sore Chapter 07 a Levels of Analysis Phono-Graphical Level, Morphological Level WPL Focus On * Sound Instrumenting, Graphon -- Graphical Means Morphemic Repetition. Extension of Morphemic Valency As it is clear from the title of the chapter, the stylistic use of phonemes and their graphical representation will be viewed here, Dealing with various cases of phonemic and graphemic foregrounding, we should not forget the unilateral nature of a phoneme: this language unit helps to differentiate meaningful lexemes but has no meaning of its own. While unable to speak about the semantics of [ou], [ju:|, we acknowledge their sense- differentiating significance in ‘sew’ [sou] and ‘sew’ [sju:]; or [au], [ou] in ‘bow’ etc. structare so ue approach to the utterance is not confined to its which in a certain type of a nication tate, Caken into account ‘unication plays an important role. ds that a word may acquire a desired phonetic effect. The way a separa : te certain euphonic effect, but this is rater cpunds may produce a a i fee " and feeling and therefore subjective,” °f iRdividual perception The theory of sense - * theory ~ independen on a subjective interpretation of ‘oud © scientific data, Hoy sound © Of separate sounds is based associations and has nothing ever, the sound of a word, of ') combination, cannot fail to do with objectiv more exactly the way words 9607— LEVELS OF ANALYSI PHONO-GRAPHICAL LEVEL, \97 contribute something to the general effect of the message, particularly when the sound effect has been deliberately worked out. This can easily be 1 ‘ognized when analyzing alliterative word combinations or the rhymes in certain stanzas or from more elaborate analysis of sound arrangement. The phonemic structure of the word proves to be important for the creation of expressive and emotive connotations. ‘the acoustic form of the word foregrounds the sounds of nature, man and inanimate objects, emphasizing their meaning as well. Still, devoid of denotational or connotational meaning, a phoneme, according to recent studies, has a strong associative and sound- instrumenting power, Well-known are numerous cases of onomatopoeia -- the use of words whose sounds imitate those of the signified object or action, such as ‘hiss’, ‘bowwow’, ‘murmur’, ‘bump’, ‘grumble’, ‘sizzle’ and many more. Imitating the sounds of nature, man, inanimate objects, the acoustic form of the word foregrounds the latter, inevitably emphasizing its meaning too. Thus the phonemic structure of the word proves to be important for the creation of expressive and emotive connotations. A message, containing an onomatopoeic word is not limited to transmitting the logical information only, but also supplies the vivid portrayal of the situation described. Poetry abounds in some specific types of sound-instrumenting, the leading role belonging to alliteration -- the repetition. of consonants, usually in the beginning of words, and assonance -- the repetition of similar vowels, usually in stressed syllables. They both may produce the effect of euphony (a sense of ease and comfort in pronouncing or hearing) or cacophony (a sense of strain and discomfort in pronouncing or hearing). As an example of the first may serve the famous lines of E.A. Poe: ..Silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain... An example of the second is provided by the unspeakable combination of sounds found in R. Browning: Nor soul helps flesh now ‘more than flesh helps soul. Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound ombination of words. Rhyming words are generally placed at a Tegular distance from each other. In verses they are usually placed at the end of the corresponding lines.P, STYLisTICs art | z i i may be 5. Identity and similarity of sound oT mes 4 ne f istinguish Per denti the vowel sound For instance, we distinguis! identity of t f nd ant oP ble, includ So ha rhyme Pounds in a stressed lable words be the following cer ane second syliable (it POWSY be initial con: have exact or identical rhymes. Incomplete rhymes present @ Lege into two main groups: vowel Hae 5 thymes the vowels of the syllables identical, but the consonants may be Consonant rhymes, on the contrary, § and disparity in vowels, as in worth, flung, tong. Modifications in rhyming sometimes go SO far as to make one word rhyme with a combination of words; or two or even three words rhyme with a corresponding two or three words, as in “upon her honour, won her”, “bottom, forgot them, shot him”. Such rhymes are called compound or broken. The peculiarity of rhymes of this type is that the combination of words is made to sound like one word - a device which inevitably gives a colloquial and sometimes a humorous touch to the utterance. Compound rhyme may be set against what is called eye rhyme, where the letters and not the sounds are identical, as in love - prove, flood - brood, have - grave. \t follows that compound rhyme is perceived in reading aloud, eye rhyme can only be perceived in the written verse. . Full rhymes: Might - Right Incomplete rhymes: worth - forth Eye rhyme: love - prove Types of Rhymes 1) Couplet: aa; ter variety. They can be divideq ind consonant rhymes. In vowe). in corresponding words are different as in flesh, fresh, press, show concordance in consonants Jorth; tale, tool; treble, trouble; The seed ye sow, a St The wealth ye find, nether o anoth : 2) Triplet: aaa: a ; pest on the leaf a browner hue, So softs heaven that clear obscure, ®) ly dark, and darkly pure, ® 3) Cross thymes: abab: < Itis the hour The nigh sat When from the bough: i “nightingales’ high note is heer o(07 — LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: PHONO-GRAPHICAL LEVEL... 199 It is the hour when lovers’ vows (a) Seem sweet in every whispered word, (b) 4) Frame (ring): abba: He is not here; but far away (a) The noise of life begins again, (b) And ghastly thro ‘the drizzling rain (b) On the bald streets breaks the blank day (a) 5) Internal rhyme “{ dwelt alone (a) ina world of moan, (a) And my soul was a stagnant tide.” Rhythm exists in all spheres of human activity and assumes different forms. It is a mighty weapon in stirring up emotions whatever its nature or origin, whether it is musical, mechanical or symmetrical as in architecture. The most general definition of rhythm may be expressed as follows: “rhythm is a flow, movement, procedure, etc. characterized by basically regular recurrence of elements or features, as beat, or accent, in alternation with opposite or different elements of features”. Rhythm can be perceived only provided that there is some kind of experience in catching the opposite elements or features in their correlation, and, what is of paramount importance, experience in catching regularity of alternating patterns. Rhythm is a periodicity, which requires specification as to the type of periodicity. In verse rhythm is regular succession of weak and strong stress. A rhythm in language necessarily demands oppositions that alternate: long, short; stressed, unstressed; high, low and other contrasting segments of speech. Academician Zhirmunsky suggests that the concept of rhythm should be distinguished from that of a metre. Metre is any form of Periodicity in verse, its kind being determined by the character and number of syllables of which it consists. The metre is a strict regularity, consistency and exchangeability. Rhythm is flexible and sometimes an effort is required to perceive it. In classical verse it is Perceived at the background of the metre; in accented verse, by the Number of stresses in a line; and in prose, by the alternation of similar syntactical patterns. Rhythm in verse as a SD is defined as a combination of the ideal metrical scheme and the variations of it, Variations which are governed by the standard. ‘STyListics Part 100| erse or emotive prose, y). ition to vers * Whi . nere addition otions. It contri Rpt i not i intenaiies the emnovons co at also has its rhythm. been sai : : sense. Much has . d rhythmic: the general queen in attempting to fined a al Pate e inves Y FO a yesimpon? mel meast tl of prose, § trical : 5 e . d in prose are entirely differen m in verse and : nt, pkameters of they OF the ideal metrical scheme ang i, Rhythm is a a tandard. varations, which are governed by the s English Metrical Patterns 1) Tambic metre: f/f: Those evening bells, Those evening bells 2) Trochaic metre: /-/-: Welling waters, winsome words 3) Dactylic metre: /-~ / == Why do you cry Willie? Why do you cry? 4) Amphibrachic metre: -/-: to in (Swinborne) A diller, a dollar, a ten o'clock scholar... 