- •General notes on style and stylistics
- •3. Functional styles of the English language
- •6. Yu.M. Skrebnev’s classification
- •I. Five branches of paradigmatic stylistics:
- •Irony (explicit and implicit): Try this one, “The Eye of Osiris.” Great stuff. All about a mummy. Or Kennedy’s “Corpse on the Mat” – that’s nice and light and cheerful, like its title. (d.Sayers)
- •II. Syntagmatic stylistics:
- •8. Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices
- •9. Graphical expressive means and stylistic devices
- •11. Figures of combination.
- •12. Peculiar use of set expressions.
- •2) Proverbs and sayings.
- •13. General considerations on the syntactical level of stylistic analysis.
- •14. SDs based on the reduction of the sentence model.
- •In oral speech the phenomenon of ellipsis is rather norm than a special stylistic device. A speaker uses elliptical sentences in order to save needless efforts, to spare time and language means.
- •15. SDs based on the extension of the sentence model.
- •16. SDs based on the change of word-order.
- •17. SDs based on the transposition of sentence meaning.
- •18. The notion of style in functional stylistics.
- •19. Correlation of style, norm and function in the language.
- •20. Language varieties: regional, social, occupational.
17. SDs based on the transposition of sentence meaning.
Rhetoric question is an emotional statement or negation expressed in the form of a question. Rhetoric question does not require any answer or demand any information but is used to emphasize the idea, to render speaker’s emotions or to call the attention of the listener (reader) to the focus of the utterance.
In fact the communicative function of a rhetoric question is not to ask for unknown but to involve the readers into the discussion or emotional experience, give them a clue and make them to arrive at the conclusion themselves.
How can what an Englishmen believes be a heresy? It is a contradiction in terms (B. Show).
Rhetoric questions make an indispensable part of emotive prose, poetry and oratorical and publicistic style. They elevate the style of the utterance, serve as powerful means of emotional inducement, or on the contrary are effective tools of irony, sarcasm and derision.
Alongside with rhetoric questions there are other types of the sentence meaning transposition. In colloquial style exclamations, orders, requests, etc. can be shaped as emphatic questions. Thus such utterances as
Aren’t you ashamed of yourself!
Wasn’t it a marvelous trip!
I wonder whether you would mind opening the door?
What on earth are you doing?
And that’s supposed to be cultured?
18. The notion of style in functional stylistics.
Different definitions of ‘style’
Style is a variety of the national language traditionally used in one of the socially identifiable spheres of life that is characterized by a particular set of linguistic features, including vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Social and regional varieties, colloquial, dialectal, uneducated, etc.
Style is generally accepted linguistic identity of oral and written units of discourse, such as public speech, lecture, a friendly letter, a newspaper article, etc. Such units demonstrate style in the arrangement of linguistic means, composition of a speech act that creates a category of text marked by oratory, scientific, familiar or publicist style.
Style is individual manner of expression determined by personal factors, such as educational background, professional expression, sense of humor, etc.