Linguistic Stylistics - Gabriela Missikova part2

Chapter 4:

EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC DEVICES

In the following chapter, attention is paid to those language means by which a writer creates certain stylistic qualities so that the text he creates fulfills the desired functions. The language means we discuss further in this chapter can be viewed as stylistic means because of their capacity to create certain stylistic effects. A clear distinction between expressive means and stylistic devices will make our discussion more efficient. The following part is based on Galperin’s Stylistics (1977) and Wales’s A Dictionary of Stylistics (1990).

All stylistic means of a language can be divided into expressive means (EM), which are used in some specific way, and special devices called stylistic devices (SD).

4.1Expressive Means

“The expressive means of a language are those phonetic means, morphological forms, means of word-building, and lexical, phraseological and syntactic forms, all of which function in the language for the emotional or logical intensification of an utterance. Some of them are normalised and labelled in dictionaries as intensifiers. In most cases they have corresponding neutral synonymous forms.” (Galperin, ibid., p. 24).

The most powerful expressive means of any language are phonetic. The human voice can indicate subtle nuances of meaning that no other means can attain. Pitch, melody, stress, pausation, drawling, drawing out certain syllables, whispering, a singsong manner of speech and other ways of using the voice are more effective than any other means in intensifying an utterance emotionally or logically.

Among the morphological expressive means the use of the present indefinite instead of the past indefinite is stylistically marked. This has already been acknowledged as a stylistic means and is named the Historical Present. In describing some past event the author uses the present tense.

The use of shall in the second and third person may also be regarded as an expressive means. Compare the sentence ‘John shall do it’ (= I shall make John do it) and ‘John has to do it’ (= It is necessary for John to do it).

Among word-building means we find many affixes (prefixes and suffixes) which serve to make the utterance more expressive and fresh or to intensify it. Diminutive suffixes such as -y(ie), -let, -ette (e.g. dear > dearie/ deary, girl > girlie, miss > missy, stream > streamlet, rose > rosette) add emotional colouring to the words. We may also refer to what are called neologisms and nonce-words formed with non-productive suffixes or with Greek roots, for example, kafkasque,

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mistressmanship. Compound words (e.g. Ally Pally*, bish-bash-bosh**, pizzaburger, buddy-buddy-buddy movie, kiss-kiss bang-bang movie), blends (e.g. cinerama < cinema + panorama, fanzine < fan + magazine, rockumentary < rock + documentary), or acronyms (e.g. ACAB < All Coppers Are Bastards, JAP < Jewish American Princess, KISS < Keep it simple, stupid!) are often expressive too.

At the morphological level we also have to mention the use of personal deictics which provide signals about the complex relationship of the speaker (the author), the recipient (the reader/listener) and the topic of conversation (that is communication itself) in a particular situation. There are basically two possible ways of presenting an utterance, the 1st person narration (a monologue) and the 2nd person narration (a dialogue/conversation). There is no English counterpart for the Slovak use of 2nd person singular (in Slovak tykanie), except the original texts by W. Shakespeare (e.g. Thou will never gett thee a husbend. Ty nikdy nedostaneš pre teba muža.), or the 3rd person plural (in Slovak onikanie) which is no longer used, except in some rare local dialects (e.g. A oni, mamička, čo si nesadnú.). Signals about the terms, which the participants of the communication are at, are reflected in the address (oslovenie). Addressing can be highly official or quite unofficial, expressive or neutral, subjective, objective or general, etc. The hierarchy of addresses can be observed in certain professions, for example, in the army.

At the lexical level there are a great many words which due to their inner expressiveness, constitute a special layer. There are words with emotive meaning only, words which have both, referential and emotive meaning, words which still retain a twofold meaning (denotative and connotative), words belonging to special groups of literary English or of non-standard English (poetic, archaic, vulgar, etc.). The expressive power of these words cannot be doubted, especially when they are compared with the neutral vocabulary. The same can be said about the set expressions of the language (proverbs and sayings). Special attention should be paid to idioms which are mostly based on expressiveness. P. Kvetko (2002) points out that idioms are mostly formed by the idiomatisation of free word groups and fixed word combinations. Some are derived from the existing idioms (achieved by shortening, extension, conversion and analogous formation), for instance, the last straw, give sb the geen light, etc. Others come from translating or direct borrowing form other languages, for example, blue blood, alma mater, take a rain check, etc. (In: Kvetko, ibid., p. 16).

Finally, on the syntactic level there are many constructions which, when set against synonymous ones, will reveal a certain degree of logical or emotional emphasis. In the English language there are many syntactic patterns which serve to intensify emotional quality, for instance:

Isn’t she cute!

Fool that he was!

*Ally Pally is a familiar and affectionate name for the Alexandra Palace in North London.