5) Anapnestic metre: --/-~ /: Said the flee, ‘Let us fly’, Said the fly, ‘Let us flee’, So they flew through a flaw in the flue. To create additional information in a Prose discourse sound- inedlia ead co “ro used. In contemporary advertising, mass , e all, imaginative Prose sound is foregrounded mainly through the change of its i i ihrough t vee Of the aeted staphical representation. This combination) used to reflect itt malgst@Pe OF a word (or wor! 8raphon. HS authentic pronunciation is called Graphion, indicating F ‘ati ere occas nl BUlattes or carelessness of Journalism as early as the bead, ot’ oduced into English novels and since then have acquires ginning of the eighteenth century am Popularity among writers, an. ever Btowing frequency of usage idenii journalj. widening scope of functions, lists, advertisers, and a continuously07—LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: PHONO-GRAPHICAL LEVEL,... |101 Graphon proved to be an extremely concise but effective means of supplying information about the speaker's origin, social and educational background, physical or emotional condition, etc. So, when the famous Thackeray's character -- butler Yellowplush -- impresses his listeners with the learned words pronouncing them as ‘sellybrated’ (celebrated), ‘bennyviolent’ (benevolent), ‘illygitmit’ (illegitimate), ‘jewinile’ (juvenile), or when the no less famous Mr. Babbitt uses “peerading’ (parading), ‘Eytalians’ (Italians), ‘peepul’ (people) -- the reader obtains not only the vivid image and the social, cultural, educational characteristics of the personages, but also both Thackeray's and S. Lewis’ sarcastic attitude to them. On the other hand, “The b-b-b-b-bas-tud -- he seen me c--c-c-c- coming’ in R. P. Warren's Sugar Boy's speech or You don’t mean to thay that thith ith your firth time’ (B.C.) show the physical defects of the speakers -- the stuttering of one and the lisping of the other. Graphon, thus individualizing the character's speech, adds to his plausibility, 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 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 informality and authenticity brought graphon popularity with advertisers. Big and small eating places invite Customers to attend their ‘Pik-kwik store’, or ‘The Donut (doughnut) Place’, or the ‘Rite Bread Shop’, or the ‘Wok-in Fast Food Restaurant’, etc. The same is true about newspaper, poster and TV advertising: ‘Sooper Class Model’ cars, ‘Knee-hi’ socks, ‘Rite Aid’ medicines. A tecently published book on Cockney was entitled by the authors ‘The Muwer Tongue’; on the back flaps of big freight-cars one can read ‘Folio me’, etc. Graphical 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, not involving the Violations, we should refer all changes of the type (italics, “apitalization), spacing of graphemes (hyphenation, multiplication) and of lines. The latter was widely exercised in Russian poetry by V, layakovsky, famous for his ‘steps’ in verse lines, or A. Voznesensky,STYLISTICS Par ml ‘graphical imagist’ v/, d to “graphs ae « Engli ften referre In English the most 0 cummings. swat teas i ncy of usage, ty of i According to the tas A Gans of foregroun. ding is on the first place among grap} we to their logical orem! oH, ides italicizing words, elt wel ore i asic ma i , ich is ly characteristic of D. Salinger o emphasized by italics {hich is ee segmnmanda) is wanker T. Capote). Intensity of spec’ Thame of capitalization of the wor ication of a grapheme OF C ‘, iin bebo eek AI aboarrrrrd’ or in the desperate appeal in - H a "5 Brave New World - ‘Help. Help. HEI hi Rie On of a ni f ‘cuseesis the rhymed or clipped manner in whic! it is uttered as in the humiliating comment from Fl. O'Connor's story ~ “grinning like a chim-pan-zee’. i i f the graphical ing the informational options of graphic arannming, a pvord (a line, a discourse), one sees their varied a pletion for recreating the individual and social peculiarities of the poker the atmosphere of the communication act -- all aimed at revealing and emphasizing the author's viewpoint. Morphemic Repetition: Extension of Morphemic Valency The basic unit of this level being a morpheme we shall concentrate on examining the ways of foregrounding a morpheme so that the latter, apart from its internet meaning, becomes vehicle of additional information -- logical, emotive and expressive. Morphemic foregrounding is meant to add logical, emotive and expressive connotation. Morphemic foregrounding is realized through: 1) repetition of root and affixal morphemes 2) extention of morphemic valency, dvs, oe and afm of promoting a morpheme is its repetition. repetition. Especially vivigh pees, CaN be emphasized through affirational oes phones vly it is observed in the repetition of dieu ant ee ae ch normally carry the main weight of the they come into the fais Srnotational Significance. When repeated, meaning (eg, that of of attention and stress either their logical Prefixes a. oc nlast, negation, absence of quality as in mallness as in suffixes -ling and -ette)i ANE, Mis; OF Of g . n % ing degrees ‘caning, as in Suffixes forming . ba emotive and evaluative oF comparison; or else they add to the thythmical effect and text unity07—LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: PHONO-GRAPHICAL LEVEL,... [103 The second, even more effective way of using a morpheme for the creation of additional information is extension of its normative valency which results in the formation of new words. They are not neologisms in the true sense for they are created for special communicative situations only, and are not used beyond these occasions. This is why they are called occasional words and are characterized by freshness, originality, lucidity of their inner form ~ and morphemic structure. Very often occasional words are the result of morphemic repetition, for example: ‘I am an undersecretary in an underbureau’. The stress on the insignificance of the occupation of I. Shaw’s heroine brings forth both the repetition of the prefix under- and the appearance, due to it, of the occasional word ‘underbureau’. In case of repetition a morpheme gains much independence and bears major responsibility for the creation of additional information and stylistic effect. In case of occasional coinages an individual morpheme is only instrumental in bringing forth the impact of their combination, i.e. of new individual lexical unit. We can transform an adjective into an adverb, or an adjective into a noun, by combining two morphemes. The morpheme (and adjective) quiet plus the morpheme -ly becomes the adverb quietly (a word now made up of two morphemes); quiet plus -ness, becomes the noun quietness. The word quiet is a ‘free’ morpheme, which means it can be used on its own, while -ly and -ness are ‘bound’ morphemes, which have to be attached to another word. These kinds of morphemes are called derivational morphemes, because they are used ‘0 build up new words. Although they do not carry any semantic meaning on their own, they do indicate some important information when attached to a free morpheme, for example, we know that a word ending in -ness indicates a state of some kind, ice. quietness is a State of being quiet. The -ly ending for adverbs indicates how Something was done, eg. ‘she talked quietly’. In the following examples, identify the different morphemes, and decide whether they are ‘free’ or ‘bound’: inconvenient deliberately truthfulness icily indefinitely level-headedSTYLISTICS Part d -i as bound morphem, ted -in, -ful, -ness, “ly and —1 es, You could have listed in el “jeliberate, ice, leveland heagfay, while eae ‘afoget! You may be ee aoe do intotthe eek ails rene in headed — this shoul ome clear in the about the -ed morp! next paragraph! i hange in tense j i we signal a change in lense is py In English, one of the ways ed to a verb stem, which is realizeg adding the past tense ye! d, / d/ as in wanted, or /t/ as in phonetically as /d/ as in ied ‘movie star’ can be changed into a stretched. So ‘Jane Sie aii sn element to the main verb: ‘Jane a sine ° Fae ea erie star. We can also give grammatical information Wank tb beam : i binations and changes: w about number through morphological combina TOs Ont. © WNBSS: we ich i nced in nt ways dd the morpheme -s (which is pronou au i depending, on the phonological context; for example, it is realized as /s/ as in cats, /z/ as in dogs, and / z/ as in horses to make words plural. In Standard English, (but not in all non-standard varieties of English, the morpheme (s) also carries information about person, in relation to the subject of a verb (I want, Jane wants; he jumps, they jump). These second types of morphemes are called inflectional morphemes, and the -ed of headed in the activity above falls into this category. 