Language in Literature

What is literature?
• Literature, as an art, is surely to arouse “the
excitement of emotion for the purpose of
immediate pleasure, through the medium of
beauty” (Coleridge 365).

• Tung (2007): “verbal artfulness” - proper

choice and good arrangement of all linguistic
components (phonological, morphological,
syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic).
 What is ‘literariness’
• Russian Formalists – “defamiliarisation”:
deviating from and distorting “practical
language”.
• Mukarovsky – “the function of poetic language
consists in the maximum of foregrounding of
the utterance”
– “foregrounding”  opposite of “automatisation”
(related to defamiliarisation i.e. to estrange
something is to foreground it)
• (Additional Comments)
• the concept of "literariness" has been critically
examined and found deficient.
• Prominent literary theorists have argued that
there are no special characteristics that
distinguish literature from other texts.
• “defamiliarisation” as the sufficient feature of
any literary composition.
• Familiar becomes unfamiliar
 Foregrounding
foreground (noun)
1. The part of a scene or
picture that is nearest to
and in front of the viewer.
(opposed to background).
2. a prominent or important
position; forefront.
The rocky outcropping in the foreground,
surrounded by trees, caught my attention,
as well as the dead tree placed just to the
left.
 Foregrounding
• The notion of foregrounding, a term
borrowed from the Prague School of
Linguistics, is used by Leech and Short (1981:
48) to refer to ‘artistically motivated
deviation’.
• It refers to the range of stylistic effects that
occur in literature, whether at the phonetic
level (e.g., alliteration, rhyme), the
grammatical level (e.g., inversion, ellipsis), or
the semantic level (e.g., metaphor, irony).
• What literature is, how it works, and why it is there
at all, are some of the fascinating questions that the
theory of 'foregrounding' tries to provide answers to.
• The term refers to specific linguistic devices, i.e.,
deviation and parallelism, used in literary texts in a
functional and condensed way.
• These devices enhance the meaning potential of the text,
while also providing the reader with the possibility of
aesthetic experience.
• According to the theory of foregrounding, literature - by
employing unusual forms of language - breaks up the
reader's routine behavior: commonplace views and
perspectives are replaced by new and surprising insights
and sensations.
• In this way literature keeps or makes individuals
aware of their automatized actions and
preconceptions.
• It thus contributes to general creativity and
development in societies.
• The theory of foregrounding is also one of the
few literary theories which have been tested
empirically for its validity.
• The technique is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make
forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of
perception because the process of perception is an
aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.
(1917/1965, p. 12)
 Foregrounding
• Foregrounding may occur in normal, everyday
language, (e.g. spoken discourse, journalistic
prose), but it occurs at random with no
systematic design.
• In literary texts, on the other hand,
foregrounding is structured: it tends to be
both systematic and hierarchical.
• That is, similar features may recur, such as a
pattern of assonance or a related group of
metaphors (Mukarovský, 1964, p. 20)
• the deautomatization of an act (Foregrounding is
the opposite of automatization, that is, the
deautomatization of an act; the more an act is
automatized, the less it is consciously executed; the
more it is foregrounded, the more completely
conscious does it become.
• Objectively speaking: automatization schematizes
an event; foregrounding means the violation of the
scheme. (1964, p. 19)
• The immediate effect of foregrounding is to make
strange (ostranenie), to achieve defamiliarization.
 Foregrounding
• Shklovsky saw defamiliarization as accompanied by
feeling: stylistic devices in literary texts "emphasize
the emotional effect of an expression" (Shklovsky,
1917/1965, p. 9).
• Mukarovský : "When used poetically, words and
groups of words evoke a greater richness of images
and feelings than if they were to occur in a
communicative utterance" (1977, p. 73).
• Miall and Kuiken (1994): stylistic variation that
evokes feelings and prolong reading time
One of the first places Julia always ran to when
they arrived in G--- was The Dark Walk. It is a
laurel walk, very old, almost gone wild, a lofty
midnight tunnel of smooth, sinewy branches.
Underfoot the tough brown leaves are never dry
enough to crackle: there is always a suggestion
of damp and cool trickle.
She raced right into it.
(“The Trout,” by Sean O'Faoláin (1980-82)
 Foregrounding effects:

• the unusual abbreviation of the name, “G---”;

• alliteration of /n/, /l/, /s/;
• the metaphoric use of “midnight” and
“sinewy”
• the consonance in the third sentence of
“crackle” and “trickle.”
When sentences such as these contain a cluster of foregrounded
features at the phonetic or semantic level or both they solicit a
certain kind of attention from readers: as our studies have shown,
most readers agree that such a passage is striking and evocative
1. The novel linguistic features strike readers as
interesting and capture their attention
(defamiliarization).
2. Defamiliarization obliges the reader to slow down,
allowing time for the feelings created by the
alliterations and metaphors to emerge.
3. These feelings guide formulation of an enriched
perspective on the Dark Walk.

