Basics of English Stylistics. Учебное пособие-1

TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

Practical tasks

1. Speak about the stylistic value of these groups of words

Archaisms

oEven his enemies admitted that he was magnanimous to the point of knight errantry.

oPrince John put the question: “What is thy name, yeoman?” “Locksley”, answered the yeoman.

“Then, Locksley, thou shalt shoot in thy turn. If thou carriest the prize

I will add to it twenty nobles; but if thou losest it, thou shalt be stripped of thy Lincoln green, and scourged out of the lists with bowstrings for a wordy and insolent braggart.”

• She recited in a low tone of most passionate pleading that psalm of sorrows:

“Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord: Lord hear my voice: O, let thine ears consider well the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss: O lord, who may abide it? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayst be feared.”

Foreign words

•Out from the circle of spectators in the hall leaped fate in a green silk skirt, under the nom de guerre of Liz.

•It would be a duel rather than a scrimmage: a contest to the finish between champions, mano a mano.

•One afternoon as I came down from my quarters I found Miss Tita in the sala.

Terms

•The young nurse in charge of the premature nursery stood at the other side of the incubator. “He is not breathing well, there’s more jaundice than there should be and the feet seem swollen”.

•He saw the bright rectifiers, and the meter needle pointing to seven hundred thousand volts. Within an hour the neutron beam came to life, signaling its existence on its own meter. All around the lab now, the variety of meters, gauges and lights stood at attention, each silently telling the story it was designed to tell.

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TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

•“In the event the Court should instruct you”, said Perry Mason slowly and solemnly, ‘that under the law of this state it is incumbent upon the prosecution to prove the defendant guilty beyond all reason–able ground, before a juror can conscientiously return a verdict of guilty, and that, therefore, it is not necessary for the defendant to take the witness– stand and testify in her own behalf, but she may remain mute and rely upon the fact that the prosecution has failed to prove her guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, could you and would you follow such instruction of the Court and accept it as law?”

Professional slang (jargonisms)

•His runner shouted: “Look out, sir! Here comes a minnie!”

•“Well, if we don’t get the show on the road by next week, we are broke,” Dick said.

•The little Ford looked ‘too good’for the police. They got suspicious and found a reason to search.

Slang

•After only twenty minutes’ conversation with Trevor Goodwin, Dr. Havant wondered if there was much in the upper storey there beyond a very good opinion of Trevor himself.

•“At times,” I chuckled, ‘there’s not better company than an earnest

nut”.

•“I’m tight, Dave…absolutely squiffy!”

Vulgarisms

•This is a hell of a spot, he told himself.

•We’ve been married eighteen years! Eighteen bloody years!

•They were going to nail Skeffington, the crooked old bastard, to the

cross!

Nonce-words

•“I’m un-asking him,” the boss replied.

•The party, pyjamaed and dressing-gowned, assembled with various scuffles and low whispers.

•Well. He was up and about again in a jiffy, of course, but it was too late. There was the usual not-at-all-ing and don’t-mention-it-ing, but he could read between the lines.

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TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

2. Speak about the stylistic value of word-formation

•I thought her nice but rather childish.

•She looked at me with her big childlike eyes.

•I was annoyed at the childishness of his remark.

•Her figure has become more womanly.

•He walked with a somewhat womanish grace.

•Her husband was a drunkard who seldom earned any money.

When politicians take on a quasi-judicial role they do not have unrivalled executive authority to deliver a verdict, even if they wish to do so.

He said that too often debate between the religious and nonreligious became a futile battle of anecdote.

He took part in anti-government demonstrations.

This country is a pseudo-democracy, in spite of all the government claims.

3. Analyse the pompous speech. Explain why:

Pursuant to the August 9 memorandum regarding petroleum supply exigencies, it is incumbent upon us to endeavor to make maximal utilization of telephonic communication in lieu of personal visitation.

Now read the revised version:

As of August 9 shortages of petroleum require us to use the telephone rather than make personal visits whenever possible.

4. Make the sentences more formal:

I can get all enthused about writing, but I sit down to write, and my mind goes right to sleep.

Desdemona’s attitude is that of a wimp; she just lies down and dies, accepting her death as inevitable.

All candidates strive for the same results: you try to make the other guy look gross and to persuade voters that you’re okay for the job.

Often, instead of firing an incompetent teacher, school officials will transfer the person to another school in order to avoid the hassles involved in a dismissal.

The more she flipped out about his actions, the more he rebelled and continued doing what he pleased.