**Bish-bash-bosh means quickly and efficiently. A fashionable expression amongst London yuppies in the mid 1980s. (In: Brewer, 1993.)

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In the spoken utterances syntactic patterns achieve a particular degree of expressiveness by means of using more or less stylistically marked lexis. A sentence pattern can undergo a radical change, starting from a simple unemotive question turning into a more and more emphatic, even offensive, vulgar speech. Consider the following modifications of the given sentence:

What are you saying?

What on earth are you saying?

What the hell are you saying?

What the bloody hell are you saying?

What the sodding hell are you saying?

The first sentence is a simple unemotive question, the second one is more emphatic and the third and the fourth one are progressively more emphatic or intense. The fifth sentence would offend most people because sodding is equally obscene and vulgar as its corresponding f-word.

The expressive means of the language are studied respectively in manuals of phonetics, grammar, lexicology and stylistics. Stylistics, however, observes not only the nature of an expressive means but also its potential capacity for becoming a stylistic device.

4.2Stylistic Devices

According to I. R. Galperin a stylistic device (SD) is a conscious and intentional literary use of some of the facts of the language (including expressive means) in which the most essential features (both structural and semantic) of the language forms are raised to a generalised level and thereby present a generative model. Most stylistic devices may be regarded as aiming at the further intensification of the emotional or logical emphasis contained in the corresponding expressive means (ibid., p. 26 – 28).

The interrelation between expressive means and stylistic devices can be worded in terms of the theory of information. Expressive means have a greater degree of predictability than stylistic devices. The latter may appear in an environment which may seem alien and therefore be only slightly or not at all predictable. Stylistic devices carry a greater amount of information because if they are at all predictable they are still less predictable than expressive means. It follows that stylistic devices must be regarded as a special code which has still to be deciphered. Stylistic devices are generally used sparingly, so that the utterance is not overburdened with information.

Some scholars still regard stylistic devices as violations of the norms of the language. It is this notion that leads some prominent linguists to the conclusion that the belles-lettres style is always a reaction against the common language; to some extent it is a jargon which may have varieties.

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The study of the linguistic nature of SDs in any language therefore becomes an essential condition for the general study of the functions of SDs and ultimately for the system of the language in general, not excluding such elements of language which deal with the emotional aspects.

4.3Standard English

Let us start our discussion on standard English by presenting the traditional standpoint of I. R. Galperin (ibid.) who views the literary language as a historical category. The literary language exists as a variety of the national language, namely that variety of the national language which imposes definite morphological, phonetic, syntactic, lexical, phraseological and stylistic norms. It allows modifications but within the framework of the system of established norms. The norm of usage is established by the language community at every given period in the development of the language.

The English literary language was particularly regulated and formalised during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The influence of the men-of-letters on this process can hardly be overestimated. I. R. Galperin points out that some of them hindered the natural, organic process of development. For example J. Swift was considered a conservative in matters of language. On the other hand, G. G. Byron was very liberal and introduced into the literary language many new words and phrases. However, not all of them gained recognition and stayed in the literary language. The literary language seems to have a great influence on the non-literary language. Many new words, constructions and particularly phonetic improvements have been introduced through it into the English colloquial language. This influence had its greatest effect in the 19th century with the spread of general education, and later with the introduction of radio and television into the daily lives of people. Literary English is almost synonymous with the term standard English which is best described by Randolph Quirk (Quirk, R.: The Use of English. London: Longmans, 1962). As I. R. Galperin (ibid.) points out, literary English is indifferent to territorial usage. Standard English is an abstraction, an ideal and „a kind of invariant which stands above all kinds of variants of English both within and without Great Britain. This ideal helps to establish more or less strict norms for all aspects of the language.“ (Galperin, ibid., p. 33).

4.3.1 Standard American English

An interesting study of varieties of English was introduced by T. P. Klammer and M. R. Schultz (1992) who say that it might be more difficult to define standard American English than some other national language. They mention France where a national academy has the duty of determining what shall be included in standard

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French. Considering the situation in Slovakia, the Linguistic Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava fulfills similar functions. T. P. Klammer and M. R. Schultz (ibid.) emphasise the fact that although proposals for similar academies to legislate correct English have repeatedly been defeated, Americans have traditionally had plenty of respect for language authorities. Dictionaries, spelling books, and school grammars have been given the status of absolute authorities. They also illustrate several meanings of the term standard American English (ibid., pp. 26-28):

•Although there is no official standard in the United States, many features of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar are widely shared by middle-class, urban, educated speakers of the language. These common features have led to the perception of a General American Dialect that many people refer to as standard American English.

•The artificially created dialect of radio and television probably comes closest to what most people consider standard spoken American English. T. P. Klammer and M. R. Schultz suggest calling it Broadcast Standard English or Network Standard.

