5. Meaning from a stylistic point of view (lexical meaning, grammatical meaning)

Words of the language possess lexical and grammatical meanings. Both of these meanings make up the semantic structure of the word. Lexical and grammatical meanings are interdependent; one can’t go without the other.

Even an isolated word is presented in a dictionary with the reference to its grammatical meaning. In the dictionary you may see the part-of-speech reference to its grammatical meaning and some of its paradigms. Grammatical meaning, thus, is a structural meaning. It expresses in speech the relations between words, based on the contrastive features of arrangements in which they occur.

There are no words which are deprived of grammatical meaning. Even units larger than words possess their grammatical meaning. For example, sentences have their structural meaning of affirmation, interrogation and negation.

Lexical meaning, on the contrary, can’t be said to belong to all the word-stock. There are words possessing no lexical meaning of their own. Here we may refer functional words: prepositions (which serve to signify the relations between words), exclamations, interjections. Notional words and phrases made of them possess lexical meaning.

According to I. V. Arnold, lexical meaning is the realization of some concept or emotion by means of a definite language system. This meaning refers our mind to some concrete object, phenomenon or concept (whether real or imaginative). There are words possessing several lexical meanings.

However, in actual speech a word can acquire occasional new meanings. Such meanings are not considered as components of the semantic structure of the word. These occasional meanings appear due to a certain context. That is why they are called contextual meanings.

The grammatical meaning is more abstract than the lexical one. But the lexical meaning depends, to some extent, on the grammatical meaning. For example, lexical meaning may depend on the part-of-speech characteristic or on the syntactic function of a word in the sentence.

6. Denotative and connotative meanings from a stylistic point of view

Lexical meaning is segmented into connotative and denotative meanings.

The denotative meaning of the word expresses the conceptual content of a word. An act of verbal communication is possible due to the fact that words possess denotative meanings. Due to the denotative meaning we refer words to some concrete objects, concepts or phenomena. Thus, denotative meaning is the notional one.

As for connotative meaning, it turns out optional. This meaning is a pragmatic value of the word, received by virtue of where, when, how, to whom, for what purpose and in what contexts it is used or may be used.

The connotative meaning has several types:

1. Stylistic reference. Human activity takes place in different spheres. To such spheres we refer everyday life, business, science, education, etc. Each sphere of communication is characterized by certain conditions and aims which determine the choice of lingual means. Such spheres are referred to as functional styles. Each functional style is characterized by certain words which are preferably used in this or that style. Such words are said to have stylistic reference. This stylistic connotation depends on the social circumstances, relations between interlocutors and the purpose of communication. Stylistic connotations may be inherent and adherent. Stylistically neutral words have only adherent stylistic connotations. These connotations are acquired in a certain context.

2. Emotive connotation. This kind of connotation is acquired by a word as a result of its frequent use in contexts concerning emotional situations or because the referent, named in the denotative meaning, is emotionally colored. The emotive connotation may have some specific linguistic form, but be contained in the concept of a given word.

3. Evaluative connotation. It expresses approval or disapproval, conveying the speaker’s attitude to the object of speech. This connotation may be a part of the denotative meaning. It stands out in specific contexts. Words of the same root may or may not possess an evaluative component in their inner form. For example, the verb to sneak means to move secretively with a bad purpose. So, the adjective sneaky has the same (negative) connotation. But if we take the noun sneakers, it has no negative connotation.

4. Expressive (intensifying) connotation. This type of connotation either increases or decreases the expressiveness of the message. For example, some words may be used colloquially for the purpose of exaggeration. The emotive connotation always entails expressiveness, but not vice versa. For example, the word thing in the sentence She was a sweet little thing with an emotive adjective sweet also becomes emotive, but in the sentence She was a small thing with spectacles the word thing is expressive, but not emotive.

We may come across words which have two, three or even all four types of connotation at once. For example, the word beastly in the phrase beastly weather possesses emotional coloring, stylistic reference to the colloquial sphere, expresses intensity and censure.

