In synecdoche – a part is named but the whole is understood.

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl (W. Shakespeare)

He made his way through the perfume and conversation (I. Show) = the perfumed and conversing crowd of people.

A typical example of traditional / stereotyped synecdoche is the word hands: workers (Hands wanted) or sailors (All hands on deck!)

Functions and stylistic effects

• to specify the description, to make it more concrete;

• to draw the reader’s attention to a small, seemingly insignificant detail to make him visualise the object.

Periphrasis (to speak around) is a substitution of the word for the word combi­nation, which describes its most essential and characteristic features.

I can’t do business with a petticoat in the room. (E. Braithwaite)

It both names and describes the object. It was widely used in the Bible and it was popular in Latin poetry.

Thus this device consists in expressing the meaning of a word, phrase, etc., by many or several words instead of by few or one; a roundabout/indirect way of speaking, circumlocution.

Deiler was studying under Rosenstock – you know his reputation as a disturber of the piano keys. (O. Henry)

The difference between periphrasis and metonymy:

It cannot be expressed by one linguistic unit (one word); it always consists of more than one word. E.g.: an exciting book = a thriller (trite metonymy) or two hundred pages of blood-curdling narrative (periphrasis)

Types of periphrasis

1. traditional / dictionary / language periphrasis:

my better half; the fair sex.

2. stylistic periphrasis aims at pointing to one of the seemingly insignificant or barely noticeable features or properties of the given object and intensifies this property by naming the object by the property. Periphrasis as an EM is a new, genuine nomination of an object.

Dig up, you discourager of young talent! (J. London)

This device is decipherable only in context. If the periphrastic locution is understandable outside the context, it is not an expressive means. It is called

There are two kinds of stylistic periphrasis:

1. logical is based on the logical associations: instruments of destruction = guns; the most pardonable of human weaknesses (love).

2. figurative is bathed either on metaphor or metonymy, the key word of the collocation being the word used figuratively: to tie the knot = to get married; the punctual servant of all work = the sun

Functions and stylistic effects

• to convey an individual perception of an object

• to foreground a feature the writer wants to stress

• to intensify the noticeable property of an object by naming the object by the property

Antonomasia is renaming for giving additional information about the bearer of the name.

There are two types:

1. the use of a proper name for a common name:

Othelo, Don Quixote;

He is the Napoleon of crime (C. Doyle)

But he kept snowing her in this Abraham Lincoln, sincere voice. (J. Salinger)

2. the use of common nouns as proper names ( speaking/token/telling names): Mr. Murdstone; Mrs. Snake; Miss Toady

Functions and stylistic effects

• to characterise a person;

• to point out the leading, most conspicuous features of a person;

• to achieve a humorous effect.

Personification is a transfer of features and characteristics of a person to a thing (very often nature); prescribing to a phenomenon qualities, feelings and thoughts of a human being.

E.g. She had been asleep, always, and now life was thundering imperatively at all her doors. (J. London)

Slowly, silently, now the moon walks the night in her silvery shoon (shoes) (de la Mare)

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster.

And treat those two impostors just the same (R. Kipling)

Old father time

My love is young.

Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Wood personifies the sunrise and likens it to an energetic person:

The sun springs down on the rough and tumbling town. It runs through the hedges of Goosegog Lane, cuffing the birds to sing. Spring whips green down Cockle Row, and the shells ring out.

It is realised only within a certain context and is used only in emotive prose/fiction.

Functions and stylistic effects

• to give vivid characteristics to a phenomenon;

• to create the imagery;

• to enhance the expressiveness of the text.

Allegory is the expression of an abstract idea through some concrete image or object. It is realised within the frames of the whole text.

It may be presented by:

1. a proverb/saying: It’s time to turn ploughs into swords. All is not gold that glitters. Still waters run deep.

2. fable

3. literary fiction

Some genres of literature are fully based on allegory: fables, fairy tales.

After two centuries of crusades the Crescent (=the Moslem religion) defeated the Cross (= Christianity) in all south-western Asia.

Functions and stylistic effects

• to stress the logical meaning of speech by adding to it some emotive colouring;

• to enhance the poetic expressiveness of the text.

Simile is a partial identification of two objects belonging to different classes or spheres.

E.g. The ugly one, Laverne, wasn't too bad a dancer, but the other one, old Marty, was like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the floor. (J. Salinger )

The object, which is compared, is called the tenor; the one, which it is compared to, is the vehicle. And the feature of similarity between two objects is the foundation.

Structurally simile consists of two components - the subject of comparison and the object united by formal elements, connective words: as, as ... as, like, as though, as if, etc.

E.g. His praises went trampling over the delicate little play like a herd of elephants. (A. Huxley)

Sometimes these formal markers are missing, but the relations between two objects are similar, we have implied simile, where notional or seminotional words (nouns, verbs) substitute the formal markers: to remind, to seem, resemblance.

E.g. He reminded James, as he said afterwards, of a hungry cat. (J. Galsworthy)

Pun / paronomasia/play on words (каламбур) is a device based on polysemy, homonymy or phonetic similarity used to achieve a humorous effect.

The use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect.

Many jokes and funny stories are based on pun.

E.g. - I wonder if I can see your mother, little boy. Is she engaged?

• Engaged ?! She's married.

Zeugma from Greek it means to join/to combine. It is a simultaneous realisation of two meanings of a polysemantic unit.

It is the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations to the adjacent word in the context. The primary and derivative meanings clash. By making the two meanings conspicuous in this particular way, each of them stands out clearly.

E.g. Everything was short including tobacco and people’s tempers. (E. Hemingway)

These are parallel constructions with unparalleled meaning. It is identical structurally, but different semantically.

