1. Stylistics of the author and of the reader. The notions of encoding and decoding.

2. Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis and types of foregrounding.

a) Convergence

b) Defeated expectancy

c) Coupling

d) Semantic field

e) Semi-marked structures

Basic notions: encoding and decoding; foregrounding; convergence; defeated expectancy; coupling; semantic field; semi-marked structures.

1. Stylistics of the author and of the reader. The notions of encoding and decoding

Decoding Stylistics is the most recent trend in stylistic research that employs theoretical findings in such areas of science as information theory, psychology, statistical studies in combination with linguistics, literary theory, history of art, literary criticism, etc.

Decoding Stylistics makes an attempt to regard the esthetic value of a text based on the interaction of specific textual elements, stylistic devices and compositional structure in delivering the author’s message. This method does not consider the stylistic function of any stylistically important feature separately but only as a part of the whole text.

Encoding and decoding.

Decoding stylistics deals with the notions of stylistics of the author and stylistics of the reader.

2. Essential concepts of decoding stylistic analysis and types of foregrounding

Decoding stylistics investigates the same levels as lingua-stylistics - phonetic, graphical, lexical, and grammatical. The basic difference is that it studies expressive means provided by each level not as isolated devices that demonstrate some stylistic function but as a part of the general pattern discernible on the background of relatively lengthy segments of the text, from a paragraph to the level of the whole work.

Foregrounding means a specific role that some language items play in a certain context when the reader’s attention cannot but be drawn to them. In a literary text such items become stylistically marked features that build up its stylistic function.

2 a) Convergence implies denotes a combination or accumula­tion of stylistic devices promoting the same idea, emotion or motive. The use of more than one type of expressive means in close succession is a powerful technique to support the idea that carries paramount importance in the author’s view.

The door opened and from the cushions within emerged a tall young man in a clinging (облегающий) dove-gray coat. After him, like the first breath of spring in the Champs-Elysee came Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde - two lizard-skin feet, silk legs, chinchilla body, a tight little black hat, pinned with platinum and diamonds, and the high invariable voice that may be heard in any Ritz Hotel from New York to Budapest. (E. Waugh “Decline and Fall”)

b) Defeated expectancy

Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl... I have met... since I met you. (Wilde)

Defeated expectancy may come up on any level of the language. It may be an unusual word against the background of otherwise lexically homogeneous text.

It may be an author’s coinage with an unusual suffix; it may be a case of semantic incongruity or grammatical transposition. Among devices that are based on this principle we can name pun, zeugma, paradox, oxymoron, irony, anti-climax, etc.

Paradox: Divorces are made in Heaven.(Wilde)

c) Coupling

Coupling deals with the arrangement of textual elements that provide the unity and cohesion of the whole structure. The notion of coupling was introduced by S. Levin in his work “Linguistic Structures in Poetry” in 1962.

Coupling is based on the affinity of elements that occupy similar po­sitions throughout the text. Coupling provides cohesion, consistency and unity of the text form and content.

Like defeated expectancy it can be found on any level of the language, so the affinity may be different in nature; it may be phonetic, structural or semantic.

They are obviously cases of alliteration, assonance, paronomasia (каламбур), as well as such prosodic features as rhyme, rhythm and meter.

Syntactical affinity is achieved by all kinds of parallelism and syntac­tical repetition - anadiplosis, anaphora, framing, chiasmus, epiphora to name but a few.

Semantic coupling is demonstrated by the use of synonyms and antonyms, both direct and contextual, root repetition, paraphrase, sustained metaphor, semantic fields, recurrence of images, connota­tions or symbols.

Some of the well-known symbols are seasons (cf. the symbolic meaning of winter in Robert Frost’s poetry), trees (the symbolic meaning of a birch tree, a maple in Sergei Yesenin’s poetic work, the meaning of a moutain-ash tree for Marina Tsvetaeva), animals (the leopard, hyena, bulk, fish in Ernest Hemingway’s works) and so on.

