- •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
1. Identify the phonetic stylistic means in the following examples and specify the function performed by them:
a) Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents
and loud-pouring floods.
R. Burns
b) Beat! beat! drums! – blow! bugles! blow!
W. Whitman
c) And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting…
E. Poe
d) We’re foot – slog – slog – slog – slogging over Africa – <…>
R. Kipling
e) Our long convoy
Turned away northward as tireless gulls
Move over water webs of brightness
And sad sound. The insensible ocean.
W. Auden
f) Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way.
Folklore song
g) O lovers true
And others too
Whose best is only better,
Take my advice
Shun compromise:
Forget him and forget her.
S. Smith
h) There was laughter and loving
in the lanes at evening;
Handsome were the boys then,
and the girls were gay.
C.D. Lewis
i) Cool on the light her leaves lie sleeping,
Folding a column of sweet sound.
C.D. Lewis
j) Loud sounds the Axe, redoubling Strokes on Strokes,
On all sides round the Forest hurls her Oaks.
Headlong. Deep echoing groan the Thickets brown
Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.
A. Pope
k) Странный город, столица столикая!
Т. Гнедич
l) And especially Mr. Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and foolish.
O’Henry
m) “Luscious, languid and lustful, isn’t she?” “Those are not correct epithets. She is – or rather was – surely, lustrous and sadistic”.
E. Waugh
Section 7 Extracts for Comprehensive Stylistic Analysis.
A.
' 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 perfumes 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.
(W. Shakespeare, Sonnet 130)
♦ Vocabulary
dun: brownish grey colour
wire: a piece of thin threadlike metal
perfume: a sweet smell
reek: to have a strong disagreeable smell
tread: to step
belie: to slander, give a false idea of
♦ First Reaction
Do you think the Dark Lady whom the sonnet is dedicated to was flattered by the compliments the poet paid her?
♦ Close Reading
Comment on Shakespeare's attitude to the traditional hackneyed imagery used by the poets in the description of their beloved.
Discuss the syntactic stylistic means contributing to the elevated effect aimed at by the poet.
How can you account for a) the purposely contrasted choice of words; b) the most common words and word combinations used for an expression of the author's feelings?
Compare the description of the Dark Lady in the original and in the Russian translation done by S. Marshak (focus on lines 3, 8, 12).
How do both the original and the translation reveal the attitude of the writer to art in general?
B.
The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of furs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head was scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. (Ch. Dickens. Hard Times)
♦ Vocabulary
commodious: comfortable
cellarage: underground rooms for storing things
caves: underground hollow places
inflexible: rigid, impossible to change
bristle: to stand up stiffly
knobs: round-shaped swellings
warehouse-room: a large building for storing things
♦ First Reaction
Do you think Mr. Gradgrind, a character of the novel, is presented favourably?
♦ Close Reading
Prose of Dickens's type has taken over the function and some of the techniques of the romantic lyric, highly regarded in the 19th century. Comment on the frequent occurences of metaphors and similes as the tribute to this kind of prose. Does the imagery affect the emotional response from the reader?
What does this piece of prose gain from recurrence on the level of syntax?
Can you say that the vocabulary is simple and direct? Why not?
Do you think the writer cultivates an elevated tone that seems to say much of the man described?
Can you suggest reasons why the author might have made such a choice? What does Dickens's concerned humour emerge from?
С. 1) Here the Red Queen began again. «Can you answer useful questions?» she said. «How is bread made?»
«I know that» Alice cried eagerly. «You take some flour -» «Where do you pick the flower?» the White Queen asked. «In a garden, or in the hedges?»
«Well, it isn't picked at all», Alice explained:» It's ground -»
«How many acres of ground?» said the White Queen. «You mustn't leave out so many things».
2) «I'm a poor man, your Majesty», the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, – and I hadn't begun my tea – not above a week or so – and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin – and the twinkling of the tea-»
«The twinkling of the what?» said the King.
«It began with the tea», the Hatter replied.
«Of course twinkling begins with a T!» said the King sharply. «Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!» (L. Carrol. Alice in Wonderland)
♦ Vocabulary
ground: 1) to grind: to crush into powder (v)
2) surface of the Earth; soil (n)
dunce: a slow learner
♦ First Reaction
Here are the extracts in which three royal persons speak with people evidently inferior to them. Do you think their speech is polite?
♦ Close Reading
The chief means of creating a comic effect is the author's peculiar manipulation with words (play on words, pun). Point out the instances of play on words; what semantic mechanism lies in their basis?
