Stylistic devices

Lexical SD
epithet

 a figure of speech; a word or phrase expressing some

quality of a person, thing, idea or phenomenon; it serves
to emphasize a certain property or feature
 The money she had accepted was two soft, green,
handsome ten-dollar bills.
 Charles put his best foot forward, and thoughts of
the mysterious woman behind him
 metaphor
 a figure of speech in which words or phrases denoting one object are transferred to
others in order to indicate a resemblance between them.
 A metaphor states that one thing is another thing
 It equates those two things not because they actually are the same, but for the sake
of comparison or symbolism
 If you take a metaphor literally, it will probably sound very strange (are there actually
any sheep, black or otherwise, in your family?)
 Love is a battlefield.
 Bob is a couch potato.
 Baby, you’re a firework.
 I am titanium.
 All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their
exits and their entrances.
 Metaphors classified according to its degree and unexpectedness: trite(dead) and
geniune(original).
 Dead metaphors are fixed in dictionaries. they often sound banal like cliches: to
burn with desire;a flight of imagination; legs of the table; winter comes.

 Original metaphors are not registered in dictionaries. they are created by the
speaker's/writer's imagination and sound fresh and unexpected: Some books are to
be tasted, others swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.; The house
was a white elephant but he couldn’t conceive of his father in a smaller place.

 Prolonged or sustained metaphors.: if a sentence contains a group of metaphors;

consists of principal(the central image of sustained metaphor) and contributory
images(the other words which bear reference to the central image)

 Mr . Pickwick bottled up his vengeance and corked it down. The verb to bottle up is
explained in dictionaries as follows ‘to keep in check’,’conceal,restrain,repress.The
metaphor in the word can hardly be felt. But it is revived by the direct meaning of the
verb ‘to cork down’. This context refreshes the almost dead metaphor and gives it a
second life.
 simille
 an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to
two different classes.
 link words "like", "as", "as though", "as like", "such as", "as...as",
etc.
 simile, often repeated, becomes trite and adds to the stock of
language phraseology. Most of trite similes have the
foundation mentioned and conjunctions "as", "as...as" used as
connectives: "as brisk as a bee", "as strong as a horse", "as live
as a bird" etc.
 metonomy
 Metonymy is a figure of speech in which one object or idea takes the place of
another with which it has a close association. In fact, metonymy means “change of
name.” As a literary device, it is a way of replacing an object or idea with something
related to it instead of stating what is actually meant.
 Here are some examples of metonymy that may be found in everyday expression:
 Hollywood (represents associations with the movie industry)
 Broadway (represents associations with New York drama productions and stage fame)
 Academics (represents associations with school, college, university, classes, or
studying)
 Joe’s new ride was expensive. (Ride is metonymy for car)
 When I came to visit, my friend offered me a cup. (Cup is metonymy for a beverage
such as tea or coffee)
 I wish he would keep his nose out of the plans. (Nose is metonymy for interest or
attention)
 Synecdoche
 a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to signify the whole, or vice-
versa.
 As a literary device, synecdoche allows for a smaller component of something to
stand in for the larger whole, in a rhetorical manner. Synecdoche can work in the
opposite direction as well, in which the larger whole stands in for a smaller component
of something.
 The White House (signifies the U.S. president or executive branch)
 Green thumb (signifies person who is good at gardening)
 England (signifies Great Britain)
 Paper or plastic (signifies type of shopping bag)
 Stars and stripes (signifies U.S. flag)
 metonomy synecdoche
 a figure of speech in which one  indicates a relationship in which a
word is used to replace a part signifies the whole of an
entity
 the words are closely linked rather
than one word being a smaller
part of the whole word or idea
that it represents nother

“I am at the peak of my career.” This is an example of synecdoche. “Peak” is used here to

indicate the highest point of the speaker’s career path. The “peak” is a smaller part of the
speaker’s job experience as a whole.

“I have a mountain of work to do.” This is an example of Metonymy. “Mountain” is used

here as a figure of speech that would be related or closely linked to a “pile” of
paperwork. Though the word “mountain” is different than “pile,” they are both associated
with one another in terms of meaning.
 Antonomasia
 when a proper noun is used to stand for something that has
a quality of it; or when a common term is used to stand for a
person or proper noun because it expr
 A beautiful, virtuous woman - "Madonna"
 A classic beauty - "A Betty" (Betty Davis)
 A lover - "Cassanova"
 A smart, scientific person - "Einstein"
Oxymoron

a figure of speech pairing two words together

that are opposing and/or contradictory.
Only choice
Same difference
Friendly fire
 Close distance
 zeugma

a literary term for using one word to modify

two other words, in two different ways.
She broke his car and his heart.” ...
 "I lost my keys and my temper."
 Hyperbole
 a figure of speech that uses extreme exaggeration to make a point or show
emphasis

I’ve told you to clean your room a million times!

