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

From the point of view of their compositional structure epithets may be divided into simple, compound, phrase and syntactic

epithets.

Simple epithets are ordinary adjectives.

Compound epithets are built like compound adjectives, for example: curly-headed good-for-nothing, and mischief-making monkey from his birth.” (G. Byron).

A phrase or even a whole sentence may become an epithet. Here are some examples of phrase epithet from the newspaper: “It is this do-it- yourself, go-it-alone attitude that has thus far held back real development…”.

It may also be expressed by a syntactic construction (a syntactic epithet). Just a ghost of a smile appeared on his face; a little man with a Say-nothing-to-me, or – I’ll-contradict-you expression on his face.

Fixed epithets are often found in folklore, my true love, merry

old England.

Very often the author uses a string of epithets. In his depiction of New York, O’Henry gives the following string of epithets: “Such was the background of the wonderful, cruel, enchanting, bewildering, fatal, great city.” It is necessary to say that the epithet is a direct and strong way of showing the author’s attitude towards the things described.

Oxymoron

Oxymoron is a combination of two words in which the meanings of the two clash, being opposite in sense, for example:

‘low skyscraper’, ‘sweet sorrow’, ‘nice rascal’, ‘pleasantly ugly face’, ‘horribly beautiful’, ‘a deafening silence from Whitehall’.

Let us take the following example from O. Henry’s story “The Duel” in which one of the heroes thus describes his attitude towards New York.

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“I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the haughtiest beggars, the

plainest beauties, the lowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw.” Even the superlative degree of the adjectives fails to extinguish the primary meaning of the adjectives: poor, little, haughty, etc. But by some inner law of word combinations they also show the attitude of the speaker, reinforced, of course, by the preceding sentence: “I despise its very vastness and power”.

4. INTERACTION OF LOGICAL AND NOMINAL MEANINGS

Antonomasia

Antonomasia is a linguistic term from Greek, meaning ‘naming instead’. It is the interplay between logical and nominal meanings which is realized in the word simultaneously.

For example: “…But the name of these is Few, and of the other Legion, and the influence of the good is powerless to counteract the mortal poison of the bad.” (Ch. Dickens).

This device is mainly realized in the written language, because sometimes capital letters are the only signals to denote the presence of the stylistic device. This can also be observed in the following example, from Byron’s “Don Juan”:

“Society is now one polished horde,

From’d of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.”

In these two examples of the use of antonomasia the nominal meaning is hardly perceived, the logical meaning of the words few, legion, bores, bored being too strong. There is another point that should be mentioned.

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Most proper names are built on some law of analogy. Many of them end in –son (as Johnson) or – er (Fletcher). We easily recognize such words as Smith, Brown as proper names. But such names as Miss Blue-Eyes or Mr. Zero may be called token or tell-tale names. Proper name can be used to express a general idea and give information to the reader about the bearer of the name. For example “He is the Napoleon of crime.” (C. Doyle).

Antonomasia, close to metonymy, is intended to point out the leading and most characteristic feature of a person or event. It is an often used device in the belles-lettres style but is often found in publicist style.

5. INTENSIFICATION OF A CERTAIN FEATURE OF A THING OR PHENOMENON

The stylistic devices of this group are based on interaction between two lexical meanings simultaneously materialized in the context when for special reasons the quality is elevated to the greatest importance.

Simile

The intensification of some feature is realized in a device called simile. Ordinary comparison and simile must not be confused. Comparison means weighing two objects belonging to one class of things with the purpose of establishing the degree of their sameness or difference.

For example, ‘The boy seems to be as clever as his mother. It is ordinary comparison, because ‘boy’ and ‘mother’ belong to the same class of objects and only one quality is being stressed to find resemblance. Comparison takes into consideration all the properties of the two objects, stressing the one that is compared.

To use a simile means to characterize one object by bringing it into contact with another object belonging to an entirely different

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class of things. Simile excludes all the properties of the two objects except one which is made common to them.

In the sentence: “Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, “ (G. Byron), we have a simile because ‘maidens’ and ‘moths’ belong to different classes of objects expressing one concept, i.e. to be easily lured.