It is a mixture of widely used pronunciations and vocabulary with grammar drawn from the commonly known handbooks. There is the Northern and Midlands flavour of the vocabulary and pronunciations in this dialect which probably represents the bias of the media centers, New York and Los Angels.

•Language professionals often try to compensate for the ambiguity of the term standard American English by using it to refer to the variety of the language that actually is relatively uniform throughout the country: written American English. The standard form of the written language that is taught in schools and encoded in writers‘ handbooks is called standard written English, or sometimes standard edited English, emphasising the careful revisions and corrections that are usually necessary in formal writing. A linguist would say that the only accurate use of the term standard English is to refer to this edited form of written English, since there is no standard among spoken dialects. The power of standard written English and its prestigious place among the various American social dialects lead speakers to style shifting – they shift their language closer to the patterns of the standard, whatever their social class dialect. This happens for instance at a job interview, an appearance in court, an oral exam, a public speech, etc.*

* Style shifting sometimes causes hypercorrection, for example, instead of between me and you the speaker says between you and I. Possibly, you and I begins to sound more correct and cultured than you and me in all contexts, and some speakers overgeneralise, using you and I even when the phrase occurs as the object of a preposition. Evidently, linguistic insecurity and the desire to be correct leads some speakers even to overcorrect (Klammer, T. P., Schultz, M. R., 1992).

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4.3.2 Differences between British and American English

Let us conclude the discussion on the standard language by remembering that there are a few differences between the British and American standard English. The differences occur not only at the level of lexis (e.g. GB - US: flat – apartment, garden - yard, terrace – porch, tube - underground), pronunciation (advance pronounced as GB: [ed‘vans] and US: [ed‘væns]) and spelling (analyse – analyze, cancelling / cancelled – canceling / canceled, dialogue - dialog, grey – gray)* but also in grammar. From the morphological point of view the most striking is a different use of the present perfect and simple past tense, as well as some differences in regular and irregular verbs (GB: burnt, learnt, US: burned, learned) and different use of definite articles (GB: The injured man was taken to hospital. US: The injured man was taken to the hospital.) and prepositions (GB: at the week-end, US: on the week-end). For instance, in American English the past simple tense is commonly used instead of the present perfect tense, as in the following examples (Murphy, 1992, p. 270):

•to give new information or to announce a recent happening:

I lost my key, can you help me look for it ?

•with just and already:

I‘m not hungry. I just had lunch.

Don‘t forget to post the letter. I already posted it.

•with yet:

I didn‘t tell them about the accident yet.

In American English the forms I have / I don‘t have / do you have? are more usual than ‘I‘ve got / I haven‘t got / have you got?‘:

We have a new car.

Do you have any change?

The differences between the British and American standard language can be checked in grammar books and dictionaries which often provide complete lists including examples and additional explanations.

* The verbal suffix –ise is often replaced by –ize in modern British English, probably as influence of the American spelling. Good dictionaries mark both spellings as in: characterise/ characterize, criticise/ criticize, fertilise/ fertilize, finalise/ finalize, formalise/ formalize, fossilise/ fossilize, generalise/ generalize, realise/ realize, etc.

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4.4 Varieties of Language

The most important factors which predetermine the functioning of the literary language in various spheres of human activity are the actual situation in which the language is being used and the aim of the communication (Galperin, ibid., p. 48). The actual situation of communication has evolved two varieties of language according to their medium: the spoken and the written. The varying aims of communication have caused the literary language to fall into a number of self-sufficient systems or styles of language. From the diachronic point of view the spoken variety is primary and the written is secondary. Each of these varieties has developed its own features and qualities which in many ways may be regarded as opposed to each other. The situation in which spoken variety is used can be described as a presence of an interlocutor*. The written variety, on the contrary, presupposes the absence of an interlocutor. The spoken language is typically maintained in the form of a dialogue, the written in the form of a monologue. The spoken language has a considerable advantage over the written, in that the human voice comes into play, a powerful means of modulating an utterance, and also all kinds of gestures, etc. The written language has to seek compensation for what it lacks. Therefore a written utterance will be more explanatory, more diffuse, simply, it has to be explicit enough. The use of the peculiarities of the spoken variety in written language, or vice versa, the peculiarities of the written language in lively speech, will always produce a ludicrous effect. The peculiarities of both varieties can be roughly described as follows: the spoken variety differs from the written language phonetically (in its written representation), morphologically, lexically and syntactically. Thus, of morphological forms the spoken language uses contracted forms (I’d’ve killed him), usage of don’t instead of does not (father don’t take him), he instead of him (I used to play tennis with he), I says, ain’t instead of ‘am not’, ‘is not’, them instead of these (Them’s some of your chaps, ain’t they?), Leggo – let go, hellova – hell of a, etc. Some of these improprieties are now recognised as being legitimate forms of colloquial English. The most striking difference between the spoken and the written language is in the vocabulary used. There are words and phrases typically colloquial on one hand and typically bookish on the other. There are some examples of colloquial phrases which are becoming acceptable in standard English but which are felt to be colloquial (e.g. ). Among other features of colloquial language, the frequent use of intensifying words is significant as well as the use of the words here and there to reinforce the demonstrative pronouns (I don’t like that type of language, she’s my teacher and all..., I gave him this very cold stare, He must be forty and someting; we did like dramatizing of it, etc.) and a half linguistic half psychological feature is the usage of empty words or fill ups (as well, so to say, you know, I mean, you see, and all, etc.),