Lloyd Williams lived in Collieryville, a mining town three or four miles from 10 North Frederick, but separated from the Chapins’ home and their life by the accepted differences of money and prestige; the miners’ poolroom, and the Gibbsville Club; sickening poverty, and four live-in servants for a family of four; The Second Thursdays, and the chicken-and-waffle suppers of the English Lutheran Church. Joe Chapin and Lloyd Williams were courthouse-corridor friends and fellow Republicans, but Joe was a Company man and Lloyd Williams was a Union man who was a Republican because to be anything else in Lantenengo County was futile and foolish. (O’Hara)

d) Semantic field

Semantic field is a method of decoding stylistics closely connected with coupling. It identifies lexical elements in text segments and the whole work that provide its thematic and compositional cohesion. To reveal this sort of cohesion decoding must carefully observe not only lexical and synonymous repetition but semantic affinity which finds expression in cases of lexico-semantic variants, connotations and associations aroused by a specific use or distribution of lexical units, thematic pertinence of seemingly unrelated words.

This type of analysis shows how cohesion is achieved on a less explicit level sometimes called the vertical context.

Lexical ties relevant to this kind of analysis will include synony­mous and antonymous relations, morphological derivation, relations of inclusion (various types of hyponymy and entailment), com­mon semes in the denotative or connotative meanings of different words.

If a word manifests semantic links with one or more other words in the text it shows thematic relevance and several links of this sort may be considered a semantic field.

Joe kept saying he did not want a fortieth birthday party. He said he did not like parties— a palpable untruth— and particularly and especially a large party in honor of his reaching forty... At first there were going to be forty guests but the invitation list grew larger and the party plans more elaborate, until Arthur said that with so many people they ought to hire an orchestra, and with an orchestra there would be dancing, and with dancing there ought to be a good-size orchestra. The original small dinner became a dinner dance at the Lantenengo Country Club. Invitations were sent to more than three hundred persons... (O’Hara)

e) Semi-marked structures

Semi-marked structures are a variety of defeated expectancy associ­ated with the deviation from the grammatical and lexical norm. It’s an extreme case of defeated expectancy much stronger than low ex­pectancy encountered in a paradox or anti-climax, the unpredictable element is used contrary to the norm so it produces a very strong emphatic impact.

The stupid heart that will not learn

The everywhere of grief.

Lexical deviation from the norm usually means breaking the laws of semantic compatibility and lexical valency:

She ... tried her best to spoil the party. (Erdrich)

Montezuma and Archuleta had recently started a mock-serious separatist movement, seeking to join New Mexico. (Michener)

Would you believe it, that unnatural father wouldn’t stump up. (Waugh)

He liked the ugly little college... (Waugh)

Литература:

1. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика декодирования. Курс лекций. Л., 1974.

2. Знаменская Т.А. Стилистика английского языка. Основы курса. М., 2004.

3. Мороховский А.Н. Cтилистика английского языка. Киев, 1989.

4. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. M., 1977.

5. Kucharenko V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. M., 1986.

6. Skrebnev Y.M. Fundamentals of English. М., 1994.

Lecture 5

Stylistic Grammar

Basic notions: the theory of grammatical gradation; marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures; grammatical metaphor; gramma­tical transposition; morphological stylistics; stylistic potential of the parts of speech; stylistic syntax: ellipsis, one-member sentences, break-in-the narrative, suppression and aposiopesis, decomposition, reiteration, anaphora, framing, anadiplosis, epiphora, inversion, interaction of adjacent sentences: parallel con­structions chiasmus, climax, anticlimax.

Plan:

1. The theory of grammatical gradation. Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures.

2. Grammatical metaphor and types of grammatical transposition

3. Morphological stylistics. Stylistic potential of the parts of speech:

1. The noun and its stylistic potential.

2. The article and its stylistic potential.

3. The stylistic power of the pronoun.

4. The adjective and its stylistic functions.

5. The verb and its stylistic properties.

6. Affixation and its expressiveness.

4. Stylistic syntax