Usually similes have formal elements in their structure: connective words such as like, as, such as, as if, seem. Sometimes the simile-forming like is placed at the end of the phrase as in:

“Emily Barton was very pink, very Dresden-china-shepherdess

like”.

In the English language there is a long list of hackneyed similes pointing out the analogy between the various qualities, states or actions of a human being and the animals supposed to be the bearers

swim like a duck, stubborn as a mule, hungry as a bear, thirsty as a camel, to act like a puppy, playful as a kitten, vain as a peacock, slow as a tortoise and many others of the same type.

Periphrasis

Periphrasis is the re-naming of an object by a phrase that brings out some particular feature of the object. This stylistic device is understandable only in the context. In other cases we have easily understandable periphrasis which are called traditional, dictionary or language periphrasis. For example, well-known periphrasis are: the fair sex (‘women), my better half (‘my wife’), a gentleman of the long robe (‘a lawyer’).

Periphrasis as a stylistic device is a new, genuine nomination of an object as in:

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“I understand you are poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my son, who has been so prematurely deprived of what can never be replaced.” (Ch. Dickens). The words italicized replace the word mother.

Here is another stylistic periphrasis:

“And Harold stands upon the place of skulls,

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo.” (G. Byron)

Stylistic periphrasis can also be divided into logical (‘the most pardonable of human weaknesses’ = love) and figurative (‘to tight the knot’ = to marry).

In some cases periphrasis is regarded as a demerit and should not appear in good and precise writing. This kind of periphrasis is generally called circumlocution. Thus R. Altik states that one of the ways of obscuring truth “...is the use of cicumlocution and euphemmisms”. Here is the example: “The lamp - lighter made his

nightly failure in attempting to frighten up the street with gas” (=’lit the street lamps).

Euphemism

There is a variety of periphrasis which we shall call euphemistic. Euphemism is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acceptable one.

For example, the word ‘to die’ has bred the following euphemisms: to pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to

join the majority and to kick the bucket, to give up the ghost, to go west. So euphemisms become synonyms aimed at producing a deliberately mild effect.

This becomes particularly noticeable in connection with what are called political euphemisms. These are really understatements, the aim of which is to mislead public opinion and to express what is unpleasant in a mere delicate manner. Sometimes disagreeable facts are even distorted with the help of a euphemistic expression. Thus

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the headline in one of the British newspapers “Undernourishment of

children in India” stood for ‘starvation’.

Here is another good example of euphemistic phrases used by Galsworthy in his “Silver Spoon”:

“In private I should merely call him a liar. In the Press you should use the words: ‘Reckless disregard for the truth’ and in Parliament – that you regret he ‘should have been so misinformed.’

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration, the aim of which is to intensify one of the features of the object to the degree of absurdity. The following is a good example of hyperbole:

“Those three words (Dombey and Son) conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey’s life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in and the sun and the moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in

their orbits to preserve inviolable a system of which they were the centre.” (Ch. Dickens).

Hyperbole differs from mere exaggeration in that it is intended to be understood as an exaggeration. In this connection the following should be said:

“Hyperbole is the result of a kind of intoxication by emotion, which prevents a person from seeing things in their true dimensions… If a reader is not carried away by the emotion of the writer, hyperbole becomes a mere lie.”

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6. PECULIAR USE OF SET EXPRESSIONS

The Cliché

A cliché is generally defined as an expression that has become hackneyed, trite and stereotyped. Examples of real clichés are: ‘rosy

dreams of youth’, ‘deceptively simple’.

Byron, being very sensitive to the aesthetic aspect of his native language, could not help observing the triteness of the phrases he commented on, but at the same time he accepted them as ready-made units. Language has its strength and its weakness. Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether or not a phrase is a cliché or “the right word in the right place.”

Men-of-letters, if they are real artists, use the stock of expressive phrases contained in the language naturally and easily, and wellknown phrases never produce the impression of being clichés.

