Seminar 5. Phonetic stylistic devices

Objective: to raise your awareness of the language expressive possibilities at the phonetic level; to clarify the functioning of onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance, rhyme and rhythm in the artistic text

Questions to be discussed

1. The problem of the existence of the sound meaning

2

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

. Two varieties of onomatopoeia: direct and indirect

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

3. Assonance and consonance

4

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

4.

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

. Alliteration as a phonetic stylistic device

5. Full and incomplete rhymes

6

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

. Rhyming patterns across the stanza

7

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

. Rhythm in poetry

8

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

A plan of your report

1.

2.

3.

. Rhythm in prose

Practical tasks

1. Analyse the following examples. Comment on the cases of alliteration, assonance, consonance, and direct and indirect types of onomatopoeia.

A. “Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky with gold-veined clouds.

Tum-tum-tum tiddle-um! tiddle-um! tiddle-um! turn tiddle-um turn ta! Blew the band. Two young girls in red came by and two young soldiers in blue met them, and they laughed and paired and went off arm in arm” (from Miss Brill by K. Mansfield).

Stylistic device	Example
alliteration
assonance
consonance
direct onomatopoeia
indirect onomatopoeia

B. “But all the time he was listening... And still that unknown bird went “Pip-pip”, “Pip-pip”, and there rose the busy chatter of the little trout stream, whereon the moon was flinging glances through the bars of her tree prison” (from The Apple Tree by J. Galsworthy).

Stylistic device	Example
alliteration
assonance
consonance
direct onomatopoeia
indirect onomatopoeia

C. “Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile

Whether Jew or gentile

I rank top percentile.” (From Zealots by the Fugees)

Stylistic device	Example
alliteration
assonance
consonance
direct onomatopoeia
indirect onomatopoeia

D. Our first foe, the serpent Satanas,

That hath in Jews’ heart his wasps nest,

Up swelled, and said: “O Hebraic people, alas!

Is this to you a thing that is honest,

That such a boy shall walken as him lest

In your despite, and sing of such sentence,

Which is against your law’s reverence?”

(From Canterbury Tales by G. Chaucer)

Stylistic device	Example
alliteration
assonance
consonance
direct onomatopoeia
indirect onomatopoeia

2. Analyse rhyme and metre in the pieces of poetry below.

A. My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please (From Sonnet 147 by W. Shakespeare)

B. True wit is nature to advantage dress’d;

What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d. (A. Pope)

C. Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice. (Fire and Ice by R. Frost)

	rhyme	metre
A
B
C

3. Provide the following notions with definition

notion	definition
metre
rhythm
sound symbolism
stanza

4. Provide the following terms with examples from literary texts

term	example
alliteration
assonance
chiasmus
compound rhyme
consonance
consonant rhyme
couplet rhyme
cross rhyme
direct onomatopoeia
eye rhyme
framing rhyme
full rhyme
incomplete rhyme
indirect onomatopoeia
internal rhyme
sibilance
triplet rhyme
vowel rhyme

Literature

1. Арнольд И. В. Стилистика. Современный английский язык : [учеб. для студентов пед. институтов спец. «Иностр. язык»] / Ирина Владимировна Арнольд ; под ред. П. Е. Бухаркина. – М. : Флинта : Наука, 2010. – 384 с.

2. Жирмунский В. М. Поэтика русской поэзии / Виктор Максимович Жирмунский. – СПб. : Азбука-классика, 2001. – 496 с.

3. Лотоцька К. Стилістика англійської мови : навч. посіб. / Катерина Лотоцька. – Львів : Видавничий центр ЛНУ ім. І. Франка, 2008. – 254 с.

4. Скребнев Ю. М. Основы стилистики английского языка : учеб. для ин-тов и ф‑тов иностр. яз. / Юрий Михайлович Скребнев. – М. : Астрель : АСТ, 2003. – 224 с.

5. Тарановский К. О поэзии и поэтике : авт. сб. / Кирилл Тарановский ; сост. М. Гаспаров. – М. : Языки русской культуры, 2000. – 432 с.

6. Encyclopedia of poetry and poetics / ed. by A. Preminger. – Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1965. – xxiv, 906 p.

7. Milliman B. Sound Symbolism in Italian [digital resource] // About.com. : [site]. – Access code : http://italian.about.com/od/linguistics/a/aa121207a.htm.

8. Sound Symbolism / ed. by L. Hinton, J. Nichols, J. J. Ohala. – CUP, 2006. – 384 p.

9. Stylistics of the English Language : Lecture course for students majoring in the English language and foreign literature / comp. by I. B. Kamensky. – Evpatoria : CUH Foreign Languages Department, 2013. – 107 p.