If the qualities of some animal are attached to human beings, these are cases of zoonification.

e.g. I will not have that great, drunken, ignorant ape if he were the last man on earth. (Binchy)

Metaphors can be classified according to their degree of unexpectedness into genuine and trite. Metaphors, which are absolutely unexpected, unpredictable are called genuine.

e.g. The sun slipped behind the buildings and spilled red-gold across the sky.

Those, which are commonly used in speech and are even fixed in dictionaries, are trite, or hackneyed, or dead metaphors. Genuine metaphors are regarded as speech metaphors while trite metaphors belong to language as a system. ‘Rays of hope, a flood of tears, a wave of sympathy, a shadow of a smile’ are examples of trite metaphors.

e.g. ...it made him feel a wave of sympathy.

Genuine metaphors are mostly found in poetry and emotive prose; they are usually created by authors.

Metaphors can be subdivided into simple and sustained, or prolonged, or developed metaphors. In a simple metaphor only one central image can be found. In a sustained metaphor the central image is supported by contributory ones.

e.g. "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent". The words ’spur, to prick, the sides’ create the image of a steed with which the speaker’s intent is identified.

"The splash of sun on the wall above him slowly knives down, cuts across his chest, becomes a coin on the floor and vanishes."

”Her voice struggled on through the heat, beating against it, molding its senselessness into forms.” (Fitzgerald)

Metaphors also vary according to the part of speech in which it is embodied. All notional parts of speech can produce metaphors, so we may speak about nounal, verbal, adjectival, etc., metaphors. 'A ray of hope, a splash of sun 'are noun metaphors, ' the splash of the sun knives down, cuts across' are verb metaphors, ‘cold comfort, sweet voice’ are adjectival metaphors, etc.

Metaphors may be classified on a structural basis and subdivided into four structural types:

- mere replacement e.g. The witch shall die.

- appositive e.g. A coo-coo – messenger of spring

- copulative e.g. When I left her she was a lily, and

when I returned she looked a pine.

- of-phrase e.g. a sky of sapphire

Metonymy is based on the identification of the tenor and the vehicle; the type of identification is that of proximity. Different types of relations may create the ground for metonymy, the most common are:

• a concrete thing used instead of an abstract notion,

e.g. the word ‘crown’ may stand for ‘monarchy’;

• the container used instead of the content,

e.g. The hall applauded. He drank more than one cup. The hotel was also annoyed. Half Harley Street had examined her, and found nothing.

• the relations of proximity,

e.g. The round game table were boisterous and happy. ‘Bow to the board,” said Bumble.

• the material instead of the thing made of it,

e.g. I lost one paper. She was dressed in silk and nylon.

• the instrument instead of the doer of the action,

e.g.…you are a very good whip, and can do what you like with your horses, you know.

The buses are on strike.

• a part instead of the whole,

e.g. We need some new faces here.

Irony is a stylistic device based on the simultaneous realization of two meanings - dictionary and contextual - on the ground of identification of associated phenomena, but the two stand in opposition to each other.

e.g. He smiled the sweet smile of an alligator.

It must be pleasant to know you’re going to die in a moment

especially with your daughter watching you pass away.(D.Baldacci)

Irony is generally used to convey a negative meaning, opposite to its literal signification. The stylistic function of irony is to create a humorous effect, but it shouldn’t be confused with humour, which always causes laughter.

e.g. It must be delightful to find oneself in a city without a penny in the pocket.

Usually the words containing irony are strongly marked by intonation and bear an emphatic stress, e.g. How clever of you! Due to the intonation pattern, the word ‘clever’ conveys a sense opposite to its literal meaning. Bitter irony is referred to as sarcasm.

e.g. The merit of many a great artist has never been acknowledged until after he was starved and dead.(M. Twain)

The 2nd subgroup.

It is known that the majority of words in English are polysemantic, so the primary and the derived meanings of words under certain circumstances may interact. Derived meanings interweave with the primary one and this network of meanings constitutes a stylistic device based on the 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, on the one hand, literal, and, on the other, transferred.

e.g. He took his hat and his leave.

Dora, plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle of the room…

‘Is anything broken?’ ‘Just my pride, and may be a rib or two.’

