Basics of English Stylistics. Учебное пособие-1

TOPIC II. STYLISTIC PHONETICS

Arise, arise, arise! (iambic trimester)

There is blood on the earth (dactylic four meter)

Another irregularity is the abundance of stressed syllables, which is called accented verse:

Work! Work! Work! (three stressed syllables)

While the cock is crowing aloof!

There is also poetic prose, which is written in short lines in order to create rhythm.

Rhyme

Rhyme is the repetition of the same vowel sounds at the end of verse lines [1, с. 285–291]. Rhyming lines are classified according to the stress: if rhyming syllables are stressed, it is male (masculine, singular) rhyme: dreams – streams, obey – away, understand – hand. If rhyming syllable are unstressed, it is female (feminine, double) rhyme: duty – beauty, carry – merry. If rhymes occur in trisyllabic words, it is called dactylic or triple rhyme: tenderly – slenderly, favourite – savour it [7, p. 129–130].

Rhyming lines are classified according to the position in a stanza: adjacent – aabb

crossing – abab ring – abba

Irregularities in Rhyme

Some peculiarities of traditional rhyming in English poetry include: Eye-rhyme – rhyming words have similar spelling but different

sounds: supply – memory, flood – wood [8, p. 145].

Inner-rhyme or internal – when the final syllable of the line rhymes with the inner syllable of the same line: I’m the daughter of earth and water.

Blank verse – is poetry without rhyme, like W. Shakespeare’s:

‘Tis the way

To call hers (exquisite) in question more. These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’brows, Being black puts us in mind they hide the fair. He that is strucken blind cannot forget

The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.

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TOPIC II. STYLISTIC PHONETICS

The Structure of the Verse

Two or more verse lines make a stanza or a strophe. There are some established types of stanza. The ballad stanza consists of four lines with the rhyming pattern abcb [8, p. 141]:

Now Robin Hood is to Nottingham gone, With a link a down a day,

And there he meta silly old woman Was weeping on the way.

The stanza of two lines (couple) with adjacent rhyme aa, bb, cc is called the heroic couplet:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soot

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

The Spenserian stanza is nine lines with the rhyming pattern ababbcbcc.

The ottava rima is eight lines with the rhyming pattern abababcc. The sonnet is not only a stanza but a complete poem in itself. It consists

of 14 lines: 4 lines – 4 lines – 2 lines – 2 lines – 2 lines.

Questions for self-control

1.What does Stylistic Phonetics study?

2.How is the graphon defined?

3.What are the stylistic roles of punctuation marks?

4.What types of onomatopoeia do we have in the language?

5.What stylistic phonetic devices are there in the combination of sounds?

6.How many types of feet are there in poetry?

Practical tasks

1.Find examples of onomatopoeia among interjections, nouns and

verbs.

2.Give examples of alliteration in set expressions, titles of books or songs.

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TOPIC II. STYLISTIC PHONETICS

3.Comparetherenderingofwell-knownsoundsinRussianandEnglish:

чихание (апхчи), лай собаки (гав-гав), звук утки (кря-кря), мурлыкание (мур-р-р).

4.Analyse the following examples and speak about the stylistic value of phonetic EMs and SDs:

• His collar was tight around his neck. He had put on weight, but he was feeling well thanks to the p-prescription to doctor Blight’s.

• Speaking about oysters. He’ll give ‘em you fresh.

• Whaddaya need?

• Don’t tell me you gave four hundred for that! I don’t know how they live!

• Four – hundred – pounds, of English money!

• The poor foreign dey-vil that made it.

• My girls are always havin’a musical lesson.

•The chimes of the clock seemed to say: That’s a lot! That’s a

lot!

•The noise was much louder this time; the staccato rat-at-at of the bullets seemed to fill the boat.

•There was a loud Clunk! And silence. The lift had stopped.

•Yes, school was nice. Jerry had two friends, because they were twins and they were ezactly alike, ezactly!

•– Why are you here? – H-hiding, sir.

•– Yessir. I never let them out of my sight.

•– I’m not blaming you, to hell with this, but from this minute you- are-not-working-for-me!