Readers whom we have asked to talk about their

responses to this segment frequently found this
passage striking (e.g., ‘very beautiful’), mentioned
specific feelings (e.g., ‘foreboding’), and developed
novel perspectives on the Dark Walk (e.g.,
‘something that’s not of this world’).
 Devices of Foregrounding
• Outside literature, language tends to be
automatized; its structures and meanings are
used routinely.
• Within literature, however, this is opposed by
devices which thwart the automatism with
which language is read, processed, or
understood.
• Generally, two such devices may be
distinguished, deviation and parallelism.
15
• Foregrounding is realized by linguistic
deviation and linguistic parallelism.

Foregrounding

Deviation Parallelism

The Realization of Foregrounding (Leech)

 Deviation

• A phenomenon when a set of rules or expectations are

broken in some way. Such as when this font has just
changed. This deviation from expectation produces the
effect of foregrounding, which attracts attention and
aids memorability.

• Result: some degree of surprise in the reader, and his /

her attention is thereby drawn to the form of the text
itself (rather than to its content).
• Deviation corresponds to the traditional idea of
poetic license: the writer of literature is allowed -
in contrast to the everyday speaker - to deviate
from rules, maxims, or conventions.
• These may involve the language, as well as
literary traditions or expectations set up by the
text itself.
• The result is some degree of surprise in the
reader, and his / her attention is thereby drawn
to the form of the text itself (rather than to its
content).
• Various levels of deviation:
1. lexical deviation
2. grammatical deviation
3. phonological deviation
4. graphological deviation
5. semantic deviation
6. dialectal deviation
7. deviation of register and
8. deviation of historical period.
 Lexical Deviation
• The coining of entirely new words (neologism)
When he awakened under the wire, he did not feel as though he had
just cranched. Even though it was the second cranching within the
week, he felt fit (Cordwainer Smith 1950).

The prefix fore is applied to verbs like ‘see’ and ‘tell’. (“beforehand”
T.S. Eliot uses the term ‘foresuffer’ in his The Waste Land
‘And I Tiresias have foresuffered all’

*not just a new word but the encapsulation of a newly

formulated idea - it is possible to anticipate mystically
the suffering of the future, just like ‘foresee’ or ‘foretell’
 Lexical deviation
• In stylistics lexical deviation refers to a new word or
expression or a new meaning for an old word used on
only particular occasion.
• Sometimes a writer intends to reach certain kind of
rhetorical effect, so he will invent some new words
based on the rules of word-formation. But these new
words are seldom or hardly used on other occasions.
• That means in literature, some invented new words are
only used by the inventor himself. Surely these nonce-
formations (words invented for special purpose) bring
about certain stylistic effect and greatly improve the
power of newness and expression of the language.
 Lexical deviation
“Don’t be such a harsh parent, father!”
“Don’t father me!”
— H. G. Wells
I was explaining the Golden Bull to his Royal
Highness, “I’ll Golden Bull you, you
rascal!”roared the Majesty of Prussia.
— Macaulay
 Lexical Deviation
• The most common processes of word-formation are
affixation
the widow-making unchildring unfathering deeps
(Hopkin’s ‘The wreck of the Deutschland’)
un- = ‘take off/away from’ (i.e. unleash, unfrock, unhorse)

Possible cognitive meaning:

‘the deeps which deprive (wives) of husbands, (children) of fathers,
and (parents) of children’
 Tragic happenings connected with the sea

Perhaps implies the wish to recognise a concept or property which the

language can so far only express by phrasal or clausal description
 Attribute to the inseparable sea properties (“wetness”, “blueness”,
“saltness”)
 Rarely classify aspects of universe by their tendency to make people
into widows (compare to “cloth-making”) - odd
 Lexical Deviation

•Functional conversion of word class – adapting an

item to a new grammatical function without changing
its form

Let him Easter in us [The Wreck of the Deutschland]

The just man justices [As King fishers Catch Fire]
The achieve of, the mastery of the thing[The Windhover]
 Lexical deviation
There was a balconyful of gentlemen.
— Chesterton
We left the town refreshed and rehatted.
— Fotherhill
They were else-minded then, altogether, the
men.
— Hopkins
 Lexical deviation

• Usually associated with neologism (invention of new

‘words’)
• We call new words NONCE-FORMATIONS if they are
made up ‘for the nonce’, i.e., for a single occasion
only, rather than serious attempts to augment the
wordstock for some new need.
 Phonological deviation
Phonological irregularities
1.1 Omission
i.Aphesis – the omission of an initial part (unstressed
vowel)
‘mid amid; ‘lone  alone
ii.Syncope – the omission of a medial part of a word.
ne’er  never; o’er  over
iii.Apocope – the omission of a final part of a word
a’ all; wi’ with; o’  of; oft  often
• They are conventional licenses of verse composition.

