Reference list:

1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. Part IV. P. 166–177; 187–189.

2. Kukharenko V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. P. 23–28; 70–73; 108–113; 115–118.

Syntactical expressive means and stylistic devices: compositional patterns of syntactical arrangement Seminar 4

Within the language as a system there establish themselves certain definite types of relations between words, word-combinations, sentences and also between larger spans of utterances. The branch of language science which studies the types of relations between the units enumerated is called syntax.

In the domain of syntax, however, as it has been justly pointed out by L.A.Bulakhovsky, it is difficult to distinguish between what is purely grammatical, i.e. marked as corresponding to the established norm, and what is stylistically marked, i.e. showing some kind of vacillation of these norms.

Generally speaking, the examination of syntax provides a deeper insight into the stylistic aspect of the utterance.

Stylistics takes as an object of its analysis the expressive means and stylistic devices of the language which are based on some significant structural point in an utterance, whether it consists of one sentence or a number of sentences.

The structural syntactical aspect is sometimes regarded as the crucial issue in stylistic analysis, although the peculiarities of syntactical arrangement are not so conspicuous as the lexical and phraseological properties of the utterance. However there are 2 general principles on which most of the syntactical means are built:

1. The juxtaposition of different parts of the utterance.

2. The way the parts of the utterance are connected with each other.

In addition to these two large groups of expressive means and stylistic devices two others may be singled out:

3. Those based on the peculiar use of colloquial constructions.

4. Those based on the use of structural meaning.

Unlike the syntactical expressive means of the language, which are naturally used in discourse in a straight-forward natural manner, syntactical stylistic devices are perceived as elaborate designs aimed at having a definite impact on the recipient.

Essential Terms:

inversion – the reversal of the normal order of words in a sentence, for the sake of emphasis (in prose) or for the sake of the metre (in poetry): Dark they were and golden-eyed (Bradbury).

The stylistic inversion has the following patterns:

1) the object is placed at the beginning of the sentence (before the subject);

2) the attribute is placed after the word it modifies;

3) the predicative is placed before the subject;

4) the predicative is placed before the link-verb and both are placed before the subject;

5) the adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence;

6) both the adverbial modifier and the predicate are placed before the subject.

Various types of stylistic inversion are aimed at attaching logical stress or additional emotional colouring to the surface meaning of the sentence.

* Note: It is important to draw a line of demarcation between grammatical inversion and stylistic inversion. Stylistic inversion does not change the grammatical type of the syntactical structure. Compare the following:

They slid down. Did they slide down? (grammatical inversion). Down they slid (stylistic inversion).

** Note: The sphere in which all sorts of inversion can be found is colloquial speech. Here it is not so much a stylistic device as the result of spontaneity of speech and the informal character of the latter.

PARENTHESIS (PARENTHETIC WORDS, PHHRASES AND SENTENCES) mostly evaluate what is said or supply some kind of additional information. Parenthetic elements comprising additional information are a kind of protest against the linear character of the text. Parenthetic segments perform a number of stylistic functions, such as:

(a) the creation of a second plane, or background to the narrative;

(b) the creation of a mingling of ‘voices’ of different speech parties (‘polyphony’);

(c) focusing on the information in parentheses.

Special punctuation marks the usage of parenthesis. It usually includes using dashes or brackets; commas are possible but infrequent. Besides, parentheses are independent enough to function as exclamatory or interrogative segments of declarative sentences.

DETACHED CONSTRUCTION (detachment) – one of the secondary parts of the sentence is detached from the word it refers to and is made to seem independent of this word. Such parts are called detached and marked off by brackets, dashes or commas or even by full stops or exclamation marks: I have to beg you for money! Daily!

parallel construction (or SYNTACTIC PARALLE­LISM) – a figure based on the use of the similar syntactic pattern in two or more sentences or syntagms:

1) When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead – When the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken. Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot (P.B. Shelley);

2) I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison and ye came into me (St. Matthew).

chiasmus (reversed parallel constructions) – a figure of speech based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern with a reverse word-order (see: SYNTACTIC PARALLELISM):

1) Let the long contention cease: Geese are swans, and swans are geese (M. Arnold);

2) Beauty is truth, truth beauty_t – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know (Keats);

3) But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first (St. Matthew).

SUSPENsE (retardation) is a deliberate delay in the completion of the expressed thought. What has been delayed is the main task of the utterance, and the reader awaits the completion of the utterance with an everincreasing tension. A suspence is achieved by a repeated occurrence of phrases or clauses expressing condition, supposition, time and the like, all of which hold back the conclusion of the utterance: “Mankind, – says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend was obliging enough to read and explain to me, – for the firsteventy thousand ages ate their meat raw” (Ch.L.).