•– D’you hear? They’re comin’up to the front door.

•– Lutts tried … a sort of blackmail. He had me to… to do what he wanted.

•– No, I didn’t arshk ‘im where ‘e‘d been.

5.Select a piece of poetry (Classical English Poetry) consisting of three – four stanzas and make the stylistic phonetic analysis, speak on the following: rhythm, rhyme, metre, aesthetic evaluation of sounds, onomatopoeia,verbalizationofextralingualsounds,alliteration,assonance, graphons, intonation (graphic means).

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TOPIC III. STYLISTIC MORPHOLOGY

TOPIC III. STYLISTIC MORPHOLOGY

Stylistic Morphology, especially in English, has not yet received full attention. As we know, General Morphology studies synthetical and analytical means of grammatical paradigms in words such as affixation, word order, auxiliary verbs. English is known to have very few grammar inflexions and most grammatical categories are expressed analytically, i.e., by auxiliaries or word order. Thus, the discussion of instances in Stylistic Morphology is quite brief. But any deviations from the grammar norms for stylistic functions are noticeable in the language [1, с. 195–216].

Among the Stylistic Morphology issues Y. M. Skrebnev suggests we distinguish two major trends [7, p. 46–51]:

–Synonymy of different functional morphemes, when two different forms have one grammatical meaning. For example, plural dogs / oxen, Past Simple called / took, etc.;

–Variability of grammatical forms, when one grammatical form has two or more grammatical meanings. For example, Present Simple is used for present / past or future actions.

Synonymy

Synonymy in grammar in present–day English is nearly completely lost as a result of the loss of inflexions. Therefore, the few left variants of grammatical morphemes are noticeable just because they are rarely used and so they possess high stylistic prominence. We can mention the following types:

1)Plural forms of nouns: brother-s / breth-r-en. The former form is regular, while the latter form is archaic, more religious and hardly ever used outside religious texts, oratory of past centuries or high-flown poetry;

2)The Present Simple of the verb to have in the 3-rd person, singular number: he has / hath. The latter form is archaic and mostly used in poetry;

3)The Present Simple of the verbs conjugated with the pronoun in the 2nd person, singular: thou hast / you have, thou doest / you do;

4)Regular and irregular forms of the verb: got / gotten. The latter

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TOPIC III. STYLISTIC MORPHOLOGY

form is more frequent inAmerican English. It is called localization of the English forms: learned / learnt, dreamed / dreamt (old–fashioned forms);

5)Prepositions quite often are views as grammar because of their grammatical functions to substitute the category of Case. The difference is between British English andAmerican English: at the corner of the street / on the corner, out of the place / out of place, in the street / on the street;

6)The Objective Case of the personal pronoun who: who / whom. The former sounds more democratic, colloquial. The latter is considered more formal and more pretentious: Who are you talking to? / Whom are you talking to?;

7)The Subjunctive Mood, Past form of the verb to be in the 1st person, singular tends to be was in colloquial style: if I were / if I was. It used to be considered as a gross mistake, now both forms was / were are acceptable;

8)There two synonymous forms of the Present Subjunctive in the objective clauses with the auxiliary should, which can be omitted: he be, she have / he should be, she would have;

9)Completely ungrammatical and thus showing the low social status of the speaker are the grammar forms: we, you, they – was (instead of were), he don’t (doesn’t), I says (say), you comes (come);

10)In American English colloquial style there is a tendency to regulate irregular verbs: he comed (instead of came), he seed (saw).

Summarising the discussed examples of morphological synonymy we can say that the few cases of Stylistic Morphology can indicate high-flown style, archaic forms, localization, colloquial style or illiterate forms.

Variability

Now we pass on to the second problem, the variability of grammatical forms. It means that one grammatical form is used to render different grammatical categories, similar to polysemy in lexemes.

Let us examine the Category of Tense:

1) The Present Simple can also express past and future actions:

It happened last week. I hear a sound and open the door…

It is called ‘historic present’and used for visualizing and bringing closer to the reader what happened.