104| Having knowledge of the phonology and morphology of the text (poem, drama or nove), will help you to do the stylistic analysis of it. Important University Questions What do you look for while analyzing a literary text at phono- Braphical and morphological level? Discuss in detail 1 POLONIA OKS27 Chapter 08 car Levels of Analysis Lexical Level Semantic Structure of a Word BARE Focus On « Word and its Semantic Structure « Denotational & Connotational Meanings of a Word * The Theory of Opposition; Polysemy and Synonymy * Stylistic Classification of the English Vocabulary * The Role of the Context in the Actualization of Meaning The idea of previous chapters was to illustrate potential possibilities of linguistic units more primitive than the word, found at lower levels of language structure and yet capable of conveying additional information when foregrounded in a specially organized context. The forthcoming section is going to be one of the longest and most important in this book, for it is devoted to a linguistic unit of major significance -- the word, which names, qualifies and evaluates the micro-and macrocosm of the surrounding world. Sign is a material, sensuously perceived object (phenomenon, action) appearing in the process of cognition and communication in the capacity of a representative (substitute) of another object (or objects) and used for receiving, storing, recasting and transforming information about this object. Word -- a unit of language functioning within the sentence or within a part of it which by its sound or graphical form expresses a Concrete or abstract notion or a grammatical notion through one of its meanings and which is capable of enriching its semantic structure by 105STYLISTICS Panty 106| . id ones. It possesses ings and losing old on ; " acquiring Me rior generating new meanings (LR.G:62, 66) enormous potentiality h unit used for the purposes of human Word — a spect representing @ §rouP of soungs materially tible to grammatical employment and ng, suse semantic unity (Antrushina: 10), », mal an which denotes a concept ang n communication, ™ possessing a ie characterized by fo word is a basic unit of a 1a et) ‘expresses emotions and relations” ( Lexical Meaning or Dictionary Meaning refers the mind to a concrete concept, phenomenon, or thing of objective reality, whether real or imaginary; a means by which a word-form is made to express a definite concept; * closely related to a concept; * sometimes identified with a concept. A concept is considered an abstract or general idea of some phenomenon of objective reality and also comprises subjective feelings and emotions of human beings. A word expresses a concept by its meanings. Each meaning denotes a separate concept. Prof. Galperin’s classification of the semantic structure of a word (Moscow school) comprises: 1. Logical 2. Nominal Logical (referential) or denotative meaning is the precise naming of a feature, idea, phenomenon or object: head, can (sl.), upper story (sl), rain (sl.), etc, are united by the same denotative meaning. The nominal meaning nominates Proper nouns: Mr. Black, 3. Emotive meanings. an object. It is referred to erves the purpose of singling ut of a whole class of similar | Black, Chandler, Chester, etc. also materializes ning, Taylor, Scotland Emotive meani unlike logical ican ; @ concept in the word, but, Phenomena of objective, it be reference not directly to things of the speaker towards thes, Feality, but to the feelings and emotions of neaning (colouring) can Rises “r ‘0 his emotions as such. Emotive bet) are referred to one peor °F Occasional. A girl (tart, broad, espect, ° Portray the character's respect oF /08 — LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL [107 Contextual emotive meaning is an emotive meaning, acquired by a word only ina definite context: e.g, 1. "His face is red at first and then goes white and his eyes stare as if they'll pop out of his head”. 2. “Would you like me to pop downstairs and make you a cup of cocoa?” Contextual meaning is accidental and it is imposed by and depends on the context; “Awake ye sons of Spain, awake, arise! (Byron), (arise, revolt). Contextual meaning of words in poetry serves the purposes of stylistic convergence: “When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table”. (TS. Eliot) Classification of the semantic structure according to Leningrad school of stylistics: Semantic structure of a word (Prof. 1. V. Arnold) consists of denotative and connotative meanings. Table: Semantic structure of words (Prof. Arnold) connotative Stylistic component Denotative meaning Expressive component Emotive component Evaluative component108| STYLISTICS Part 1 The emotive component (usual or occasional) of the meaning of a word is its capacity to evoke or directly express emotions. It is called emotive charge, emotive connotation or colouring: Oh! Why! Helly Here she is, poor little lamb, with her bags all packed. (M. Dickens). “She was a thin, frail little thing, and her hair which was delicate and thin was bobbed”. Evaluative component of connotative meaning bears reference to things, phenomena or ideas through a kind of evaluation of them: E.g. I feel so darned lonely. (Gr. Green). It reveals the subjective, evaluating attitude of the writer to the things or events spoken of: e.g. She has not a flirt, not even a coquette (Galsworthy). Evaluative component is meant to portray negative or positive attitude, approval or disapproval: Time - tested method:: out-of-date method “Politics ... is only the art to reach high position; wisdom is the art to get power, wealth, and position” (H. Fielding). Expressive component intensifies the denotative or connotative meaning (emotions and feelings): “He is ever such a clever man” (ever, never, all, quite, really are intensifiers) “He is ever such a clever man” (ever, never, all, quite, really are intensifiers) 1 have much time. J have a lot of time. Hyperbole He has heaps of time. He's got bags of money. Stylistic component (foregrounding) is characteristic of particular styles or spheres of communication: official: red-tape clichés: “I beg to inform” colloquial: slang, jargon: sneak, snob, lout, trash, busy-body, etc. et(08 — LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL, {109 Table Offspring Infant CHILD To —— Babe Brat Kid HEAD Pate Bean Poll Block Sconce Upper Noodle Story Nob Dome Nut Brow Coco Temple Cont Brain An opposition is a relationship of partial difference between two partially similar elements of the language. Steed110] STYLIsTICs Part d is that it e; _4] feature of a wor’ ‘ XPresse, st essential fe phenomenon, naming, (denotin, process, its linguistic counte: Jt category, its lingui TPart js s Hence, the mo: the concept of 2 thing. Vygotsk them. Concept is a 10 ding scholar L. Vygotsky put it, ; A is the outstanding inki ity meaning. Meaning, oO, communication and thinking, An entity o the unity of generalii te ‘meaning of 2 word is liable to historia, Shanes oreich you know from the course of lexicology and which changes, o! . expanded semantic structy, are responsible for emi of various types of lexi ofa word. This: stru one being denotational, which informs of the meanings, Se neications and also including connotational, which Siemoabeit the participants and conditions of communication. The list and specifications of connotational meanings vary with different linguistic schools and individual scholars and include such entries as pragmatic (directed at the perlocutionary effect of utterance), associative (connected, through individual psychological or linguistic associations, with related and nonrelated notions), ideological, or conceptual (revealing political, social, ideological preferences of the user), evaluative (stating the value of the indicated notion), emotive (revealing the emotional layer of cognition and perception), expressive (aiming at creating the image of the object in question), stylistic (indicating ‘the register’, or the situation of the communication). The above-mentioned meanings are classified as connotational not only because they supply additional (and not the logical/denotational) information, but also because, for the most patt, they are observed not all at once and not in all words either. Some of them are more important for the act of communication than the others. Very often they overlap, So, all words possessing an emotive (eg. ‘rascal’, ‘ducky’), though this rule is non-emotive, intellectual evaluation meaning are also evaluative not reversed, as we can find (eg. ‘good’, ‘bad’). Again, all treled as oe (take, called expressive verbs not onl ~ i image, as in (peta = to. action or process but its create thet ht deane Swallow in big lumps, in a hurry; oF “° The number, j ime Trea importance and the overlapping character # '88 incorporated into the semantic structure of #08 — LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL 111 word, are brought forth by the context, i.e. a concrete speech act that identifies and actualizes each one. More than that: each context does not only specify the existing semantic (both denotational and connotational) possibilities of a word, but also is capable of adding new ones, or deviating rather considerably from what is registered in the dictionary. Because of that all contextual meanings of a word can never be exhausted or comprehensively enumerated. Compare the following cases of contextual use of the verb ‘to pop’ in Stan Barstow’s novel ‘Ask Me Tomorrow’: 1. His face is red at first and then it goes white and his eyes stare as if they'll pop out of his head. 2. ‘Just pop into the scullery and get me something to stand this on’. 3. ‘There is a fish and chip shop up on the main road. I thought you might show your gratitude by popping up for some’. 