And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the Black Sea as if its vast tides were a conscience.

Conversion is created by a number of stylistic devices: 1) Inversion with a subject being far away from the beginning. 2) verb repetition 3) repeated conjunction AND 4) rhythm 5) author’s neologism UNRESTINGLY

6) expressive epithet VAST 7) Unusual comparison when a definite noun is explained by an abstract one (tides --- conscience) Altogether all these devices create the impression of heavy waves and readers can almost physically feel them.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

(The Merchant of Venice)

This is an example of syntactic parallelism which moves to a climax as there are more than two phrases to the pattern. The portentousness and emotive force of REVENGE coming after BLEED, LAUGH and DIE is underlined by a slight verbal variation in the pattern, the replacement of DO by SHALL. The passage would have been downright unsatisfactory if the lines had been put in the opposite order.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea. (The Ancient Mariner)

THERE ARE many interlocking foregrounded patterns – metre, end-rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration, and syntactic parallelism in this short passage.

Other examples of foregrounding are:

He raised a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down. (Dryden, Alexander’s Feast)

To err is human, to forgive, divine. (Pope, An Essay on Criticism)

Formal parallelism is combined with an implication of contrast, i.e. antithesis

Convergence is especially expressive it is concentrated in a short passage of the text. Doomsday is near die all die merrily. Henry IV Hotsper calls everybody to the battle: 7 words but they form repetition, alliteration, ohumoron and rhythm.

Convergence is interesting not only because they emphasize the most important place in the text, but also because they can serve as a criterion of stylistic significance of certain textual elements. It should be noted that when literary critics quote works of literature they prefer quotations containing convergence. Translation of such pieces presents most difficulties.

It should be noted that convergence presupposes a certain stylistic redundancy which enhances expressiveness of the text, its emotional and aesthetic value. Redundancy is a common property of the language (up to 50%) and it leads to the fact that every next element of the text may be to a certain extent predicted on the basis of the previous ones due to their mutual interaction, as well as due to the fact that besides new information it conveys the addressee something well-known. Any redundancy, either in convergence or generally in the language, causes delay of information transfer.

COUPLING is another important type of foregrounding providing unity of poetic structure, drawing on orderliness and facilitating decoding and memorization.

Coupling is appearance of similar elements in similar positions, thus imparting integrity to the whole text. The notion of coupling helps to disclose the character and essence of the form and contents unity which is typical for works of art in their integrity.

Coupling may be evident at any levels and in different textual fragments. Similarity of elements in paradigmatics may be phonetic, structural or semantic. The similarity of positions is a syntagmatic category and it may be of syntactic nature and draw in the element’s position in speech or in a poem structure.

(refer to Shakespeare and, and, and Sonnet 66)

I kissed thee ere I killed thee - coupling is implemented by symmetrical position of parallel constructions, by identity of words in the positions of subject and direct object, by identity of grammatical form, phonetic similarity, graphic similarity and antonymous verbs forming an antithesis.

There are numerous examples of couplings in proverbs and sayings.

No pain, no gain. Birds of a feather flock together.

Some authors believe that parallelism is an example of foregrounding. It is more correct, though, to consider parallelism as an example of coupling, which is bound to draw on syntactic similarity of elements. Coupling may concern any levels, for example, the use of synonyms, antonyms and words belonging to one and the same semantic field. Rhyme or alliteration, being a particular case of coupling, do not imply syntactic similarity. Generally speaking, coupling contributes to memorization.

Sara was a menace and a tonic, my best enemy; Rozzie was a disease, my worst friends

There is convergence and coupling at the same time. Convergence is formed by parallel constructions, antitheses or oxymorons. The names are syntactically equivalent as they both stand at the beginning of the phrases and express subjects.

Words MENACE and DISEASE belong to the same semantic field, both express negative categories. Their positional equivalence is based on their predicative functions.

In a poetic text phonetic similarity in coupling may be implemented according to the type of rhyme, metre, alliteration, assonance, but the most characteristic type of coupling is RHYME. The definition of RHYME by Zhirmunsky reveals its essence as an example of COUPLING: Rhyme is sound pattern repetition at the end of respective rhythmic groups, playing a connecting role in a poem composition.

Repetition does not imply absolute identity, there maybe approximate sound patterns or similarities. The property of rhyme to fulfil a compositional function is extremely essential and imparts integrity to the whole text. Its compositional role is in the ability to convert a poetic line or stanza into complete poetic units.

The next type of foregrounding draws on predictability or violation of predictability of certain textual elements. The effect of defeated expectancy (Jacobson’s term) manifests itself in the following way: if we presume that speech is continuous and linear, it means that the appearance of any element is prepared by previous ones and this element itself prepares the following linguistic units. A reader expects the appearance of further contextual elements as it is known that what follows is partially given in the previous text. Transfer from one element to another is hardly noticeable as our conscience often perceives the text at a superficial level. However, elements of low probability appearing against a regular background of familiar patterns breaks textual continuity and acts like a kind of shock. Something unexpected resists readers’ perception, overcoming this resistance is an effort on the part of a reader and therefore acts strongly on them.

Example 1. Вut – Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual

Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck’d you all?

Example 2. Talk all you like about automatic ovens and electric dishwashers, there is nothing you can have around the house as useful as a husband.