- •A guide to stylistics
- •Contents
- •Foreword
- •Section 1 Stylistics: Introduction into the Field. Cognitive Style. Functional Styles.
- •Chubby tots don’t always shed that baby fat
- •250 Charing cross road london wci
- •10. Define the genre, the functional style and its specific characteristics in the following extracts.
- •11. Use the intensifier with each of the adjectives. The first two have been done as an example:
- •12. Complete the sentences using the adverbs below and a suitable adjective.
- •13. In spoken English, it's possible to emphasize certain parts of a sentence simply by using stress. Which words would you stress in the following sentences to emphasize the information in brackets?
- •Section 2 The Language of Literature as an Object of Stylistics.
- •1. Compare the neutral and the colloquial (or literary) modes of expression:
- •2. Link together the suitable pairs of words making a stylistic opposition:
- •3. A. Which of the following phrases would you use while commenting on someone's features to express a) respect b) amusement c) contempt?
- •4. Analyse the semantic structure of the following words:
- •5. State what connotative component(s) of lexical meaning the following words represent.
- •Section 3 Lexical Means of Expressiveness
- •1. Do a jigsaw task identifying examples of metonymy in the columns. Choose at least 5 cases of metonymy and explain why the original use of a word has turned into a metonymical one.
- •9. Analyse cases of metaphor into the components of its structure.
- •10. A. Identify the trope and its type in the following sentences:
- •11. Indicate the metonymy and the type of metonymical relations.
- •12. State the type and structure of the epithets.
- •13. What trope is used in the following examples?
- •14. A. Concentrate on cases of hyperbole and understatement.
- •15. Before analysing cases of irony look at this definition from a Dictionary of Literary Terms by g.A. Cuddon:
- •Agony Calories
- •16. Define the device used:
- •17. Discriminate between metaphor, simile and personification in the following examples:
- •18. Define the stylistic device and explain what the effect produced by it is based on.
- •19. Identify the tropes in the following Russian examples:
- •Section 4 Stylistic Phraseology. Stylistic Morphology.
- •1. Read the sentences and discuss different ways in which j. Galsworthy refreshes proverbs and sayings by violating phraseological units. What effect is gained by this?
- •2. Analyse various cases of play on words, indicate how it is created and what effect it adds to the utterance.
- •3. Analyse the structure and purpose of creating the author's neologisms:
- •4. Find out and explain the morphological and phraseological devices:
- •Section 5 Stylistic Syntax.
- •1. Specify on the ssm based on Compression.
- •2. Identify the ssm based on Recurrence.
- •3. Keep the conversation going using False Anadiplosis and the counterarguments to make the utterance complete.
- •4. Read the sentences in which the ssm grouped under Inversion are used. Define the type of the inversions.
- •5. Identify the ssm based on Transposition. Analyse the stylistic effect created by them.
- •6. Analyse the syntactic stylistic devices used in the following sentences:
- •Identify the lexical and syntactic stylistic means in the following examples. Specify the function performed by them.
- •8. Specify on all the stylistic devices employed by the authors in the following examples. Identify and analyse the stylistic effect of the devices used.
- •Section 6 Stylistic Phonetics.
- •1. Identify the phonetic stylistic means in the following examples and specify the function performed by them:
- •Section 7 Extracts for Comprehensive Stylistic Analysis.
- •More you can do Do the independent stylistic analysis of the following texts.
- •Exam issues
- •Reading matters in stylistics
Section 4 Stylistic Phraseology. Stylistic Morphology.
♦ Topics for Reports and Discussion
A phrase, its characteristics. Stylistic functions of phrases.
Usual and occasional stylistic connotations of a phrase. Zeugma. Pun.
Derivational tendencies of phrases in the text.
Clipped proverbs in the text.
Transposition of nouns and other parts of speech. Neologisms.
♦ Lecture Digest
General characteristics of a phrase. Stylistic functions of phrases in the text. Usual and occasional stylistic connotations of phrases. Derivational tendencies of proverbs in English. Clipped proverbs in a discourse.
Zeugma based on the syntactic identity of the adjuncts and their semantic incompatibility.
Pun – play on words.
Grammar forms and categories imbued with stylistic implications. Transposition or grammatical metaphor.
♦ Extension
The terms “idiom” and “phrase” may be used in the same context. We maintain the view according to which an “idiom” is broader in meaning: it may mean a separate word, a combination of words, a proverb, a cliché or a citation. The use of the term “idiom” seems a tribute to British and American studies where “idiom” is the umbrella term for word-like and sentence-like set expressions. Sticking to A. Kunin’s definition we call such-like expressions – blocks larger than one word but functioning as a whole – phrases or phraseological units.
While tackling the problem of derivational tendencies of proverbs in English we used some conclusions of T.N. Fedulenkova’s appealing article (Вестник МГУ, 2005), where the author regards clipping of proverbs an effective means of stylistic interpreting a verbal work of art.
Stylistic morphology studies the stylistic functions of various grammar forms. The problem is often associated with the phenomena of grammaticalness and acceptability.
Transposition or recategorization presents the use of some grammatical form in a meaning not characteristic of that form. It is sometimes called “grammatical metaphor”. Thus the transposition of the article might serve the illustration of the argument. We know that the definite article “the” often indicates given information, whereas the indefinite article “a” signals new information. The particular use of the definite article may become a linguistic device to indicate perspective or to engage the reader in the narration, to thrust him into the situational context. If in the description of the place the definite article is used (“the little wooden bridge, the hill, the steep path”) the narrator assumes that the reader sees for himself what these objects are and what they look like.
Grammar forms and categories are imbued with stylistic implications. Transposition or grammatical metaphor is a moot point. What it comes down to from our viewpoint is the use of the form in a meaning not characteristic of this form, in other words, grammatical metaphor relates to recategorization of a grammatical form. This is the сase with the definite article (“the escape”), form of plurality (the snows of Kilimandjaro), etc. We also assume that more form stands for more meaning. Thus prolongation, repetition or reduplication of a linguistic form may indicate additional meaning, “grammatical images”. The process and result of this process are sometimes called “iconicity” of grammatical forms, and the relationship of form and meaning in grammatical metaphorical mapping – diagrammatic, because analogy is mediated indirectly by means of metaphors.
♦ List of Works Recommended
Fedulenkova T.N. Derivational tendencies in communicative phraseological units. Вестник МГУ. Сер. Лингвистика и межкультурная коммуникация. 2005. № 1. С. 44-51.
Galperin I.R. Stylistics. M., 2010. PP. 150-152 (zeugma, pun).
Kukharenko V.A. A Book of Practice... PP. 42-44 (zeugma, pun).
Akhmanova O.A., Idzelis R. What is the English We Use? Moscow University Press, 1978. PP. 81, 107.
Sosnovskaya V.B. Analytical Reading. M., 1974. PP. 62 (zeugma), p. 65-65(pun).
Thorne J.P. Poetry, Stylistics and Imaginary Grammars // Journal of Linguistics. 1969. № 5. PP. 147-150.
Арнольд И.В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык. М., 2002. С. 191-214: гл. III. Стилистический анализ на уровне морфологии.
Архипова Т.В. О стилистической функции транспозиции прилагательных // Текст как объект комплексного анализа. М., 1984.
Кубрякова Е.С. Части речи в ономасиологическом освещении. М., 1978.
Shakhovsky V.I. English Stylistics. M., 2008. PP. 107-116.
♦ Exercises