4. ‘T've no need to change or anything then’. ‘No, just pop your coat on and you're fine’. 5. ‘Actually Mrs. Swallow is out. But she won't be long. She's popped up the road to the shops’ 6. ‘Would you like me to pop downstairs and make you a cup of cocoa?” In the semantic actualization of a word the context plays a dual role: on one hand, it cuts off all meanings irrelevant for the given communicative situation. On the other, it foregrounds one of the meaningful options of a word, focusing the communicators’ attention on one of the denotational or connotational components of its semantic structure, The significance of the context is comparatively small in the field of stylistic connotations, because the word is labelled stylistically before it enters some context, i.e. in the dictionary: recollect the well- known contractions -oulg,, arch, si., etc., which make an indispensable Part of a dictionary entry. So there is sense to start the survey of Connotational meanings with the stylistic differentiation of the Vocabulary.gryListics bt tic Differentiation of the Vocabulary of Words: Colloquial Words rn Ianguage can be roughly divig from each other by the sphere 12| Stylis! Literary Stratum ‘The word-stock of any give 21 s, differing into tones une Be est division is made up of neutral Words, its possible use. e no styl connotation and jane for a possessing no situation; ler ones are literary and collogyiy communica ation; strata respectively. } eRe ae Literary words serve to satisfy om Wena nds of ici ientifi tic messages, While the colloquial ones ary ones scent Pal everyday communication. Though there is so eediae correlation between the written and the oral forms of speech on one hand, and the literary and colloquial words, on the other, yet, for the most part, the first ones are mainly observed inthe written form, as most literary messages appear in writing. And vice versa: though there are many examples of colloquialisms in writing (informal letters, diaries, certain passages of memoirs, etc.), their usage is associated with the oral form of communication. two smal Consequently, taking for analysis printed materials we shall find literary words in authorial speech, descriptions, considerations, while colloquialisms will be observed in the types of discourse, simulating (copying) everyday oral communication - i. in the dialogue (or interior monologue) of a prose work. When we classify some speech (text) fragment as literary ot colloquial it does not mean that all the words constituting it have a corresponding stylistic meaning. More than that: words with @ Pronounced stylistic connotation are few in any type of discourse, the overwhelming majority of its lexis being neutral. As famous Russian philologist L.V. Shcherba once said -- a stylistically coloured word is like a, drop of paint whole of it Paint added to a glass of pure water and colouring the Neither stylistic ireaaing Pe named groups of words, possessing # frequency of tise spies oe as to the quality of the meaning of potential users. This is application, or the number and characte general, i.e. known to and wn each one is further divided into te literary (formal) or colloqes CY Most native speakers in general bulks. The latter ones, int thee oral communication, and speci® each one serving a rather narrows see eve unto a | unicative pt08 — LEVELS OF ANALYSIS; LEXICAL LEVEL 1113 So, among special literary words, as a rule, at least two major subgroups are mentioned. They are: 1, Terms, i.e. words denoting objects, processes, phenomena of science, humanities, technique. 2. Archaisms, i.e. words, a) denoting historical phenomena which are no more in use (such as ‘yeoman’, ‘vassal’, ‘falconet’). These are historical words. a) used in poetry in the XVII-XIX ce. (such as ‘steed’ for ‘horse’; ‘quoth’ for ‘said’; ‘woe’ for ‘sorrow’). These are poetic words, b) In the course of language history ousted by newer synonymic words (such as ‘whereof’ = of which; ‘to deem’ = to think; ‘repast’ = meal; ‘nay’ = no) or forms (‘maketh’ = makes; ‘thou wilt’ = you will; ‘brethren’ = brothers). These are called archaic words (archaic forms) proper. Literary words, both general (also called learned, bookish, high-flown) and special, contribute to the message the tone of solemnity, sophistication, seriousness, gravity and learnedness. They are used in official papers and documents, in scientific communication, in high poetry, in authorial speech of creative prose. Colloquial words, on the contrary, mark the message as informal, non-official and conversational. Apart from general colloquial words, widely used by all speakers of the language in their everyday communication (e.g. ‘dad’, ‘kid’, ‘crony’, ‘fan’, ‘to pop’, ‘folks’, such special subgroups may be mentioned: 1. Slang forms the biggest one. Slang words, used by most speakers in very informal communication, are highly emotive and expressive and as such, lose their originality rather fast and are replaced by newer formations. This tendency to synonymic expansion results in long chains of synonyms of various degrees of expressiveness, denoting one and the same concept. So, the idea of a ‘pretty girl’ is worded by more than one hundred ways in slang, In only one novel by S. Lewis there are close to a dozen synonyms Used by Babbitt, the central character, in reference to a girl: cookie, fomato, Jane, sugar, bird, cutie, etc.STYLISTICS Party 114| Jang words and phrases, ¢p, re The substandard status Of S12Me et oguial: pa, ej8 ised to Ai chy universal usage, Can e ies for ‘thick panties’; booze for ‘gy “friend’; heavies, cromy for ‘friend’; ah: “now's life’; beat it for ‘go awayr dough for ‘money’ how's ie a wah a transition. Y' ang many many more ~- are exar ip ‘ . 4 close to slang, also being substanda 2. Jargonisms stan unlike slang they are use" ive and emotive, but, un i re used expressive united either professionally ¢: limited groups of people, ional AeA is case we deal with professiona| Jargonisms, # professionalism), or socially (here we deal with argon, proper). In distinction from slang, Jargonisms of both types cover a narrow semantic field: in the first case it is that, connected with the technical side of some profession, So, in oil industry, e.g., for the terminological ‘driller’ there exis ‘borer’, ‘digger, ‘wrencher’, “hogger’, ‘brake weight’ fr ‘pipeliner’; ‘swabber’, ‘bender’, ‘cat’, ‘old cat’, ‘collar. pecker’, ‘hammer man’; for ‘geologist’ -- ‘smeller’, ‘pebble pup’, ‘tock hound’, ‘witcher’, etc. From all the examples at least two points are evident: professionalisms are formed according to the existing word-building patterns or present existing words in new meanings, and, covering the field of special professional knowledge, which is semantically limited, they offer a vast variety of synonymic choices for naming one and the same professional item. Jargonisms proper are characterized by similar linguistic features, but differ in function and sphere of application, They originated from the thieves’ jargon (Vargo, cant) and served to conceal the actidl significance of the utterance from the uninitiated. ‘Their majot finetion thus was to be cryptic, secretive. This is why among them ee of conscious deformation of the existing words. The effort to ‘ack jargon (or back slang) can serve as an example: in theif conceal the machinations of dishonest card-playing, gamblers used numerals in thes ticant eir : ‘ano’ for ‘one’, owt for ‘two’, ‘eth’ for ‘three’, ee starting with E. Partridge, a famous Ot differentiate between slang 4% 1S aS one extensive stratum of WOF y all, or most, speakers and spect nal or social standing of the speo*"08—LEVELs OF ANALYsis: LEXICAL LEVEL [115 This debate appears to concentrate more o: essence. Indeed slang (general slang) and jargonisms (special slang) have much in common: are emotive, expressive, unstable, fluctuating, tending to expanded synonymity within certain lexico-semantic groups and limited to a highly informal, substandard communication. So it seems appropriate to use the indicated terms as synonyms. nm terminology than on 3. Vulgarisms are coarse words with a strong emotive meaning, mostly derogatory, normally avoided in polite conversation. History of vulgarisms reflects the history of social ethics. So, in Shakespearian times people were much more linguistically frank and dysphemistic in their communication than in the age of Enlightenment or the Victorian era, famous for its prudish and reserved manners. Nowadays words which were labelled vulgar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are considered such no more. In fact, at present we are faced with the reverse of the problem: there are practically no words banned from use by the modern permissive society. Such intensifiers as ‘bloody’, ‘damned’, ‘cursed’, ‘hell of, formerly deleted from literature and not allowed in conversation, are not only welcomed in both written and oral speech, but, due to constant repetition, have lost much. of their emotive impact and substandard quality. One of the best-known American editors and critics Maxwell Perkins, working with the serialized 1929 magazine edition of Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms found that the publishers deleted close to a dozen words which they considered vulgar for the publication. Preparing the hard- cover edition Perkins allowed half of them back (‘son of a bitch’, ‘whore’, ‘whorehound’, etc.). Starting from the late fifties no publishing house objected to any coarse or obscene expressions. Consequently, in contemporary West European and American prose all words, formerly considered vulgar for public use (including the four-letter words), are accepted by the existing moral and ethical standards of society and censorship. 