English Stylistics for Translators. Стилистика английского языка для переводчиков. Учебное пособие

Alliteration in the English language is deeply rooted in the traditions of English folklore. The traditions of folklore are exceptionally stable and alliteration as a structural device of Old English poems and songs has shown remarkable continuity. It is frequently used as a well-tested means not only in verse but in emotive prose, in newspaper headlines, in the titles of books, in proverbs and sayings, as for example in the following:

in sayings:

*Tit for tat; blind as a bat; to rob Peter to pay Paul; or in the titles of books:

“Pride and Prejudice” (J. Austin); “The School for Scandal” (Sheridan); “Sense and Sensibility” (J. Austin).

Rhyme

Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words. Rhyming words are generally placed at a regular distance from each other. In verse they are usually placed at the end of the corresponding lines.

Full rhymes have identity of the vowel sound and the consonant sounds in a stressed syllable, as in might, right; needless, heedless.

Incomplete rhymes present a greater variety – vowel rhymes and consonant rhymes. In vowel rhymes the vowels of the syllables in corresponding words are identical, but the consonants may be different. As in flesh – fresh – press . Consonant rhymes, on the contrary, show concordance in consonants and disparity in vowels, as

in worth – forth; tale – tool – trouble; flung – long. Compound or broken rhymes are rhymes when one word rhyme with combination of words: or two or even three words rhyme with a corresponding two or three words, as in upon her honour – won her;

bottom – forgot ém – shot him.

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Compound rhyme may be set against what is called eyerhyme, where the letters and not sounds are identical, as in love – prove, flood – brood, have – grace. This rhyme can only be perceived in the written verse.

According to the way the rhymes are arranged within the stanza, certain models have crystallized, for instance:

2.triple rhymes – aaa

3.cross rhymes - abab

4.framing or ring rhymes - abba

There is still another variety of rhyme which is called internal rhyme. The rhyming words are placed not at the end of the lines but within the line, as in:

“I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers.” (P.B. Shelly) or, “Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary.” (E. Poe)

Rhythm

Rhythm exists in all spheres of human activity and assumes different forms. Rhythm evokes emotions whatever its nature or origin, whether it is musical, mechanical, or symmetrical as in architecture. The most general definition of rhythm may be expressed as follows:

“rhythm is a flow, movement, procedure, etc., characterized by basically regular recurrence of elements or features, as beat, or

accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements or features” (Webster’s New World Dictionary).

Rhythm is a deliberate arrangement of speech into regularly recurring units intended to be grasped as a definite periodicity which makes rhythm a stylistic device. Rhythm in language necessarily demands oppositions that alternate: long, short; stressed, unstressed; high, low and other contrasting segments of speech.

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Rhythm in verse as an SD is defined as a combination of the ideal metrical scheme and the variations of it, variations which are governed by the standard. It intensifies emotions.

A good example of prose rhythm is in the following lines from S. Maugham’s “The Painted Veil”:

“Walter, I beseech you to forgive me,” she said, leaning over him. For fear that he could not bear the pressure she took care not to touch him. “I’m so desperately sorry for the wrong I did you. I so bitterly regret.”

He said nothing. He did not seem to hear. She was obliged to insist. It seemed to her strangely that his soul was a fluttering moth and its wings were heavy with hatred.”

“Darling.”

A shadow passed over his wan and sunken face. It was less than a movement, and yet it gave all the effect of a terrifying convulsion. She had never used that word to him before.

Perhaps in his dying brain there passed the thought, confused and difficulty grasped, that he had only heard her use it, a commonplace of her vocabulary, to dogs, and babies and motorcars. The something horrible occurred. She clenched her hands, trying with all her might to control her, for she saw two tears run slowly down his cheeks.

“Oh, my precious, my dear, if you ever loved me and I was hateful – I beg you to forgive me. I’ve no chance now to show my repentance. Have mercy on me. I beseech you to forgive.”

She stopped. She looked at him, all breathless, waiting passionately for a reply. She saw that he tried to speak. Her heart gave a great bound.”

