1. The subject-matter and aims of stylistics.

The correlation between terms style and stylistics

Style – the effective use of language especially in prose to make statements or to
rouse emotions. It involves first of all the power to put fact with clarity and brevity.
The term style applied to the realm of linguistics and literary science which studies
peculiarities of a writer individual manner of using language means to achieve his/her
goals of influencing the reader.
The object of linguistic in general and of stylistic (lingo-stylistic) in particular is the
human language.
The subject of stylistics can also be outlined as the study of the nature, functions
and structure of stylistic devices (SD), on the one hand, and, on the other- the study
of language styles (functional style), its aim, its structure, its characteristic features.
The main aim of stylistic lies in building an utterance from the structural elements
of a language for achieving a certain pragmatic aim.
Is style extrinsic or intrinsic in nature?
1) the characteristic manner in which a writer expresses his ideas, e. g. the style of
Pushkin, Goethe, Dickens, etc.
2) the manner of expressing ideas in writing characteristic of a literary movement or
period, e. g. the style of sentimentalism, symbolism, critical realism or of the
Renaissance, etc.
3) the selection and use of the resources of language distinctive of a literary genre,
e. g. the style of a comedy, an ode, a novel, etc.
4) the selective use of resources of language confined to spheres of human activity,
e. g. the style of prose, newspapers, business correspondence, etc.
In this case the term style is frequently identified technique of using the
resources of language in a given situation with the maximum possible efficiency.
A language style – a more-or-less coherent system, a subsystem within a language,
consisting of certain lexico-phraseological, grammatical and phonetical resources,
which are used selectively and purposefully to express ideas in a given situation.
2. The place of stylistics in the system of related disciplines.
Stylistics is linked with a number of branches of scientific research, such
as sociolinguistics ( the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society,
including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language and the ways it is
used), psycholinguistics ( psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between
linguistic factors and psychological aspects), text linguistics and its sister disciplines –
phonology (studies how languages systematically organize their phones or, for sign
languages, their constituent parts of signs), lexicography, grammar and semantics above
all.
 Stylistics interacts with semasiology which area of study is meaning. Semasiology is
related to the theory of signs and deals with visual as well as verbal meanings.
Meaning is attached to all the levels, to those of morphemes, words, phrases and
texts. All stylistic effects are based on the interplay between different kinds of meaning on
different levels. Types of linguistic meanings attached to the linguistic units may be
named as grammatical, lexical, emotive, evaluative, expressive, stylistic.
In stylistic analysis we often have to do with a transfer of in a text (antonomasia,
metaphor, metonymy, etc.). So Stylistics interacts with onomasiology (or onomatology),
the theory of naming dealing with the choice of words when naming
or assessing (оценивать) some objects or phenomenon.
Literary Stvlistics (deals with individual styles of authors) will overlap with areas of
literary studies: the theory of imagery, literary genres, the art of composition, etc.
Decoding Stvlistics (describes expressive peculiarities of certain messages or texts)
borders culture studies, including the history of art, aesthetic trends and information
theory,
In fact, stylistic research is concerned not only with linguistic means used as a result
of some choice, but also with the motivation of this choice, psychological or sociological,
the specific intention of the user of language, expressive value of his output and the final
result of it.stylistic aspect proper can hardly be divorced from the cognitive. This confirms
the idea of the synthetic nature of Stylistics. More often than not Stylistics does go
beyond the borders of the sentence, beyond language as a system.
3. The roots of stylistics. Scientific theories that contributed to the development
of the science.
- Rhetoric (Ancient Greece, Rome): exploring and examining the effects of
language and how particular choices could make a speech more, or less, persuasive
and compelling;

