Syntactical stylistic devices

Repetition

Repetition is an instance of using a word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short passage--dwelling on a point.

Needless or unintentional repetition (a tautology or pleonasm) is a kind of clutter that may distract or bore a reader

Types of Rhetorical Repetition:

Anadiplosis is a repetition of the last word of one line or clause to begin the next.

E.g.: "My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

And every tongue brings in a several tale,

And every tale condemns me for a villain."

Anaphora is a repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.

E.g.: "I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize."

Antistasisis a repetition of a word in a different or contrary sense.

E.g.: "A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can't help himself."

Commoratio is a device aimed at emphasizing a point by repeating it several times in different words.

E.g.: "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." (Douglass Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1979)

Diacopeis is a repetition broken up by one or more intervening words, e.g.:

"A horse is a horse, of course, of course,

And no one can talk to a horse of course

That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.

Epanalepsis is a repetition at the end of a clause or sentence of the word or phrase with which it began.

E.g.: "Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,

How can thine heart be full of the spring?"

Epimoneis a frequent repetition of a phrase or question; dwelling on a point.

E.g.: "And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the rock; and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might discover the actions of the man.

"And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand, and looked out upon the desolation. . . . And I lay close within shelter of the lilies, and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude;--but the night waned, and he sat upon the rock."

"The man who stood, who stood on sidewalks, who stood facing streets, who stood with his back against store windows or against the walls of buildings, never asked for money, never begged, never put his hand out."

Epiphora is a repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses.

E.g.: "She's safe, just like I promised. She's all set to marry Norrington, just like she promised. And you get to die for her, just like you promised."

Epizeuxis is a repetition of a word or phrase for emphasis, usually with no words in between.

E.g.: "If you think you can win, you can win."

Gradatio is a sentence construction in which the last word of one clause becomes the first of the next, through three or more clauses (an extended form of anadiplosis).

E.g.: "To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly."

Negative-Positive Restatement is a method of achieving emphasis by stating an idea twice, first in negative terms and then in positive terms.

E.g.: "Color is not a human or personal reality; it is a political reality."

Ploce is a repetition of a word with a new or specified sense, or with pregnant reference to its special significance.

E.g. :"If it wasn't in Vogue, it wasn't in vogue."

Polyptoton is a repetition of words derived from the same root but with different endings.

E.g.: "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."

Symploce is a repetition of words or phrases at both the beginning and end of successive clauses or verses: a combination of anaphora and epiphora.

E.g.: "They are not paid for thinking--they are not paid to fret about the world's concerns. They were not respectable people--they were not worthy people--they were not learned and wise and brilliant people--but in their breasts, all their stupid lives long, resteth a peace that passeth understanding!"

Parallelism

Parallelism is a similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

E.g.:"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."

"New roads; new ruts."

"The more we do, the more we can do."

"He's quite a man with the girls. They say he's closed the eyes of many a man and opened the eyes of many a woman."

"They are laughing at me, not with me."

"Voltaire could both lick boots and put the boot in. He was at once opportunist and courageous, cunning and sincere. He managed, with disconcerting ease, to reconcile love of freedom with love of hours."

"Truth is not a diet but a condiment."

"Our transportation crisis will be solved by a bigger plane or a wider road, mental illness with a pill, poverty with a law, slums with a bulldozer, urban conflict with a gas, racism with a goodwill gesture."

"I don’t want to live on in my work. I want to live on in my apartment." "Buy a bucket of chicken and have a barrel of fun."

"The loss we felt was not the loss of ham but the loss of pig."

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal."

"Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude."

Chiasm

Chiasm(us) is a verbal pattern (a type of antithesis) in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed.

E.g.: "Nice to see you, to see you, nice!"

"You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget."

"In the end, the true test is not the speeches a president delivers; it’s whether the president delivers on the speeches."

"I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me."

"Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."

"If black men have no rights in the eyes of the white men, of course the whites can have none in the eyes of the blacks."

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order."

"Do I love you because you're beautiful?

Or are you beautiful because I love you?"

"The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults."

"People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

"You can take it out of the country, but you can't take the country out of it."

"Friendly Americans win American friends."

"Never let a fool kiss you--or a kiss fool you."

"My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington."

"Bad men live that they may eat and drink,

whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."

Rhetorical question

Rhetorical question is a question asked merely for effect with no answer expected. The answer may be obvious or immediately provided by the questioner.

E.g.: "Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?"

"The means are at hand to fulfill the age-old dream: poverty can be abolished. How long shall we ignore this under-developed nation in our midst? How long shall we look the other way while our fellow human beings suffer? How long"

"Aren't you glad you use Dial? Don't you wish everybody did?"

"To actually see inside your ear canal--it would be fascinating, wouldn't it?"

"If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice?"

"Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do 'practice'?"

Parenthesis

Parenthesis is the insertion of some verbal unit that interrupts the normal syntactic flow of the sentence lines, or is used to mark off explanatory or qualifying remarks in writing.

E.g.: The English (it must be owned) are rather a foul-mouthed nation."

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. (Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.)"

"And yet, if you watched the news--especially the epileptic seizure that passes for news on cable television (and in certain precincts of the blogosphere)--you'd think that we were facing Armageddon, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the last days of Pompeii all at once."

Aposiopesis

Aposiopesis is a rhetorical term for an unfinished thought or broken sentence.

E.g.:"Almira Gulch, just because you own half the county doesn't mean that you have the power to run the rest of us. For 23 years I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now--well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!"

"I will have such revenges on you both

That all the world shall--I will do things--

What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be

The terrors of the earth!"

"I won't sleep in the same bed with a woman who thinks I'm lazy! I'm going right downstairs, unfold the couch, unroll the sleeping ba--uh, goodnight."

"All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps."

"She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear: "'Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--' "She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom . . .."

Ellipsis

Ellipsis is the omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader.

E.g.: "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."

"Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater."

"Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends."

"There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them."

"True stories deal with hunger, imaginary ones with love."

Paraprosdokian sentences

Paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect.

E.g.: I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.

War does not determine who is right -- only who is left.

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. My desk is a work station.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Some people are like Slinkies ... not really good for anything, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.

I thought I wanted a career; turns out I just wanted paychecks.

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.

Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says "If an emergency, notify:" I put "DOCTOR."

I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut and still think they are sexy.

Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back.

A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.

Hospitality: making your guests feel like they're at home, even if you wish they were.

Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot.

Some cause happiness wherever they go. Others whenever they go.

There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.

I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not sure.

I always take life with a grain of salt... plus a slice of lemon... and a shot of tequila.

When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

You're never too old to learn something stupid.

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.

If you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, why do some people have more than one child?

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

Checklist

• What types of sentences do you know?

• Dwell on the types of syntactic figures of speech, such as parallelism, chiasm, rhetorical question, parenthesis, aposiopesis, ellipsis, etc.? What function do they perform in the text? What are the peculiatities of their translation?