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TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

My family lived in Trinidad for the first ten years of my life, and we went through a lot; but when we came to America, we thought we had it made.

THEANALYSIS OF POETRY

Make the stylistic analysis of the pieces of poetry below according to the plan:

Phonetic level

Rhythm

Metre

Rhyme

Phonetic SDs

Aesthetic evaluation of sounds Onomatopoeia

Verbalization of extra lingual sounds Alliteration

Assonance

Graphons

Intonation (graphic means)

Morphological level

Archaic forms of words Irregular grammar Tense

Determination Gender Person Number

Repetition of grammar forms, parts of speech

Lexical level

Set of words (archaic, poetic) Imaginative vocabulary

Imagery

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TOPIC IV. LEXICOLOGY

Ode to the West Wind (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence–stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed.

Ода Западному Ветру (Б. Л. Пастернак)

О буйный ветер запада осенний! Перед тобой толпой бегут листы, Как перед чародеем привиденья, То бурей желтизны и красноты,

То пестрым вихрем всех оттенков гнили; То голых пашен черные пласты (Засыпал семенами в изобилье).

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TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX

TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX

The main unit of Syntax is the sentence, which is defined as a sequence of relatively independent lexical and phrasal units (words, word combinations). Thesentencestructurecanbechangeable:thesentencedoesnothaveconstant lengthwithneitheruppernorlowerlimitations.Thesentencecanbeshortened or extended, complete or incomplete; simple or composite, compound or complex. So, its constituents, word order, length, and communicative type (assertion, interrogation, negation, exhortation) are variable.

According to the first criterion, the length, the sentence can be shortened or extended. According to the number of the main parts, subject and predicate, the sentence can be complete or incomplete, one-member or two-member.According to the number of clauses, sentences can be simple, consisting of one clause, and composite, consisting of two or more clauses with coordination or subordination. According to the criterion of word order, the sentence can have direct or indirect word order, which plays a significant role in English. And the final criterion, sentences can vary in their communicative types (assertion, interrogation, negation, exhortation).

In Modern English Syntax the most typical or common is a twomember sentence, containing subject and predicate; extended with one or several secondary elements; with the direct word order; the function or the communicative purpose is consistent with its syntactical structure. Any types of deviations from the syntactical regularities are salient for Stylistics. These deviations fall under three types [7, p. 77–96]:

1)From the standpoint of quantitative peculiarities of the syntactical structure there can be possible only two deviations: the absence of those necessary elements which are obligatory in a neutral sentence, or the excessive use of non-obligatory elements.

2)With the regard to the distribution of the elements we should pay attention and classify the stylistic value of various types of word order changes which are called inversion.

3)Through the analysis of syntactic meanings and communicative types of sentences, we can observe the stylistic effect when there are shifts in stylistic meanings within one and the same syntactic structure.

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TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX

The absence or omission of necessary elements is the first type of quantitative deviations. We can speak about the following types of sentences: elliptical sentences, sentences with the absence of secondary or formal elements, nominative sentences and unfinished sentences.

Ellipsis is a type of incomplete sentence with the absence of one or both principal parts (subject, predicate or part of the predicate) [4, p. 231]. The missingpartsareeitherpresentintheverbalcontextualenvironmentorthey are easily implied by the context or situation. Mostly, these sentences are typical for oral colloquial speech, as it is the primary form of the existence of language [8, p. 121]. It is also proven by the acquisition of the language in a child, who starts his language communication with a single word. Colloquial ellipses are varied in their striving for brevity, as the scope of our memory in spontaneous speech does not allow us to remember long sentences:

1) The omission of the subject, especially I:

Were they interesting books? – Don’t know. Haven’t read them.

2) The omission of the link verb:

You Chester Scott? – That’s right. – Glad to see you.

3)The omission of subject and modal verb:

Will you and Johnny come in? – Love to.

4)The omission of the finite verb:

Stop it, Ernie. – Shan’t.

Elliptical sentences are used in different styles, but performing slightly different functions [1, с. 148–149]. In fiction works ellipses can reproduce the authenticity of the characters’idiostyle or they impart brevity of expression, quick tempo of speech or they can reflect the characters’ emotional tension in the fiction narrative:

He became one of the prominent men of the House. Spoke clearly, sensibly and modestly.

Apart from colloquial oral speech and fiction, elliptical sentences are common to some special types of texts. Ellipses are very frequent in papers and handbooks on technology or natural sciences just for the sake of business-like brevity:

The grindstone – a cylinder pole, diameter 2.0 dm.