The Rich arrived in pairs and also in Rolls-Royces.

She was seen washing clothes with industry and a cake of soap.

The stylistic function of zeugma is to create a strongly humorous or ironic effect.

Pun is the use of a word so as to brings out different meanings or applications, or the use of words alike or nearly alike in sound form but different in meaning. It is often called play on words.

e.g. She often glances up, and glances down, and doesn’t know where to look, but looks all the prettier.

Militant families grumble about the history as it was always his-story, not hers.

The young lady who burst into tears has been put together again.

The best way to avoid washing the dishes is to have your husband eat out of your hands.

The stylistic function of pun is the same of zeugma.

The 3rd subgroup.

Epithet is a lexical stylistic device based on the interplay of emotive and logical meanings of an attributive or adverbial unit. Epithets should be differentiated from logical attributes, which are purely objective and non-evaluating.

e.g. a black cat – black jealousy,

a silent girl – a silent morning,

a dog with a big head – a pig-headed dog.

The function of the epithet is to give an individual perception or subjective evaluation of some features or properties of the things described.

Structurally epithets may be divided into some groups from the point of view of their composition and distribution. From the point of view of their compositional structure epithets are grouped into:

- simple, or word epithets expressed by nouns, adjectives or participles;

e.g. He looked at them in animal panic.

The room was old and tired.

Why would she want to tie herself down to the humdrum existence? (O’Flanagan)

- compound epithets, built like compound adjectives, practically always they are written hyphenated;

e.g. an apple-faced woman, joy-filled eyes

But you know Damien, he’s pig-headed. (O’Flanagan)

- two-step epithets, epithets used with intensifiers;

e.g. marvelously radiant smile

That McMohan girl was remarkably attractive nowadays (Binchy)

- phrase-epithets;

e.g. We did the ‘what do you do’ conversation. (O'Flanagan)

I’m one of those ‘can’t even boil an egg’ men. (O’Flanagan)

It (the wedding) would be small but not hole-in-the-corner.

A ‘boy-meets-girl’ kiss, a dog-in-the-manger wife (Binchy)

- reversed epithets, usually composed of two nouns linked in an of-phrase

e.g. the shadow of a smile, a devil of a job, a cow of a girl;

The door was opened by a small barrel of a woman.

(Fowler)

From the point of view of the distribution of the epithets in the sentence, I.R.Galperin singles out string epithets and transferred epithets. The string of epithets usually gives a many-sided description of the object described.

e.g. Such was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city.

A New Man. Sensitive, caring, loving, gorgeous.

(O’Flanagan)

A fine woodsmoked autumn day (Kesey)

Transferred epithets are logical attributes generally describing the state of a human being, but made to refer to inanimate things,

e.g. sleepless pillow, merry hours, disapproving finger, smoked up and gray and deserted eyes.

Semantically epithets may be divided into several groups:

1. anthroponymic, or personifying epithets: broad-shouldered houses, singing grass;

2. animalistic, or zoonymic epithets: mousy Philip;

3. synthetic epithets combining different senses: watery smile, bleak voice, cold look, etc.,

4. epithets based on aural images created by onomatopoeia, e.g. a sing-song accent, rustling silk, a girl hissing insults, or by alliteration, e.g. fresh and fragrant, crisp and cold, huge helpless hands;

5. epithets based on antonomasia: a Mona Lisa smile.

I.R. Galperin divides epithets into those associated with the noun following and those unassociated with it. Associated epithets point to a feature which is essential to the objects they describe, e.g. dark forest, dreary midnight, careful attention. Unassociated epithets are attributes used to characterize the object by adding a feature not inherent in it, i.e., a feature which may be so unexpected so as to strike the reader by its novelty, e.g. heart-burning smile, voiceless sands, smiling sun.

V.A. Kukharenko differentiates 1) figurative, or metaphorical epithets that are based on metaphor, e.g., the iron hate, a dream-like experience;

2) transferred epithets which transfer the quality of one object upon its nearest neighbour thus characterizing both of them, e.g., a tobacco-stained smile;

3) fixed epithets, such as true love, merry Christmas.