• They change the pronunciations of the original words

so that the poet may better and more easily arrange
sound patterns to achieve their intended
communicative effects.

• Poetic license is a writer’s privilege to depart from

some expected standard.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

(Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose)

 1.2 Mispronunciation and Sub-standard Pronunciation
• Intentional mispronunciation and sub-standard
pronunciation
• Purpose: vividly describe a character. True to life
• Malapropism is the act of using an incorrect word in
place of one that is similar in pronunciation. The word
comes from a character named Mrs. Malaprop in the
play "The Rivals" by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
• "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "
electoral votes.“
• Illiterate him from your memory (obliterate)
• my affluence over my niece is very small. (influence)
Dickens, Oliver Twist: depiction of Gamfield
'That's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the
chimbley to make 'em come down again,' said Gamfield; 'that's
all smoke, and no blaze; vereas smoke ain't o' no use at all in
making a boy come down, for it only sinds him to sleep, and
that's wot he likes. Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy,
Gen'l'men, and there's nothink like a good hot blaze to make
'em come down vith a run. It's humane too, gen'l'men, acause,
even if they've stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet makes
'em struggle to hextricate theirselves.‘
 Mispronunciation and Sub-standard Pronunciation

May God starve ye yet,” yelled an old Irish woman

who now threw open a nearby window and stuck out
her head.
“Yes, and you,” she added, catching the eye of one
of the policemen. “You bloody murthering thafe!
rack my son over the head, will, you hard-hearted,
muthering divil? Ah, ye —”
—Sister Carrie by T. Dreiser
What is the function of the deviant phonological
features?
What does her accent tell us about the old woman?
 Mispronunciation and Sub-standard
Pronunciation
May God starve ye yet,” yelled an old Irish woman
who now threw open a nearby window and stuck out
her head.
“Yes, and you,” she added, catching the eye of one
of the policemen. “You bloody murthering thafe!
rack my son over the head, will, you hard-hearted,
muthering divil? Ah, ye —”
—Sister Carrie by T. Dreiser
The way of speaking reveals that the speaker is a
working-class woman.
 1.3 Special Pronunciation

• Purpose: convenience of rhyming

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
(P.B. Shelley, Ode to the West Wind)
 Graphological Deviation

• Related to type of print, grammetrics,

punctuation, indentation, etc.
• Graphology: the encoding of meaning in visual
symbols.
 Graphological Deviation

2.1 Shape of Text

•Design of the shape of a text in an unconventional way:
suggestive of a certain literary theme.
•R. Draper, Target Practice
•The poem is shaped like a bull’s eye or target with a series of
concentric circles.
•Each circle from the outside to the inside represents a
progression in the degree of seriousness of injury.
•Uniqueness and originality
2.2 Type of Print
•italics, bold print, capitalization and decapitalization,
etc.
•E. E. Cumming, Me up at does
• The first letter of each line
Me up at does should be capitalised.
out of the floor • Cummings breaches the
quietly Stare convention by capitalising
a poisoned mouse the first letter of the
opening line and that of
still who alive the closing line so that
is asking What the two words Me and
have i done that You stand out and
You wouldn’t have become stylistically
prominent
Me up at does
out of the floor • What do Me and You
quietly Stare refer to?
a poisoned mouse
• The poet may intend to
have the reader see that
still who alive the addresser (Me and
is asking What You) considered himself
have i done that to be superior to the
You wouldn’t have mouse

• Since i is the self-address of the mouse, the

decapitalisation may demonstrate that the mouse wishes
to show its humbleness.

• You on the other hand, manifests that the mouse pays

much respect to the addresser (the human being i.e.
Me), at least outwardly.
2.3 Grammetrics This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
• Grammetrics: the
ways in which I have eaten
the plums
grammatical units are that were in
fitted into metrical the icebox
units such as lines and and which
stanzas. you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
2.3 Grammetrics This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
• The title of the poem
does not stand on its I have eaten
own  main clause of the plums
that were in
the first sentence which the icebox
runs over the first two
stanzas of the poem. and which
you were probably
• This may show that the saving
poet intends the poem for breakfast
to be read as a whole
Forgive me
and places emphasis on they were delicious
the unity of the so sweet
discourse. and so cold
• Every line of the poem This Is Just To Say
creates a pulling-forward
by William Carlos Williams
effect
• L1: The verb eat can take I have eaten
an object or not; the the plums
that were in
absence of punctuation
the icebox
at the end of the line
makes us expect one. and which
• L2: expectation is you were probably
saving
satisfied. But a new
for breakfast
expectation is aroused
with the presence of the Forgive me
definite article the they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
• The  cataphoric reference
This Is Just To Say
since plums was not mentioned
previously in the poem. by William Carlos Williams