Graphical Expressive Means

Graphical expressive means serve to convey in the written form those emotions which in the oral type of speech are expressed by

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intonation and stress. We refer here to emphatic use of punctuation, deliberate change of the spelling of a word and unusual writing and spelling of the words.

All types of punctuation can be used to reflect the emphatic intonation of the speaker. Emphatic punctuation is used in many cases of stylistic devices. The changed type (italics, bold type, etc.) or spelling (multiplication – ‘laaaaarge’, ‘rruin’ ,; hyphenation – ‘des-pise’, ‘g-irl’ etc.) are used to indicate the additional stress on the emphasized word or part of the word. For example:

“...I ref-use his money altogezzer”. (Th. Dreiser); “Now pour us another cuppa.” (A. Wesker);

“Oh, what’s the difference, Mother” - “Muriel, I want to know”. (S. Lewis)

PART 1V

LEXICAL EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC

DEVICES

A number of stylistic devices are based on the peculiar use of lexical meanings. Words in a context may acquire additional meanings not fixed in dictionaries, what we have called contextual meanings. The latter may sometimes deviate from the dictionary

meaning.

Transferred meaning is practically the interrelation between two types of lexical meaning: dictionary and contextual. The transferred meaning of a word may be fixed in dictionaries as a result of long and frequent use of the word other than in its primary meaning. In this case we register a derivative meaning of the word.

Three types of meaning can be distinguished, which we shall call logical, emotive and nominal.

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1. Logical meaning is the precise naming of a feature of the idea, phenomenon or object, the name by which we recognize the whole of the concept. This meaning is also called a direct meaning.

Contextual meaning lives only in the given context and disappears if the context is altered. The contextual meaning will always depend on the dictionary.

What is known in linguistics as transferred meaning is practically the interrelation between two types of lexical meaning: dictionary and contextual.

2. Emotive meaning also materializes a concept in the word, but unlike logical meaning, emotive meaning appeals to the feelings and emotions. Emotive meaning of words plays an important role in stylistics.

3. And finally we come to nominal meaning. It is found in the words indicating a particular object out of a class. These words are classified in grammars as proper names.

When we perceive two meanings of the word simultaneously, we are confronted with a stylistic device (SD).

A. INTERACTION OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF LEXICAL

MEANING

1. INTERACTION OF DICTIONARY AND CONTEXTUAL

LOGICAL MEANING

The relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meaning may be maintained along different lines: on the principle of affinity, on that of proximity, or symbol-referent relations, or on opposition. Thus the stylistic device based on the first principle is metaphor, on the second, metonymy and on the third, irony.

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The metaphor is one of the most powerful means of creating images. This is its main function. Genuine metaphors are mostly to be found in poetry and emotive prose. Trite metaphors are generally used as expressive means in newspaper articles and in scientific language.

Metonymy

Metonymy is based on a different type of relation between dictionary and contextual meanings, a relation based not on affinity, but on some kind of association connecting the two concepts which these meanings represent. Thus the word crown may stand for ‘the king or queen’’, cup or glass for ‘the drink it contains’.

Here are some more widely-used metonymical meanings, some of them are already fixed in dictionaries without the label fig: a hand is used for a worker; the grave stands for death; the cradle stands for infancy.”). The following cases of metonymy are most common: The hall applauded. The round game table was happy. The marble spoke.

Genuine metonymies are widely used in emotive prose and newspaper texts. Here is an example of genuine metonymy: “Then

they came in. Two of them, a man with long hair moustaches and a silent dark man… Definitely , the moustache and I had nothing in common.” (D. Lessing “Retreat to Innocence “)

Irony

Irony is a stylistic device also based on the simultaneous realization of two logical meanings – dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings stand in opposition to each other.

Thus in the sentence: “It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one’s pocket.” The italicized word acquires a meaning quite the opposite to its primary dictionary meaning, that is ‘unpleasant’, ‘not delightful’.

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Irony must not be confused with humour, although they have very much in common. Humour always causes laughter. And as R. Altick says, “The effect of irony lies in the striking disparity between what is said and what is meant.”

