Classification of stylistic devices by y.M. Skrebnev

One of the latest classifications of EM and SD is given by Y.M. Skrebnev in his book “Fundamentals of English Stylistics”, 1994 (6). The author’s approach demonstrates a combination of principles observed in Leech’s system of paradigmatic and syntagmatic subdivision and the level–oriented approach on which Galperin’s classification is founded. But it differs from both since Skrebnev managed to avoid mechanical superposition of one system onto another and created a new consistent method of the hierarchical arrangement of the material.

Skrebnev subdivided stylistics into paradigmatic stylistics (of units) and syntagmatic stylistics (of sequences.) He also adds one more level to phonetics, morphology, lexicology and syntax – semasiology (semantics).

I. Five branches of paradigmatic stylistics:

a) Phonetics (intentional non–standard spelling: graphons): I know these Eye–talians! (Lawrence)

b) Morphology (the use of one tense instead of another): What else do I remember? Let me see. There comes out of the cloud our house… (Dickens)

c) Lexicology (neutral; positive/elevated: poetic, official, professional; negative/degraded: colloquial, neologisms, jargon, slang, nonce–words, vulgar words)

d) Syntax: four types.

– Completeness of sentence structure: ellipsis, aposiopesis, one–member nominative sentences, redundancy

– Word order: inversion

– Communicative types of sentences: quasi–affirmative/interrogative/negative/imperative sentences

– Type of syntactic connection: detachment, parenthetic elements, asyndetic subordination and coordination

e) Semasiology (transfer of names or tropes (by Skrebnev “figures of replacement”): two groups: figures of quality and figures of quantity.

Figures of quantity: hyperbole: Tom was conducted through a maze of rooms and labyrinths of passages (Dickens); meosis (understatement, litotes): He was laughing at Lottie but not unkindly. (A.Hutchinson)

Figures of quality: metonymy (synecdoche and periphrasis): She was a sunny, happy sort of creature. Too fond of the bottle. (Christie); metaphor (allusion, personification, antonomasia, allegory): Death is at the end of that devious, winding maze of paths…(Fr.Norris); Christ, it’s so funny I could cut my throat. Madame Bovary at Columbia Extension School!” (Salinger); 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:

a) Phonetics (alliteration, assonance, paronomasia, rhythm and meter, rhyme): As good as gold, Sense and Sensibility (J.Austen)

b) Morphology

c) Lexicology

d) Syntax (parallelism, anaphora, epiphora, framing, anadiplosis, chiasmus): There are so many sons who won’t have anything to do with their fathers, and so many fathers who won’t speak to their sons. (O.Wilde)

e) Semasiology: figures of identity (simile, synonymous replacement): And then in a moment she would come to life and be as quick and restless as a monkey. (Galsworthy); figures of inequality (clarifying synonyms, climax, anti–climax, zeugma, pun, disguised tautology): A young girl who had a yellow smock and a cold in the head that did not go on too well together, was helping an old lady… (Priestley); and figures of contrast (oxymoron, antithesis): Of course, it was probably an open secret locally. (Christie)

This contribution into stylistic theory made by modern linguistics has inspired exploration of other areas of research such as decoding stylistics that will be discussed further.