• This indicates the specific I have eaten

reference is contained in the the plums
following context. that were in
the icebox
• L3: a clause that modifies the
plums, but not finished. After in and which
one would expect from the you were probably
context some kind of locative in saving
the next line for breakfast
• L4: expectation fulfilled; the
Forgive me
absence of punctuation at the they were delicious
end of line (also stanza) gives a so sweet
sense of incompleteness and so cold
• L5: which indicates a new
This Is Just To Say
clause. We would naturally
move on to find out what by William Carlos Williams

follows which and what which I have eaten

refers to exactly. the plums
• L6: sense of incompletenes. that were in
the icebox
Most likely a main verb in ‘ing’
from will follow. and which
• L7: expectation fulfilled; but you were probably
saving suggests the plums are saving
for breakfast
either ‘for someone’ or ‘for
some occasion’. Forgive me
• L8: missing full stop at the end they were delicious
of line – sentence not finished so sweet
and so cold
• L9: the capitalisation of 1st
This Is Just To Say
letter indicates a new sentence.
by William Carlos Williams
• Last Stanza: Slowing down of
pace  no more syntactic I have eaten
expectation. We read on the plums
because we know from the that were in
the icebox
absence of punctuation that
the poem is not finished, and and which
we realise from the context you were probably
that there may be more saving
interesting things to be read. for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
How do we explain what we have This Is Just To Say
observed then?
by William Carlos Williams

The overall pulling-forward effect I have eaten

brings great immediacy to the the plums
that were in
sensuous experience being the icebox
described in the poem.
It is also intended to make the and which
reader actively involve himself in you were probably
saving
reading the poem, and read it for breakfast
with great interest and pleasure.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
The contrast in pace between the This Is Just To Say
two stanzas and the last stanza is
of even greater significance. by William Carlos Williams

Title the 2 stanzas  constantly I have eaten

arousing syntactic expectations the plums
from readers; giving great that were in
the icebox
immediacy to what is being
described. and which
Last stanza  slowing down of you were probably
the pace; allows reader to share saving
for breakfast
the taste of the plums in a
leisurely manner with the speaker Forgive me
I, thus showing that he lays great they were delicious
emphasis on immediate sensuous so sweet
experience and so cold
 Syntactic Deviation
• Syntactic deviation refers to departures from normal
(surface) grammar. These include a number of
features such as unsual clause
 Syntactic Deviation
• Poet disregards the rules of sentence
i. fastened me flesh
ii. A grief ago (Dylan Thomas)
iii. “the achieve of, the mastery of the things” (Hopkins, the
Windhover)

• Two types of grammatical deviation are morphological and

syntactic deviations.
• Examples of morphological deviation are museyroom,
eggtentical, and intellible in James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.
• She dwelt among the untrodden ways (Wordsworth)
 Morphological Deviation
• Involves adding affixes to words which they
would not usually have, or removing their
‘usual’ affixes;
• Breaking words up into their constituent
morphemes, or running several words
together so they appear as one long word
 Morphological Deviation
a billion brains may coax undeath
from fancied fact and spaceful time
(e.e. cummings 1960)

coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollsc
resssandwichepottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesoda water
(Kenneth Grahame 1908)
• portmanteau word is a combination of two (or
more) words or morphemes, and their
definitions, into one new word
• such as in smog, coined by blending smoke
and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel.
Spanish and English create the portmanteau
Spanglish.
• the word brunch(breakfast + lunch)
• the newly independent African republic of
Tanganyika and Zanzibar chose the word
Tanzania as its name.
• Similarly Eurasia is of Europe and Asia.
• " Wikipedia" is an example; it combines the
word " wiki" with the word " encyclopedia".
 Syntactic Deviation
• In syntax, deviations might be 1) bad or
incorrect grammar and 2) syntactic
rearrangement/ hyperbaton.
• The examples are:
– I doesn’t like him.
– I know not
– Saw you anything?
– He me saw.
Syntactic Deviation

Me up at does
out of the floor
• Revise the poem so that
quietly Stare
it will be more
a poisoned mouse grammatical.

still who alive

is asking What
have i done that
You wouldn’t have A poisoned mouse who,
still alive, is asking 'What
have I done that you
wouldn't have?' stares
quietly up at me.
Syntactic Deviation
• The disrupted grammar of
Me up at does the 1st part of poem - a
out of the floor kind of grammatical
quietly Stare symbolism - it helps to
a poisoned mouse represent the disjointed,
uncomfortable effect on
still who alive the persona of the poem,
is asking What who has found the dying
have i done that mouse (which
You wouldn’t have presumably, was
poisoned).

