Questions to lecture #2

1. What are stylistically-neutral words? Give your examples.

2. What are stylistically-coloured words?

3. What groups do stylistically super-neutral words fall into?

4. What is another name for “bookish” words?

5. What types of archaisms do you know?

6. What is professional terminology?

7. What groups do stylistically sub-neutral words fall into?

8. What is the difference between colloquial words and dialect words?

9. Decide which groups the following words belong to: sylvan, billow, consequence, to cut classes, ouch, to kid.

10. Give your own examples of words belonging to different groups.

11. What kind of stylistic effects can interaction between stylistically-neutral and stylistically-coloured words in the same context produce?

12. Paraphrase the text from Supplement 2.

Lecture #3

Lexical stylistic devices

1. SIMILE

2. METAPHOR

3. PERSONIFICATION

4. ALLUSION

5. METONYMY

6. SYNECHDOCHE

7. ANTONOMASIA

8. PERIPHRASIS

9. EUPHEMISM

10. EPITHET

11. OVER-STATEMENT (HYPERBOLE)

12. UNDER-STATEMENT (MEIOSIS)

13. LITOTES

14. OXYMORON

15. ZEUGMA

16. PUN

17. IRONY

18. PARADOX

Lexical devices are based on the principle of analogy. A similar feature in otherwise different objects is discovered, and this similarity suggests an image of the thing that is described.

1. SIMILE

Simile (imaginative comparison) is a device based on partial identity of two objects. In fact, the objects are not identical, they are only similar, resembling each other due to some identical features.

In simile two objects compared are always merged by a formal connective, which can be expressed by:

• conjunctions (as if, as though, such as);

• adverbs (like, unlike);

• verbs (resemble, remind of, seem);

• nouns (to have/bare a resemblance to, to have a look of);

• prefixes and suffixes (-like, -wise).

Simile He resembled a professor. With ape-like fury. (From Robert Louis Stevenson) She seemed nothing more than a doll. Darkness, when once it fell, fell like a storm.

A simile should not be mixed up with an ordinary comparison. Simile is based on comparison of things belonging to entirely different classes. Comparison deals with two objects of the same class.

A great many similes lost their expressiveness because of long use. They have become trite. They are widely used in everyday speech.

Simile She sings like a nightingale. Our agricultural reform is as slow as a snail. Comparison She sings like a professional soloist. The changes in agriculture are as slow as they were last year. Trite simile as mad as a March hare; as blind as a bat; to fit like a glove; to smoke like a chimney

2. Metaphor

Metaphor is also based on analogy between two objects, but it has no formal connective. It is expressive renaming on the basis of similarity of two objects, the real object, and the one whose name is actually used.

Metaphor A film star. Her eyes were two gun-barrels. He is not a man, he is just a machine.

We must distinguish between poetic and trite metaphors. Poetic metaphor is based on some new vivid and striking analogy between two things. It’s always individual. Trite metaphors have lost their freshness. They are frequently reproduced in everyday speech.

Trite metaphor the path winds; time flies; to burn with desire

Metaphors can be simple, when expressed by a word or phrase, or sustained, when a broader context is required to understand it.

Sustained metaphor The average New Yorker is caught in a machine. He whirls along, he is dizzy, he is helpless. If he resists, the machine will crush him to pieces. (W. Frank)