There are also words which possess purely emotive meaning. They even don’t have the denotative referent, they just express emotions. For example, the words Oh!, Alas!, Bloody!. There are adjectives whose emotive meaning is so strong that it suppresses the denotative meaning. For example, the word fantastic has a denotative meaning, but is more frequently used in its emotive meaning.

7. The notion of the stylistic opposition in the English vocabulary

In the English vocabulary words may be stylistically marked or neutral.

Stylistically marked words are divided into formal and informal. Formal words belong to the literary stylistic layer. Informal words belong to non-literary stylistic layer. This is binary opposition.

Stylistically formal vocabulary we may see in books, magazines, hear it in public lectures, announces, in official talks. Usually such types of communication are reduced to monologues, addressed by one person to many and often prepared in advance. The informal vocabulary is used in personal, two-way, everyday communication. Neutral words make up the core of the English vocabulary. They denote everyday concepts.

8. Words of literary stylistic layer

In the English vocabulary words may be stylistically marked or neutral.

Stylistically marked words are divided into formal and informal. Formal words belong to the literary stylistic layer. Informal words belong to non-literary stylistic layer. This is binary opposition.

Stylistically formal vocabulary we may see in books, magazines, hear it in public lectures, announces, in official talks. Usually such types of communication are reduced to monologues, addressed by one person to many and often prepared in advance. The informal vocabulary is used in personal, two-way, everyday communication. Neutral words make up the core of the English vocabulary. They denote everyday concepts.

Literary bookish words are divided into several groups:

1. Terms. They are any word or word group which is used to name a notion, characteristic of some special field of knowledge. Terms follow several requirements:

1. they must be monosemantic, polysemy is a drawback (figurative meanings are also undesirable, however, in some contexts terms can acquire them);

2. they must be independent of the context.

Every field of science has its own set of terms. However, they may be borrowed from other fields of science. Terms may be formed as a way of ellipse, clipping and abbreviation. They may combine forms of Latin and Greek. Terms may be popular (known to the public at large) or they may be used exclusively within a profession.

2. Learned words. To such words we refer a considerable proportion of the vocabulary, found in texts on some specific problem. The learned vocabulary comprises of archaic connectives (hereby, partake). There are some set expressions: as follows, in terms of.

3. Archaisms. They are words which were once common, but now replaced by synonyms and fell out of usage. Archaisms are divided into several groups:

1. archaisms proper (they are obsolete words that dropped from the language);

2. historisms (they denote concepts and phenomena that have gone out of use. They name social relations, institutions and different objects of cultural past. For example, gig, phaeton, bloomers. Many words remain in the vocabulary in their figurative meaning);

3. morphological archaisms (they are archaic forms of non-archaic words);

4. poetisms (they are archaic words used in poetry and sometimes in prose to create elevated atmosphere);

4. Barbarisms. They are words from other languages used by English people in conversation or in writing, but not assimilated in any way for which they have correspondent English equivalents. They are facts of the language and are fixed in dictionaries.

5. Foreignisms. They are words of foreign origin that have not been assimilated into the English language, but they do not belong to the word-stock of the English language. They are not registered in dictionaries.

6. Neologisms. They are newly coined words or phrases, new meanings of already existing words or words borrowed from other languages. Neologisms are created for new things, irrespective of their scale of importance. While speaking about neologisms one must regard time: they refer to the present time only.

A subtype of neologisms is nonce words. They are situational neologisms coined for some occasion. They are individual neologisms created after the existing word-building pattern for stylistic purpose and having value for a given text.

9. Words of non-literary stylistic layer

Words of non-literary layer:

1. Colloquialisms. They are divided into:

1. literary colloquial (they denote the vocabulary of educated people in the course of ordinary conversation or when writing letters to intimate friends);

2. familiar colloquial (they are more emotional and colorful than literary colloquial);

3. low colloquial (this term is used for illiterate popular speech).

2. Slang. They are expressive, mainly ironic words serving to create fresh names for some things. They are not facts of Standard English. For example, the word loaf is a slang name for a head.

