Stylistic devices of the lexico-syntactical level
Antithesis in its essence is a case of parallel constructions. But unlike syntactical parallelism, which is indifferent to the meanings of its components, the two parts of an A must be semantically opposite to each other, as in the following sentence from a book by A.Christie: “If we don’t know who gains by his death we do know who loses by it.”
Another type of semantically complicated parallelism is presented by climax, in which each next word combination, clause, or sentence is logically more important or emotionally stronger.
E.g., What difference if it rained, hailed, blew, snowed, cycloned ? (O’Henry)
To create antithesis we use antonyms or their contextual equivalents, in C we deal with strings of synonyms or at least semantically related words belonging to the same thematic group. C suddenly interrupted by an unexpected turn of the thought which defeats expectations of the reader or listener is called anticlimax.
E.g., In moments of utter crises my nerves act in the most extraordinary way. When utter disaster seems imminent, my whole being is simultaneously braced to avoid it. I size up the situation in a flash, set my teeth, contract my muscles, take a firm grip of myself, and without a tremor always do the wrong thing. (B.Shaw)
A structure of three components is presented in a SD extremely popular at all times – simile. S is an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two different classes, which are connected by one of the following link words: “like”, “as”, “as though”, “such as”, “as … as” and the like.
Ss in which the link is expressed by notional verbs such as “to resemble”, “to seem”, “to look”, “to appear”, etc. are called disguised Ss because the realization of the comparison is somewhat suspended and the likeness between the objects is, therefore, less evident.
e.g. Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions she had a strange resemblance to a captive owl bunched in its soft feathers against the wires of a cage. (J.Galsworthy)
Litotes is a two-component structure in which two negations are joined to give a positive evaluation. The first component of a L is always the negative particle “not”, while the second, always negative in meaning, varies in form from a word with a negative affix to a negative phrase.
“-” + “-” = ‘+’
e.g. 1) Her face was not unpretty. (K.Kesey)
2) The thought did not displease me. (I.Murdoch)
3) He had all the confidence in the world, and not without reason. (J.O’Hara)
Periphrasis is a peculiar SD which consists in using a roundabout form of expression instead of a simpler one, i.e. in using a more or less complicated syntactical structure instead of a word.
e.g. The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa. (I.Shaw)
The phrase surgically interesting products of the fighting in this sentence stands for “the wounded”.