Vulgar words are coarse and rude words which are divided into two main types

Hackneyed vulgarisms

Vulgarisms proper

(стереотипные) devil, hell, damn, avoided or replaced by euphemisms in polite conversation. For example, the title of William Golding’s well-known book ‘Lord of the Flies’ is a euphemism for ‘devil’

(Taboo words, unacceptable in polite conversation, called ‘four-letter words’) dickens – devilkins. She was as clever as the dickens. (very clever –чертовски умна) A dickens of a mess - The phrase is informal, British, old-fashioned, used to emphasize smth spoken about. Ex. When Boris Eltsin was Russia’s president an American journalist interviewed Naina Eltsina, and after the interview he said that she was as clever as the dickens. (very clever –чертовски умна) Unfortunately, a Russian interpreter made a funny mistake saying in Russian: Она умна как Диккенс, though Charles Dickens had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Dialect words

Expressive means and stylistic devices

The expressive means of a language as well as stylistic devices serve to intensify the utterance lexically, morphologically phonetically as well as by syntactical means of the language.

Expressive means of the language:

Expressive means of

forms which exist in the language for the purpose of logical and emotional intensification of the utterance.

Lexical: recharge my batteries – have a holiday.

Phonetic: all kinds of intonation (accidental rise), drawling/prolonging of a sound, pauses. It sh-sh-shall be done.

Syntactical: negative/interrogative forms are expressive syntactical synonyms of declarative sentences:

Isn't it a lovely day? – It’s a lovely day.

Inversion is another powerful means of expressiveness.

Other expressive means of syntax are length of sentences, and their completeness. For example, a short sentence forming a paragraph, most likely bears special significance.

Morphological: more expressive, emotionally coloured equivalent. Pr. Cont. instead of Pr. Ind. They are always quarrelling. It conveys annoyance on the part of the speaker.

A Stylistic device is a conscious, intentional intensification of some typical semantic or structural property of a language unit thus creating an abstract pattern (Galperin).

Stylistic devices belong to language-In-action (речь). They are less predictable than expressive means. The more unpredictable the device is, the more expressive it sounds. Some stylistic devices are very individual; they may be the creation of a particular writer. Если в потоке речи – current of information – неуместно использованы стилистические приемы – информационная помеха (ошибка). If a metaphor is fixed in dictionaries it is no longer considered to be an element of language-in-action as it loses its freshness  becomes a unit of language-as-a-system.

In treating the problem of stylistic devices we must bear in mind that a literary text is a complex and undivided structure of interdependent elements. All elements of a text find justification and are equally important to the understanding of the whole.