3. Vulgarisms. They are divided into vulgarisms proper and trite vulgarisms. Vulgarisms proper are very rude words used to insult or humiliate. Trite vulgarisms have lost their shocking power and moved closer to colloquial words.

4. Jargonisms. They are subdivided into professional and social. Professional jargonisms are used within groups joined by professional interests (tinned fish is jargonism for submarine). Social jargonisms are used within social or age groups (for example, in criminal circles book is a life sentence).

5. Dialectical words. They are words and expressions used by common people in certain regions of a country, suggestive of the origin and educational and cultural standard of the speaker.

10. The notion of stylistic devices and expressive means

Expressive means of any language are those linguistic forms and properties that have the potential to make the utterance emphatic and expressive (Т. А. Знаменская). These can be phonetic, morphological, lexical or syntactical. In other words, expressive means are those phonetic, morphological, syntactical or lexical forms which exist in any language as a system for the purpose of logical and emotional intensification of the utterance. For example, to phonetic expressive means we can refer pauses and logical stress, to morphological expressive means we can refer diminutive suffixes (doggy instead of dog), to lexical expressive means we can refer words of purely emotive meaning (wow!), words with clearly felt connotative meaning (awful, lovely), words marked by stylistic reference (such as jargonisms and slang). To syntactic expressive means we can refer mostly peculiar constructions (also called emphatic), for example, I do understand you.

Stylistic devices are abstract patterns of the language which are filled with a definite content when used in speech. Expressive means are concrete facts of the language that are used in speech as such with the expressive power normatively fixed in speech.

11. Different classifications of stylistic devices and expressive means

Professor Galperin’s classification:

1. phonetic stylistic devices and expressive means (such as alternation, rhyme, rhythm);

2. lexical stylistic devices and expressive means (metaphor, metonymy, irony, epithet, simile, hyperbole, pun, allusion, zeugma, oxymoron);

3. syntactical stylistic devices and expressive means:

1. a specific arrangement of members of a sentence (inversion, detached constructions, climax, anticlimax);

2. usage of syntactical constructions in a new meaning (rhetorical question);

3. occurrence of syntactically identical and similar sequences (parallel constructions);

4. omission of relevant elements (ellipsis);

5. introductions of redundant elements;

6. represented speech.

Another classification was suggested by Valery Gurevich (Валерий Владимирович Гуревич). It is based on three groups:

1. stylistic devices making use of the language units (figures of speech: metaphor, metonymy, simile, oxymoron, hyperbole, epithet, euphemism, rhetorical question and irony);

2. stylistic devices making use of the structure of language unity (repetition, inversion, ellipsis, break-in-the-narrative and represented speech);

3. phonetic stylistic devices and expressive means (alliteration, rhyme, rhythm).

Professor Skrebnev’s classification, as different from those mentioned above, is not level-oriented. He created a new method of the hierarchical arrangement of the material. Firstly, he subdivided stylistics into paradigmatic stylistics (stylistics of units) and syntagmatic stylistics (stylistics of sequence). Then he explored the levels of the language and regarded all stylistically relevant phenomena according to this level principal in both paradigmatic and syntagmatic stylistics. He also added the level of semasiology to the known four levels, i. e. morphology, lexicology, phonology and syntax. According to professor Skrebnev, the relations between these levels and two aspects of stylistic analysis is bilateral. The same linguistic material of these levels provides stylistic features studied by paradigmatic and syntagmatic stylistics. The difference lies in its different arrangements.

12. Phonetic stylistic devices and expressive means

Robert Burns

Robert Browning

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1. phonetic stylistic devices and expressive means (alliteration, rhyme, rhythm).

Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device based on the repetition of consonants at close distance (usually in the beginning of words in the final position). It is frequently used in idioms (for example, blind as a bat, last but not least).

