29. Phonetic stylistic devices.

Each text is a continuum of sounds which constitute words, phrases, sentences ...

Sounds combined with meaning may create a certain aesthetic effect when they are (in a way) foregrounded,

Phonetic expressive means producing an emotional and aesthetic effect depend on the choice of words, their arrangement and repetition. They include alliteration, onomatopoeia , rhyme and rhythm.

Repetition of the same sounds - usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables in any sequence of neighbouring words is called alliteration.

It is very important for English poetry and prose, as English has always been a highly alliterative language. The repetition of similar vowels, usually in stressed syllables is called assonance. Both alliteration and assonance as Types of sound-instrumenting may produce the effect of euphony (a sense of ease and comfort in pronouncing or hearing) or cacophony (a sense of strain and discomfort}. Alliteration is deeply rooted in English and may be found in poems, songs, newspaper headings, titles of books.

In English phraseology there is a number of expressions based on alliteration. e.g. last but not least; forget and forgive;

It is also often used in advertisements, in proverbs and sayings

Onomatopoeia is the use of words that seem to imitate the sounds they refer to (crackle, hiss, whack); or any combination of words in which the sound gives the impression of echoing the sense, It relies more on conventional associations between verbal and non-verbal sound than on the direct duplication of one by the other (compare the Russian and the English bow-wow).

Rhyme is the identity of sounds between syllables or paired groups of syllables, usually at the end of verse lines. Normally, the last stressed vowel in the line and all sounds following it make up the rhyming element: this may be a Monosyllable (love/above - known as a masculine rhyme], or. two syllables whet her /together - known as a feminine rhyme or double rhyme}, or even three syllables (glamorous/amorous - known as a triple rhyme). Where a rhyming element in a feminine or triple rhyme uses more than one word (famous/same as), this is known as a compound or mosaic rhyme).

These rhyming pairs are examples full rhyme also called true rhyme. Eye rhyme, half-rhyme is a rhyme in which the spellings of the rhyming elements match, but the sounds do not (love/prove).

Rhythm is the pattern of sounds perceived as the recurrence of equivalent "beats" at more or less equal intervals. In most English poetry, an underlying rhythms is manifested in a metrical pattern - a sequence of measure beats and "off­beats" arranged in verse lines and governing the alternations of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Thus, a metrical foot consists of 2 or 3 syllables only one of which is stressed. There are 5 classical metrical feet: iambus, trochee, dactyl, amphibrach and anapest. While metre involves the recurrence if measured sound units, rhythm is a less clearly structured principle. One can refer to the unmeasured rhythm of everyday speech, or of prose. In prose the language basis of rhythm is syntax. That is, rhythm in prose is based mainly on repetition of images, themes, on parallel structures, the use of homogenous members of the sentence, certain position of attributes, syntactic structures, etc, Rhythm in prose is the bearer of meaning and is stylistically relevant.