5. Expressive means and stylistic devices

Stylistics studies the special media of language which are called stylistic devices and expressive means. Expressive means and stylistic devices form three large groups of phonetic, lexical, syntactical means and devices. Each group is further subdivided according to the principle, purpose and function of a mean or a device in an utterance. Stylistics studies the types of texts which are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication and are called functional styles of language. Expressive means of a language are those phonetic, morphological, word-building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist in language-as-a-system for the purpose of logical and/or emotional intensification of the utterance. These intensifying forms have special functions in making the utterances emphatic. A stylistic device is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized status and thus becoming a generative model. A stylistic device is an abstract pattern, a mould into which any content can be poured.

40. Stylistic devices based on polysemantic effect (zeugma, pun).

The word is the most changeable of all language units. In the result of the gradual development of the meaning of the word new meanings appear alongside the primary one – derivative meanings. All of them are interconnected with the primary one and create a network – polysemantic effect. Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words in the context, the semantic relations being literal and transferred. Zeugma always creates a humorous effect. ▲ Have a Coke and a smile! “Have” is realized in two different meanings: in the word combination “have a Coke” it’s direct (literal), in “have a smile” it’s transferred. Pun – it has a humorous effect which may be based on misinterpretation of the speaker’s utterance by the other or by the result of the speaker’s intended violation of the listener’s expectation. ▲ When are true words – sweet words? When they are candid. Pun is also a play on words of the same sound, it may be based on homonymy, polysemy.

37. Oxymoron is a combination of 2 words in which the meanings of the 2 clash, being opposite in sense. ▲ terribly beautiful. One of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature observed while the other one offers a purely subjective individual perception of the object. In it the primary logical meaning of the adj. or adverb is capable of resisting the power of semantic change which words undergo in combination. It can be realized in several models: adj. + noun, adverb + adj.

A paradox is a statement which is contrary to generally accepted opinion, but which expresses some kind of truth. ▲ Men marry because they are tired, women – because they are curious. Both are disappointed.

32. . Antonomasia is a stylistic device based on the interplay between the logical and nominal meanings of a word realized simultaneously. It has the purpose of pointing but the leading, most characteristic or important trait of the person or event, inning it as a proper name of this person or event. Antonomasia categorizes the person and indicates both the general and the particular. It gives us information about the bearer of the name. ▲ Mr. Snake. Antonomasia is mostly created by nouns, seldom by attributive combinations or phrases.

A personification is a figure of speech that gives an inanimate object or abstract idea human traits and qualities, such as emotions, desires, sensations, physical gestures and speech. In business and political news reportage, personification is commonly used to convey a sense of agency for otherwise abstract entities like nations, machines or corporations: US Defends Sale of Ports Company to Arab Nation. In English literature, personification is oft-used as a literary device: In John Keats's To Autumn, the fall season is personified as "sitting careless on a granary floor" and "drowsed with the fume of poppies".