It was so cold, I saw polar bears wearing hats and
jackets.
 understatement
 When you make an understatement, the issue at hand is minimalized or made
to seem less important or severe. This can be done for an ironic effect or simply
to be polite.
 You get the highest grade in class. An understatement would be: "I did OK on
that test." (Modest)
 You scrape the entire side of your car. An understatement would be: "It is only a
small scratch." (Comedic)
 Litotes
 Litotes is a special kind of understatement which involves expressing a
positive sentence using its negative form.
 I’m not as young as I was – I’m old.
 He is not bad to look at – He is handsome
 She was not unfamiliar with the area – She is familiar with the
area
 She is not unintelligent – She is intelligent
 Irony Sarcasm

 Fire chief's house burning  irony and sarcasm have one

down (situational irony) distinct difference, which is
negativity. Sarcasm is typically
 Saying, ‘it’s a great time to witty mockery. Therefore, it has
go for a swim,’ during the a negative connotation,
winter (verbal irony) whereas irony doesn’t.
 After making a mistake: You did
a brilliant job.
 When something bad happens:
That's just what I needed today!
violation of a phraseological unit

"Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his

mouth which was rather curly and large."
(Galsworthy) 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 of the qualification of the
mouth, the author revives the meaning of the
word and offers a very fresh, original and
expressive description.
 Pun
a joke that makes a play on words. A pun makes use
of words that have more than one meaning, or
words that sound similar but have different meanings,
to humorous effect.
Every calendar's days are numbered.
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
You want to ketchup?
 Personification

 when you give an animal or object qualities or

abilities that only a human can have.
My alarm yelled at me this morning.
I like onions, but they don’t like me.
The sign on the door insulted my intelligence.
 Climax
 As a stylistic device, the term climax refers to a literary device in
which words, phrases, and clauses are arranged in an order to
increase their importance within the sentence. The following are
examples of climax as a stylistic device
 “This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as
white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable Rights of Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
 This line from Martin Luther King’s famous speech, I Have a
Dream, qualifies as the climax of the speech. It criticizes and
rejects racial discrimination suffered by black Americans at the
hands of white Americans.
Antithesis
/ænˈtɪθəsɪs/
a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas
are put together in a sentence to achieve a
contrasting effect.
Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.
Speech is silver, but silence is gold.
Patience is bitter, but it has a sweet fruit.
 Euphemism
/ˈjuːfəmɪzəm/
 a figure of speech commonly used to replace a word or phrase
that is related to a concept which might make others
uncomfortable.
 porcelain throne (toilet)
 pre-owned (something used)
 bun in the oven (pregnancy)
Periphrasis

 an indirect or roundabout way of writing about something.

Syntactical stylistic devices
 inversion
 rhetorical question
 Ellipsis /ɪˈlɪpsɪs/ - omission of a word or series of words. So…what
happened?
 Detachment (відокремлення) is a stylistic device based on singling out
structurally and semantically a secondary member of the sentence
with the help of punctuation: dashes, commas or even a full stop. He
had been nearly killed, ingloriously, in a jeep accident (I. Show).
 I have to beg you for money. Daily (S. Lewis).
 Aposiopesis /ˌapə(ʊ)ˌsʌɪəˈpiːsɪs/- the device of suddenly breaking
off in speech. "Get out, or else—!“
 Suspense- a literary device that authors use to keep their readers’
interest alive throughout the work. It is a feeling of anticipation that
something risky or dangerous is about to happen
 Parallelism- the repetition of the same grammatical form in two or
more parts of a sentence. I like to jog, bake, paint, and watching
movies. I like to jog, bake, paint, and watch movies.
 Chiasmus- a rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are
balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures in
order to produce an artistic effect. “You forget what you want to
remember, and you remember what you want to forget.”
 “Love as if you would one day hate,
and hate as if you would one day love.”
Polysyndeton- a literary device that uses
multiple repetitions of the same conjunction
(and, but, if, etc), most commonly the word
“and.”
Asyndeton - a writing style where conjunctions
are omitted in a series of words, phrases or
clauses
 TYPES OF REPETITION
 anaphora- the beginning of two or more successive sentences (clauses) is repeated, (a …, a
…, a …);
 epiphora- the end of successive sentences (clauses) is repeated, (… a, … a, … a);
 Framing (ring)- the repetition of the same unit at the beginning and at the end of the same
sentence (a …, … a).
 anadiplosis (catch repetition)- the end of one clause (sentence) is repeated in the beginning
of the following one. “The mountains look on Marathon – And Marathon looks on the sea …”
(…a, a …);
 morphological repetition- repetition of a morpheme, is to be included into the stylistic means.
 e.g. I might as well face facts: good-bye, Susan, good-bye a big car, good-bye a big house,
good-bye power, good-bye the silly handsome dreams.
Graphical and phonetic expressive
means
emphatic use of punctuation, typing
change of spelling of a word
Alliteration- conspicuous repetition of identical initial consonant sounds in
successive or closely associated syllables within a group of words

Assonance- a literary device in which the repetition of similar vowel

sounds takes place in two or more words in proximity to each other within a line of
poetry
Onomatopoeia
/ˌɒnəˌmætəˈpiːə/
 word which imitates the natural sounds of a thing
The buzzing bee flew away.
The sack fell into the river with a splash.
The books fell on the table with a loud thump.
 graphon

 intentional violation of the graphical shape of a

word