4. Dialectal words are normative and devoid of any stylistic meaning in regional dialects, but used outside of them, carry a strong flavour of the locality where they belong, In— STYLISTICS Party 115] ior dialects are disting,, jor Great Britain’ & Res :n, Midland (Centray Lowland eee USA three major dialectal varietie, Southern. ee NeW England, Southern and Midweste, distinguished: 4), These classifications do not inclu (Central, Midland). riations Dialects markedly diffe, -° i | val many minor local nd the same phoneme” ic level: one a! cee ig in Py pronounced in each of them. They differ alg on i i i m names for Io I level, having their owr loca Tee penamend and also supplying locally circulating opie for the words, accepted by the language j eal Some of them have entered the general vocabula, ond Tost their dialectal status (lad’, ‘pet’, ‘squash’, ‘plaid’y four 5, Barbarisms are foreign words or phrases, words " esimilated from foreign languages and sometimes perverted. They are: a) Fully assimilated (wine, street, reprimand, helicopter); b) Partially assimilated (machine, police, garage, prestige); ©) Unassimilated: rendezvous, belles letters, alter ego, chic, en passant, delicatessen, matador, hippopotamus, marauder, Midi, guerre des baguettes, croissants. Each of the above-mentioned four groups justifies its label of special colloquial words as each one, due to varying reasons, has application limited to a certain group of people or to certain communicative situations. Lexical Stylistic Devices Metaphor, Metonynyy, Synecdoche, Play on We Epithet, Hyperbole, Understatement, yon. Words, fron Ep Oxymoron You know by now that among multi . a the main one is to denote, 8 Multiple functions of the w denotational meaning thus being the majo! the existing noma Shall deal in fact with the substitution of by new, occasional, adv e), OM8 Usage and fixed in dictionaries subjective ciiginal ie individual ones, prompted by the speaker's ‘ew and evaluation of things. This act of name08—LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL (17 exchange, of substitution is traditionally referred to as transference, for, indeed, the name of one object is transferred onto another, roceeding from their similarity (of shape, colour, function, etc.), oF doseness (of material existence, cause/ effect, instrument/ result, part/whole relations, etc.). Each type of intended substitution results in a stylistic device (sD) called also a trope. The most frequently used, well known and elaborated among them is a metaphor -- transference of names based on the associated likeness between two objects, as in the ‘pancake’, or ‘pall’, or ‘volcano’ for the ‘sur’; ‘silver dust’, ‘sequins’ for ‘stars’; ‘vault’, ‘blanket’, ‘veil’ for the ‘sky’. From previous study you know that nomination -- the process of naming reality by means of the language -- proceeds from choosing one of the features characteristic of the object which is being named, for the representative of the object. The connection between the chosen feature, representing the object, and the word is especially vivid in cases of transparent ‘inner form’ when the name of the object can be easily traced to the name of one of its characteristics, for example: ‘railway’, ‘chairman’, ‘waxen’. Thus the semantic structure of a word reflects, to a certain extent, characteristic features of the piece of reality which it denotes (names). So it is only natural that similarity between real objects or phenomena finds its reflection in the semantic structures of words denoting them: both words possess at least one common semantic component. In the above examples with the ‘sun’ this common semantic component is ‘hot’ (hence - ‘volcano’, ‘pancake’ which are also ‘hot’), or ‘round’ (‘ball’, ‘pancake’ which are also of round shape). The expressiveness of the metaphor is promoted by the implicit simultaneous presence of images of both objects -- the one which is actually named and the one which supplies its own ‘legal’ name. So that formally we deal with the name transference based on the similarity of one feature common to two different entities, while in fact each one enters a phrase in the complexity of its other characteristics. The wider is the gap between the associated objects the more striking and unexpected -- the more expressive -- is the metaphor. If a metaphor involves likeness between inanimate and animate objects, we deal with personification, as in ‘the face of London’, or ‘the Pain of the ocean’.ad STYLISTICS Pa i iginal, genuine, SDs, is fresh, origina’ Wwhaald s all other stale when often repeated. In the ae ness becoming just another a ey ble’ or the ‘sunrise’, thus sent vocabulary of the language® 118] Metaphor, a! used, and trite, hackneyed, st0°. case it gradually loses its oe S in the dictionary, as in the ei fe a very important source of enriching - - Metaphor can be expressed by See Parts of speech, a functions in the sentence as any of its m iS When the speaker (writer) in his desire to present an elaboray, image does not limit its creation to a single metaphor but offers 4 i ther feature of the descri coup of them, each supplying ano a phenomenon, this cluster creates a sustained (prolonged) metaphor. Our next concern is a cluster of SDs, which are united into small group as they have much in common both in the mechanism of their formation and in their functioning. They are puns (also referred to as paronomasia), zeugma, violation of phraseological units, semantically false chains, and nonsense of non-sequence. In the stylistic tradition of the English-speaking countries only the first two are widely discussed. The latter two, indeed, may be viewed as slight variations of the first ones for, basically, the four some perform the same stylistic function in speech, and operate on the same linguistic mechanism: namely, one word-form is deliberately used in two meanings. The effect of these SDs is humorous. Contextual conditions leading to the simultaneous realization of two meanings and to the formation of pun may vary: it can be misinterpretation of one speaker's utterance by the other, which results in his remark dealing with a different meaning of the misinterpreted word or its homony™, as in the famous case from the Pickwick Papers When the fat boy, Mr Wardle’s servant, emer, d ged from the corridor, very pale, he was asked iyi master: Have you been seeing any spirits?’ ‘Or taking any?’ ~ lien. The first ‘spirits’ 1 a second one fo strong drinks, °"* €© Supernatural force _Punning may be the res the listener’s expectation, as ‘There comes a period in ev; in his’. Here we ex; ult of the speaker's intended violation o in the jocular quotation from B. a ery man’s life, but she is j »micolon Z just a sel tron sine ‘ond half of the sentence to unfold the as risedhatee understood as ‘an interval of tim?’ the word in the meaning of ‘punctuatio® mark’ which becomes clear from the ‘semicolon’, following it.08 — LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL 119 Misinterpretation may be caused by the phonetic similarity of two homonyms, such as in the crucial case of ©. Wilde's play The Importance of Being Ernest. In very many cases poly-semantic verbs that have a practically unlimited lexical valency and can be combined with nouns of most varying semantic groups, are deliberately used with two or more homogeneous members, which are not connected semantically, as in such examples from Ch. Dickens: ‘He took his hat and his leave’, or ’She went home, in a flood of tears and a sedan chair’. These are cases of classical zeugma, highly characteristic of English prose. When the number of homogeneous members, semantically disconnected, but attached to the same verb, increases, we deal with semantically false chains, which are thus a variation of zeugma. As a rule, it is the last member of the chain that falls out of the thematic group, defeating our expectancy and producing humorous effect. The following case from S. Leacock may serve an example: ‘A Governess wanted, must possess knowledge of Romanian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Music and Mining Engineering’. As you have seen from the examples of classical zeugma, the ties between the verb on one hand and each of the dependent members, on