Stylistics of the

English Language 10

Koroteeva
Valentina Vladimirovna,
[email protected]
 Emotive Prose Task 9 Analysis
Message
developed in 5 stages
 The excerpt starts with the author focusing on
the illusion of life that is created by the
government “more of everything except disease,
crime, and insanity ”, the illusion is conveyed
with the help of epithet “fabulous”, general
technique of overstatement (morphological and
lexical parallelism “more food, more clothes,
more houses, etc”), generalisation expressed by
polyptoton (“everybody and everything”), direct
onomatopoeia (“whizzing upwards”).
 Emotive Prose Task 9 Analysis
 Further the author inserts the inner speech of the
protagonist marked by the rhetorical questions.
This is a turning point – the character starts
wondering if it has always been like this.
 The character starts evaluating the reality around
him as unfit to live in (semantic field of “dirt and
deformity”, overstatement – enumeration of
objects and phenomena) and comes up with the
protest “always in your stomach and in your skin
there was a sort of protest, a feeling that you had
been cheated of something”.
 Emotive Prose Task 9 Analysis
 The fourth stage can be described as changing the
dimension – the character turns to the past trying to find
answers to his questions (“In any time that he could
accurately remember there had never been…, one had
never had socks…”), and there he sees the same shortage
and drabness as in present (and the same means are used
- semantic field of “dirt and deformity”, overstatement –
enumeration of objects and phenomena);
 At the end the character comes to a logical conclusion –
“Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had
some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been
different?”, which is more than a protest – it is the
beginning of a revolution in the mind of the protagonist –
he is ready to violate the Law.
 Outline
Syntactical Stylistic Means
 Major principles on which
syntactical stylistic means are
based:
 Omission

 Interaction
 Syntactical Stylistic Means:
Omission

 Syntactical Ellipsis
 Nominative Sentences
 Asyndeton
 Aposiopesis
 Apokoinu
 Parcellation
 Gap-Sentence Link
 Ellipsis or Elliptical Sentences
 the omission from a clause of one
or more obligatory words that are,
however, understood in the context
of the remaining elements:

‘Should I call you, or you me?’

*** not to confuse with “ellipsis”- three dots

 Elliptical Sentences
 lend a flavour of liveliness to the
colloquial speech
 create a sense of

immediacy
and local colour
 Elliptical Sentences
 add to a speech portrait of a character
 convey the mood of the personage
 mark the represented speech:

‘He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket.

There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans
were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin
the head of Big Brother. Even from the coin the
eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, on the
covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on
the wrappings of a cigarette packet — everywhere.
Always the eyes watching you and the voice
enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or
eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in
bed — no escape. Nothing was your own except
the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.’
[G.Orwell, 1984, p. 35]
 Nominative Sentences
 one-member sentences consisting only of
a nominal group, which are self-sufficient
from the semantic and communicative
points of view:
‘Down at the sea there was no one. The tide
far out, the beach glistening with cold,
fresh sand. Tracks of birds, suck of crabs
digging down backwards into their holes
as we came. The wet, bubbling stream
that broke out icily from the rocks at the
side of the bay. A place by those rocks to
nest in with our towels.’
[Helen Dunmore, You stayed awake with me (2000)]
 Nominative Sentences
 make the speech look fragmentary; mark
represented speech:
"An idea had occurred to Soames. His cousin
Jolyon was Irene's trustee, the first step would
be to go down and see him at Robin Hill.
Robin Hill! The odd—the very odd feeling
those words brought back. Robin Hill—the
house Bosinney had built for him and Irene—
the house they had never lived in—the fatal
house! And Jolyon lived there now! H'm!" [Man
of Property by Galsworthy]
 Nominative Sentences
 lend an utterance a strong emotional
colouring;
 introduce the reader to the locality in
which the action will be laid:

‘LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over,

and the Lord Chancellor sitting in
Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November
weather.’
[Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853)]
 Nominative Sentences
 produce an effect of a detailed but
laconic picture foregrounding its main
components, mentioning the emotions,
attitudes, moods of the characters:
‘There’s a heavenly square of sky, grey
slipping into blue. It’ll be hot later,
though the garden will be knee-deep
wet now. Dew on the big dockleaves,
dew slapping your legs as you go down
to the privy.’
[Helen Dunmore, You stayed awake with me (2000)]
 Asyndeton
 an intentional elimination of
conjunctions in order to present the
sentence in a concise and direct
way/to draw the attention to a
particular idea the author wants to
convey:

“Forget psychology. Forget the inside

of men's heads. Judge them by their
actions. ”
[C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British writer]
 Asyndeton
 lends, and sometimes speeds up, the rhythm of
utterance:
“Picture it. Nineteenth century man with his horses, dogs,
carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century,
speed up your cameras. Books cut shorter.
Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils
down to the gag (joke, mystification), the snap ending.
Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look,
Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down,
In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang!
Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests,
digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two
sentences, a headline!”
[Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury]
 Asyndeton
 invites the reader to collaborate with the writer,
deducing the meaning of the phrase on their
own:
“School is shorted, discipline relaxed,
philosophies, histories, languages
dropped, English and spelling gradually
neglected, finally almost completely
ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts,
pleasure lies all about after work. Why
learn anything save pressing buttons,
pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?”
[Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury]
 Asyndeton
 gives a unique emphasis to the text;
 expresses the message directly and in

a concise form:
“Consciousness of place came ebbing
(flow back) back to him slowly over a vast
tract of time unlit, unfelt, unlived…”

[Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man By James Joyce]

 Aposiopesis
 an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or
whole section from a text marked by three dots
or a dash (called ellipsis – a punctuation mark) that
indicates
 the speaker’s trailing off into silence;
 the nervous or awkward atmosphere;
 a mysterious or echoing voice;
 a slight pause:

“But I thought he was…”

“If everyone at twenty realized that half his life

was to be lived after forty…”

[Waugh, from Znamenskaya 2005]

 Aposiopesis
 conveys the emotional condition of
a character:
"Then, too, in old Jolyon's mind was
always the secret ache that the son
of James—of James, whom he had
always thought such a poor thing,
should be pursuing the paths of
success, while his own son—!" [Man of
Property by Galsworthy]
 Task 1 Ellipsis, Asyndeton, Aposiopesis
 ‘Charlie had started up already, his shoes making flat coffin-
thumps on the metal plates. Good shoes, decent soles.’
[Janice Galloway, The Bridge (1996)]
 ‘F*** bastards, parents,’ Colin complained one Monday
lunchtime. ‘You think they’re OK when you’re little, then
you realise they’re just like …’ - ‘Henry VIII, Col?’ Adrian
suggested.[Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (2011)]
 It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have
cold hearts. [The Werewolf by Angela Carter]
 An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest.
The air was thick, warm, heavy, sluggish. [Heart of Darkness by
Joseph Conrad]
 He is a nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing
upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst
of all, a faddist (eccentric).
 Apokoinu (Gr. “from common”)
 a blend of two sentences into one when the
connecting element is omitted:
I’m the first one saw her - the double
syntactical function of the predicative of
the first sentence ”the first one”,
performing also the function of the subject
of the second sentence
 characterizes a character through his

speech as uneducated or careless

 typical of irregular oral speech
 Apokoinu: Examples
 There was a door led into the
kitchen. [Sh.Anderson]
 He was the man killed that deer.
[R.P.Warren]
 There was no breeze came through
the door. [E.Hemingway]
 I bring him news will raise his
dropping spirits. [O.Jespersen]
 Parcellation
 a specific device of expressive syntax consisting
in the deliberate breaking of a single syntactic
structure into two or more intentionally isolated
parts separated from each other by a pause (or a
full stop in writing):
‘The disappointment was unexpected. But
unmistakable. It wasn’t till she felt it stuck in her
chest like cold pudding she knew what she’d
been doing. All this time. She’d been wanting him
to say something else. A question, maybe,
something that wondered what she cared about,
her work or something.’
[Janice Galloway, The Bridge (1996)]
 Parcellation
 characterizes the psychological state
of the literary personage:
‘They drew close at the top of the steps
and without thinking, she asked for a
kiss. His proximity made it seem so
natural. He said No. Just one word.
No.’
[Janice Galloway, The Bridge (1996)]
 Parcellation
 reflects the spontaneity and ease of
colloquial speech:

‘Maybe it would all be sorted out

there: something simple would be
said and the tension would lift. Or
break. Whatever it was tension did.’
[Janice Galloway, The Bridge (1996)]
 Parcellation
 makes the utterance rhythmical,
conveys dynamism of the action:

‘With that perhaps in mind, he broke away

briefly, and ran into the plating shop. And
returned with a rope, or coil of little
cord.’ ‘Blue was very active. Fixing and
tying. Shouting orders. Dubbo saw they
had begun to hoist the Jew. They would
tie him to his tree.’
[Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot (1961)]
 Parcellation
 may specify the context of the basic
part of the utterance:
“There was a moment of queer, not
entirely amiable silence. Of waiting to
see.”
 may perform a descriptive function,

depicting the environment, conditions

or details of the events described:
“They stood around him. Talking. Poles,
he reasoned, with what was left of his
mind.” [Patrick White, Riders in the Chariot (1961)]
 Gap-Sentence Link
 a peculiar type of connection of sentences in
which the connection is not immediately seen
and it requires an effort to grasp the
interrelation between the parts of the utterance;
 is deeply rooted in the spoken language:

‘She and that fellow ought to be the sufferers, and

they are in Italy.’

