Repetition

Repetition is an EM of the language used when the speaker is under the stress of some strong emotion. It shows the state of mind of the speaker, as in the following example:

“Stop!”- she cried, “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear; I don’t want to hear what you’ve come for. I don’t want to hear”. (Galsworthy).

Here the repetition of “I don’t want to hear” is not a SD; it is a means by which the excited state of the speaker’s mind is shown, which is suggested by “she cried”.

When used a SD, repetition acquires different functions. It does not aim at making a direct emotional impact. On the contrary, stylistic repetition aims at logical emphasis which is necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the key-word of the utterance.

e.g. ”For that was it! Ignorant of the long stealthy march of passion, and of the state to which it had reduced Fleur; ignorant of how Soames had watched her, ignorant of Fleur’s reckless desperation… - ignorant of all this, everybody felt aggrieved.”

(Galsworthy)

e.g. Supposing his head been held under water for a while. Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been strangled.

Repetition is classified according to its compositional patterns into the following groups:

(1) anaphora (анафора/единоначалие) (Greek ‘anaphora’ - вынесение наверх) - the repeated unit (word or phrase) comes at the beginning of 2 or more successive sentences, clauses or phrases.

Function: to emphasize the repeated unit, foregrounding the non-repeated unit.

e.g. Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow!

Farewell to the straths and green valleys below!

Farewell to the forests and wild –hanging woods!

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods!

(Burns)

(2) epithora (эпифора или концовка) (Greek ‘epithora’) - the repeated unit is placed at the end of 2 or more successive phrases, clauses or sentences.

Function: to add stress to the final words of the sentence.

e.g. I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the rest of mankind, in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such a case as that. (Dickens)

(3) framing - the initial part of a syntactical unit (in most cases a paragraph) is repeated at the end.

Function: to explain, clarify, specify (elucidate) the notion mentioned in the beginning.

e.g. Poor doll’s dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road and asking guidance. Poor, little doll’s dressmaker! “

(Dickens)

Framing makes the whole utterance more compact and complete. It is most effective in singling out paragraphs.

(4) anadiplosis [ n dip’l usis] ( сцепление/ удвоение) (linking/ reduplication)

The structure of this device is the following: the last word or phrase of one part of the utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part, thus hooking the 2 parts together. Instead of going on with the narrative the author steps back and picks up the last word (s).

Function: specification of semantics.

e.g. “Freeman and slave … carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstruction of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes” (Marx, Engels)

Sometimes the writer can use the linking device several times in one utterance:

e.g. “A smile would come into Mr. Pickwick’s face: the smile extended into a laugh: the laugh into a roar, and the roar became general”.

(Dickens)

This pattern is called chain repetition. It creates the effect of smoothly developing logical reasoning.

There are some other types of repetition:

• Ordinary/ simple repetition –repetition of the word or phrase the position of which is not fixed in the utterance.

Function: emphasis of the logical and emotional meaning of the repeated unit.

• Root repetition where it is not the same words that are repeated but the same roots.

e.g. “To live again in the youth of the young” (Galsworthy)

e.g. He was a brute, brutish brute. (London)

Function: see ordinary repetition.

• Semantic or synonymic repetition (tautology or pleonasm)

It is the repetition of the same idea expressed by synonymous words which intensify the impact of the utterance on the reader by adding a slightly different nuance of meaning. Tautology can be regarded as a fault of style only if it is not motivated by the aesthetic purpose of the writer.

e.g. from Keat’s Sonnet “The Grasshopper and the Cricket”:

“The poetry of the earth is never dead

The poetry of earth is ceasing never …” (fault of style?)

Other examples:

e.g. It was a clear starry night, and not a cloud was to be seen”

e.g. He was the only survivor: no one else was saved.