Oxymoron is a lexical stylistic device based on a combination of contradictory notions, the tenor and the vehicle are diametrically opposite, usually expressed by a word-combination, e.g. horribly beautiful, adoring hatred, a low skyscraper. From the point of view of the relations between the words oxymoron may be evident or non-evident. In an evident oxymoron words of favorable and unfavorable colouring are opposed, e.g. horribly beautiful. The words horrible and beautiful are opposed even taken out of the context A non-evident oxymoron combines the words that are not antonymous, they are not opposed if taken in isolation, e.g. gay starvation. The word gay is not normally antonymous to the word starvation

The main structural types of oxymoron are:

Adjective + noun: delicious torment, painful pleasure, the poorest millionaire.

e.g. And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain. (Spenser)

Adverb + adjective: horribly beautiful, awfully nice, horrifically good.

e.g. He was horrifically good at talking up a market.(O’Flanagan)

She found Simon Cochrane devastatingly handsome. (O’Flanagan)

Verb + adverb: shout silently, look blindly.

e.g. She looked blindly at him and said nothing. (O’Flanagan)

Adjective + in ... a way: ugly in a pleasant way,

Adjective + kind of: a sweet kind of torture.

The stylistic function of oxymoron is to emphasize the contradictory character of the things described or to express the speaker’s ironic attitude.

The 4th subgroup

Antonomasia is a lexical stylistic device in which the proper name of a person who is famous for some feature is put for a person having the same feature. Antonomasia may be of two types:

3. when a proper name is used as a common noun,

e.g. Her husband is an Othello.

Roger and Jack are sure to turn into the modern and even more ambitious Hitlers. (Golding)

Oh, he is a real faint-hearted Don Juan. (Priestley)

4. when a common noun is used instead of a proper name,

e.g.. I agree with you, Mr. Logic.

A common noun acquires nominal meaning. The interaction of logical and nominative meanings is displayed in the fact that the logical meaning of the common noun is fully or partially preserved.

e.g. Oh, my lovely Miss Beauty! (Baldacci)

What kind of ice-cream would you prefer, my Ms. Sweet-Tooth? asked Charlie. (Baldacci)

Orla hadn’t been Miss Prissy like Kit was being. (Binchy)

You have attracted thousands of eyes, Miss Shining Smile.

(Fitzgerald)

The main function of antonomasia is to characterize a person simultaneously with naming him. In every language there is a special group of speaking or tell-tale names, like Miss Sharp, Lady Teasel, Mr. Know –All, etc.

Structurally antonomasia may consist of one word or it may be a combination of words including different parts of speech:

Adjective + Noun: Sweet Tooth, Shining Smile

Noun + Noun: Headstone

Adverb + Adjective : Evergreen

Phrase : Mr. Know – All

The Second Group of Lexical Stylistic Devices

Simile is a stylistic device in which a single feature of a thing is intensified and made the most significant. It characterizes the tenor by comparing it with the vehicle belonging to an entirely different class of things. The stylistic function is to intensify a particular feature and make a description vivid.

A stylistic device of simile shouldn’t be confused with a logical comparison that deals with objects belonging to the same class.

Cf., The girl is as beautiful as her mother (comparison)

His face was as immobile as a stone. (simile)

The relations between the tenor and the vehicle can be expressed in the following ways:

1. with the help of link-words as, like establishing the analogy categorically.

e.g. The wisps of cloud were like trails of candy-floss. (O’Flanagan)

Her body swayed while she danced, as a plant sways in water. (O.Wilde)

2. with the help of link-words as if, as though establishing slight similarity.

e.g. I stared upward, as though transfixed by this petrifying sight.

He had an odd feeling as if he were a giant looking at the valley of pygmies.

3. with the help of lexical means expressing sameness, difference or resemblance,

e.g. He resembled her an old bulldog ready to fight at any moment. (Baldacci)

The countryside seems to faint from its smells.

English vocabulary abounds in similes that have become trite and familiar, like as innocent as a baby, as cool as a cucumber, as deaf as a stone, as mute as a statue, as pure as a lily, as red as a cherry, as straight as an arrow, as fit as a fiddle, as pale as ghost.