-
- Aristotle’s treatise Rhetoric, 4th century BC (The English title varies: typically
it is titled Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric) —> clarity, amplitude, propriety,
 rhythm, syntax, metaphor. Horace’s The art of poetry; Longinus’s On the sublime;
Quintilian’s The institutes of oratory (The orator’s education).
- Rhetoric, according to Aristotle, is the art of seeing the available means of
persuasion. What makes for good deliberative rhetoric, besides the future tense? -
According to Aristotle, there are three persuasive appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos.
1) Ethos is how you convince an audience of your credibility. 2) Logos is the use of
logic and reason. This method can employ rhetorical devices such as analogies,
examples, and citations of research or statistics. But it's not just facts and figures.
It's also the structure and content of the speech itself. The point is to use factual
knowledge to convince the audience. 3) Pathos appeals to emotion, it's often the
most effective mode. Pathos is neither inherently good nor bad, but it may be
irrational and unpredictable. It can just as easily rally people for peace as incite
them to war. Aristotle's rhetorical appeals still remain powerful tools today.
Applications of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
"In application, the art of rhetoric contributed during the period from the fourth
to the fourteenth century not only to the methods of speaking and writing well, of
composing letters and petitions, sermons and prayers, legal documents and briefs,
poetry and prose, but to the canons of interpreting laws and scripture, to the
dialectical devices of discovery and proof, to the establishment of the scholastic
method which was to come into universal use in philosophy and theology, and finally
to the formulation of scientific inquiry which was to separate philosophy from
theology." (Richard McKeon, "Rhetoric in the Middle Ages." Speculum, January
1942)
- The 18th century —> an individualistic-psychological view on style and stylistics
Before 20th century, three major movements can be identified in the evolution
of stylistics as a discipline. - Rhetorical Stylistics; - Aesthetic Stylistics; -
Individualistic Stylistics.
- Rhetorical Stylistics - The origin of the concept of style or the early attempt to
study style can be traced back to the classical school of rhetoric, which regards style as a
part of the technique of persuasion and discusses it under oratory. This discipline was a set
of rules and strategies which enable orators ‘to speak well’; in other words to use language
that is fully decorated with all the figures and tropes to bring about changes in the feelings
and opinions of the audience.
- Aesthetic Stylistics - Renaissance scholars, compare style to flowers, jewels,
embroidery. For Samuel Wesley, it is a ‘dress of thought’. Pope describes stylistics as the
equivalent of ‘true wit’, which consists in ‘what oft was thought, but never so well
expressed’ and other definitions as well. All these definitions or descriptions reflect an
artificial and ornamental view of style. Gradually, such a discipline expanded from
rhetoric to incorporate other linguistic discourses (genres). They concentrated their literary
efforts on elements such as diction, metaphors, images and symbols, utilized for
embellishing the subject matter of a given piece of literary work. That is, great importance
was given to the choice and artistic arrangement of words. In this sense, such a practice is
seen as aesthetic stylistics as it is ornamental in its approach. It is an extension, which
asserts the dogma that sees the special use of language as ‘the dress of thought. ’
- Individualistic Stylistics is a revival of Cicero’s conception of style as “an
expression of personality.” This way of entertaining the language of literature is known as
individual stylistics. In turn, this tendency stimulated linguists to entertain the different,
individual uses in literary discourse - the way in which a writer expresses himself. The
study of language variations was then accentuated by the emergence of modern linguistics
in the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
Stylistics after 20th Century. Under the impetus of certain theoretical
developments in Russia and Europe, Stylistics has seen the following trends in 20th
Century. - Expressive Stylistics; - Psychological Stylistics; - Formalist Stylistics; -
New & Practical Criticism informed Stylistics; - Reader-response Stylistics.
Distrustful of all the previous theories of language, the formalist method emphasized
that the study of language should confine itself to the explication of the formal linguistic
features of a literary text. In other words, the proponents of this movement take the poetic
language as the object of their inquiry; the text and only the text should be considered, and
no other considerations of social, historical, ideological or biographical approaches are
entertained. Formalist Stylistics: Concepts. – Defamiliarization (остраннение) is
the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or
strange way so they could gain new perspectives and see the world differently. The
term "defamiliarization" was first coined in 1917 by Russian formalist Viktor
Shklovsky in his essay "Art as Device" (alternate translation: "Art as Technique").
Shklovsky views literature as the totality of the formal devices employed in a work of art.
He also expressed the independence of the literary language in his article ‘Art as
Technique’ where he announced the term of ‘defamiliarization’ or ‘making strange’ as a