Alliteration is often used in poetry. Robert Burns (25 January 1759, Ayrshire, Scotland, United Kingdom – 21 July 1796, Dumfries, Scotland, United Kingdom) loves this stylistic device.

e. g. O my love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

My love is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

• “A Red, Red Rose” (1794)

Alliteration produces the fact of euphony (a sense of ease and comfort in pronouncing or hearing) or cacophony (a sense of strain and discomfort in pronouncing or hearing). Example of cacophony: “nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!” (Robert Browning; 7 May 1812, Camberwell, London, England – 12 December 1889, Venice, Italy).

Onomatopoeia is the use of words sounds of which imitate those of the signified object or action. It may be sounds pronounced by animals, it may be the imitation of other natural sounds.

Rhyme is created by the repetition of the same sounds in the last stressed syllable or two (or even more lines in stanza). According to the type of stressed syllable we distinguish the male rhyme (when the stress falls on the last syllable in the stressed lines) and the female rhyme (when the stress falls on the last but one syllable). Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792, Field Place, Horsham, Sussex, England – 8 July 1822, Lerici, Kingdom of Sardinia (now Italy)):

e. g. When the lamp is shattered (female rhyme)

The light in the dust lies dead (male rhyme).

Rhyme is also subdivided into the following groups: paired rhymes, alternative rhymes and inclosing rhymes. There is also the so-called eye-rhyme, i. e. the elements are similar only in spelling, but not in pronunciation (find – wind).

Rhythm is the alternation of similar or even identical elements at equal periods. In poetic speech it is produced by regular alternation of both stressed and unstressed syllables.

A division of a poetic line from stress to stress which contains one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables is called a foot. The foot is the main unit of rhythm in poetic speech.

According to the correlation of stressed and unstressed syllables within the foot we distinguish the following types of feet:

1. trochee (it consists of two syllables, the first of which is stressed and the second – unstressed): Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater;

2. iambus (it consists of two syllables, the first of which is unstressed and the second – stressed): And then my love and I shall pace (Samuel Taylor Coleridge; 21 October 1772, Ottery St. Mary, Devon, England – 25 July 1834, Highgate, England);

3. dactyl (it consists of three syllables, the first of which is stressed and the other two are unstressed): why do you cry, Willy?;

4. amphibrach (it consists of three syllables with the stress on the second one): a diller, a dollar, a ten o’clock scholar;

5. anapest (it consists of three syllables with the stress on the last one): said the fly: “Let us flee!” (A Flea and a Fly in a Flue by Frederic Ogden Nash; August 19, 1902, Rye, New York – May 19, 1971, Baltimore, Maryland).

13. Stylistic use of graphical means. Graphon

Graphon is the intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word (or word combination) used to reflect its authentic pronunciation.

Graphons, indicating irregularities or carelessness of pronunciation, were occasionally introduced into English novels as well as journalism at the beginning of the 18^th century and since then have acquired an ever growing frequency of usage and also popularity among writers, journalists and advertisers (early to bed and early to rise – no use unless you advertise).

They also have a widening scope of actions.

Graphon proved to be an extremely concise but effective means of supplying information about the speaker’s origin, social and educational background, physical or emotional condition, etc. The famous William Makepeace Thackeray’s (18 July 1811, Calcutta, India – 24 December 1863, London, England) character - butler Yellowplush - impresses his listeners with the learned words pronouncing them as sellybrated (celebrated), bennyviolent (benevolent), illygitmit (illegitimate), jewimle (juvenile), or the no less famous Mr. Babbitt (a novel by S. Lewis published in 1922) uses peerading (parading), Eytalians (Italians), peepul (people), so the reader obtains not only the vivid image of the social, cultural, educational characteristics of the personages, but also both Thackeray’s and Sinclair Lewis’ (February 7, 1885, Sauk Centre, Minnesota – January 10, 1951, Rome, Italy) sarcastic attitude to them.

It is an effective means of revealing physical defects of speakers. For example, the b-b-b-b-bas-tud - he seen me c-c-c-c-coming in Robert Penn Warren’s (April 24, 1905, Guthrie, Kentucky, USA – September 15, 1989, Stratton, Vermont, USA) Sugar Boy’s speech in the novel All the King's Men (1946).