• Reminding us of the guilt we have if we kill pests in this way.

• The use of the personifying pronoun 'who' instead of 'that‘, and the
fact that the mouse is presented as asking a rhetorical question of
the persona  equates the mouse and the persona).
Syntactic Deviation
• The last three lines of the
Me up at does
poem are not
out of the floor
grammatically disrupted
quietly Stare
 we can see the force of
a poisoned mouse
the mouse's rhetorical
question straightforwardly,
still who alive
and thus sympathise with
is asking What
its viewpoint.
have i done that
You wouldn’t have • Present tense  helps
make the situation seem
more dramatic and vivid.
 Semantic deviation
• Tranference of meaning
• phrase containing a word whose meaning violates
the expectations created by the surrounding words
e.g., “a grief ago” (expect a temporal noun)
“in the room so loud to my own” (expect a spatial
adjective)
 The Wanderer
There head falls forward, fatigued at evening,
And dreams of home,
Waving from window, spread of welcome,
Kissing of wife under single sheet,
But waking sees
Bird-flocks nameless to him, through doorway voices
Of new men making another love.

•These seem to have the function of impressionistically evoking

psychological state.
•In “The Wanderer” Auden evolves a subjectless, articleless style
which apparently suggests the exile’s loss of a sense of identity
and of a coordinated view of life.
 Semantic Deviation
• Semantic deviation can be meant as ‘non-sense’ or
‘absurdity’, so long as we realize that sense is used, in
this context, in a strictly literal minded way.
• Meaning relations which are logically inconsistent or
paradoxical in some way - Metaphor

• The child is father of the man. (Wordsworth’s My

Heart Leaps Up)
• She was a phantom of delight (Shakespeare)
• Beauty is truth, truth beauty (Keats)
 Semantic Deviation

• This describes relations that are logically

inconsistent or paradoxical in some way.
• For example, it is normally assumed that any
modifiers of a noun will be semantically
compatible: 'The meat pie', or 'the crusty pie',
but not 'the irritable pie'.
• This sort of deviation may prompt the reader
to look beyond the dictionary definition of the
words in order to interpret the text.
 Semantic Deviation

• Joseph Heller’s novel, Catch 22 (1961), is

particularly rich in this kind of deviation.

• Set during the Second World War, it gets its

title from the famous paradox (Catch 22) that is
used by the authorities in the novel to keep
American fliers flying an ever-increasing
number of bombing missions.
 Semantic Deviation
Although fliers can appeal to be grounded on grounds of
insanity,..