key concept and a manifesto in literary theory as the principle in the function of art is to
make people aware of the world in a fresh way. Defamiliarization of that which is or has
become familiar or taken for granted, hence automatically perceived, is the basic
function of all devices. And with defamiliarization come both the slowing down and
the increased difficulty (impeding) of the process of reading and comprehending and
an awareness of the artistic procedures (devices) causing them.
Automatisation & Foregrounding. Automatisation refers to the use of linguistic
devices for a communicative, informative purpose without any attempt to attract the
attention as the social greetings, for example. Foregrounding, on the other hand, means the
use of foregrounded, linguistic devices that make the expression stand out as uncommon.
 - Jakobson, the major representative of the Prague circle, formalist. Roman
Jakobson had been an active member of the Russian Formalists and the Prague
School, before emigrating to America in the 1940s. He brought together Russian
Formalism and American New Criticism in his Closing Statement at a conference
on stylistics at Indiana University in 1958. Published as Linguistics and Poetics in
1960, Jakobson's lecture is often credited with being the first coherent
formulation of stylistics, and his argument was that the study of poetic
language should be a sub-branch of linguistics. The poetic function was one of
six general functions of language he described in the lecture.
According to Jakobson (1960), there are numerous factors involved in any linguistic
act, which are central to the successful achievement of a message and without which a
message is incomplete. These numerous factors are set towards: the addresser, the
addressee, message, context, code, and contact. - That is, these factors correspond to the
six functions which language performs in any successful communicative act. Each of
which stands dominant if the emphasis is placed upon one of the linguistic functions and
similarly determines ‘the verbal structure of a message.’
4. Branches of stylistics. Linguistic and literary stylistics.
According to the principle of language description stylistics is divided into:
1) linguostylistics: • Functional styles (in their development and current state). • The
linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language, their systematic character and
their functions.
Functional stylistics is a branch of linguistics that studies functional styles, that is
special sublanguages or varieties of the language, such as scientific, colloquial, business,
publicist, etc.
Functional style - a system of coordinated, interrelated and interconditioned language
means intended to fulfil a specific function of communication and aiming at a definite
effect. (I. R. Galperin)
Functional styles (I. R. Galperin's classification)
1) Belles-lettres style, embracing numerous and versatile genres of imaginative
writing.
2) Publicist style, covering such genres as essay, feature article, public speeches, etc.;
3) Newspaper style, observed in the majority of information materials printed in
newspapers;
4) Official style, represented in all kinds of official documents and papers;
5) Scientific style, found in articles, brochures, monographs and other scientific and
academic publications.
Functional styles (I. V. Arnold's classification)
Poetic style
Scientific style
 Newspaper style
Colloquial style
2) literary stylistics: • The composition of a work of art.
• Various literary genres.
• The writer's outlook.
Both study the common ground of:
1) the literary language from the point of view of its variability;
2) the individual style of a writer;
3) poetic speech that has its own specific laws.
Comparative stylistics is connected with the contrastive study of more than one
language. It analyzes the stylistic resources not inherent in a separate language but at the
crossroads of two or more languages and is obviously linked to the theory of translation.
Level-forming branches:
• Stylistic lexicology: Stylistic Lexicology studies the semantic structure of the word
and the interrelation (or interplay) of the connotative and denotative meanings of the word,
as well as the interrelation of the stylistic connotations of the word and the context.
• Stylistic phonetics (or Phonostylistics): Stylistic Phonetics (or Phonostylistics) is
engaged in the study of style-forming phonetic features of the text. It describes the
prosodic features of prose and poetry and variants of pronunciation in different types of
speech (colloquial or oratory or recital).
• Stylistic grammar: Stylistic Morphology is interested in the stylistic potentials of
specific grammatical forms and categories, such as the number of the noun, or the peculiar
use of tense forms of the verb, etc.
Stylistic Syntax is one of the oldest branches of stylistic studies that grew out of
classical rhetoric. Stylistic syntax has to do with the expressive order of words, types of
syntactic links, figures of speech. It also deals with bigger units from paragraph onwards.
5. The basics of the theory of context.
Context:
 one of the basic notions of stylistics (situational context, social and historical
context, linguistic context, stylistic context, etc.);
 general sense: something which precedes or follows something;
 basics of the theory of context: the text is a structure with an inner
organization, whose elements are significant not only by themselves, but also
in their relations with other elements, including extra-textual elements, with
extra-linguistic reality, with the situation.