E.g. It was my older brother - her darling - who was to in­herit her resoluteness, her stubbornness, her table silver and some of her eccentricities. (J. Cheever )

The verb refers to different subjects or objects (direct and indirect). Polysemantic verbs that have a practically unlimited lexical valency can be combined with nouns of most varying semantic groups, homogeneous members that are not connected semantically. Thus it combines syntactical and lexical characteristics. Syntactically it is based on the similar structures, semantically it comprises different meanings.

Functions and stylistic effects

- to create a humorous effect.

It is difficult to draw a hard and fast distinction between zeugma and pun.

Oxymoron, from Greek it means wittily foolish - остроумно-глупое. It is a combination of opposite meanings which exclude each other.

E.g.: low skyscrapers, a poor millionaire, horribly beautiful.

Street damaged by improvements (O. Henry)

A man who was the Bully of humility. (Ch. Dickens )

The joining together of apparent contradictions.

Faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

78.

Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech sounds which alms at imitating sounds produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc.) by things (machines or tools, etc.) by people (singing, laughter) and animals. Therefore the relation between onomatopoeia and the phenomenon it is supposed to represent is one of metonymy There are two varieties of onomatopoeia: direct and indirect.

Direct onomatopoeia is contained in words that imitate natural sounds, as ding-dong, burr, bang, and cuckoo. These words have different degrees of imitative quality. Some of them immediately bring to mind whatever it is that produces the sound. Others require the exercise of a certain amount of imagination to decipher it. Onomatopoetic words can be used in a transferred meaning, as for instance, ding - dong, which represents the sound of bells rung continuously, may mean 1) noisy, 2) strenuously contested.

Indirect onomatopoeia demands some mention of what makes the sound, as rustling of curtains in the following line.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.

Indirect onomatopoeia is a combination of sounds the aim of which is to make the sound of the utterance an echo of its sense. It is sometimes called "echo writing". An example is: ”And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain" (E. A. Poe), where the repetition of the sound [s] actually produces the sound of the rustling of the curtain.

More examples:

to buzz – жужжать

to bang – бахнуть

to burble - бормотать

to hiss - шипеть

to roar [o:] - грохотать

to swish – рассекать воздух

to splash - плескаться

to twitter – чирикать

Onomatopoeia is used for emphasis or stylistic effect. It is extensively featured in children’s rhymes and poetry in general.

Poetry abounds (изобилует) in some specific types of sound-instrumenting, the leading role belonging to alliteration.

Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this device lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words:

"The possessive instinct never stands still” (J. Galsworthy)

"Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before" (E. A. Poe.

Alliteration, like most phonetic expressive means, does not bear any lexical or other meaning unless we agree that a sound meaning exists as such. But even so we may not be able to specify clearly the character of this meaning, and the term will merely suggest that a certain amount of information is contained in the repetition of sounds, as is the case with the repetition of lexical units

More examples:

Helplessly hoping

Wordlessly watching

He waits by the window

And wonders at the empty place inside.

Assonance is a stylistically motivated repetition of stressed vowels. The repeated sounds stand close together to create a euphonic effect and rhyme.

e.g. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

We love to spoon beneath the moon in June.

Just like alliteration, assonance makes texts easy to memorize. It is also popular in advertising for the same reason. Assonance is seldom met as an independent stylistic device. It is usually combined with alliteration, rhyming and other devices.

In her book ‘Stylistics of Modern English’ I. Arnold quotes three lines from ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe:

…Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden,

I shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore –

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?

To create additional information in discourse sound-instrumenting is often used. In contemporary advertising, mass media and, above all, creative prose sound is foregrounded (выдвигается на первый план) mainly through the change of its accepted graphical representation. This intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word (or word-combination) used to reflect its authentic pronunciation is called graphon.

Graphons, indicating irregularities or carelessness of pronunciation were occasionally introduced into English novels and journalism as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century and since then have acquired an ever growing frequency of usage, popularity among writers, journalists, advertisers, and a continuously widening scope of functions.

Graphon proved to be an extremely concise (сжатый) but effective means of supplying information about the speaker’s origin, social and educational background, physical or emotional condition.

Graphon, thus individualizing the character’s speech, adds to his plausibility (правдоподобность, вероятность, умение внушать доверие), vividness, memorability. At the same time graphon is very good at conveying the atmosphere of authentic live communication, of the informality of the speech act.

Some amalgamated (объединенный) forms, which are the result of strong assimilation, became clichés in contemporary prose dialogue: “gimme” (give me), “lemme” (let me), “gonna” (going to), “gotta” (got to), “coupla” ( couple of), “mighta” (might have), “willya” (will you), etc.

This flavour of authenticity brought graphon popularity with advertisers. Big and small eating places invite customers to attend their “Pik-kwik store’, or “The Donut (doughnut) Place”. The same is true about newspaper, poster and TV advertising: “Sooper Class Model” cars, “Knee-hi” socks, “Rite Aid” medicines. One can’t help visiting a set of shops called “4U”. Other examples: X-ing, X-mas, Tyme.

Grapical changes may reflect not only the peculiarities of pronunciation, but are also used to convey the intensity of the stress, emphasizing and thus foregrounding the stressed words. To such purely graphical means we should refer all changes of the type (italics, capitalization), spacing of graphemes (hyphenation, multiplication) and of lines.

Summing up, the graphical arrangement of a word (a line, a discourse) is applied for recreating the individual and social peculiarities of the speaker, the atmosphere of the communication act – all aimed at revealing and emphasizing the author’s viewpoint.