Basics of English Stylistics. Учебное пособие
.pdfTOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
Emphatic constructions can also emphasise the theme of the sentence:
He offered her any help. – > It was he, who offered her any help.
Polysyndeton is opposite to asyndeton and means the excessive use or repetition of conjunctions [4, p. 226]. Mostly it is the conjunction and. Polysyndeton has various distinct functions. In poetry and fiction, it underlines the simultaneity of actions [8, p. 309]:
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing, Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling
And so never ending, and always descending And in this way the water comes down at Lodore.
(Robert Southey, 1774–1843, an English poet)
That stylistic device can be used to aggravate the liking of the character:
She was smartly dressed, and her cheeks and lips were rouged a little. And her eyes sparkled.
Another function is to promote high–flown tonality of the narration, as in the following passage:
Andonlyonethingtroubledhim…becausethesunwaslikeenchantment on his face, and on the clouds and on the golden leaves, and the wind’s rustle was so gentle…
The elevated tonality of Polysyndeton is probably explained by association with the style of the Bible, in which nearly every paragraph begins with and:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon the house, and it fell, and the great was the fall of it.
The excessive repetition of the same conjunction can also betray the poverty of the speaker’s syntax, primitiveness of the speech:
I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I don’t owe him anything, and I don’t care.
The unusual arrangement of words is called inversion [1, с. 219–223]. As we know, the English language as opposed to the Russian language, tends to have fixed word order Subject + Predicate + Object + Adverbial Modifiers. In a string of attributes, we are to observe some rules of order, direct object goes before prepositional object, the adverbial modifier of place precedes the adverbial modifier of time. So, every relocation of
51
TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
sentence parts in English is significant and indicate the intention of the speaker [8, p. 223]. We are to differentiate between grammatical and stylistic inversion. The former occurs when we change the grammatical meaning of the sentence, for instance, in interrogative sentences: Are you busy? Has he come yet?
That type of inversion is present in the construction starting with There is: There is a book on the table. Or Here is: Here is your pen.
The value of stylistic inversion is to make one word or words more conspicuous, more important, more emphatic than the other words in a sentence: They slid down. –> Down they slid. In this example there is no grammatical change, but the word down sounds very weighty in the second sentence.
Inversion plays an expressive function or it can be the result of the speaker’s desire to say the most important piece of information first. The most conspicuous places in a sentence are the beginning and the end. It is proven phonetically as well; the first stressed syllable is pronounced at the highest voice pitch, the last stressed syllable bears the nuclear tone. Inversion can be of the following types:
1)Adverbial modifier: Down came the storm.
2)Predicative: Dull he was of soul.
3)Finite verb: Came frightful days of snow and sorrow.
4)Direct object: Yes, sir, that you can.
5)Attribute after the modifying word: All things by a law divine.
Thespherewhereallsortsofinversioncanbefoundiscolloquialspeech. It can be the result of spontaneity and informal character of communication [4, p. 203–205]. The speaker has no time for constructing a regular neutral sentence with a regular word order; rather he utters the word or words which are most important for communication in the desire to mention the main idea first, and then he can replenish the other parts of the utterance:
Very true those words are.
Been an athlete all his life, he had. A piece of sheer luck it was.
The third type of syntactical deviation is revaluation of syntactical meaning. The typical syntactical meanings of the sentence which also
52
TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
express its communicative type are: affirmation, negation, interrogation and exhortation. Like any other meaning, syntactical meaning can be transferred. To illustrate this, we will study the examples when the formal structure of the sentence does not coincide with the actual meaning of it [1, с. 223–225].
The first type of syntactical shift is quasi-affirmative sentences, when a negative predicate is used in the affirmative meaning, in rhetorical questions as well:
Isn’t that too bad? (That is too bad.) Don’t I remember? (I do remember.)