 London (J. R. Firth, London School of Linguistics)

 Leningrad (N. N. Amosova's school)
 Moscow (G. V. Olshansky)
 London (J. R. Firth, London School of Linguistics):
"You shall know a word by the company it keeps"
 context of situation;
 language - a set of events which speakers uttered, a mode of action, a way of
doing things';
 whatever anyone said must be understood in the context of the situation;
 beside linguistic factors, factors like the status and personal history of the
speaker, as well as the social character of the situation, must also be taken
into account.

The context theory developed by N. N. Amosova

 polysemy and homonymy, inherent in vocabulary in language are eliminated
in speech thanks to the context and the speech situation;
 the situation is not included in the context, but is singled out separately;
 Context is the connection of a word with its indicator that is in direct or
indirect syntactic relationship with the word being actualized;

People used to think that the world was flat – 'spread out on a single plane;
extending at full length';
a flat tire – 'not containing enough air';
flat voice – 'dull, monotonous';
the lager tastes flat – 'having lost its gas', etc.
(lexical context)

Sheep are grass – eating animals.

It is our neighbour's sheep.
(grammatical context)
6. Decoding stylistics and its basic concepts (foregrounding, convergence,
defeated expectancy, coupling, irradiation)
Decoding stylistics investigates the expressive means provided
by each level not as separate techniques, but as part of an overall
scheme against the background of relatively long segments of
text, from the paragraph to the level of the whole text.
Foregrounding is the ability of a verbal element to obtain extra significance to
say more in a definite context.
Foregrounding is the ways of the text organization which focus the reader's
attention of certain elements of the message" (I. V. Arnold).
Two approaches to the classification of the types of foregrounding:
 • the division into qualitative and quantitative aspects of foregrounding
(Geoffrey Leech)
• determining the particular types of foregrounding (I. V. Arnold)
The quantitative aspect involves the deviation of some expected frequency, i. e.
the violation of the rules of usage by over-frequency, e. g.: I've heard them lilting at
look and belting, Lasses lilting before dawn today…
The qualitative aspect is the deviation from the language code itself, which
means violation of linguistic norms, for example grammatical or semantic, e. g. the
air on his face unkind as the touch of sweating metal.
The second approach involves determining the particular types of
foregrounding. I. V. Arnold unites the most famous stylistic devices
and suggests that there are three major types of foregrounding:
convergence, the effect of defeated expectancy and coupling.
The main functions of different types of foregrounding:
1. They establish a hierarchy of meanings and elements within the text, i. e.
they highlight particularly important parts of the message.
2. They ensure the coherence and integrity of the text and at the same time
segment the text, making it more perceptible, and establish connections between parts
of the text and between the whole text and its constituent parts.
3. Protect the message from interference and simplify decoding by creating
such an ordering of information so that the reader is able to decipher previously
unknown elements of the code.
4. Foregrounding forms an aesthetic context and performs a number of
semantic functions, one of which, in addition to those already listed, is
expressiveness, which is a property of a text or part of a text that conveys
meaning with increased intensity and has as its result an emotional or logical
reinforcement, which may or may not be figurative.
Convergence consists of an accumulation of several different stylistic devices
serving one image or performing one common
stylistic function, e. g.: «And heaven and heaven still unrestingly heaven the
black sea, as if it s fast times were a conscience.»
