Lecture Classification of expressive means and stylistic devices by Y.M.Skrebnev

1. Lecture Classification of expressive means and stylistic devices by Y.M.Skrebnev

1. Paradigmatic Stylistics
2. Syntagmatic Stylistics

2. “Fundamentals of the English Stylistics” 1994

Stylistics:
Paradigmatic
Syntagmatic
Stylistics of units
Stylistics of
sequences

3. General scheme of branches of P\S stylistics

Paradigmatic ← 1.Phonetics → Syntagmatic
Stylistics
← 2.Morphology → Stylistics
← 3. Lexicology →
← 4. Syntax
→
← 5. Semasiology →

4. Paradigmatic Phonetics

• phonographical stylistic features of a written
text= graphic means to reproduce phonetic
peculiarities of individual speech
Graphon (V.A.Kucharenko’s term) – intentional nonstandard spelling
Ex.: I know these Eye-talians (Lawrence)
Cockney speech: [ei] →[ai], [au] →[a:], drop of
[h’s]

5. Paradigmatic Phonetics 2

Ex: “Father, said one of the children at breakfast.I want some more ‘am please”. –You mustn’t
say ‘am, my child, the correct form is ‘am, retorted his father, passing a plate with slices
ham on it. “But I did say ‘am, pleaded the boy”.
“No, you didn’t: you said ‘am instead of ‘am”.
The mother turned to the guest smiling: “Oh,
don’t mind them, sir, pray. They are both trying
to saw ‘am and both think it is ‘am they are
saying “.

6. Paradigmatic Phonetics 3

• Pitch of voice, stress, melodic features →
italics, capitalization, repetition of
letters, onomatopoeia.
Ex:
I AM sorry;
“Appeeee Noooooyeeeeerr”;
cock-a-doodle-doo.

7. Paradigmatic morphology

• stylistic potential of grammar forms
(peculiar use of grammatical categories)
• Historical present
Ex: What else do I remember? Let me see.
There comes out of a cloud our house…
(Dickens)

8. Paradigmatic morphology 2

• Personification\ Depersonification (gender)
Feminine
Countries (France sent her representative to the
conference)
Abstract notions associated with beauty: Spring,
Peace, Kindness =SHE
Names of vessels and vehicles (ship, boat, carriage,
coach, car) = SHE
Masculine
Abstract notions associated with strength: Death, Fear,
War, Anger = HE

9. Paradigmatic morphology 3

Paradigmatic morphology
Depersonification:
3
Ex.: “Where did you find it?” asked Mord
Em’ly of Miss Gilliken with a satirical
accent.
“Who are you calling “it”? demanded Mr.
Barden aggressively. “P’raps you’ll kindly
call me ‘im and not it”. (Partridge)
(Person/ Number, mood…)

10. Pragmatic lexicology

Layers of vocabulary
• Positive\elevated (poetic, official,
professional, bookish*, archaic*, terms*)
• Neutral
• Negative\ degraded (colloquial,
neologisms, jargon, slang, once-words,
vulgar words.)

11. Paradigmatic syntax

-sentence paradigm: completeness of sentence
structure, communicative types of sentences,
word order, type of syntactical connection.
Completeness of sentence structure: ellipsis,
aposiopesis, one member nominative
sentences, redundancy (repetition of sentence
parts, syntactic tautology, polysyndeton)

12. Paradigmatic syntax 2

Communicative types of sentences:
Quasi-affirmative sentences (Isn’t it too
bad?=That is too bad.)
Quasi-interrogative sent. (Here you are to
write down your age and birthplace. = How old
are you? Where were you born?
Quasi-negative sent. (Did I say a word about
the money? = I did not say…)
Quasi-imperative sent. (Here! Quick! = Come
here! Be quick!

13. Paradigmatic syntax 3

Word order: inversion
Type of syntactical connection:
detachment, parenthetic elements,
asyndetic
subordination
and
coordination.

14. Paradigmatic semasiology

-transfer of names = tropes= figures of replacement
Figures of quantity :: Figures of quality
Figures of quantity
Renaming is based on inexactitude of
measurements
Hyperbole
Ex.: You couldn’t hear yourself think for the noise.
Meosis (understatement, litotes)
Ex.: It’s not unusual for him to come home at this
hour.

15. Paradigmatic semasiology 2

Figures of quality (3 types)
• Transfer based on real connection
Metonymy ( 2 forms: synecdoche, periphrasis =
varieties: euphemism, anti-euphemism)
Ex.: I’m all ears. Hands wanted.
Ex.: Ladies and the worser halves. I never call a
spade a spade, I call it a bloody shovel.