[t]here was only one catch and that was Catch 22,
which specified that a concern for one’s own safety
in the face of dangers that were real and immediate
was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy
and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask;
and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy
and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be
crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but
if he was sane he would have to fly them. If he flew
them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he
didn’t want to he was sane and had to.
 Semantic Deviation
• Conventionally, the expressions ‘sane’ and
‘crazy’ are opposite in meaning.
• Part of the fascination (and the humour) of
Catch 22 is the way in which it constructs
conditions under which such opposites can
both be true at the same time.
• This profusion of semantic anomalies in the
opening chapters of Catch 22 helps to create
the impression of a world in which war has
undermined the rational basis of social and
moral action.
• In semantic deviation it is important to deal
with what Leech calls tropes
• Metaphors and similes are tropes.
• they are classified largely into three sections:
• 1. Semantic oddity
• 2. Transference of meaning
• 3. Honest Deception
 1. Semantic Oddity
• Semantic oddity means semantic bizarreness
of expression.
• There are five types of semantic oddity:
• 1. Pleonasm /ˈpliːə(ʊ)ˌnaz(ə)m/
• 2.periphrasis /pəˈrɪfrəsɪs/
• 3.tautology /tɔːˈtɒlədʒi/
• 4. Oxymoron /ˌɒksɪˈmɔːrɒn/
• 5. Paradox /ˈparədɒks/
 2. Transference of Meaning
• According to Leech's classification,
transference of meaning is classified into four
types of figurative language:
• 1. Synecdoche /sɪˈnɛkdəki/
• 2. Metonymy /mɪˈtɒnɪmi/
• 3. Metaphor /ˈmɛtəfə/
• 4. Simile /ˈsɪmɪli/
 3. Honest Deception
• Also Leech classifies the term honest
deception into three tropes :
• 1.Hyperbole(Exaggeration) /hʌɪˈpəːbəli/
• 2. Litotes (understatement) /lʌɪˈtəʊtiːz/
• 3. Irony /ˈʌɪrəni/
 Semantic Oddity
• 1. pleonasm
• the use of more words than are necessary to
convey meaning (e.g. see with one's eyes ), either
as a fault of style or for emphasis.
• The most unkindest cut of all.
(William Shakespeare,Julius Caesar)
• 'He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not
look upon his like again' (Shakespeare.Hamlet, )
• - burning fire
• - cash money
• - end result
• - all together
• - invited guests
 2. periphrasis
• the use of indirect and circumlocutory speech
or writing.
• “I am displeased with your behavior
• “the manner in which you have conducted
yourself in my presence of late has caused me
to feel uncomfortable and has resulted in my
feeling disgruntled and disappointed with
you”.
• The use of separate words to express a
grammatical relationship that is otherwise
expressed by inflection,
• e.g. did go as opposed to went.
 3.tautology
• the saying of the same thing twice over in
different words, generally considered to be a
fault of style (e.g. they arrived one after the
other in succession ).
• ‘They spoke in turn, one after the other.’
• I am feeling very sleepily sleepy as I got up at 5
am in the morning.
• They are giving free gifts!
• In my opinion, I think that...
• John's first priority is to get a good job.
• The reason is because.
• It is new innovation.
• Today's modern technology.
• She ate a salmon fish sandwich.
• The plumber fixed our hot water heater.
• Morning sunrise.
• Either it will rain tomorrow, or it won't.
• My best friend likes to watch suspense
thrillers.
• I made it with my own hands for you.
• In present time and age, the price hike is
shooting up.
 My best friend likes to watch suspense thrillers.
 I made it with my own hands for you.
 In present time and age, the price hike is
shooting up.
 This project should be completed on time, as it
is the necessary requirement of the company.
 Bits and pieces
• The vast majority of the people are in favor of
his philosophy.
• To return again.
• I got this dress at cheapest price.
• Frozen Ice.
• I have heard this with my own ears.
• First and foremost, let's begin.
• Say it over again once more.
• We will get the salary along with the added
bonus.
• I never make predictions, especially about the
future.
• That is indeed a sad misfortune.
• Me myself personally cordially invite you to
the party.)
 4. Oxymoron
• a figure of speech in which apparently
contradictory terms appear in conjunction
(e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).
• The calm wind blew,
• The sun shone a blinding light.
• All around, a deafening silence as,
• The atmosphere changed shape.
• A living death…
• A Fine Mess
• A just war
• A little big
• A new classic
• absolutely unsure
• abundant poverty
• Accidentally on Purpose
• accurate estimate
• accurate horoscope
• accurate rumors
• Act Naturally
• active retirement
• adult children
 5.paradox
• a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or
proposition which when investigated may prove to
be well founded or true.
• “All animals are equal, but some are more equal
than others”.
• “I must be cruel to be kind.”
• The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb;
• What is her burying grave, that is Rainbow in her
womb;
• “the Child is father of the man”
 Transference of Meaning
• 1. Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is
made to represent the whole or vice versa, as
in England lost by six wickets (meaning ‘ the English
cricket team’).
• ‘Australia lost by two goals’
• 2. Metonymy: the substitution of the name of an
attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for
example suit for business executive, or the
turf for horse racing.
• the White House for the US president
• 3.metaphor and 4. simile.
 Metaphor
• Robert Frost says,
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
("The Road Not Taken")
l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness
- e e cummings
• as freedom is a breakfastfood
• or truth can live with right and wrong
• or molehills are from mountains made
• —long enough and just so long
• will being pay the rent of seem
• and genius please the talentgang
• and water most encourage flame
• as hatracks into peachtrees grow
• or hopes dance best on bald men’s hair
• and every finger is a toe
• and any courage is a fear
• —long enough and just so long
• will the impure think all things pure
• and hornets wail by children stung
• or as the seeing are the blind
• and robins never welcome spring
• nor flatfolk prove their world is round
• nor dingsters die at break of dong
• and common’s rare and millstones float
• —long enough and just so long
• tomorrow will not be too late
• worms are the words but joy’s the voice
• down shall go which and up come who
• breasts will be breasts thighs will be thighs
• deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
• —time is a tree(this life one leaf)
• but love is the sky and i am for you
• just so long and long enough
 3. Honest Deception
• 1.Hyperbole (Exaggeration)
• “Well now, one winter it was so cold that all
the geese flew backward and all the fish
moved south and even the snow turned
blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all
spoken words froze solid afore they could be
heard. People had to wait until sunup to find
out what folks were talking about the night
before.”
• "I'll love you, dear,
• I'll love you till China and Africa meet,
• And the river jumps over the mountain
• And the salmon sing in the street,
• I'll love you till the ocean
• Is folded and hung up to dry
• And the seven stars go squawking
• Like geese about the sky."
 2. Litotes (understatement)
• Litotes is a figure of speech in which a negative
statement is used to affirm a positive sentiment.
For example, when asked how someone is doing,
that person might respond, “I’m not bad.” In fact,
this means that the person is doing fine or even
quite well. 
• ironic understatement in which an affirmative is
expressed by the negative of its contrary
(e.g. I shan't be sorry for I shall be glad ).
 2. Litotes (understatement)
• The word litotes comes from the Greek for
“plainness” or “simplicity” and is derived from
the Greek word litos, meaning “plain,” “small,” or
“meager.” Note that litotes is not a plural word. It
is pronounced LAI-toe-teez.
• he wasn't slow to accept the offer
• He’s not the friendliest person.
• It wasn’t a terrible trip.
• She’s not unkind.
• The two concepts are not unlike each other.
 3.Irony
• the expression of one's meaning by using
language that normally signifies the opposite,
typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
• (*.The name of Britain’s biggest dog was “Tiny”.
• *.You laugh at a person who slipped stepping on
a banana peel and the next thing you know, you
slipped too.
• *.The butter is as soft as a marble piece.
• *.“Oh great! Now you have broken my new
camera.”
• “Go ask his name: if he be married.
• My grave is like to be my wedding bed.”
• “‘tis true this god did shake”
• “Upon the murderer I invoke this curse-
whether he is one man and all unknown,
• Or one of many- may he wear out his life in
misery to miserable doom!”).
 Deviant worlds