The opposite is also possible, when the positive form of the sentence renders a negative meaning, forming a quasi-negative structure:
Did I say a word about money? – (I didn’t say a word …) What is the good of their banks? – (There’s no good…)
Quasi-imperative sentences are those, which express order or request not in the imperative form:
Black tea. For two. Out here. (Bring us black tea…) Will you help me? (Help me, please.)
Quasi-interrogative sentences can be declarative or imperative, but asking for information, for example, filling in the form:
Your age. (How old are you?)
Tell me your birthplace. (Where were you born?)
Types of syntactic connection can be stylistically relevant. Words and phrases in speech are combined with the context semantically (asyndetically) or with the help of connectors (prepositions, conjunctions). Stylistically marked are the following types:
Detachment, when the secondary element of the sentence is used as the main part, thus becoming isolated or detached from the main clause:
How could John, with his heart of gold, live his family?
Detached parts of the sentence receive a specific phonetic treatment, they always form a separate intonation group. In written texts, detached parts are separated from the rest of the sentence by punctuation marks, such as commas or dashes. Another sign of detachment is inversion, an unusual
53
TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
placement in the sentence. The overall stylistic effect of it is emphasising or strengthening the word or phrase in focus [4, p. 205–207]:
Very small and child-like, he never looked more than fourteen. Brave boy, he saved my life.
Parenthetic words, phrases or clauses can serve the stylistic function to express modality or to give additional information.
In case of showing modality, the speaker’s attitude to the events described, modal verbs (can, may, must, will, etc.) and expressions (no doubt, certainly, perhaps, is likely, etc.) are used to indicate certainty, doubt, probability, etc.:
John surely will come tomorrow. I guess, he knows everything.
When parentheses supply additional information, they are used to create the second plan or the background of the narration. They mingle the voices of different views:
The main entrance – he never ventured to look beyond that – was splendid.
Parentheses are syntactically independent enough to act as exclamatory or interrogative semantic groups of a sentence, quite often introducing inner unuttered speech of the fiction character:
That bit of gold meant food, life, power to go on writing and – who was to say? – maybe to write something that would bring many pieces of gold.
A special attention in stylistic syntax is given to the repetition of the syntactical construction or syntactical parallelism [7, p. 139–142]:
Mary was thinking. He was looking at her.
In the above sentences the lexemes are not repeated, but the syntactical model is the same: Subject + Predicate in the Past Continuous.
Still much more often are the occasions when syntactical parallelism is backed by lexical repetition, they are the cases of lexico-syntactical repetition [4, p. 208]:
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods (R. Burns) Parallelism contributes to the rhythmic and melodic unification of
adjacent sentences [8, p. 284]. Depending on the placement of repeated
54
TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
lexemes, lexico–syntactic parallelism can be: anaphora, epiphora, symploca, framing, anadiplosis, chiasmus [1, с. 244–250].
Anaphoric repetition has the identical beginnings:
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods
Anaphoric function may be realised not only by single words or word combinations, but also by whole sentences or passages. The novel “An American Tragedy” by Th. Dreiser and the Epilogue begin with the identical sentence:
Dusk – of a summer night…
Epiphora is opposite to anaphora, and has the identical conclusion:
He tried his life as a soldier – and found it a bore. Afterwards he tried it in the train of an English minister, and found it a bore. And then he strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there, and then he gone yachting around the world. And got bored everywhere. (Ch. Dickens)
Simploca is the combination of anaphora and epiphora, when the adjacent sentences have the identical beginnings and ends:
If he wishes to float into the fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes to dash into the thick of battle, he reads a book; if he wishes to soar into heaven, he reads a book.
Avery effective stylistic device is framingparallelism, when the initial element of the sentence or paragraph is repeated at its end:
Money is what he is after, money.
Anadiplosis (from the Greek word meaning ‘doubling’) is frequent in effective narrative. It means the recurrence of the final element of one sentence or paragraph at the beginning of the next sentence or paragraph:
I was then happy. Happy at least in my own way.