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TOPIC III. STYLISTIC MORPHOLOGY

Another stylistic intention is obvious in the following extract from O. Henry’s short-story. The narrator is an illiterate tramp, who uses highflown words and expressions in incorrect grammatical forms:

Just after I got both my shoulders to the mattress I hears noises. I opens my door and calls out in the hall for the widow lady, and when she sticks her head out, I says….

That is the example of narration, but the Present Simple is used not only for visualizing the scene, but rather to show the ignorance of the character, who does not distinguish verb conjugation, between Present and Past, 1st and 3rd person. The writer uses Stylistic Morphology to portray the story-teller, to show his idiolect, which is low colloquial with a tinge of buffoonery about it.

She is coming soon. The train arrives at 7 pm.

In similar sentences we use the Present Simple and the Present Continuous to express the expected planned actions in the future. They are widely used and accepted in the language as a grammar norm, though these forms used to be colloquial.

The Category of Determination

The category of determination in English employs various means like articles, pronouns, deictic words, etc. For stylistic functions the definite or indefinite articles can be omitted. For example,

Itiscommonlyknownthatabsenceofthearticlesistypicalforheadlines in newspaper style: Police Seeks Mystery Assailant. Picket Tried to Hold Up Train.

In reference books and encyclopaedias the articles are omitted for the sake of printing space: Horse – age known by marks in mouth.

The omission of the articles also indicates careless colloquial style: Girl never said word to him.

The Category of Gender

In present-day English the grammatical category of gender is practically absent. The few cases are: the personal pronouns in the 3rd person singular he / she, their possessive pronouns his / her / hers.

But we can come across the following stylistic deviations concerning gender, the cases of personification (referring to inanimate things as

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TOPIC III. STYLISTIC MORPHOLOGY

animated) and depersonification (referring to animated things as inanimate):

1)a baby of either sex up to one year is usually referred to as it;

2)an animal (if not a pet) is substituted by it;

3)the vessels (a ship, a boat, a steamer) are referred to as female

she;

4)other vehicles (a car, a coach, etc.) are feminine she by those who possess or work on them;

5)in poetry Earth and Moon are often personified as she;

6)Sun is understood as masculine he;

7)In political discourse countries are often mentioned as feminine she especially when we mean them as political structures Germany decides to call back her deputies;

8)abstract notions symbolizing fierceness or strength (war, death, fear, anger, etc.) are substituted by masculine he;

9)abstract notions symbolizing beauty and tenderness (kindness, spring, dawn, peace, etc.) are substituted by feminine she;

10)depersonification can be a curious case of idiostyle:

–Where did you find it? – Who are you calling it?

The Category of Person

In present-day English the grammatical category of person is expressed by the personal pronouns I, we, you, he, she, it, they, the indefinite pronouns some, any, and the defining pronoun one. They display stylistic polysemy or variability:

1)The general idea of indefinite person can be expressed in several ways using the pronouns one, they, you, we. With each pronoun the general idea becomes less impersonal: One never foresees what can happen next. / They never foresee … / You never foresee … / We never foresee … .

2)The 1st person plural pronoun we sometimes is used as the personal pronoun 2nd person you, especially in the speech of doctors or nurses addressing their patients or grown-ups talking to small children: Now, how are we feeling this morning? It creates intimate, patronizing or insinuating atmosphere.

3)The pronoun we stands for singular I, which is called the plural of

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TOPIC III. STYLISTIC MORPHOLOGY

majesty in speeches of royalties: By the grace of our Lord, We, Charles the Second … .

4)The pronoun we stands for I or indefinite person in scientific texts, which is called the plural of modesty: Now we come to the conclusion… (the author himself); We suggest the definition… (the author and / or other scientists).

5)In the speech of mockery or uneducated people we stands for I as the plural of humility: Oh, we are proud! (cf. Куда уж нам, деревенским!)

The Category of Number

In English there are two numbers (singular and plural), so we can have two cases of variability:

1)We use plural forms to mean a singular object:

Now, what is that? Watching films instead of doing homework? The addressed person is certainly watching one film.

