14. Irony.

Irony(from Greek eironia – ‘mockery concealed’) is a trope based on transfer by contrast; it’s the use of words, phrases, sentences and complete texts with implied meanings that are directly opposite to the primary ones.

A fine friend you are!

Aren 't you a hero — running away from a mouse!

There are at least 2 kinds of irony:

1) Antiphrasis – the ironical sense is evident to any native speaker; can give only an ironical message; the peculiar word order and stereotyped words make up set phrases.

That’s a pretty kettle of fish! (Веселенькая история! Хорошенькое дельце!)

2) Utterances which can be understood either literary, or ironically. We cannot say if the speaker is serious or ironical when he says: But of course we know, he’s a rich man, a millionaire. In oral speech, irony is often marked by emphatic intonation, in writing – by inverted comas or italics.

The Aim of irony – critical evaluation of the thing spoken about => 2 types:

- “praise stands for blame”: How clever of you!

- “blame stands for praise” (seldom) – astheism: Clever bastard! Tough son-of-a-bitch! (Вот гад дает!)

Ironic coloring – when the whole phrase produce the stylistic effect, separate units of which are not stylistically relevant.

15. Hyperbole and meiosis compared.

Hyperbole – exaggeration of dimensions or other properties of the object.

The main sphere of use is colloquial speech. Stereotyped (trite) hyperboles: a thousand pardons, I’ve told you forty times, he was frightened to death, I haven’t seen you for ages.

Hyperboles serve expressive purposes – they are noticed and appreciated by the reader, though he does not take them seriously.

An expressive hyperbole/ as distinct from trite ones (used in everyday speech), is exaggeration on a big scale. There must be smth illogical, unreal, impossible contrary to common sense – in less than no time; без году неделя etc. Paradoxical, illogical hyperboles are employed for humoristic purposes.

Examples:

• “… murmured such a dreadful oath that he would not dare to repeat it to himself”

• “One after another those people lay down on the ground to laugh – and two of them died.”

• “…and gave him such a kick that he went out the other end of the alley, twenty feet ahead of his squeal.”

• “One does not know whether to admire them, or whether to say ‘Silly fools’.”

• Hyperbole + metaphor (demonstrates a gigantic disproportion between what is named and the characteristics given: “And talk! She could talk the hind leg off a donkey!”

• “… he said in a voice that could have peeled rust off the keel of a ship”(мог снять ржавчину с киля корабля); “…said in a voice that could have loosened a rusty nut off the propeller of a liner…”

• “…in a silence you could lean on…”

Meiosis (understatement) – an opposite of hyperbole; it is lessening, weakening the real characteristics of the object, serves to underline the insignificance of what we speak about.

It will cost you a pretty penny. (not a penny but perhaps many pounds or dollars, a large sum of money).

• “And what did you think of our little town?” asked Zizzbaum, with the fatuous smile of the Manhattanite.

• “You’ve got good water, but Cactus City is better lit up.”

• “We’ve got a few lights on Broadway, don’t you think, Mr. Platt?”

Varieties of hyperbole (don’t confuse with meiosis!!):

- a cat-size pony (= a very small pony)

- a drop of water (= not much water)

It is meiosis when the speaker understates normal or more than normal (e.g. big) things. When the object spoken about is really small or insignificant, we have a hyperbole.

- he lives a stone’s throw from here (рукой подать)

- just a moment, please = before you could say Jack Robinson

-“She sang listlessly… and the applause she collected could have been packed into a thimble without overflowing.”

Hyperbole appeals directly to imagination, being an expression of emotional extravagance. The essence of meiosis is somewhat more complicated and refined; meiosis may be regarded as a kind of strengthening through apparent weakening.

Meiosis has no definite formal expression; various expressive means serve to express it:

- I was half afraid you have forgotten me.

- I kind of liked it.

- She writes rather too often.

- I am not quite too late.

A humorous effect is observed when downtoners (maybe, please, would you mind etc.) co-occur with offensive words in the same utterance:

- It isn’t any of your business maybe.

- Would you mind getting the hell out of my way?

Litotes – a specific form of meiosis, expressing an idea by means of negating the opposite idea.

• Not without his assistance.

• “Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft.”

• “… she was not unlike Morgiana…”

• “.. was not overpleased about it.”

• “… face completed the not-unhandsome picture”

• “He [the policeman’s officer] doesn’t like you any more than we do.”

• -We’d like to see you in the office.

- Right away?

-Or sooner.

• “His grey face was so long that he could wind it twice round his neck.”

• A writing desk the size of a tennis court

• “…the swimming pool, the size Lake Huron…”