Chiasmus (from the Greek letter X ‘chi’, meaning ‘crossing’) is parallelism inverted. It is the case when two syntactical constructions are parallel, but their lexemes occupy the opposite positions. For example, the Subject of one sentence becomes the Object of the next, theAttribute in one acts as the Noun in another, the first sentence is used in theActiveVoice but the next sentence is in the Passive [4, p. 209–210]:
I love my girl and my girl loves me.
55
TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
The jail might have been the infirmary or the infirmary might have been the jail.
Chiasmus is typical for the titles of books and articles:
The Poetry of Grammar and the Grammar of Poetry. Philosophy of Poverty – Poverty of Philosophy
Certain puns and jokes are based upon chiasmus:
Soldiers face powders, girls powder faces.
A handsome man kisses misses, an ugly one misses kisses.
Questions for self-control
1.What is the difference between General Syntax and Stylistic Syntax?
2.What three major types of deviations are there in Syntax?
3.What types of sentences can have missing elements?
4.What are the stylistic functions of syntactical redundance?
5.What are the stylistic devices in the use of conjunctions?
6.How can inversion be stylistically relevant?
7.In what way can the syntactical meaning be revalued?
8.What are the types of syntactical parallelism?
Practical tasks
1.Choose one passage from classical fiction and make the stylistic analysis of its syntax. Follow the scheme: types of sentences (simple, composite), communicative meaning (statement, imperative, interrogative, etc.), the shift in the meaning (quasi sentences), quantitative deviations (missing elements, excessive use of elements), the use of conjunctions and connectives, emphatic constructions (emphasis on the theme or rheme), stylistic inversion, detached elements, parentheses, parallelism and lexicosyntactical repetition.
2.Analyse the following examples: identify stylistic devices and expressive means of syntax:
• I’ve told you a dozen times. I’ve pointed them to you over and over again!
56
TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
•I like to – well, in fact, I – like to know where I am. (finance)
•Coming to our place? – He was always coming to their place!
•God knows she tried to stifle her pride, her suspicion, her jealousy!
•They didn’t bother her, these scattered, unsettled matters.
•Angry though he was, the consequences of a row rose before him too vividly.
•He saw his house unfinished, his wife rebellious, himself a laughing
stock.
•He would wait any time. And he had long to wait. And on each visit he proposed to her, and he took her refusal away with him, sore at heart.
•In silence the soup was finished, excellent. In silence the fish was handed.
•You have an engagement?An engagement that will prevent my taking you to see the house?
•If she were to make a sign, he’d be off his bargain tomorrow. But she won’t – not she! She will stick to him! She is as obstinate as fate!
•Each day is like a treasure hunt. This you won’t believe.
•She seemed content with everything – content yet curious.
3.Complete the sentences to create Climax:
I sometimes think of ___ as ____.
He was a tall man, ____.
The programme I saw was _____.
Soap operas assault eyes, ___.
4.Complete the sentences to create Anti–Climax:
The wise politician promises… Before we depart we must … My favourite pastimes include… We must either … or
I want not only to … but also… Graduates find that the job market is …
5.Restructure the sentences creating Emphatic Constructions (Theme or Rheme):
That call alarmed him.
They bought a luxurious house.
57
TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX
The author surprised the reader with the twist in the plot. Use inversion for emphasis:
She used plenty of lotion to protect her skin. He was nervous when he came to the office.
They contributed 500 thousand to the campaign last month.
6.Restructurethesentencesandmakethemclearandconcise.Eliminate unnecessary words:
Let me fill you in on the main points of the overall picture here.
At the present time, many different forms of hazing occur, such as various forms of physical abuse and also mental abuse.
Many people have a tendency toward the expansion of the sentences by the superfluous addition of extra words that are not really needed for the meaning of the sentences.
One of the major problems that is faced at this point in time is that there is world hunger.