the other, are of different intensity and stability. In most cases one of them, together with the verb, forms a phraseological unit ora cliché, in which the verb loses some of its semantic independence and strength(for example, ‘to take one’s leave’ and ‘to take one’s hat’). Zeugma restores the literal original meaning of the word, which also occurs in violation of phraseological units of different syntactical patterns, as in Galsworthy’s remark: ‘Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his mouth which was rather curly and large’. The word ‘mouth’, with its content, is completely lost in the phraseological unit which means ‘to have luck, to be born lucky’. Attaching to the unit the qualification of the mouth, the author revives the meaning of the Word and offers a very fresh, original and expressive description. Sometimes the speaker (writer) interferes into the structure of the word attributing homonymous meanings to individual ™orphemes as in these jocular definitions from Esar’s dictionary: Professorship -- a ship full of professors; relying -- telling the same story gain; belield -- to have somebody hold you, etc. = It is possible to say thus that punning can be realized on most els of language hierarchy. Indeed, the described violation of word-Ics ryistl Pay 120] nological seat peugma and structure takes place o7 the mop ciogical units includes es orentically false chains and ong on the lexical leve he s} i te non-sequence on the syntactical a m., | level i d syntactical lexical and sy! mae of SD of this group ~ nonse -sequence rests on the extension of SyNtactig emantically disconnecteq lau. Nero played the fiddle, so Py d statements are forcibly linkeg Nonsense of non-sequ valency and results in joining ee into one sentence, as in: ‘Empero) burnt Rome’. (E.) Two disconnecte together by cause / effect relations. : Antonomnsia is a lexical SD in which a ee eb name is Used instead of a common noun or vice versa, 1.¢. a i ‘a which the nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed Dy its logical meaning or the logical meaning acquires the new nominal component Logical meaning, as you know, serves to denote concepts and thus tp classify individual objects into groups (classes). Nominal meaning has no classifying power for it applies to one single individual objec with the aim not of classifying it as just another of a number of objects constituting a definite group, but, on the contrary, with the aim of singling it out of the group of similar objects, of individualizing one particular object. Indeed, the word ‘Mary’ does not indicate whether the denoted object refers to the class of women, girls, boats, cats, etc, for it singles out without denotational classification. But in The Dreiser we read: ‘He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something...’ The attribute ‘each’, used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any female. Here we deal with a case of antonomasia of the first type. Another type of antonomasia we meet when a common noun serves as an individualizing name, as in D. Cusack: “There are thre doctors in an illness like yours. I don’t mean only myself, my patie and the radiologist who does your X-rays, Z ring (0 are Dr. Rest, Dr. Diet and Dr. Fresh Ai’ the three I'm referring / Still another type of antonomasia speaking names’ — nam clearly perceived. So, in is presented by the so-callet es whose origin from common nouns is st ea Popular English surnames as Mr. Smith ol English today has it in his mind they eee, But BO SPER occupation and the g Sheridan’s Schi fears, 100] 28 Lady Teazle or Mr: suf th certain human qualities due '08—LEVELS OF ANALYSIS; LEXICAL LEVEL (121 the denotational meaning of the words ‘to tease’ and ‘surface’. The double role of the speaking names, both to name and to qualify, is sometimes preserved in translation, for example, the list of names from another of Sheridan’s plays, The Rivals: Miss Languish; Mr. Backbite; Mr. Credulous; Mr. Snake, etc. Or from F. Cooper: Lord; John Jaw; Island Leap-High. Antonomasia is created mainly by nouns, more seldom by attributive combinations (as in ‘Dr. Fresh Air’) or phrases (as in ‘Mr. What's his name’). Common nouns used in the second type of antonomasia are in most cases abstract, though there are instances of concrete ones being used too. Epithet is probably as well known to you as metaphor, because it is widely mentioned by the critics, scholars, teachers and students. discussing a literary work. Epithet expresses characteristics of an object, both existing and imaginary. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself. Our speech ontologically being always emotionally coloured, it is possible to say that in epithet it is the emotive meaning of the word that is foregrounded to suppress the denotational meaning of the latter. Epithet has remained over the centuries the most widely used SD, which is understandable, for it offers ample opportunities of qualifying every object from the author's partial and subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, publicist style, and everyday speech. Through long and repeated use epithets become fixed. Many fixed epithets are closely connected with folklore and can be traced buck to folk ballads (e.g. ‘true love’, ‘merry Christmas’, etc.). A number of them have originated in euphemistic writing of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (e.g. ‘a valiant youth’, ‘a trembling maiden’, ‘dead silence’, etc.). Those which were first found in Homer's poetry and have been repeated since, known as Homeric epithets (e.g. ‘swift-footed Achilles’, fingered dawn’). are ‘rosy- _ The structure and semantics of epithets are extremely variable Which is explained by their long and wide use. Semanticall. there should be differentiated two main groups, the biggest of them bein Affective (or emotive proper). These epithets serve to convey the émotional evaluation of the object by the speaker. Most of the {valifying words found in the dictionary can be and are used asgryListics Pan ra (es. ‘nasty’, ‘magnificent’ ‘atrociouy affective epithets (2-8 etc.). The second group - of metaphors, metonymies jecti ‘the smilit ne i aeet 7 adjective Fgpacerstained smile’, ‘a ghost-like face. ‘ “the sleepless pillow’, i hor, metonymy and sin, i wg. Like metaphor, melo” mie dreamlike experience’ OT, based on similarity of characteris correspon el ihe first case, ON nearness . a ava ified objects & rezone ison i third. the ator one, and on their comparison inthe ss 5 jority of examples epithet is expresseq In the overwhelming major! mye by sijectives or qualita bs (e.g. ‘his triumphant look’ = j, tive adver! looked triumphantly).* Nouns come next. They are used either ag exclamatory sen ‘gorgeous transferred, epithels — is f (which will be discussed jar ing sun’, ‘the frowning lou ") -- figurative, or and similes tences (You, ostrich!’) or as postpositive attributes (‘Alonzo the Clown’, ‘Richard of the Lion Heart’). Epithets are used singly, in pairs, in chains, in two-step structures, and in inverted constructions, also as phrase-attributes, All previously given examples demonstrated single epithets. Pairs are represented by two epithets joined by a conjunction or asyndetically as in ‘wonderful and incomparable beauty’ or ‘a tired old town’ Chains (also called strings) of epithets present a group of homogeneous attributes varying in number from three up to sometimes twenty and even more. E.g. ‘You're a scolding, unjust abusive, aggravating, bad old creature’. From the last example itis evident that if a logical attribute (which in our case is the word ‘old’) = jaeuted a are of epithets it begins to shine with their logical sirbute and adapt it for exonerate epithets proper. pts it for expressive purposes, along wi Two-step epi and the qualification of the 028°: the qualification of the tf mild day’, or ‘a pompoush qualification itself, as in ‘an unnatur® y examples, two-step epithe, noestic female’. As you see from ih model. ets have a fixed structure of Adv + AY Phrase-epithets alw: f example, ‘the Sunshine-in they oeuse an original impression ff Tare repetiti Their oxi Hmanesttoom smell’, of ‘2 mate ion of the once og, Bality proceeds from the fact coined 1e¢ i ne Phrase-epithet which, in its ™ you-dare expression’08—LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL |123 explained by the fact that into a phrase-epithet is turned a semantically self-sufficient word combination or even a whole sentence, which loses some of its independence and self-sufficiency, becoming a member of another sentence, and strives to return to normality. The forcible manner of this syntactical transformation is the main obstacle for repeated use of such phrasally-structured epithets. A different linguistic mechanism is responsible for the emergence of one more structural type of epithets, namely, inverted epithets. They are based on the contradiction between the logical and the syntactical: logically defining becomes syntactically defined and vice