8. Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices

Aim: In the written speech a desired stylistic effect can be achieved thanks to a peculiar sound arrangement in words, specific rhythm and rhyme created by different syntactic patterns used Phonetic exp. means: 1) instrumentation – the art of selecting and combining sounds in order to make utterances (устн. или письм. высказывание) expressive and melodic: alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia 2) versification (стихосложение) – the art of writing verses; imaginative expression of emotion, thought or narrative, mostly in metrical form and often using figurative language: rhyme or the rhythmical arrangement of words

Alliteration (согласные)

It’s stylistically motivated repetition of consonants

Aim: imparting a meloding effect to the utterance

• e.g. She sells sea shells on the sea shore as good as gold

Assonance (гласные)

It’s stylistically motivated repetition of stressed vowels

Aim: create a euphonious (благозвучный) effect and rhyme

• e.g. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain

Both alliteration and assonance can create the effect of euphony and cacophony (благозвучие/неблагозвучие)

Onomatopoeia (звукоподражание)

Sound imitation

Aim: at imitating sounds produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder), by things (machines or tools), by people (sighing, singing) and by animals

• Onomatopoeia can be: 1) direct: contained in words that imitate natural sounds: e.g. cuckoo, buzz, meow, roar, etc. 2) indirect – a combination of sounds to aim at making sounds of the utterance, an echo of its sense (sometimes called echo-writing) e.g. “And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” (E.A. Poe) – the repetition of the sound [s] actually produces the sound of the rustling of the curtain:

Rhyme

The repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words.

Rhyming words are usually placed at a regular distance from each other

• There are 1) full rhymes 2) incomplete rhymes: vowel and consonant rhymes

• Compound/broken rhymes – modifications in rhyming sometimes go so far as to make one word rhyme with a combination of words; two or even three words rhyme with a corresponding two or three words e.g. "upon her honour - won her", "bottom –forgot them- shot him"

• Eye-rhyme – the rhyme where the letters and not the sounds are identical e.g. love-prove, flood-brood

• Internal rhyme – the rhyme where the rhyming words are placed not at the ends of the lines but within the line e.g. I bring fresh showers upon the thirsting flowers

• According to the variants of stress: 1) male rhyme – last syllables of the rhymed words are stressed 2) female – next syllables to the last are stressed 3) dactylic – the third syllables from the end are stressed

• According to the ways rhymes arranged within the stanza (строфа): 1) couplets – aa 2) triplets – aaa 3) cross rhymes – abab 4) framing rhymes – abba 5) paired rhymes – aabb

Rhyme

The repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words

• Foot – a division of the poetic line from stress to stress, which contains one stressed syllable and one or two unstressed syllables: 1) trochee |ˈtrəʊkiː| (хорей) – first syl – stressed, second – unstressed / –

• iambus |æɪˈæmbəs| (ямб) – first syl – unstressed, second – stressed – /

• dactyl (дактиль) – first – stressed, second – unstr, third – unstr / – –

• amphibrach – first – unstr, second – stressed, third – unstr

• anapest – first – unstr, second – unstr, third – stressed