In the town where I was born

Lived a man who sailed to sea.
And he told us of his life
In the land of submarines.
So we sailed up to the sun
Till we found the sea of green.
And we lived beneath the waves
In our yellow submarine.
(The Beatles , Yellow Submarine)
 Dialectical Deviation
• Dialectism, or the borrowing of features of
socially or regionally defined dialects is a minor
form of licence not generally available to the
average writer of functional prose, who is
expected to write in the generally accepted and
understood dialect known as Standard English.
• It is commonly uses by story tellers and
humorists. For the poet dialectism may serve a
number of purposes.
 Dialectical Deviation
• In Shepherd’s Calendar, Spencer’s use of homely
provincial words like Hydeguyes (a type of dance),
rountes (young bullocks), weanell (newly weaned
kid or lamb) and whimble (nimble) evoke a flavor
of rustic naivety in keeping with the sentiments of
pastoral.
• Dialectism is almost inseparable from the writer’s
plan of depiction life as seen through the
experience and ethos of one particular section of
English-speaking society.
 7. Deviation of Register
• It is not that borrowing language form other
non-poetic registers , is a new invention, but
that poets of the present century have
exploited this device with unprecedented
audacity. Modern poets have asserted their
freedom from constrains of poetic language.
• Register borrowing in poetry is almost always
accompanied by further incongruity of
Register Mixing, or the use in the same text of
features characteristic of different registers.
 Deviation of Register
• Eliot in The Wasteland juxtaposes high-flown
poetical diction and stock journalistic
phraseology:
• The nymphs are departed
Departed, have left no addresses.
 Deviation of Register
• Naming of Parts by Henry Reed
• Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
• We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
• We shall have what to do after firing. But today
• Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
• Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring
gardens,
• And today we have naming of parts.
 Deviation of Register
• Here the effect of mingling two registers –that of rifle
instruction and that of lyrical description-is ironical in a bolder,
more clear-cut, but nevertheless equally effective way.
• The first four lines, but for the last word “japonica”, might
have been take verbatim from a rifle-instructor’s monologue.
They have a naively repetitive syntax of an inept style of
lecturing and contains mechanically produced regulation army
phrases which are printed like: Naming of Parts, Daily
Cleaning, What to do After Firing,
• In the last line the regulation language is yoked by co-
ordination to the descriptive language, that the irony reaches
its full concentration.
 8. Deviation of Historical Period
• The use of linguistic heritage, including dead
languages such as Latin and Greek and
archaism ‘the survival of the language of the
past into the language of present’.
• In T.S. Elliot’s East Cooker:
• The association of man and woman
• In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie
 8. Historical Deviation
• What a poet sees as his linguistic heritage may
even include dead languages such as Latin and
Greek. A type of historical licence current in the
period of neoclassical culture following
renaissance was the use of a word of Latin origin
in a sense reconstructed form the literal Latin.
• Examples: Milton’s use of
– Inspiring (breathing in),
– induce (lead in),
– which serpent error wand’ring’ (crawling, creeping)
 Historical Deviation
• In the language of Coleridge’s The Ancient
Mariner, there is a certain amount of deliberate
revival of obsolete usage, historical coloring, but
there is also some reliance upon standard
archaisms current in the poetry of the day.
• It says that progression through time is cyclic,
and that present and past are ultimately one.
• Leech, Geoffrey, A Linguistic Guide to English
Poetry
 Parallelism
• A rhetorical device characterized by over-regularity
or repetitive structures e.g. rhyme, assonance,
alliteration, meter
• Occurs at all levels of language (phonological,
syntactic, morphological etc.)
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn....
T. S. Eliot's "Ash-Wednesday”
 Repetition
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
(Shakespeare, As You Like It)
Wind is greater than usual / the speaker has stronger
feelings about it than usual