versa. E.g. instead of ‘this devilish woman’, where ‘devilish’ is both logically and syntactically defining, and ‘woman’ also both logically and syntactically defined, W. Thackeray says ‘this devil of a woman’. Here ‘of a woman’ is syntactically an attribute, ie. the defining, and ‘devil’ the defined, while the logical relations between the two remain the same as in the previous example - ‘a woman’ is defined by ‘the devil’ All inverted epithets are easily transformed into epithets of a more habitual structure where there is no logico-syntactical contradiction, for example, ‘the giant of a man’ (a gigantic man); ‘the prude of a woman’ (a prudish woman), etc. When meeting an inverted epithet do not mix it up with an ordinary of-phrase. Here the article with the second noun will help you in doubtful cases: ‘the toy of the girl’ (the toy belonging to the girl); ‘the toy of a girl’ (a small, toylike girl), or ‘the kitten of the woman’ (the cat belonging to the woman); ‘the kitten of a woman’ (a kittenlike woman). Hyperbole -- a stylistic device in which emphasis is achieved through deliberate exaggeration, like epithet, relies on the foregrounding of the emotive meaning. The feelings and emotions of the speaker are so raffled that he resorts in his speech to intensifying the quantitative or the qualitative aspect of the mentioned object. E.g.: In his famous poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ Andrew Marvell writes about love: ‘My vegetable love should grow faster than empires’. Hyperbole is one of the most common expressive means of our Servday speech. When we describe our admiration or anger and say z oud gedrex 7 iene hited times’, or ‘Ihave told it to you ; - nguage hyperboles which, through lo san and repeated use, have lost their originality and remained ’8nals of the speaker's roused emotions, -_Party STYLISTICS > 124| other SD -- metaph, . ffect of ani 'Phor, the final e! ‘He has the tread Hyperbole may vee in the cases petere: of a See 1a oman was like the Rock 0 rhinocero’ all notional parts of Speech, Hyperbole can be expressed by d in this SD more often than, ype hich are use a body’ There are words though, WHIT “TT, 1 vevery’, ‘everybody’ and the others, They are such erenele® and bones’ (H. L.); also numerical “4 i an, . ie cap waa alr ghowm above an hog nouns , time (ever’, ‘never’). . standing Russian philologist A. Peshkovshy onc sake im ortance of both communicants clearly perceiving that eo i ti on used by one of them is intended as such and serves : so enots cin quality or quantity but signals the emotional not to denote ac Se au i background of the utterance. If this reciprocal understanding of the intentional nature of the overstatement is absent, hyperbole turns into a mere lie, he said. Hyperbole is aimed at exaggerating quantity or quality. When it is directed the opposite way, when the size, shape, dimensions, characteristic features of the object are hot overrated, but intentionally underrated, we deal with understatement. The mechanism of its creation and functioning is identical with that of hyperbole, and it does not signify the actual state of affairs in reality, but presents the latter through the emotionally coloured perception and rendering of the speaker. It is not the actual diminishing ot Browing of the object that is conveyed by a hyperbole of understatement. It is a transient sul x bjective impression that finds its realization in these SDs. They differ only in the direction of the flow of roused emotions. English is well known for its preference for understatement in everyday speech 7 ei ineansteae « : ~ ‘Tam rather annoyed’ instead of ical o| is ce characteristic of American English te Polite speech, but are less Some hyperbo! and as the final etfee of some statements (both used individually have in ‘Snow White’ or Lipa on Gan have become fixed, a5 © Tite hyperboles and ung Bantua’. everyday speech, in creative “tstatements, while the author’ : Teflecting their use it writ 9 5 speech Provides’ are observed mainly in dialogue Us With examples of original SDS08—LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL |125 fren rather extended or demanding a considerable fragment of the om to be fully understood. text to Oxymoron is a stylistic device the syntactic and semantic gtructures of which come to clashes. In Shakespearian definitions of Jove, much quoted from his Romeo and Juliet, perfectly correct syntactically, attributive combinations present a strong semantic discrepancy between their members, for example, ‘O brawling love! 0 loving hate! O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!’ As is clearly seen from this string of oxymorons, each one of them is a combination of two semantically contradictory notions that help to emphasize contradictory qualities simultaneously existing in the described phenomenon as a dialectical unity. As a rule, one of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature which is universally observed and acknowledged while the other one offers a purely subjective, individual perception of the object. Thus in an oxymoron we also deal with the foregrounding of emotive meaning, only of a different type than the one observed in previously discussed SDs. The most widely known structure of oxymoron is attributive, so it is easy to believe that the subjective part of the oxymoron is embodied in the attribute-epithet, especially because the latter also proceeds from the foregrounding of the emotive meaning. But there are also others, in which verbs are employed. Such verbal structures as ‘to shout mutely’ or ‘to cry silently’ seem to strengthen the idea, which leads to the conclusion that oxymoron is a specific type of epithet. But the peculiarity of an oxymoron lies in the fact that the speaker's (writer’s) subjective view can be expressed through either of the members of the word combination. Originality and specificity of oxymoron becomes especially evident in non-attributive structures which also, not infrequently, are used to express semantic contradiction, as in ‘the stree” damaged by ‘mprovements’ or ‘silence was louder than thunder’, Oxymorons rarely become trite, for their components, linked ibly, repulse each other and oppose repeated use, There are few olloquial oxymorons, all of them showing a high degree of the SPeaker’s emotional involvement in the situation, as in ‘damn nice’, Awfully pretty’, ‘ forci After you had learnt individual lexical stylistic devices and the lines ia: 'Suistic mechanism which Operates in each of them, we may pass _grvistics Panty on the lexical level. Your main at lexical means additional Jo, he 5 In many cases you wil} ..’ jon is created. ‘ _ red in convergence 0 still more enhance su hasis of the utterance. 126| istic analysis 1 styl on to the general sty! a hvough hi is to indicate how an emotive, expressive info a number of lexical unil the expressiveness and emp ic Text The Lexical Thesaurus of the Poetic - tella”’ em of H. Belloc “Taran! - (The por perception of the reality in the poet features of the language person of itg thropocentric, representing g tion by the author. The author's individual text is a reflection of subjective f aon e poetic text is al may taouen a prism of the aesthetic percep! author's individual perception of the reality can be carried out with the help of the conceptual analysis revealing base concepts of the poetic text, components of which comprise its conceptosphere. The aspects of conceptualisation are stipulated by both objective laws of the world, and the author's personal position, his ratio of a reality. The aspects of conceptualisation help to explain the field frame of conceptosphere, depending upon the ways of the language representation of the concept. The description of the According to E. S. Kubryakova, “a concept is a mental essence first of all, and it is studied in connection with the processes of speaking and comprehension as the processes of interaction of the mental subjects” (Kubryakova, 1994) The conceptual analysis of the poetic text consists in revealing a Saco key mith the text Presenting a description of conceptual €, designated by them final space. ally defining basic concepts of this The lexical th the basis of ina of the poetic text includes the lexicon on ic and subj Sota ; groups and classes of a words vy euarity of subject or semantic word, i cl 7 denotations of spiritual values. which are the semantic and subject This selectio . ideographic method on tet BOups of words is done using te thesaurus dictionary. j Method of poetic idan 7 i ¥ 1S a mea Poetic ideography. 