2. INTERACTION OF PRIMARY AND DERIVATIVE

LOGICAL MEANINGS

Polysemy

Polysemy is a generic term the use of which must be confined to lexicology as an aspect of the science of language.

Let us analyse the following examples where the key-words are intentionally made to reveal two or more meanings: “Then hate me if thou wilt, if ever now.” (W. Shakespeare). The verb ‘hate’ here materializes several meanings. This becomes apparent when one reads sonnet 90 to the end and compares the meaning of this word with other verbs used synonymously. The principal meanings of this

word are: ‘dislike’, ‘stop loving’, ‘become indifferent to’, ‘feel aversion for’, etc.

Zeugma and Pun

There are special stylistic devices which make a word materialize two distinct dictionary meanings. They are zeugma and the pun.

Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to two adjacent words in the context, the semantic relations being on the one hand literal, and on the other, transferred.

For example: “…And May’s mother always stood on her

gentility; and Dot’s mother never stood on anything but her active little feet.” (Ch. Dickens). The word ‘stood’ is used twice. This

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structural variant of zeugma, though producing some slight difference in meaning, does not violate the principle of the stylistic device. It still makes the reader realize that the two meanings of the word ‘stand’ are simultaneously expressed, one literal and the other transferred.

The pun is another stylistic device based on the interaction of two well-known meanings of a word or phrase. Like any other stylistic device, it must depend on a context.

The title of one of O. Wilde’s plays, “The Importance of Being Earnest” has a pun in it, inasmuch as the name of the hero and the adjective meaning ’seriously-minded’ are both present in our mind.

3. INTERACTION OF LOGICAL AND EMOTIVE MEANINGS

The emotive meaning or emotional colouring (contextual emotive meaning) of a word plays a considerable role in stylistics. Both words and constructions of an emotional character have a stylistic significance only when they are set against the nonemotional. Thus, for example, interjections are signals of emotional tension, which are regarded as expressive means of the language and may be effectively used as stylistic devices in the proper context.

Interjections and Exclamatory Words

Interjections are words with strong emotive meaning. Interjections are words to express our feelings strongly which exist in the language as conventional symbols of human emotions.

For example: “Oh, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers?” (R. Kipling). The interjection ‘oh’, by itself may express various feelings, such as regret, despair, disappointment, sorrow, woe, surprise, astonishment and many others. But in the example

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given it precedes a definite sentence and denotes the ardent tone of the question as a signal indicating emotional tension in the utterance.

Interjection ‘o ‘ is widely used by Shakespeare in his sonnets. Interjections can be divided into primary which have no any logical meaning and derivative which may retain logical meaning.

Oh! Ah! Bah! Pooh! Gosh! Hush! Alas! - are primary interjections. ‘Heavens!’, ‘Good gracious!’, ‘Dear me!’, ‘God!’,

‘Come on!’, ‘Look here!’, ’Dear!’, ‘By the Lord!’, ‘God knows!’, ‘Bless me!’ are not interjections as such. A better name for them would be exclamatory words. The words ‘terrible! awful!, great!, wonderful!, splendid!, fine!’ are adjectives and adverbs with the function of interjections. Here are some of the meanings that can be expressed by interjections: joy, delight, admiration, approval, disbelief, astonishment, regret, dissatisfaction, sadness, protest, horror, irony, despair and many others.

Here are few lines from Byron’s “Don Juan” which may serve as an illustration:

“All present life is but an interjection An ‘Oh’ or Áh’ of joy or misery,

Or a ‘Ha! ha!’or Bah!’ – a yarn or ‘Pooh!’ Of which perhaps the latter is most true.”

The Epithet

The epithet is a stylistic device based on the interplay of emotive and logical meaning in an attributive word, phrase or even sentence, used to characterize an object. The epithet is evaluative and descriptive and indicates an inherent or prominent feature of the thing or phenomenon in question. The examples are the following: wild wind, loud ocean, heart-burning smile.

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