set of youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth.

 

PERSONIFICATION is a kind of metaphor, a device which endows (наделяет) a thing or a phenomenon with features peculiar of a human being. In poetry, fables, etc. personification is often represented grammatically by the choice of masculine or feminine pronouns for the names of animals, inanimate objects or forces of nature. The pronoun He is used for the Sun, the Wind, for strong active phenomena (Death, Ocean, River) or feelings (Fear, Love). The pronoun She is used for what is regarded as rather gentle (the Moon, Nature, Silence, Beauty, Hope, Mercy).

 

METONYMY consists in applying the name of an object to another object that is in some way connected with the first.

Whenever we say something like: "The kettle is boiling." or "The gallery applauded." we do not actually mean the vessel or the theatre balcony, but what is connected with them: the water, or the spectators. The thought is thus more concrete and the expression isshortened, (e.g.: the water in the kettle, the spectators in the gallery)

Metonymic relations are varied in character. Their main types are the following:

1) Names of tools used instead of the names of actions: E.g: He is a famous pen.

2) What a person possesses may be used for the person himself. (E. g.: He married money)

3) The container may be used for what is contained; E. g.: She is fond of the bottle)

4) Symbol used instead of the object symbolized (e.g.: a crown for king or queen)

 

SYNECDOCHE is a kind of metonymy. It is based on a specific kind of metonymic relationship when a part stands for a whole or a whole for a part, an individual for a whole class, or a whole class for an individual.

 

ANTONOMASIA is the use of a proper name for a common one, or vice versa. E.g.: He is a typical Don Juan (i.e., he possesses all features of Don Juan). What can be prettier than an image of Love on his knees before Beauty? (W. M. Thackeray.)

 

SIMILE is an imaginative comparison. This is an explicit statement of partial identity of two objects. In a simile there are always two names of two separate objects and a word or a word group signalizing the idea of juxtaposition and comparison. These formal signals are mostly the conjunctions "like" and "as" (as if,as though), "than". There mayalso be verbs, such as: to resemble, to remind one of, or verbal phrases: to bear a resemblance of, to have a look of. E.g.: He is as beautiful as a weathercock." (O. Wilde). The common feature is expressly indicated, it is beauty that unites him with a weathercock.

E.g. "My heart is like a singing bird" (Rossetti). Here the most probable reason for likening a person's heart to a singing bird would be the feeling of happiness: the poet's heart is as gay as the bird that enjoys the pleasures of life.

Simile is close to metaphor in that the latter is also based on analogy in dissimilar things. The difference is that the metaphor has no formal element to indicate comparison and therefore the analogy upon which the metaphor is based sometimes is very difficult to perceive, whereas in simile it is obvious.

 

HYPERBOLE is a deliberate exaggeration of some quality or quantity or size of an object. It serves to intensify one certain property of the object and adds vividness to the description Hyperbole is an expression of emotional evaluation of reality by a speaker. The main sphere of use of hyperbole is colloquial speech, in which the form is hardly ever controlled and the emotions are expressed directly without any particular reserve. Many colloquial hyperboles are stereotyped: A thousand pardons/thanks. I've told you forty times. He was frightened/scared/sick to death. I'd give worlds for it. Haven't seen you for ages.

An expressive hyperbole, as distinct from trite ones (used in everyday speech), is an exaggeration on a big scale. There must be something illogical in it, something unreal, utterly impossible, contrary to common sense.

E.g.: "One after another those people lay down on the ground to laugh-and two of them - died. One of the survivors remarked..." (M. Twain) "There I took out my pig ... and gave him such a kick that he went out the other end of the alley, twenty feet ahead of his, squeal."(O. Henry) "And talk! She could talk the hind leg off a donkey!" (Peters)

 

PERIPHRASIS is a stylistic device in which the name of a person or thing is substituted by a longer descriptive phrase. It may be used when it stands as a substitute for a concept or thing which the author finds too unpleasant or reticent (сдержанный, скрытный) to name directly.

E.g.: a disturber of piano keys (a pianist), the better sex (women), the seven-hilled city (Rome).

 

ALLUSION is a reference to specific places, persons, literary characters, sayings, mythology or historical events. The use of allusion presupposes the knowledge of the fact, thing or person alluded to on the part of a reader or listener. As a rule, no indication of the source is given.

E.g.: …A Minerva of a woman, he told himself instantly… (Minerva – a Roman goddess of wisdom; a Minerva of a woman – a clever woman).

 

FIGURES OF SPEECH (the devices which make use of the structure of the language)

 

OXYMORON is a stylistic device in which two antonymous words are joined together into one syntagm thus creating an image of the clash of the meanings of these words. Oxymoron ascribes some feature to an object incompatible with that feature. E.g.: "He was magnificently imbecile" (S. Lewis). "...desperate efforts to look their horrid best...” (J. B. Priestley). "The major again pressed to his blue eyes the tips of the fingers that were disposed on the ledge of the wheeled chair with careful carelessness" (Ch. Dickens). "Cops enjoy it, when a body looks timid, hat in hand, eyes full of nothing" (R Chandler).

 

ZEUGMA is a 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. As a consequence, the very fact of proximity, of close co-occurrence is unnatural, illogical since the resulting combinations are essentially different: they simply do not go together. E.g.: "He was alternately cudgeling his brains and his donkey" (Ch. Dickens). "She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief" (Ch. Dickens). "She possessed two false teeth and a sympathetic heart" (O. Henry). "At noon Mrs. Turpin would get out of bed and humor, put on kimono, airs and the water to boil for coffee" (O. Henry).