“Redda had that quality …found in those woman who…put all their eggs in one basket.” (J. Galsworthy)

“As the last straw breaks the laden camel’s back, this piece of underground information crushed the singing spirits of Mr. Dombey.” (Ch. Dickens)

“She was unreal, like a picture and yet had an elegance which made Kitty feel all thumbs.” (S. Maugham)

Proverbs and Sayings

Almost every good writer will make use of language idioms, by-proverbs are brief statements showing in condensed form the accumulated life experience of the community. They are usually image bearing. Many of them have become polished and turned into verse-like shape, as:

“First come, first served”

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“Out of sight, out of mind”

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy

and wise.”

Some proverbs are decomposed to suggest the idea behind them: “Come!” he said, “milk’s spilt.” (J. Galsworthy) Just compare:

‘It is no use crying over spilt milk!’

“ Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced – even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.” (J. Keats)

Epigrams

An epigram is a stylistic device akin to a proverb, the only difference being that epigrams are coined by individuals whose names we know, while proverbs are the coinage of the people.

Epigrams are terse, witty, pointed statements showing the turn of the mind of the author. They always have a literary-bookish air about them that distinguishes them from proverbs. Brevity is the essential quality of the epigram. Epigrams are often confused with aphorisms and paradoxes, but real epigrams are true to fact and that is why they win general recognition.

Somerset Maugham is particularly fond of epigrams. Here are some from “The painted veil.”

“He that bends shall be made straight.”

“failure is the foundation of success and the success is the lurking place of failure...”

“Mighty is he who conquers himself.”

There are special dictionaries which are called “Dictionaries of Quotations” which in fact are dictionaries of epigrams.

As is known, poetry is epigramatic in its essence. It always strives for brevity of expression, leaving to the mind of the reader the pleasure of amplifying the idea.

Byron’s “ The drying up a single tear has more

Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore,”

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is a strongly worded epigram, which impresses the reader with its generalizing truth.

Quotations

A quotation is a repetition of a phrase or statement from a book, speech and the like used by way of authority, illustration, proof or as a basis for further speculation on the matter in hand. A quotation is the exact reproduction of an actual utterance made by a certain author.

As S. Johnson said, “Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.”

“Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it”, said R. Emerson. What is quoted must be worth quoting, since a quotation will inevitably acquire some degree of generalization.

Quotations are usually marked off in the text by inverted commas (“ “), or (‘…‘) , dashes (--), italics or other graphical means. They, unlike epigrams, need not necessarily be short. A whole paragraph or a long passage may be quoted if it suits the purpose.

Quotations as a stylistic device are used mostly in the belleslettres style. Quotations are also used in epigraphs. In this case it possesses great associative power and calls forth much connotative meaning.

Here is an example of a quotation: “Language is not an abstract constitution of the learned, or of dictionarymakers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes of long

generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.” W. Whitman

Allusion

An allusion is an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythological, biblical fact or to a fact of everyday life. The use of allusion presupposes knowledge of the fact, thing or person alluded to on the part of the reader or listener. As a rule no

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indication of the source is given. This is one of the notable difference between quotation and allusion. Allusions are based on the accumulated experience and knowledge of the writer.

Illustrative in this respect is the quotation-allusion made in S. Maugham’s novel “ The Painted Veil”. The last word uttered by the dying man are “The dog it was that died.” These are the concluding lines of Goldsmith’s “ Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog”. Unless the reader knows the Elegy, he will not understand the implication embodied in this quotation. The quotation here becomes an allusion which runs through the whole plot of the novel. Moreover the psychological tuning of the novel can be deciphered only by drawing a parallel between the poem and the plot of the novel. The main character is dying, having failed to revenge himself upon his unfaithful wife. He was punished by death for having plotted evil. This is the hint to be drawn from the allusion.

Allusions and quotations may be termed nonce-set-expressions because they are used only for the occasion. The deciphering of an allusion is not always easy. Allusions are used in different styles, but their function is everywhere the same.

Decomposition of Set Phrases

Linguistic fusions are set phrases, the meaning of which is understood only from the combination as a whole, as to pull a person’s leg or to have something at one’s finger tips. The meaning of the whole cannot be derived from the meanings of the component parts.

In the sentence “It was raining cats and dogs, and two kittens and a puppy landed on my window-sill” (G. Chesterton) the fusion ‘to rain cats and dogs’ is refreshed by the introduction of ‘ kittens and a puppy,” which changes the unmotivated combination into a metaphor which in its turn is sustained.

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