In passage 2 a real-life formal situation of court hearings is reproduced. What stylistic means are used by Carrol to depict a) the Hatter's embarrassment; b) the King's dictatorial manner?
Do you think it is typical of the people exercising authority to use imperative sentences (sentences charged with modality of volition) or to cut other people short?
Analyse the way the Queens and the King interact with those over whom they have authority. What do you think L. Carrol mocks at?
What do you think are the lexical and syntactic characteristics of the language teachers, policemen, chairpersons, priests, etc. use?
D.
Chicago
Hog Butcher for the world,
Toolmaker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. (...) (C. Sandburg)
♦ Vocabulary
hog: male pig
toolmaker: one who makes tools
stacker: person who stacks or arranges things
freight handler: person or company that arranges transportation of goods
husky: tough and virile
brawl: fight
lure: attract (into a trap)
crooked: dishonest
brutal: inhuman
wanton: unnecessary
sneer at: despise
coarse: opposite of fine
cunning: clever in gaining advantage
♦ First Reaction
Which of the following words best represent the poet's attitude to Chicago? anguish despair, shame, aggression,
hope, dislike, pride, pleasure
♦ Close Reading
1. The opening lines of «Chicago» describe the city as if it were a person – butcher, toolmaker, etc. What trope is it? In what other forms of nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns does the author use this trope? The first three are given as an example:
Nouns Adjectives Verbs
toolmaker wicked brawling
Sandburg uses people in another way too. Are these people metaphorical or real? What is meant by «painted women»?
The syntactic structures are rhythmically organized which compensated for lack of rhyme and metre. What figures of speech add to this effect of rhythm?
Note down the contextual synonyms and antonyms. How do they affect the overall meaning of the lines and help to create contrast, a literary device based on logical opposition between the phenomena set one against another?
Which of the following summaries of the poem do you think is most accurate?
Chicago is a city for the young.
Chicago is a city for the people who enjoy violence.
Chicago is a hard but magnificent city.
Chicago, though rightly proud of its industrial success, is too violent and lawless.
E.
Max's Verse
Cats are graceful and delicate
with secretive natures.
Cats are most clean in their persons,
beings of great delight,
Brave without foolhardiness, servants
to no man, creatures
Favoured of gods and poets, carousing
at the crook of night.
Cats are repositories of Wisdom and of Magic.
Cats are the philosophers' teachers.
And these things are true of all cats, the Black,
the Tortoiseshell, the White,
The Marmalade Tom, the Tabby, the subtle
Siamese of bevelled features.
Dogs, on the other hand, fawn, and
should be shot on sight. (J. Whitworth)
♦ Vocabulary
foolhardiness: a foolish disregard for danger
favoured of: preferred by
carousing: wild and noisy merriment (usually while drinking)
crook: hidden corner
repository: place of storage
Tortoiseshell: cat with fur coloured black, orange and cream
Marmalade: cat with fur coloured like orange marmalade
Tom: male cat
Tabby: cat with striped fur
Siamese: a cat with short grey/brown fur and blue eyes
bevelled: slanting
fawn: to show affection, usually in a servile way
on sight: at the moment of seeing them
♦ First Reaction
Do you think this poem is anything more than a joke? If it seems to you to make a serious point, can you say what that point is? Do you prefer cats or dogs?
♦ Close Reading
1. Which of the following would you choose as a summary of the poem:
an attack on dogs
a defence and celebration of cats
a defence and celebration of dogs
One of the forms of dishonest arguments is describing things in emotive language, i. e. in words with emotional connotations. An example of this is the word «fawn» – to show delight or fondness by wagging the tail, whining, etc. as a dog does. Do you think the neutral «show affection» would have made the idea of shooting the dogs sound vicious and inhuman? Find two other examples of emotive language units in the poem.
What are archaic words? John Whitworth (b. 1945) uses a number of archaisms in the poem: most clean, persons, servants to no man, favoured of, carousing, Wisdom, Magic (use of capital letters) , philosophers (old sense of the word). Why do you think he does it? How do these archaisms contribute to the sense of shock that comes in the last two lines?
Find the antonyms of the following words:
a) unpleasantness b) gross c) cowardly d) awkward e) caution f) filthy g) expansive h) heavy.
5. What do we call words that have multiple meanings? The word «delicate» is realized in its two meanings simultaneously in the poem: 1) soft or tender when touched; and 2) very carefully made or formed, fine, exquisite. In what meaning is the word «nature» used?