1 Perception of the . ‘ANS of the deaieieal ati concept sphere watt} on the basis of one en of Ea its ne help of the deep lingui ic text, revealing uistic analysis.08 — LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: LEXICAL LEVEL as The thesaurus dictionary of a poem is a lexical and semantic system of the given text, and its structural components are the subject groups having conceptual centres, which are semantic capacitors designating cultural and spiritual values. To analyze a poetic text I. V. Arnold offers to use a technique of decoding stylistics including the theory of semantic field of a word, componential analysis and, the so-called, subject mapping. Thus, stylistic interpretation of the text presupposes the analysis of lexico- semantic variants of a word, its connotations and associations, paying special attention to common features and occasional meanings, comprising lexical mapping. Lexical mapping is understood as the relations of synonymy, antonomy, morphological and semantic derivation or figurative uses of the given word, In general, they are any relations, based on interaction of general and its parts, generic and aspect relations, interrelation of different components of connotation. The lexical mapping reveals common components in the semantic structure of the word As an example of such analysis we shall take a poem “Tarantella”, written by the English poet of the 20th century Hilaire Belloc. The denotative space of the text is represented by the group of words, united by the proper name Miranda, to which the poet accesses during all poem, invoking her to recall the happy period of their stay in a small hotel in the Pyranees. The reminiscences are actualized with the help of associative links between various subject groups (further SG) around this semantic centre. They are: SG of everyday routine of young lovers -- bedding, tedding, spreading, a straw fora bedding, fleas that tease, wine, tasting of tar. SG of youth and fun of the poor inhabitants of this hotel: cheers and jeers of the youn, ig muleteers, who hadn't got a penny, not paying any. It is a SG of music and dances semantically relating to the previous group: girls dancing, backing and adoancing; chancing, clapping, snapping; twirl and swirl of hand; out and in, The nostalgic reminiscences are emphasized with the help of Parallel constructions, framing the first part: Do you remember the im, Miranda? Do you remember the Inn? Anaphoric repetitions and Polysyndeton and structurally unite the conceptual field of youth, @ppiness, joy, merriment, music and a dance of tarantella. j Bs The sound atmosphere of happiness is actualized with the help Snomatopoeia, imitating the sounds of music and dancing with itsPart 28 | STYLISTICS 1 1 ; . Ting, Tong, Tang of the ting tempo: Hip, Hop, HP ie underline a a gradually acreeiples dancing, cei a help of morphemi guitar. The Participles macs oe. with the help of morphemic chain of movements o! dance ement, using, alli ation and repetition - ing in the, Teating sounds of the dance assonance to portray (to, sw, sn,cl,p,etc.). ; seaman adds to the image of the The usage of antithesis: Of ing youth, happiness and dance thus symbolically rep merriment. The whole colourful sound and 7 i life is suddenly interrupted in happiness of life i ly Seine p poem by a sudden change o r bh i bs: Never more, Miranda. Never more, introduced by the repeated adverbs: ; ee They contribute to the somber and sinister tonality, intensified by the alliteration of sonorous sounds (m, 1). The long sound [o:], which prevails in this part together with long sound [u:]: Hoar, door, boom, doom make the whole atmosphere even more gloomy. The convergence of alliterated sound combinations [fr, trd, grd, sd,dd, Iz] in words: Halls, tread, ground, sound, dead also emphasize the general atmosphere of gloomy loneliness, silence and desolation, intensified by the echoing sounds. verbs i e vigorous Fep raphic palette of youth and .d in the second part of the aradigm, which is The subject groups also change the tonality: the SG of the deserted nature of mountain tops: high peaks hoar, no sound, walls of the Halls; the SG of the falling water: torrent falls, Aragon at the door, boom of the Waterfall; SG of gloomy hopelessness, approximation of death: the tread of the feet of the dend to the ground. The conceptual field of loneliness, death is portrayed on the lexical level by styl on the graphic level bi 7 desolation, approaching istic comparison (simile), fall like Doom. The heavy "the trend of the feet of the negative adverbs, arallelism, anaphora and p! Thus, in a small Halty 8 revealed being founded on antithovie Poet's vision of the esis o| @pproximation of mo: reminiscence of inevitability of 5. The life SC2PE associated with eternity, happy days of you Peas a8 bright and happy ‘out! mors, All the lane” aNd love of the man feeling 8e resources are subordinate 1008—Ltv! \129 the author’s idea and portrayed through convergence of stylistic resources in their interrelation and interaction, united by the key foncept of Life and Death antithesis. Thus, it is possible to speak about conceptual integration that is junction of two or more concepts, representing various semantic groups united by the law of the language economy. The lexical thesaurus of the given poetic text involves the complex of general and specific relations between the concepts of Life, Youth and Happiness portrayed through the microconcepts of dance, music, sounds of a guitar, as philosophical antithesis to Silence of Eternity and inevitability of Mors. Important University Questions 1. What do you look for while analyzing a literary text at lexical and semantical level? Provide evidence with examples to prove your point. SASF SIF ALLOA-se0-@ Chapter 09 ne Levels of Analysis Syntactical Level WPL Focus On * Main Characteristics of the Sentence * — Syntactical SDs * Sentence Length © Types of Connection * Lexico-Syntactical Stylistic Devices Stylistic study of the syntax begins with the study of the length and the structure of a sentence. It appears the length of any language unit is a very important factor in information exchange, for the human brain can receive and transmit information only if the latter is punctuated by pauses. Theoretically speaking a sentence can be of any length, as there are no linguistic limitations for its growth, so even monstrous constructions of several hundred words each, technically should be viewed as sentences, Indeed, psychologically, no reader is Prepared to perceive as a syntactical all those sentences in which the punctuation mark of a full “op comes ater . 1 ath Word (Joyce Carol Oates, Expensive People Knineway. The Short Happy Life of Eranci h e of Francis eek een meet te We in Vi 2), 0 4 Paget then ove ‘etmam?), or even after 45 whole Unable to specify the y definitely know its lower mark Possess a very strong emphatic Peer limit of sentence length we © be one word. One-word sentences Pact, for their only word obtains 13009—LEVELS OF ANALYSIS: SYNTACTICAL LEVEL 1131 both the word-and the sentence-stress. The word constituting a sentence also obtains its own sentence-intonation which, too, helps to foreground the content, for example, ‘They could keep the Minden Street Shop going until they got the notice to quit; which mightn’t be for two years. Or they could wait and see what kind of alternative premises were offered. If the site was good. If. Or. And, quite inevitably, borrowing money’. As you see, even syn-semantic conjunctions, receiving the status of sentences are noticeably promoted in their semantic and expressive value. Abrupt changes from short sentences to long ones and then back again, create a very strong effect of tension and suspense for they serve to arrange a nervous, uneven, ragged rhythm of the utterance. There is no direct or immediate correlation between the length and the structure of a sentence: short sentences may be structurally complicated, while the long ones, on the contrary, may have only one subject-predicate pair, for example, ‘Through the windows of the drag-store Eighth street looked extremely animated with families trooping toward the centre of the town, flags aslant in children’s hands, mother and pa in holiday attire and sweating freely, with patriarchal automobiles of neighbouring farmers full of starched youngsters and draped with bunting’. (J.R.) Almost 50 words of this sentence cluster around one subject-predicate centre ‘Eighth street looked animated’. At the same time very short sentences may boast of two and more clauses i.e, may be complex, as we observe in the following, cases: ‘He promised he'd come if the cops leave’. (J.B.) “Their father Who was the poorest man in town kept turning to the same jokes when he was treated to a beer or two’. (A. S.) Still, most often, bigger lengths go together with complex structures. Not only the clarity and understandability of the sentence but also its expressiveness depend on the position of clauses, constituting *' So, if a sentence opens with the main clause, which is followed by dependent units, such a structure is called loose, is less emphatic and & highly characteristic of informal writing and conversation. Periodic ne on the contrary, open with subordinate clauses, absolute the Participial constructions, the main clause being withheld until iy Such structures are known for their emphasis and are used ¥ in creative prose. Similar structuring of the beginning of the