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TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX

Ellipses and abbreviations are very common in encyclopaedias, reference books and dictionaries:

Mont – Sir Lawrence, mansion in Lincolnshire, …

All kinds of elliptical constructions are resorted to in headlines, telegrams in order to save up space:

Trying for date and site London versus Patterson inform have patience.

The second type of syntactical patterns with omission of some elements is the absence of functional parts of speech or secondary elements: articles, prepositions, particles and conjunctions:

Chair comfortable? Help me do it.

I got there four. We’ll go Friday.

Theabsenceofconjunctionsisaspecialstylisticdevicehavingthename asyndeton (from the Greek word meaning ‘disconnected’). Asyndetic connection of words, clauses or sentences can be based upon the semantic meanings of the parts combined [4, p. 226]. The absence of the conjunction as a formal link imparts dynamic force to the whole utterance or the whole text, changing their prosodic patterns as well. Such sentences can also sound more informal and emotional:

You want anything, you pay for it.

I can’t change it with the other, they are of different size. (the bloodstained rug).

The third type is so-called nominative sentences. Their communicative purpose is to state the very existence of an object or a phenomenon:

London. Fog everywhere. Awful November weather.

Nominative sentences differ from the elliptical types as they comprise only one principal part, similar to the subject, which is expressed by a noun or its substitute. On the other hand, they are similar to ellipses because they also impart brevity. Nominative sentences can arouse in the imagination of the reader or hearer a more or less isolated impression of the object depicted, leaving in the background its interrelations with the other objects in the context, marking the other objects as less important and thus

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TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX

irrelevant. The following example of laconic nominative sentences renders a chaotic confusion of isolated images in the hero’s mind:

The horror! The flight! The exposure! The police! And even she, too. Yes, she, of course.

Nominative sentences are widely employed in drama style as play remarks, especially at the beginning of the drama, serving the same purpose as exposition in novels or stories:

The living-room of the Langdon home. Lady Sneerwell, drinking chocolate.

The last type of sentences with omission of necessary elements is an unfinished sentence, the stylistic device which is called aposiopesis (from the Greek word ‘silence’). It means intentional abstention from continuing the utterance to the end.The speaker or writer either begins a new utterance or stops altogether [1, с. 254]. In cases when the utterance is unfinished because of external reasons (somebody’s interruption) should not be considered a stylistic device:

My God! If the police come – find me here – … .

The following discussion concerns another type of quantitative deviations, material or structural excess in sentences, which is called the redundance of syntactical elements. That syntactically unnecessary overloading is more typical for written speech; in oral communication such sentences are rarely used. In oral spontaneous communication the shortage of time and limits of memory stimulate the use of simple sentences [8, p. 335]. Structural and material redundance within simple or composite sentences occur, first of all, in the increased number of elements used. It can be the repetition of syntactical position, the use of homogeneous parts:

The people were running – men, women, children.

There can be synonymic repetition, when the syntactical position as well as the meaning is repeated [1, с. 180]:

Joe was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish dear fellow.

The next comes lexical repetition, the recurrence of the same lexeme within one sentence. Its obvious purpose is visible intensification,

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TOPIC V. STYLISTIC SYNTAX

especially in colloquial speech, poetry, imaginative prose and emotional public oratory. On the contrary, such type of repetitions is hardly ever used in scientific or official texts:

Very, very good.

Scrooge went to bed and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over.

The elements repeated attract the reader’s attention as being the most important.

Another stylistic device is prolepsis or syntactical tautology. The term implies the recurrence of the noun subject as the pronoun [1, с. 250]. The stylistic function is the communicative emphasis of the theme of the utterance:

My neighbour, he took the money.

This woman – this wife of his – has developed power!

Prolepsis is often met with in nursery rhymes and folk ballads:

Jack Sprat is pig, He was not very little, He was not very big.

Tautologyinappendedsentencesoccurs when the sentence is repeated in a very general manner, its abstract scheme is added to the sentence. An appended statement consists of two elements, the pronominal subject and the auxiliary or modal verb, which substitute the notional subject and predicate of the main sentence. Appended statements always sound more intense. In colloquial speech such sentences show unrestrained emotions, affected state of mind of the speaker:

I looked out of the window, I did.

I know what the likes of you are, I do.

Emphasising the rheme of the sentence is a well-known stylistic device, when we turn a simple sentence into a complex one [1, с. 263– 264]. The rheme of the initial sentence becomes the predicative of the first clause:

We met on Friday. –> It was on Friday that we met.

Tom took in his country cousin. –> It was his country cousin that Tom took in.

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