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was

bruised for our iniquities
(Isaiah, 53,v)
wounded and bruised are intended to be viewed as
equivalent in some way, as are transgressions and
iniquities.
 Parallelism
I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.
Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

• Sometimes the effect of a repeated phrase in a poem will

be to emphasize a development or change by means of the
contrast in the words following the identical phrases.
• For example, the shift from the distant to the near, from the
less personal to the more personal is emphasized in
Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by such a
repetition of phrases
 Phonological parallelism
• Rhyming verse
• Alliteration, assonance, consonance

"the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple

curtain." (Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven)
Severus Snape," "Luna Lovegood," "Rowena Ravenclaw
(characters in Harry Potter series)
Syntactic / grammatical Parallelism
"Thinking less, feeling more. Doing less, being more.
Fearing less, loving more.“

Also, lexical parallelism i.e. ‘less/more’

word  phrase  clause

The birds are in their nests and in their nests they sing.
Each morning we sing, each morning we dance, and each
morning we pray.
 Parallelism and effect
Parallelism is more than just a repetition of sentence structure. The thoughts
expressed by the repeating pattern are also repeated. When we talk of things
being in parallel, then the things are of equal force and have the same tone.

He was a tender young man, he was a gentle young man, he was an

affectionate young man. He was the man everyone wanted.

In the example above, the repeating thought is that of a young man of very
warm affection.

Parallelism in prose aims at basically two things:

1. Reinforcing ideas of importance and
2. Making the text more pleasurable to the reader.
In the first instance, if the writer wants to reinforce a certain idea or thought,
he will repeat it by using a cyclic pattern: he will repeat sentence structure or
word order. The overall effect is that the reader will notice the point that he
wants to emphasise and pay particular attention to it.
 Parallelism and effect
• Parallel structures also often induce readers to
perceive a 'same meaning' or 'opposite meaning'
relationship between the parallel parts.
'parallelism processing rule‘

The angry boy lupped, kicked and scratched the

children making fun of him.

What does “lupped’ mean here?

 Parallelism and effect

• Parallelism in prose also aims at pleasuring the

reader. We are naturally musical by nature and
are sensitive to rhythm. Not only do we notice
rhythmical patterns, but we also enjoy them.
Thus, a passage imbued with parallelism is
enjoyable and memorable.
 A non-literary example
This slogan was effective for two reasons:
1. It is grammatically deviant. It is a
comparative structure which has no
object of comparison.
This enabled those reading the
slogan to compare Persil mentally
with whatever washing powder they
used, and so go away with the
message that Persil washed whiter
than their particular washing powder.
This use of the uncompared
comparative is quite common in
advertising slogans, for obvious
2. The slogan exhibits
reasons!
some parallelism.
 A non-literary example

Identify the parallelism

(at what linguistic level
does it operate and
what kind of
parallelism is it?) and
say what kind of effect
it has:
 PERSIL WASHES WHITER
• The parallelism is at the phonological level of
language and has two dimensions.
1. Rhythmic parallelism:
- each of the words consists of two syllables, with, in each
word, the first syllable carrying a major stress and the second
syllable carrying a very low degree of stress.
2. The initial consonant sounds of 'washes' and 'whiter'
are the same phoneme, /w/ i.e. alliteration
 PERSIL WASHES WHITER
• Overall, the parallelism foregrounds the advertising
slogan and also helps to make it memorable

• In addition, washing with Persil (via the 'parallelism

processing rule') becomes more closely associated
with 'whiter' than would be the case without the
parallelism.
 A literary example
• Below are the first four lines of T. S. Eliot's poem, 'The Journey
of the Magi'.
• One of the three wise men is describing the difficult journey
they made to witness the birth of Christ in Bethlehem.

A cold coming we had of it, 

Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp

• Examine the final line of the quotation. In what ways can the
two noun phrases on either side of the coordinator 'and' be
said to parallel one another structurally? What is the effect of
this structural parallelism?
 Literary examples
• 'The ways deep' and 'the weather sharp' are
grammatically parallel: they are both noun phrases
consisting of the same internal structure, a noun
premodified by the definite article and postmodified
by an adjective.

• Both examples have relatively the same meaning –

they describe how cold the journey was.
'The ways deep' - the magi had to struggle through
deep snow
'the weather sharp' - there was a bitingly cold wind