After I stopped the practice of exercising regularly, I became ten pounds heavier in weight in a relatively short amount of time.
There are numerous theories that have been proposed by scientists as to why dinosaurs reached the point of becoming extinct.
7.Insert parentheses for background information:
The pleasures of reading were like those of a Christmas cake. My lucky hand reached the book shelf and found Mark Twain.
8.Complete the sentences by using different types of Parallel Constructions:
The bull riding arena was fairly crowded. The speech made no impression on me. I had made a decision.
It was now time to prove myself. I was scared.
I walked to the entry door.
I laid my money on the counter.
The clerk held up a tray with strips of paper.
9.Complete the sentences by creating Chiasmus:
History became popular…
58
TOPIC VI. STYLISTIC SEMASIOLOGY
We use languages… The book is original…
Mankind must put an end to the wars… We perform in life…
Ask not what your country can do for you … (John F. Kennedy) Let us never negotiate out of fear. But never let us … (John F. Kennedy)
10. Revise the sentences and correct the syntactical mistakes:
I enjoy skiing, playing the piano and I cane chairs.
I remember entering the canyon, searching the rubble by day and I slept at night, and at last discovered ancient shells.
It was a question of either reducing the staff or to find more customers. To need a new pair of shoes and not affording to buy them is sad.
Too many students only come to college just to have fun or putting of going to work.
Her job was to show products, help with sales and an opportunity to advertise.
TOPIC VI. STYLISTIC SEMASIOLOGY
General Semasiology deals with notional meanings of linguistic units. Stylistic branch of it is more interested in renaming or changing names of things, processes, qualities.
When treating the issues of Semasiology, a science of meaning, and Onomasiology, a science of nomination, one must take into account the fact that the scientific problems of them are essentially different from the other branches of Stylistics discussed earlier.
The first distinctive feature is that Stylistic Phonology, Morphology, LexicologyandSyntaxhaveclear–cut,formallylimitedspheresofresearch. Semasiology, in its part, pays little attention to the level distinctions, as semantically identical processes can occur on various levels.
The second distinctive feature is that in the other stylistic branches we are to separate neutral ways of expression from stylistically marked ones in order to find differences. In Semasiology we deal with inner forms, meanings and their transference.
59
TOPIC VI. STYLISTIC SEMASIOLOGY
The basic term of Semasiology is the trope, which denotes any transference of a name from a traditional object to a situational object, i.e., the literal meaning of the unit versus its occasional meaning [1, с. 123]. This renaming can be of two types: quantitative or qualitative [7, p. 97–121].
Quantitative deviation is either saying too much, overestimating the dimensions, properties, importance of the object described; or saying too little, undervaluing these properties. Special stylistic devices showing the quantitative renaming are hyperbole and meiosis. For example,
We have loads of problems.
I have no money, a couple of pennies.
The change between what the traditional meanings indicate and what is actually meant is purely quantity in nature. In the first example we exaggerate the number of problems (hyperbole), while in the second we underscore the amount of money (meiosis).
By qualitative differences between what is expected to be said and what is actually said we mean a radical distinction between the traditional and occasional objects of reference. The stylistic devices with this effect are metonymy, metaphor and irony. For example,
Hey, you, green coat! You’ve left your bag. He is a perfect ass, really!
A fine friend you are! – he said bitterly.
In the first example the name of clothing is used to actually denote a person wearing it (metonymy). The second example illustrates the transference of the body reference to a person (metaphor). The third example shows the opposition between the literal and contextual meanings of the word (irony).
Hyperbole is the process of exaggeration of dimensions or properties of the object described. It is an expression of emotional evaluation of reality by the speaker, which is frequent in colloquial relaxed atmosphere [4, p. 176]. The reasons for that can be, that the speaker is unrestrained by ethical conventions, he or she knows that the exaggeration is welcome. Quite often exaggerations become stereotyped or trite, they enter the language as a system as ready-made units or set expressions:
60