* Here I. R. Galperin (ibid.) uses the terminology associated with speech act theory as developed by J. L. Austin (How to do things with words, OUP, 1962), which is concerned with linguistic acts made while speaking. Technically, a speech act is threefold: the locutionary act is the physical act of uttering the words, the illocutionary act is what is performed through speaking (e.g. making a wish), and the perlocutionary act is the effect achieved by the utterance on the addressee (e.g. persuading). (In: K. Wales, ibid., pp. 282-3.)

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and mumbling words like (erm, -m-m, er-r). The following abstract from the popular J. D. Salinger’s novel illustrates all these features:

‘Hello’, I said when somebody answered the goddam phone. I sort of yelled it, I was so drunk.

Who is this? this very cold lady’s voice said.

‘This is me. Holden Sculfield. Lemme speaks Sally, please.’

Sally’s asleep. This is Sally’s grandmother. Why are you calling at this hour, Holden? Do you know what time it is?

‘Yeah. Wanna talka Sally. Very important. Put her on.’ ‘Sally’s asleep, young man. Call her tomorrow. Good night.’ ‘Wake‘er up! Wake‘er up, hey. Attaboy.’

Then there was a different voice. ‚Holden, this is me.’ It was old Sally. ‘What’s the big idea?’

‘Sally? That you?’

‘Yes – stop screaming. Are you drunk?’

‘Yeah. Listen, hey. I’ll come over Christmas Eve. Okay? Trimma goddam tree for ya. Okay? Okay, hey. Sally?’

(The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 20, p. 136)

The syntactic peculiarities of the spoken language are perhaps not so striking as the lexical ones, but more than any other features they reveal the true nature of the spoken variety of language. Spoken speech in general is characteristic by its spontaneity and situational character which enable the communicants to use general and vague expressions; recursive clauses and endless enumerations gramatically realised by parataxis and juxtaposition; situational context enables to use more or less incomplete - elliptical constructions, etc. The most common characteristics of the spoken language can be listed according to their frequency:

•the omission of parts of an utterance easily supplied by the situation in which the communication takes place:

Have a couple of these, will you? I‘ve just finished my third.

Let‘s meet in ten minutes overthere. Turn it off and put it on that shelf.

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•the direct word-order in questions or the omission of the auxiliary verb, leaving it to the intonation to indicate the grammatical meaning of the sentence

‘Daddy knew he was supposed to pick me up?’

•unfinished sentences

‘What the…’

•syntactic structures with a tautological subject which is characteristic of colloquial English

‘Helen, she was there. Ask her.’

•in the spoken language it is very natural to have a string of sentences without any connections or linked with and, for instance:

‘...and half the time she’s trying to lead you and I don’t like that type of girls and I was moving her around and she was like doing me a big favour...’

•the emotiveness of colloquial language usually produces various syntactic structures, for example:

Isn’t she cute!

Isn’t that lovely!

Don’t you tell me that!

A witch she is!

There you have the man!

Somebody is goin’ to touch you with a broomstick!

The characteristic syntactic features of the written variety of language are influenced by the fact that the situation must be made clear by the context since the recipient is not present (there is a lack of direct and momentaneous communication between the writer and the reader of the text). No immediate feedback can be received from the recipient and thus potential questions and comments of the readership have

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to be ‘foreseen’ by the writer. An utterance thus becomes more exact and as precise as possible. Linguistically, we can observe:

•the abundance of all kinds of conjunctions, adverbial phrases and other means which may serve as connectives (furthermore, moreover, likewise, similarly, nevertheless, on the contrary, however, presently, eventually, therefore, in connection with, hereinafter, henceforth).

•the use of complicated sentence-units, the written language prefers hypotaxis to parataxis

•the words and word combinations (a separate layer of the English vocabulary) tend to be quite bookish, sometime they are called space-wasters (despite the fact = although, in the matter of = about, a long period of time = a long time...)

Writers tend to concentrate on vocabulary and pay only marginal attention to the syntactic patterns, even though it is mainly a good sentence structure which supports the smooth reading and understanding of the written text. At the same time, the written and the spoken variety of language differ mainly in the sentence building and patterning.

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