Similes may be of different types:

- descriptive, used to give vividness to the description

e.g. Her skin was like the skin of sucked grapes.

- associative evoking different associations in the mind of a listener;

e.g. The fire glowed suddenly like the eyes of a savage beast.

• ornamental used to extend the quality which is already given;

e.g. Her face was not closed any more, but open like a happy tulip on a spring day.

• proverbial used to express people’s wisdom and experience;

e.g. He is as poor as a church mouse.

Similes may be motivated as cold as a cucumber, as red as a

cherry or non-motivated. The function of simile depends on the style in which it is used: for example, in the belles-lettres style it is used for vivid descriptions, for evaluation, for humour, etc., in scientific prose its function is specifying or illustrative.

Hyperbole is a deliberate exaggeration of a certain feature essential to the object described. Many hyperboles used in speech have lost originality because of numerous repetitions and are fixed in dictionaries. They have lost the quality of a stylistic device and become units of the language as a system and are reproduced in speech ready-made, e.g. a thousand pardons, tired to death, immensely obliged, etc. Genuine hyperboles may be of two types: overstatements and understatements.

e.g. After an age she stood up from her chair. (Binchy)

The moment lasted forever. (Binchy)

Patrick had made enough toast to feed them for a week.

(O’Flanagan)

Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old.

(Fitzgerald)

A train was moving at a snail’s pace.

The aim of hyperbole is to intensify one of the features of an object to such a degree as to show its absurdity.

Periphrasis is a round-about way of naming things; it is a device in which a longer phrasing is used instead of a possible shorter and plainer form of expression. There are many dictionary or traditional periphrases, which are familiar to everybody and are easily decoded, these are trite periphrases, e.g., My better half, the fair sex, to keep body and soul together. Genuine periphrases are used to attract the reader’s attention by their novelty and freshness. The stylistic function of this device is to convey subjective perception of the thing described, to add new understanding, cf., He was growing fat. - His chin has already become doubled.

Proceeding from the semantic basis for the substitution one can differentiate among logical, figurative and euphemistic periphrases. Logical periphrases are based on the inherent properties of the thing described, on a certain feature characteristic of a thing,

e.g., a rifle - an instruments of destruction, to dismiss – to get off the payroll, love - the most pardonable of human weaknesses.

’Senior passenger services director – I’ll bet some bloke thought up that title! They needed something that sounded better than hostess!’ (O’Flanagan)

Figurative periphrases are based on imagery, either on metaphor or metonymy.

e.g., the punctual servant of all work – the sun, He would come back and marry his dream from Blackwood. He married a good deal of money.

Sometimes periphrases are used to create humour,

e.g. He is sleeping, his organs of vision have been closed for nearly twenty seconds. The subject of this instinctive trust (Gatsby) returned to the table and sat down. (Fitzgerald)

Euphemistic periphrases or euphemisms are words or phrases used to avoid mentioning of unpleasant or taboo things.

e.g. to die –to pass away, to be no more, to join the majority, to do one’s duty. Charles would live permanently in Winsyatt, as soon as the obstacular uncle did his duty.(Fowler)

toilet – a wash room, a rest room, public convenience,

to be pragnant to be in the family way, to be expecting,

old age – the evening of life,

death – a woman in black with a scythe.

Euphemisms may be divided into religious, moral, medical, parliamentary, etc., according to their spheres of their application.

The Third Group of Lexical Stylistic Devices

A cliche is a hackneyed phrase, once original, which has lost its imaginative power in the course of time. It is a stable word-combination which has been accepted as a language unit, e.g., rosy dreams of youth, deceptively simple, growing awareness, Jack of all trades, sound judgement, etc.

He has a man of sound judgement. (Hardy)

Cliches partially retain their emotional colouring as they can express attitudes and possess evaluative power but there is always a contradiction between what is aimed at and what is actually attained.

A proverb is a short wise saying in wide use held to embody a general truth. Proverbs accumulate the life experience of the community and serve as conventional practical symbols for abstract ideas. They are didactic and image bearing.

e.g. First come, first served. Out of sight, out of mind.

Speech is silver, silence is gold.

