- To make some part of a sentence more conspicuous.

Periphrasis is a stylistic device, which is used to replace the name of an object by description of its most specific features.

e.g. The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa.

The man was shouting some choice Anglo-Saxon phrases at the policeman. (P. Auster)

It is used:

- to bring out and intensify some features or properties of the given object;

- to achieve a more elegant manner of expression (18-19 century);

- to avoid monotonous repetition.

Personification is a kind of metaphor. It is representation of inanimate objects orabstract ideas as leaving beings. The abstract ideas are often capitalized and can be substituted by the pronouns 'he' or 'she'.

e.g. When sorrows come, they come not single spies

But in battalions. (W.Shakespeare)

Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills. (M.Antrim)

Personification may be used:

• as an image-creating device;

• to characterise or describe objects or people;

• to impart some expressive or emotive force to the utterance.

Polysyndeton is deliberate repetition of connectives before each component part, when it is generally not expected.

e.g. They come running to clean and cut, and pack, and cook, and can the fish.

It serves:

- to introduce strong rhythmic effect;

- to strengthen the idea of equal logical importance of connected;

- components, to emphasize the simultaneity of actions or close

connection of properties enumerated, or to promote a high flown

tonality of a narrative.

Pun is a play of words based on polysemy or homonymy. In other words, pun is based on the interaction of two well-known meanings of a word or the interplay of word or word combination that sound the same.

e.g. Her real name is Marples. I calls her Marbles for a joke. If ever moves or retires, I’ll be able to say I’ve lost my Marbles. (D. Lodge)

“I have this fabulous idea for a kind of English Twin Peaks. “What is it? “I said, averting my eyes from her own twin peaks. (D. Lodge)

Pun is used:

• to produce humorous effect;

• to make the two meanings more conspicuous or set a contrast between them.

Simile is an imaginative comparison that shows partial identity of two objects belonging to two different classes.

e.g. I felt like an amputated leg. (R. Chandler)

Similie is used:

• to characterise the given objects or phenomena;

• to create an image;

• to bring out unexpected, striking similarities of different objects.

Repetition is recurrence of the same element (word or phrase) within the sentence.

e.g.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up…

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance…

A time to love, and a time to speak; a time of war and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes

In much wisdom is much grief, and whoever increases knowledge increases sorrow.

Ecclesiastes

Afterwards I thought I might have heard the swish of a sap. Maybe you always think that - afterwards. (P. Auster)

She looked beyond the frightened pensioners, the girls who looked like women, the women who looked like men, the men who looked like psychos. (Tony Parsons)

It is used:

• for emphasis or for a special effect (e.g. intensifying the duration of the process);

• to attract the reader’s attention to the key-word of the utterance;

• to give rhythm to the utterance.

Rhetorical question implies asking question not to gain information, but to assert more emphatically the obvious answer to what is asked. No answer is expected by the speaker.

e.g. Who said you should be happy? Do your work. (Collette)

It is used:

• to express some additional shade of meaning (doubt, assertion, suggestion);

• to enhance the emotional charge of the utterance.

Synecdoche is a kind of metonymy. This term denotes using the name of a part to denote the whole or vice versa.

e.g. Miss Bertrams were too handsome themselves to dislike any woman for being so too, and were almost as much charmed as their brothers with her lively dark eye, clear brown complexion, and general prettiness. (J. Austen)

He was a shy man, unable to look me in the eye.

It is used:

• to show a property or an essential quality of the concept;

• to impart any special force to linguistic expression.

Syntactic tautology implies firstly recurrence of the noun subject in the form of the corresponding personal pronoun. Secondly it is repetition of the sentence by means of the pronominal subject and an auxiliary or modal verb, representing the predicate.

e.g. That Willie Sawyer he don’t know how to have any fun at all. (E. Hemingway)

She knows a lot about religion, does Sally. (D. Lodge)

It is used:

• to make the noun subject of the sentence more prominent;

• to reproduce the peculiarities of colloquial speech or the speech of uneducated people.

Symbolism A word functions as a symbol when it is used to indicate not only its usual referent, but also something quite different. Some symbols have traditional associations. For example, the word flag refers not only to a cloth banner, but it also symbolizes the country that flies it. Other conventional symbols include a circle – perfection; the sun – power or reason; greenery – youth; winter – old age; and a road – the path of life. For example, when Walt Whitman used the symbol of the “ship of state” in his poem O Captain! My Captain! readers knew that the poem was actually referring to the ship of the United States and its lost captain, Abraham Lincoln. Writers can also create their own associations between unlike things, establishing personal symbols.

Synesthesia is a description of a sensory experience as if it were perceived through another sense. For example, describing a painter’s colours – a visual experience – in auditory terms – as clashing or loud. The following lines from William Blake’s poem, London, use synesthesia to describe an auditory phenomenon – a soldier’s sigh – in visual terms: “And the hapless soldier’s sigh / Runs in blood down palace walls.”

Zeugma consists in combining unequal semantically heterogeneous or even incompatible words or phrases.

e.g. He lost his hat and his temper.

She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief.

It is used:

• to produce humorous effect;

• to make the two meanings more conspicuous.

Методические рекомендации по комплексному анализу художественного текста для студентов дневной, заочной форм обучения и экстерната специальности 6 030500 “Английский язык и литература” образовательно-квалификационного уровня “бакалавр”

Князева Наталья Андреевна

Мазина Елена Николаевна

Полховская Елена Васильевна

Редактор: Егошина Т.Е., Вовк Н.А.

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