16. Paradigmatic semasiology 3

• Transfer based on affinity (similarity)
Metaphor has no formal limitations =
sustained\extended, chain M.
Ex.: This is a day of your golden opportunity.
Don’t let it turn to brass.
Catachresis (mixed metaphor)

17. Paradigmatic semasiology 4

Ex.: “For somewhere”, said Poirot to
himself indulging an absolute riot of
mixed metaphors “there is in the hay a
needle, and among the sleeping dogs is
one on whom I shall put my foot, and by
shooting the arrow into the air, one will
come down and hit a glass-house”.
(Christie)

18. Paradigmatic semasiology 5

Initial statements:
To look for a needle in the haystack.
To let sleeping dogs lie.
To put one’s foot down.
I sot arrow into the air ( Longfellow),
People who live in a glass houses should not
throw stones.

19. Paradigmatic semasiology 6

Other Metaphor types:
Allusion
Ex.: It’s his Achilles heel
Personification
Ex.: How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol’n
on his wing my three and twentieth year. (Milton)
Antonomasia
Ex.: Brutus, Don Juan. But: doesn’t regard as such Duke the
Iron Heart, Mr. Noble Knight.
Allegory
Ex.: the scales of justice

20. Paradigmatic semasiology 7

• Transfer by contrast
Irony:
• Explicit
Ex.: A fine friend you are! That’s a pretty kettle
of fish
• Implicit = against a wider context
Ex.: Clever bastard! Lucky devil!
+ Mixture of registers.

21. Syntagmatic Stylistics Stylistics of sequences (linear combinations)

Syntagmatic Phonetics
Prosodic features
Alliteration (Last but not least, Now or never, as
good as gold.)
Poetry, titles, headlines, slogans, commercials:
Ex.: Pride and prejudice.
Posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club.
Work or wages! Workers of the world, unite!
Colgate toothpaste: The Flavor’s Fresher than ever –
It’s New. Improved. Fortified.

22. Syntagmatic Phonetics 2

Assonance (the recurrence of the stresses vowels)
Ex.: …Tell this soul with sorrow laden. If within the
distant Aiden; I shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the
angels named Lenore (Poe).
Paronomasia (using words similar in sound but different
in meaning):
Ex.: And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is
sitting. (Poe)
Rhythm and Meter
Rhyme
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care,
Fasion’d so slenderly
Young and so fair.

23. Syntagmatic Morphology

-grammar forms with some stylistic effect
Ex.: Shakespeare’s plays\ plats of Shakespeare\
Shakespeare plays
Syntagmatic Lexicology
Word –and-context = stylistic irradiation
Ex.: Jeff, says Andy after a long time, quite
unseldom I have seen fit to impugn your
morals when you have been chewing the rag
with me about your conscientious way of doing
business…O’Henry.

24. Syntagmatic Syntax

Syntactical repetition: Parallelism
Ex.: The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing… (Wordsworth)
Lexico-syntactical devices:
Anaphora (identity of beginnings)
Ex.: If only little Edward were twenty, old
enough to marry well and fend for himself,
instead of ten. If only it were not necessary to
provide a dowary for his daughter. If only his
own debts were less. (Rutherfurd)

25. Syntagmatic Syntax 2

Epiphora (identity of endings)
Ex.: For all averred, I had killed a bird.
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wrench! Said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow. (Coleridge)
Framing (both)
Ex.: Never wonder. By means of addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division, settle
everything somehow, and never wonder.
(Dickens)

26. Syntagmatic Syntax 3

Anadiplosis (final element goes into the
beginning of the next sequence)
Ex.: Three fishes went sailing out into the West.
Out into the West, as the sun went down.
(Kingsley)
Chiasmus (reversed parallelism)
Ex.: That he sings and he sings, and for ever sings
he – I love my Love and my Love loves me!
(Coleridge)

27. Syntagmatic semasiology

-semantic relationships expressed throughout the
whole text. Studied TYPES of names used for
the linear arrangement of meanings.
=Figures of co-occurrence: figures of identity,
figures of inequality, figures of contrast.
Figures of identity:
Simile
Ex.: My heart is like a singing bird

28. Syntagmatic semasiology 2

Synonymous replacement
Ex.:He brought home numberless prizes. He told his
mother countless stories.
I was trembly and shaky from head to foot.
Figures of inequality
Clarifying synonyms:
Ex.: You undercut, sinful, insidious hog. (O’Henry)
Climax (gradation)
Ex.: What difference if it rained, hailed, blew,
snowed, cycloned? (O’Henry)

29. Syntagmatic semasiology 3

Anti-climax (Back gradation)
Ex.: The woman who could face the very devil himself
or a mouse – goes all to pieces in front of a flash of
lightning. ( Twain)
Zeugma
Ex.: She dropped a tear and her pocket handkerchief.
(Dickens)
Pun
Ex.: What steps would you take if an empty tank were
coming toward you? – Long ones.
Disguised tautology
Ex.: For East is East, and West is West… (Kipling)

30. Syntagmatic semasiology 4

Figures of contrast
Oxymoron
Ex.: His honour rooted in dishonor stood,\ And faith
unfaithful kept him falsely true. (Tennyson).
Antithesis (anti-statement)
Ex.: It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times…(Dickens)
His fees were high, his lessons were light.
(O’Henry)