28 Punctuation Type

TYPES OF GRAPHICAL DEVICES:

1) Stylistically relevant use of punctuation

Punc-tion not only divides the text into sentences and their syntactic elements and defines a general characteristic of a sentence (question, statement, exclamation) but points to the element important from the point of view of emotional expressiveness: pauses, irony, the author’s attitude to what is being said, connotation and rhythmical structure of speech. Punc-tion renders the modality of an utterance & its emotional charge.

Stylistic loading of punctuation marks is different. Numerous question and exclamation marks are the signs of the emotional character of the text. A special stylistic colouring is expressed by an exclamation mark when it is used after sentences which are not exclamatory by nature. The exclamation mark is used in such cases to express ironic attitude to what is being said and sometimes indignation:

A truth, a faith, a generation of men goes – and is forgotten, and it doesn’t matter! (J.Conrad)

Dash/hyphen is important to express emotional pauses and different states of speakers:

Please – not that!

With my hand on my heart – farewell. (J. Webster)

Often they are expressed by suspension marks (multiple dots):

Oh, he’s a… he’s a kind of acquaintance.

There …. We don’t know him very well… but all the same (S. Becket, “Waiting for Godot”)

A hyphen or suspension marks may point to prolonged pause before an important word to attract attention to it. Besides they may combine with some time fillers as er, ugh, well, so:

You come here after dark, and you go after dark. It is so – so ignoble.(Gr. Green).

A stylistic function of a full stop (= period) may be different. To describe a quick succession of actions a full stop divides the text into short sentences and the same time creates a dynamic picture of the whole.

Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oak leaves, horses’ heels. Over the paving. (T. S. Elliot)

The absence of punctuation marks may be used for different stylistic purposes by different authors: James Joyce – to express the flow of consciousness, T. S. Eliot – a poem “The Hollow Men”

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

2) Variations of type/print

- Capital letters.

When common nouns are written with the capital letter in address or personification it gives a special significance or elevated colouring.

O, Music! Sphere-descended maid (William Collins, Ode for Music)

Words may be capitalized when perceived by the speaker as very important: The first of Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day – a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. (Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs)

Whole words may be written with capital letters to be pronounced with a special emphasis or very loudly: e.g., ” I did not kill Henry. NO, NO!” (D.H. Lawrence, The Woman Who Rode Away And Other Stories)

- Italics are used to show epigraph, quotations, barbarisms, titles, etc., everything which is felt as alien to the text and needs strengthening (emphatic italics),

e.g., I will write a respectable letter when it’s over. Tonight I have a pressing engagement with the Ablative Absolute. (Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs)

When “will” and ‘would’ are used as auxiliary verbs or to denote a customary action, & thus become stressed, it is done to express irritation or irony:

His wife was always out when she was in Town, and his daughter would liberty – gibbet all over the place. (J. Galsworthy)

Bold type – also for emphasis

Large type may indicate an emotional tension (“LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”), may show the speaker’s extra importance to smth (“CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” – Mad-Eye Moody from “HP & the Goblet of Fire”), or emphasize the size or power of an object (“BANG!”)