A logical and ordinary version of the sentence:

“She and that fellow who ought to suffer were
enjoying themselves in Italy (where well-to-do
English people go for holidays).”
 Gap-Sentence Link
 signals the introduction of inner
represented speech, usually with the
help of “but”, “and”;
 indicates a subjective evaluation of the

facts:
“It was not Capetown, where people only
frowned when they saw a black boy and
a white girl. But here . . . And he loved
her.”
[The Path of Thunder by Abrahams]
 Gap-Sentence Link
 it displays an unexpected coupling of ideas:
"She says nothing, but it is clear that she is
harping on (mention in an annoying way)
this engagement, and—goodness knows
what." [Galsworthy]

 aims at stirring up in the reader’s mind the

suppositions, associations and conditions
under which the sentence can exist:
“It was an afternoon to dream. And she took
out Jon's letters.” [Galsworthy]
 Task 2 Apokoinu, Parcellation,
Gap-Sentence Link
 "The Forsytes were resentful of something, not individually,
but as a family, this resentment expressed itself in an added
perfection of raiment, an exuberance of family cordiality, an
exaggeration of family importance, and—the sniff." [Galsworthy]
 .. when at her door arose a clatter might awake the dead.
[O.Jespersen]
 The renegade hates life itself. He wants the death of life. So
these many ‘reformers’ and ‘idealists’ who glorify the
savages in America. They are death-birds, life-haters.
Renegades.
We can’t go back. And Melville couldn’t. Much as he hated
the civilized humanity he knew. He couldn’t go back to the
savages. He wanted to. He tried to. And he couldn’t.
Because, in the first place, it made him sick.
[D.H.Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, 1955]
 Syntactical Stylistic Means:
Interaction
 interaction of adjacent sentences is
a compositional syntactical
technique
 the means based on interaction:
 parallelconstructions
 climax/gradation

 anticlimax/back gradation/bathos

 zeugma

 detachment
 Parrallel Constructions
the repetition of a grammatical structure of a sentence to
produce the effect of a complete whole/to reinforce the
meaning of smth through repetition:

IF I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
***(grammatical and semantic parallelism)
[Emily Dickinson (1830–86)]
 Climax, or Gradation
 an arrangement of a series of
words, clauses or phrases that form
an ascending scale, in which each of
the sentences is stronger in
intensity of expression than the
previous one:
It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a f
air city, a veritable gem of a city.
 Climax
 can be logical, emotional, quantitative:
“Let a man acknowledge his obligations to himself,
his family, his country, and his God.”

“It should surprise no one to learn that the Prime

Minister is a liar. Lying, after all, is the essence of
the politician’s craft. What should surprise us and
what alarms his colleagues - is that he is such a bad
liar. He is a true phoney: an authentic fraud. As one
senior Cabinet Minister recently remarked: “He’s the
sort of man who, if he kept a brothel, would bring
prostitution into disrepute.””[Robert Harris, PMQ]

“They looked at hundreds of houses;

they climbed thousands of stairs; they
inspected innumerable kitchens.” [The Escape by
Maugham]
 Climax
 shows the relative importance of things
as seen by the author (especially in
emotional climax):
“Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say,
with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge, how
are you? When will come to see me?' No
beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no
children asked him what it was o'clock, no
man or woman ever once in all his life inquired
the way to such and such a place, of
Scrooge.” [A Christmas Carol by Dickens]
 Climax
depicts phenomena dynamically:

All I need say just now is, that the

Baroness Won Koëldwethout somehow or
other acquired great control over the Baron
Won Koëldwethout, and that little by little,
and bit by bit, and day by day, and
year by year, the baron
got the worst of some disputed question, or
was slily unhorsed from some old hobby
<…>. [The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by
Ch.Dickens]
 Climax
 impresses upon the reader
the significance of the things described
by suggested comparison:

“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.”
[Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream]
 Anticlimax/Bathos
 a figure of speech that consists in an abrupt and
often ludicrous descent which contrasts with the
previous rise;
 gives a humorous or ironic twist:

“Her hair was finely curled, her cheeks were lined

with rouge, and her dress was a flowing green
and blue which made her look rather like a
tired, old peacock.”

‘MARY: John – once we had something that was

pure, and wonderful, and good. What’s happened
to it?
JOHN: You spent it all.’[Joke, The British Radio]
 Anticlimax/Bathos
 produces a sudden change in tone:
“In days of yore, a mighty rumbling
was heard in a Mountain.
It was said to be in labour, and multitudes
flocked together, from far and near, to see what it
would produce.
After long expectation and many wise
conjectures from the bystanders —
out popped, a Mouse!”
[Aesop's fable "The Mountain in Labour"]
 Bathos
 creates twists in the narrative which
provoke the reader’s thought:

The Answer to the Great Question… Of

Life, the Universe and Everything…
Is… Forty-two,‘ said Deep Thought,
with infinite majesty and calm.
[The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams ]
 Bathos
 can indirectly characterize the
protagonist:

He spent his final hour of life doing

what he loved most: arguing with
his wife.
 Task 3 Parallel Constructions,
Gradation, Bathos
o "For God, for Country, and for Yale."
[A Yale University motto]
o "The wind sung..., and the sailors
swore" [G. Byron]
o "She rose - she sprung - she clung to
his embrace." [G. Byron]
o "She was a good servant, she walked
softly, she was a determined woman,
she walked precisely." [G. Greene]
o Double your pleasure, double your fun.
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 Thank you for attention