10.Peculiar use of Set Expressions, Clichés, Allusions, Decomposition of Set Phrases

In lexicology the parts of a stable lexical unit may be sepa­rated in order to make a scientific investigation of the character of the combination and to analyze the components. In stylistics we analyze the component parts in order to get at some communicative effect sought by the writer. It is this communicative effect and the means employed to achieve it that Jie within the domain of stylistics. The integrating tendency also is closely studied in the realm of lexicology, especially when linguistic scholars seek to fix what seems to be a stable word-combination and ascertain the degree of its stabil­ity, its variants and so on. The integrating tendency is also within the domain of stylistics, particularly when the word-combination has not yet formed itself as a lexical unit but is in the process of being so formed. Here we are faced with the problem of what is called the cliché. A cliché is generally defined as an expression that has become hackneyed and trite. There is always a contradiction between what is aimed at and what is actually attained. Examples of real clichés are 'rosy dreams of youth', 'the patter of little feet', 'deceptively simple'. An allusion is an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythological, biblical fact or to "a fact of’ everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. 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 indication of the source is given.An allusion has cer­tain important semantic peculiarities, in that the meaning of the word (the allusion) should be regarded as a form for the new meaning. In other words, the primary meaning of the word or phrase which is assumed to be known (i.e. the allusion) serves as a vessel into which new meaning is poured. So here there is also a kind of interplay between two meanings.Here is a passage in which an allusion is made to the coachman, Old Mr. Weller, the father of Dickens's famous character, Sam Weller, In this case the nominal meaning is broadened into a generalized concept:

"Where is the road now, and its merry incidents of life!., old honest, pimple-nosed coachmen? I wonder where are they, those good fellows? Is old Welter alive or dead?" (Thackeray)

The volume of meaning in this allusion goes beyond the actual know­ledge of the character's traits. Even the phrases about the road and the coachmen bear indirect reference to Dickens's "Pickwick Papers." 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. The stylistic device of decom­position of fused set phrases consists in reviving the independent meanings which make up the component parts of the fusion. In other words, it makes each word of the combination acquire its literal meaning which, of course, in many cases leads to the realization of an absurdity. Here is an example of this device as employed by Dickens:

"Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have

been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it or the Country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a door-nail." (Dickens)

As is seen in this excerpt, the fusion 'as dead as a door-nail', which simply means completely dead, is decomposed by being used in a differ­ent structural pattern. This causes the violation of the generally rec­ognized meaning of the combination which has grown into a mere emo­tional intensifier. The reader, being presented with the parts of the unit, becomes aware of the meanings of the parts, which, be it repeated, have little in common with the meaning of the whole. When, as Dickens does, the unit is re-established in its original form, the phrase acquires a fresh vigor and effect, qualities important in this utterance because the unit itself was meant to carry the strongest possible proof that the man was actually dead.