How dare you behave like that with girls?There is only one girl present. 2) We use nouns in singular forms to mean plurality: That is what the student is supposed to know. Evidently all the students are meant, it is similar to the generic function of thee definite article The telephone was

invented …

Afewremarksshould be madeconcerningthesyntagmaticrelationships in Stylistic Morphology [7, p. 133–134].

In general, we should avoid any excessive repetition of morphological forms and meanings. For example, the idea of possessiveness can be expressed in synonymous ways: Shakespeare’s, of Shakespeare, Shakespeare plays, Shakespearean. In this case we achieve ‘elegant variations’. Otherwise the monotonous repetition of the same forms will indicate the poverty of style.

On the text level the prevalence of certain morphological forms has a stylistic effect, especially in colloquial and bookish genres. Thus, in colloquial style we have an abundance of pronouns, deictic words, nouns with broad semantics (thing, fact, place, etc.), simple tenses, few verbals, many emphatic particles and interjections (simply, even, just, oh, eh, etc.).

Moreover, the verbs of action impart dynamic mode of the text; state verbs and adjectives make the text more static; the abundance of evaluating

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TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

adjectives makes the text more emotional and lyrical; the use of Continuous tenses makes it sound slow-moving.

Questions for self-control

1.How does Stylistic Morphology differ from General Morphology?

2.Why do expressive means in Morphology are conspicuous?

3.How can we localize the utterances by morphology?

4.What morphological peculiarities can indicate colloquial style or poverty of speech?

5.In what other meanings can we use the pronoun ‘we’?

6.What established cases of morphological personification do you know?

7.What cases can be analysed as depersonification?

Practical tasks

1.Find examples of Stylistic Morphology in the selected piece of poetry. Specify the grammatical category.

2.Find the example of a dialogue in modern fiction, make the analysis of its morphology.

3. Follow the scheme of Stylistic Morphology analysis: the use of archaic morphological forms, morphological variants in dialects or territorial speech, formal or informal morphology, wrong grammatical forms, peculiar use of grammatical categories (tense, articles, gender, person, number), repetition of the same morphology, abundance in part of speech (verbs of action, static verbs, adjective, pronouns, etc.).

TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

ThisbranchofStylisticsfocusesontheprinciplesofstylisticdescription oflexicalandphraseologicalunitsinlanguage,andword-formationpatterns. It is achieved by setting up a specific stylistic classification of words. To solve this challenge, researchers are to overcome certain problems:

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TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

1)The stylistic value of words can be identified for certain only in the context. The word analysis as an isolated unit is feasible as the connotative meanings are not definite and relatively changeable, though some fixed connotations are recorded in dictionaries.

2)Polyfunctionality and polysemy of words presents another linguistic difficulty. Lexemes are mostly polysemantic, various meanings of one and the same word can possess different connotations (handsome woman and handsome man). So one lexeme or set expression can belong to various stylistic subclasses simultaneously. It is more practical and valid to say, that in any stylistic classification we mean not a word with all its semantic structure, but rather a word in one particular meaning, so called lexicosemantic variant or LSV [1, с. 150].

3)The connotative aspects of LSV can be manifold, sometimes it is difficult to specify a particular prevailing connotation: intensifying, evaluating, stylistic or emotional.

The vocabulary system of any language is very rich, it cannot be memorized or even understood by an average native speaker. In actual communication we use the most common words which are characterised by high frequency. According to the Collins Dictionary, which is corpus– based and regularly updated, there are over 4.5 billion words in English. An educated native speaker knows from 5000 to 25000 of them; but uses in the human intercourse much fewer, in everyday speech we need about 1000 words, or 3000 – 4000 words in 95 % of bookish discourse.

Calculations have been undertaken to know the frequency of words. First of all, it was done for the purpose of teaching foreigners. The most comprehensive analysis of word frequency is one that was conducted by the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), which is a massive text corpus of the English language. the Brown Corpus is another English corpus that is used to study word frequency. It was compiled by Brown University researchers, the USA, in the 1960s, and its results were published in 1967. The findings of the three above mentioned sources are similar, but not identical.

Onthewhole,theCorpustextsincludeawidevarietyofwrittensamples, such as academic journals, literary works, novels, magazines, newspapers, blogs, political debates, chat logs and emails.

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