2. Hellenistic Roman Rhetoric System

Aristotle’s ideas and later contributions into the art of speaking and writing were developed into a system which came down to us as Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system.

It divided all EMs into 3 large groups:

1) tropes;

2) figures of speech that create rhythm;

3) types of speech.

1. The 1^st group includes 9 items: metaphor, puzzle, synecdoche, metonymy, catachresis, epithet, periphrasis, hyperbole, antonomasia.

2. The 2^nd one is divided into 4 large groups:

-figures that create rhythm by means of addition (doubling, epenalepses/polysyndeton, enjambment (running on of one thought into the next line), asyndeton);

- figures based on compression (zeugma/syllepsis, chiasmus, ellipsis);

- figures based on assonance or accord (equality of colons, proportions and harmony of colons);

- figures based on opposition (antithesis, paradiastola (the lengthening of a syllable regularly short in poetry), anastrophe/inversion).

3. Types of speech. Ancient authors distinguished speech for practical and aesthetic purposes. All kinds of speech were represented in hierarchy including the following types: elevated, flowery/florid exquisite, poetic, normal, dry, scanty, hackneyed, and tasteless.

II. Modern Classifications

Nowadays there exist dozens of classifications of expressive means of a language and all of them involve more or less the same elements, but they can differ in terminology and criteria. The classification of expressive means of a language is not a simple matter; any discussion of it is bound to reflect more than one angle of vision. We’ll regard commonly recognized ones which are used in teaching stylistics today.

1. G. Leech’s Classification Of Expressive Means.

In his book “Essays on Style and Language” 1967 G. Leech tried to modernize traditional rhetoric system. The scholar builds his classification on the principle of distinction between the normal and deviant features in the language of literature. He calls them ‘register scale’ and ‘dialect scale’.

Register scale distinguishes spoken language from written language, the language of respect from that of condescension, advertising from science etc. The term covers linguistic activity within society.

Dialect scale differentiates language of people of different age, sex, social status, geographical area or individual linguistic habits (idiolect).

Among deviant features he distinguishes syntagmatic and paradigmatic deviations.

According to Leech, linguistic units are connected syntagmatically when they combine sequentially in a linear linguistic form. Syntagmatic items can be viewed horizontally, paradigmatic – vertically.

Syntagmatic deviant features are characterized by the author’s imposing the same kind of choice in the same place. This principle visibly stands out in some tongue-twisters due to deliberate overuse of the same sound in every word or phrase, e.g.: ‘Robert Rowley rolled a round roll round’ instead of ‘Robert turned over a hoop in a circle’.

Paradigmatic items enter into a system of possible selections at one point of the chain. They are based on the effect of gap in the expected choice of a linguistic form. E.g. of paradigmatic deviations:

Airplane	Normal inanimate neuter	it
Train
Car
Ship
Ship/airplane	Deviant animate female	she

This classification includes other minor subdivisions.

2. I.R. Galperin’s Classification Of Expressive Means.

The professor classifies SDs and EMs in his manual “Stylistics” (1971) first according to levels of language-as-a-system (phonetic, lexical and syntactical).

Phonetic EMs and SDs include Onomatopoea, Alliteration, Rhyme and Rhythm.

Lexical, in their turn, fall into the following groups:

-Interaction of Primary Dictionary and Contextually imposed Meanings (metaphor, metonymy, irony);

- Interaction of Primary and Derivative Local Meanings (Zeugma, Puntonomasia);

-Interaction of Logical and Emotional Meanings (interjections, exclamatory words, Epithet, Oxymoron);

- Interaction of Logical and Nominal Meanings (Antonomasia);

- Intensification of a certain feature of a thing or phenomenon (Simile, Periphrasis, Euphemism, Hyperbole);

- Peculiar Use of Set Expressions (cliché, Proverbs and sayings, Epigrams, Quotations, Allusions, Decompositions of Set Phrases).

Syntactical SDs and EMs are based on the following principles:

• Compositional Patterns of Syntactical Arrangement (Detached, Parallel Constructions, Repetition, Enumeration, etc.);

- Particular Ways of Linking (Asyndeton, Polysyndeton, The Gap-Sentence Link);

- Particular Ways of Colloquial Constructions (Ellipsis, Aposiopesis);

- Stylistic Use of Structural Meaning (Rhetorical Questions, Litotes).

3. Y.M. Skrebnev’s Classification Of Expressive Means

Yuri Maximovich Skrebnev’s book “Fundamentals of English Stylistics” (1994) gives an approach that combines both the principles observed in Leech’s system of paradigmatic and syntagmatic subdivision and the level-orientated approach on which Galperin’s classification is founded. Albeit there’s no denying that he created a new consistent method of the hierarchal arrangement of the complicated material.

Skrebnev first subdivides stylistics into paradigmatic (stylistics of units) and syntagmatic (stylistics of sequences). Then he explores the levels of the language in both paradigmatic and syntagmatic stylistics.

He adds one more level to phonetics, morphology, lexicology and syntax – that is semasiology/semantics.

Paradigmatic stylistics

phonetics morphology lexicology syntax semasiology/semantics

Syntagmatic stylistics

.

According to Skrebnev the relationship between these 5 levels and the two aspects of stylistic analysis is bilateral.

4. G. Williams’ Classification Of Expressive Means

Professor Grant Williams suggests classifying all Figures of Speech on the basis of Link (Tropes, Metaplasmic Figures, Figures of Omission, Figures of Repetition (words), Figures of Repetition (clauses and ideas), Figures of Unusual Word Order, Figures of Thought)

Figures by Type with Link	Definition
Tropes	figures which change the typical meaning of a word or words
Metaplasmic Figures	figures which move the letters or syllables of a word from their typical places
Figures of Omission	figures which omit something from a sentence
Figures of Repetition (words)	figures which repeat one or more words
Figures of Repetition (clauses and ideas)	figures which repeat a phrase, a clause or an idea
Figures of Unusual Word Order	figures which alter the ordinary order of words or sentences
Figures of Thought	a miscellaneous group of figures dealing with emotional appeals and techniques of argument

In this manual we have combined the three of the mentioned above modern approaches to SDs and EMs classification, the basis of the current one being that of I.R. Galperin’s.

ADDITIONAL NOTES ON LECTURE 5.

To the question of classifying stylistic devices in a framework of language-as–a system approach.

It was not only Soviet/Russian school of linguists that tended to discuss language in terms of a number of interrelated levels of description. For instance, David Crystal (Wales) and Derek Davy (New Zealand) looked at stylistic phenomena within:

• phonetic/graphitic;

• phonological/graphological;

• grammatical;

• lexical;

• semantic levels.

They add that the order in which the levels are studied is not significant. Only pedagogical reasons can justify the succession from sounds through grammar and vocabulary to semantics as it seems easier to introduce students to practical stylistic analysis if they begin with the comparatively easy matters.