Brevity in proverbs is often underlined by the omission of connectives as in the above examples.

Being registered in language, proverbs and sayings are units of language, its expressive means. But when they undergo the process of decomposition, they acquire additional stylistic meaning and become stylistic devices. The modified form of the proverb is perceived against the background of the fixed one,

e.g. Come, he said, the milk is spilt. The use of the decomposed proverb “No use crying over spilt milk” implies new feelings and new understanding.

I said I’d like to go down and stay a few days there and they said no. All this about making your bed and having to lie on it. (Binchy) The use of the decomposed proverb ‘As you make your bed so you will lie on it’ underlines the attitude of the parents to what their daughter has done.

She remembered her mother once telling her that the O’Shaughnessys never washed their dirty linen in public. (O’Flanagan)

An epigram is akin to a proverb; it is a short clever saying or a poem with a witty ending coined by well-known people. ”A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. (Keats) “Failure is the foundation of success and success is the lurking place of failure”(Maugham). Epigrams should not be confused with aphorisms, clever original quotations, and paradoxes, statements, which are contradictory, absurd on the surface, e.g. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply. (Fitzgerald)

A quotation is a repetition of a phrase or statement from a book, speech, etc., used by way of authority, illustration, proof or as a basis for further speculation on the matter in hand. A quotation is always set against the other sentences in the text by the greater volume of sense and significance. Unlike epigrams, quotations do not need to be short. They are used as a stylistic device with the aim of expanding the meaning of the sentence quoted as the original meaning may be modified by a new context. In this quality they are mostly used in the belles-lettres style and publicistic style. They are abnormal for fiction but may be used for the sake of stylization.

e.g. The other contained a rather apt quotation from “Anthony and Cleopatra”: “These violent deaths have violent ends and in their triumph die.”(Rendel)

What a poor piece of psychology that was on Shakespeare’s part when he said that the evil men do lives after them, the good are off interred with their bones.(Rendel)

An allusion is an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythical, biblical fact or a fact of everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. As a rule, no identification of the source is given which makes allusions different from quotations.

e.g. As the priest read out the prayer about this night being in heaven and may the angels come to meet her, Kit held Steve’s hand very tight. (Binchy)

Love isn’t about making rules – thou shalt not do this or do that (Binchy)

You look like Dick Wittington, Kit had said. (Binchy)

You did him no service by giving him this Alice in Wonderland place to live. (Binchy)

An allusion has certain semantic peculiarities and the meaning of the word (the allusion) should be regarded as a form for the new meaning, so the primary meaning of the alluded word or phrase serves as a basis for the new meaning, e.g., ”’Pie in the sky’ for Railmen”, this newspaper headline refers to the refrain of the workers’ song: ”You’ll get a pie in the sky when you die”. The headline implies that railmen have been given promises, nothing else. Linguistically the allusion ‘pie in the sky’ assumes a new meaning “nothing but promises”.

STYLISTIC TERMS

Lexical Stylistic Devices Syntactical Stylistic Devices

Metaphor Inversion

Metonymy Detachment

Irony Parallel constructions

Zeugma Chiasmus

Pun Repetition: anaphora

Epithet epiphora

Oxymoron anadiplosis

Simile chain repetition

Periphrasis synonym repetition

Euphemism pleonasm

Hyperbole tautology

Cliche Enumeration

Epigram Suspense

Quotation Climax / gradation

Allusion Antithesis

Decomposition of Asyndeton

set phrases Polysyndeton

Gap-sentence link

Ellipsis

Aposiopesis / break-in the-

narrative

Question-in-the-narrative

Represented speech: uttered,

unuttered

Rhetorical question

Litotes

СПИСОК ИСПОЛЬЗОВАННОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ

1. И.В. Арнольд. Стилистика современного английского языка (Стилистика декодирования). – М.: “Просвещение”, 1990.

2. И.Р. Гальперин. Стилистика английского языка. – М.: “Высшая школа”, 1977.

3. В.А. Мальцев. Стилистика английского языка. – М.: “Высшая школа”, 1984.

4. В.А. Кухаренко. Семинары по стилистике английского языка. – М.: “Высшая школа”, 1971.