Enumeration

Enumeration is a SD by which separate things (objects, phenomena, properties, actions) are named one by one so that they produce a chain, the links of which are syntactically in the same position – they are homogeneous parts of the sentence. That is why they are forced to display some kind of semantic homogeneity [ homod n ti], remote though it may seem.

Most of our notions are associated with other notions due to some kind of relation between them; dependence, cause, result, likeness, dissimilarity, sequence, experience (personal and/or social), proximity, etc. Associations + social experience have resulted in the formation of what is known as ‘semantic fields’. Enumeration as a SD may be called a sporadic semantic field. Many cases of enumeration have no continuous existence as semantic fields do. The grouping of sometimes absolutely heterogeneous notions occur only in isolated instances to meet some peculiar purport of the author.

When each word is closely associated semantically with the following and preceding words in the enumeration, the utterance is perfectly coherent; and there is nothing in it to arrest the reader’s attention (the enumeration is not a SD). In case the enumeration is heterogeneous, there must be a kind of clash in it, a clash typical of any stylistic device: a clash of concepts, or a clash between words belonging to different layers of vocabulary, terminology, etc.

Enumeration is often used to depict scenery, as for example, scenery is depicted through a tourist’s eyes in “To Let” by John Galsworthy:

“Fleur’s wisdom in refusing to write to him was profound, for he reached each new place entirely without hope or fever, and could concentrate immediate attention on the donkeys and tumbling bells, the priests, patios, beggars, children, crowing cocks, sombreros, cactus hedges, old high white villages, goats, olive trees, greening plains, singing birds in tiny cages, water-sellers, sunsets, melons, mules, great churches, pictures, and swimming grey-brown mountains of a fascinating land.”

Galsworthy found it necessary to arrange the Spanish attractions not according to logical semantic centres, but in such an order that would suggest the rapidly changing impressions of a tourist. Enumeration of this kind assumes a stylistic function and therefore be regarded as a SD.

Suspense

Suspense is a compositional device which consists in arranging the matter of communication in such a way that the less important, descriptive subordinate parts are placed at the beginning, and the main idea is withheld until the end of the utterance. Thus, its function is to keep the reader in the state of uncertainty and expectation.

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

Suspense is especially favoured by orators. This is due to the strong influence of intonation which helps to create the desired atmosphere of anticipation and emotional tension which goes with it.

Suspense always requires long stretches of speech or writing. A whole poem can be built on it. For example, in R.Kipling’s “If” where all the eight stanzas consist of if-clauses and only the last 2 lines constitute the principal clause:

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

And make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,

If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, […]

Yours will be the earth and everything that’s in it,

And which is more, you’ll be a Man, my son.”

The main purpose of suspense is to prepare the reader for the only logical conclusion of the utterance.

Climax/Gradation (нарастание)

(from the Greek ‘climax’ – лестница; Cf.: Latin ‘gradatio’- постепенное восхождение)

Climax is an arrangement of sentences (or homogeneous parts of a sentence) which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or emotional tension of the utterance.

e.g. “It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city.”

The gradual increase in emotional evaluation of the city in the given example is realized through the distribution of the corresponding lexical units: ‘lovely, beautiful, fair, veritable gem’.

We distinguish 3 types of climax: logical, emotional and quantitative.

Logical climax is based on the relative importance of the component parts from the point of

view of the concepts they embody. It can be built on a descending or an ascending scale.

e.g. No branch, or twig, or leaf moved in the still air.

e.g. “Not a sound, “-said Mr. Pickwick.

“Not a syllable,” –said another gentleman.

“Not a word,” echoed the third.

e.g. Illness, poverty, vice, crime.

e.g. It’s done –passed – finished!

Emotional climax is based on the relative emotional tension produced by words with emotional meaning.

e.g. See the 1^st e.g.

e.g. The girl was wonderful, magnificent.

E.g. I’ve been so unhappy here, so very miserable.

e.g. The liar! The brute! The monster!

Quantatitive climax represents an evident increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts.

e.g. “They looked at hundreds of houses, they climed thousands of stairs, they inspected enumerable kitchens.”

e.g. Hours, days, weeks, months of unspeakable bliss.