Stylistic devices of the phono-graphical level
Onomatopoeia – the use of words whose sounds imitate those of the signified object or action, such as hiss, murmur, bump, grumble, sizzle and many more. Звукоподражание ( мяукать, рычать, мычать).
Alliteration – the recurrence of the initial consonant in two or more words in close succession.
… silken sad uncertain
rustling of each purple curtain …
Assonance – the recurrence of stressed vowels.
Tell this soul with sorrow laden,
If within the distant Aiden
I shall clasp a sainted maiden,
whom the angels name Lenore.
Graphon - the intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word used to reflect its authentic pronunciation is called. It supplies information about the speaker's origin, social and educational background, physical or emotional condition.
For example, "The b-b-b-b-bas-tud – he seen me c-c-c-c-com-ing" in R.P.Warren's Sugar Boy's speech or "You don't mean to thay that thith ith your firth time" (D.Cusack) show the physical defects of the speakers – the stammering of one and the lisping of the other.
To purely graphical means we refer all changes of the type (italics, capitalization) and spacing of graphemes (hyphenation, multiplication).
Most frequently used graphical means is italics.
Intensity of speech may be transmitted through the multiplication of a grapheme, as in a shriek "Alllll aboarrrrrd", or capitalization of the word, as in the desperate appeal in - "Help. Help. HELP."
Hyphenation of a word suggests the rhymed or clipped manner in which it is uttered as in – "grinning like a chim-pan-zee".
Stylistic devices of the morphological level
One of the important ways of foregrounding is morphemic repetition. Both root and affixational morphemes can be emphasized through repetition.
e.g. She unchained, unbolted and unlocked the door. (A.Bennett)
We were sitting in the cheapest of all the cheap restaurants that cheapen that very cheap and noisy street in Paris. (E.Hemingway)
Nonce-words (occasional words) are created for special communicative situations only and are not used beyond these special occasions. They are very rarely registered in dictionaries. Examples:
“I love you mucher.”
“Plenty mucher ? Me tooer.” (J.Braine)
Well, a kept woman is somebody who is perfumed, and clothed, and wined, and dined, and sometimes romanced heavily. (J.Carson)
Stylistic devices of the lexical level
Metaphor is transference of names based on the associated likeness between two objects, as in pancake for the "sun", silver dust for the "stars", veil for the "sky".
In M both words possess at least one common semantic component. For instance, in the example with the "sun", metaphorically named "pancake", this common semantic component is "hot" or "round".
If a M involves likeness between inanimate and animate objects, we deal with personification, as in the face of London, or the pain of the ocean.
Metonymy, another lexical SD, unlike metaphor, is based on (nearness) of objects or phenomena. Two different words don’t have to have a common component in their semantic structures; the two objects (phenomena) should have common grounds of existence in reality.
There is one type of metonymy which is often viewed independently. This type is based on the relations between the part and the whole and is called synecdoche. Example, I'm all ears or Hands wanted.
Pun is a SD in which one word-form is deliberately used in two meanings, it is based on polysemy. The effect is usually humorous.
Example, "There comes a period in every man's life, but she is just a semicolon in his". Here we expect the second half of the sentence to unfold the content, proceeding from "period" understood as "an interval of time", while the author has used the word in the meaning of "punctuation mark" which becomes clear from the word "semicolon", following it.
Zeugma is a SD based on the combination of polysemantic verbs with nouns belonging to different semantic groups.
E.g. "He took his hat and his leave".
"She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief".
When the number of homogeneous members, semantically disconnected, but attached to the same verb, increases, we deal with semantically false chains, which are thus a variation of zeugma. As a rule, it is the last member of the chain that falls out of the thematic group, defeating our expectancy and producing a humorous effect. The following case from St.Leacock may serve as an example: "A governess wanted. Must possess knowledge of Rumanian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Music and Mining Engineering".
Irony thus is a SD in which the contextual evaluative meaning of a word is directly opposite to its dictionary meaning, as in the following example from J.Steinbeck: "She turned with the sweet smile of an alligator".
In the SD of irony it is always possible to indicate the exact word whose contextual meaning diametrically opposes its dictionary meaning. This is why this type of irony is called verbal irony.
There are very many cases, however, which we regard as irony, intuitively feeling the reversal of the evaluation, but we are unable to put our finger on the exact word in whose meaning we can trace the contradiction between the said and the implied. The effect of irony in such cases is created by a number of statements, or, sometimes, by the whole of the text. This type of irony is called sustained irony. It is formed by the contradiction of the speaker's/writer's considerations and the generally accepted moral and ethical codes.
Antonomasia is a lexical SD in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa.
E.g., "He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something ….". The attribute each, used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any woman. Here we deal with A of the first type.
We meet another type of A when a common noun serves as an individualizing name, as in D.Cusack: "There are three doctors in an illness like yours. … the three I'm referring to are Dr. Rest, Dr. Diet and Dr. Fresh Air".
Still another type of A is presented by the so-called speaking names – names whose origin from common nouns is still clearly perceived.
E.g., Молчалин, Обломов, Коробочка, Lady Teazle or Mr. Surface
Epithet, which is a well-known SD, expresses a characteristic of an object, both existing and imaginary. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself.
In the overwhelming majority of examples E is expressed by adjectives or qualitative adverbs (the frowning cloud, the sleepless pillow, he looked triumphantly). Nouns come next. They are used either as exclamatory sentences (You, ostrich!) or as postpositive attributes (Richard of the Lion Heart).
Epithets are used singly, in pairs, in chains, in two-step structures, in inverted constructions, and as phrase-attributes. All the previously given examples are single epithets.
Pairs of epithets are represented by two epithets joined by a conjunction or without it (wonderful and incomparable beauty – O.Wilde).
Chains or strings of epithets present a group of homogeneous attributes (from three up to sometimes twenty and even more) (You're a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature. – Dickens)
Two-step epithets are so called because the process of qualifying passes two stages: the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification itself, as in a pompously majestic female (Dickens). Two-step epithets have a fixed structure built upon a model Adv + Adj.
Phrase-epithets always produce an original impression (the sunshine-in-the-breakfast-room smell – J.Braine). Their originality lies in the fact that a word combination or even a whole sentence functions as one word.
A different linguistic mechanism is responsible for the emergence of inverted epithets. They are based on the contradiction between the logical and the syntactical: logically defining becomes syntactically defined and vice versa.
For example, in the phrase this devil of a woman
Hyperbole is a SD in which emphasis is achieved through deliberate exaggeration (to wait an eternity, he is stronger than a lion).
Understatement is a SD, when the size, shape, dimensions, characteristic features of the object are intentionally underrated. (She lived in a small village, in which the population consisted of 1 and a half person.)
Oxymoron is a SD based on a logical collision of seemingly incompatible words. (cold fire, sick health, peopled desert, populous solitude, proud humility, to shout mutely or to cry silently)