 

ASYNDETON is a deliberate omission of connectives or conjunctions between words, phrases or clauses in an utterance. It affects the rhythmical organization of the utterance and can be suggestive in a variety of ways.

E.g. "She might make a scene. She might introduce those two children – she was capable of anything" (Omission of the connective "because" serves to emphasize the fact that she was really dangerous).

 

POLYSYNDETON is an insistent repetition of a connective in an utterance. E.g.: They were sailing from Milan and one of them was to be a painter and one had intended to be a soldier, and after we finished with the machines, sometimes we walked together to the cafe" (E. Hemingway).

The repetition of connectives makes an utterance more rhythmical, so that prose may even seem like poetry. Polysyndeton also serves the purpose of accentuating each tact introduced after the connective.

 

REPETITION. As the word “repetition” itself suggests, this unit is based upon a repeated occurrence of one and the same word or word-group. Depending upon a position a repeated unit occupies in the utterance, there are four types of repetition:

1. Anaphora – the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of several successive clauses, sentences or lines.

E.g.: Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow!

Farewell to the straths and green valleys below!

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods!

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods! (R. Burns)

The main function of this device is emphasis.

2. Epiphora – the repetition of the final word or word-group in several successive clauses, sentences or lines.

E.g.: I wake up and I am alone, and I walk round valley and I am alone, and I talk to people and I am alone. (J. Braine)

3. Anadiplosis (catch repetition) – the repetition at the beginning of the ensuing phrase (следующей фразы), clause or sentence of a word or word-group that has occurred in the initial, middle or final position of the preceding word sequence.

E.g.: With Bewick on my knee I was happy: happy at least in my way. (Ch. Bronte)

We were talking how bad we were – bad from the medical point of view. (J.K. Jerome)

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honorable man. (W. Shakespeare)

4. Ring repetition – the repetition of the same unit at the beginning and at the end of the same sentence or paragraph.

E.g.: How beautiful is the rain!

After the oust and heat,

In the broad and fiery street,

In the narrow line,

How beautiful is the rain! (Longfellow)

 

PARALLELISM (PARALLEL CONSTRUCTIONS) is assimilation or even identity of two or more neighbouring sentences (or verse lines). As a matter of fact, parallelism is a variety of repetition, but not a repetition of lexically identical sentences, only a repetition of syntactical constructions. E.g.: John kept silent; Mary was thinking.

Still much more often it happens that parallel sentences contain the same lexical elements.

E.g.: Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. (Burns)

Parallelism contributes to rhythmic and melodic unification of neighbouring sentences. It also serves to emphasize the repeated element, or to create a contrast, or else underlines the semantic connection between sentences.

 

ANTITHESIS denotes a structure that stresses a sharpcontrast in meaning between the parts within one sentence: Art is long, life is short. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. Some people are wise, some otherwise. "His fees were high: his lessons were light" (O. Henry).

Parallelism is the organizing axis of antithesis.

 

STYLISTIC INVERSION. By inversion is meant an unusual order of words chosen for emphasis greater expressiveness. The notion of stylistic inversion is broader than the notion of inversion in grammar, where it generally relates only to the position of subject and predicate. Thus, in stylistics it may include the postposition of an adjective in an attributive phrase:

e.g. A passionate ballad gallant and gay…

It may also refer to a change in the standard position of all other members of the sentence (subject – predicate – object):

e.g. At feet I fall.

As for the position of the predicate before subject, we may distinguish cases of

1) full inversion:

e.g. On goes the river

And out past the mill.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

2) partial inversion, usually when an adverbial modifier, object or a predicative begins the sentence and only part of the predicate comes before the subject:

e.g. How little had I realized that, for me, life was only then beginning.

Terribly cold it certainly was.

CLIMAXis 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 colouring of the sentence:

e.g. They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of stairs; they inspected innumerable kitchens.

 

The opposite device is called ANTICLIMAX, in which case the final element is obviously weaker in degree, or lower in status than the previous one; it usually creates a humorous effect:

e.g. Music makes one feel do romantic – at least it gets on one’s nerves, which is the same thing nowadays.

 

RHETORICAL QUESTION. Having the form of an interrogative sentence, a rhetorical question contains not a question but a covert statement of the opposite: Who does not know Shakespeare? (the implication is “everybody knows”), etc.

The most common structural type of rhetorical question is a negative-interrogative sentence. But it may also be without an open negation: Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? (the implication is that they cannot). What business is it of yours? (= it is none of your business).

 

SUSPENSE (RETARDATION). This is a compositional device by which the less important part of the message is in some way separated from the main part, and the latter is given only at the end of the sentence, so that the reader is kept in suspense.

e.g. “Mankind”, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend was obliging enough to read and explain to me, “for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw”.

A BREAK IN NARRATION (APOSIOPESIS). This device consists in a sudden stop in the middle of a sentence when the continuation is quite clear: “Don’t you do this, or…” (a threat); “These are certainly good intensions, but…” (the continuation is clear from the well-known proverb that good intensions pave the way to Hell).

 

LITOTES is a device based on a peculiar use of negative constructions in the positive meaning, so that the quality seems to be underestimated (diminished), but in fact it is shown as smth very positive or intensified:

e.g. Not bad (= very good); there are not a few people who think so (= very many); I was not a little surprised (= very much surprised); it was done not without taste (= in very good taste).

 

UNDERSTATEMENT – is an expression of an idea in an excessively restrained language. E.g.: He knows a thing or two … .

 

PUN – a play on words; humorous use of words to suggest different meanings, or of words with the same sound but with different meanings. E.g.: Her nose was sharp, but not so sharp as her voice or the suspiciousness with which she faced Martin. (Lewis)