Defeated expectancy - any noticeable deviation from a convention, as a
disturbance of the pattern which the reader listener has been conditioned to expect,
e.g.: But - Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual Inform us truly, have they not hen-
pecked you all?
Coupling is the appearance of equivalent elements in equivalent positions,
which provides the coherence to the text.
The phonetic expressive means: alliteration, assonance, paronomasia, such
prosodic features as rhyme, rhythm and meter;
 The syntactical expressive means: anadiplosis, anaphora, framing, chiasmus,
epiphora;
The semantic expressive means: synonyms and antonyms, root repetition,
paraphrase, sustained metaphor, semantic fields, recurrence of images,
connotations or symbols.
Semantic irradiation consists in the fact that the presence of at least one emotional
word gives emotionality to the entire utterance. The phenomenon can be considered
as a kind of deceived expectation. Especially often such effects are obtained when
using colloquial and solemnly sublime vocabulary. For example, the interjection Oh
in a different context will convey a different emotional load: "Oh, I am so glad", "Oh,
I am so sorry", "Oh, how unexpected!"
7. Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary: neutral, common literary
and common colloquial vocabulary.
There are different layers of the vocabulary:
 The literary layer (literary (high-flown) words, which are traditionally linked with
poetic, bookish or written speech);
The aspect of the literary layer – its markedly bookish character; the layer more or less
stable; groups of the literary layer have no local or dialectal character.
 The neutral layer (neutral words, which possess no stylistic colouring and can be
employed in all styles of language);
The aspect of the neutral layer – its universal character; it is unrestricted in its use; it
can be employed in all styles of language and in all spheres of human activity; the most
stable layer, unlike all other groups, the neutral words cannot be considered as having a
special stylistic colouring.
 The colloquial layer (colloquial (conversational) words that are most often used in
oral, colloquial speech)
The aspect of the colloquial layer of words – its lively spoken character which makes it
unstable, fleeting. The colloquial layer of words is not infrequently limited to a definite
language or community or confined to a special locality where it circulates.
Common literary words: mainly used in writing and in polished speech; literary units
stand in opposition to colloquial units.
e.g. infant(lit.) – child(neut.) – kid(colloq.)
Common colloquial words:
a) Specific colloquial synonyms for stylistically neutral words, all-overish ( =
indisposed); back-chat ( = altercation); to bamboozle ( = to hoax); catcall ( = whistle);
catchpenny (=claptrap); clean-up (= cleansing); chap ( = fellow); chunk ( = lump); doxy (=
doctrine); to hobnob ( = to be boon-companions); fug (= stuffiness); interjections: gee, eh,
well, hot, drat; children's words: dad, mummy; tummy ( = stomach), baa-lamb, kitty etc.
b) Words that are stylistically neutral, but in colloquial speech are used with a
figurative meaning: spoon 'простофиля', hedgehog 'неуживчивый человек', jay
'болтун', spiky 'сварливый', half-baked 'придурковатый', pretty 'довольно', crack
'первоклассный', drain 'глоток', to glue 'не отходить от кого-либо', juicy 'сырой (о
погоде)' etc.
c) Reduced forms of neutral words, e.g, granny, daddy, lassie, fatty, piggy;
Bobby, Polly, Sally, Becky, Johnny. Here also belong clippings - words which are
normally used in an abbreviated form in informal situations: lab (laboratory), TV or telly
(television), exam (examination), ad or advert (advertisement), phone (telephone), fridge
(refrigerator), bike (bicycle), rep (business representative).
d) Phonetic variants of neutral words, gaffer = grandfather, baccy = tobacco, feller =
fellow
8. Special literary vocabulary: terms, poetic, archaic words and their stylistic
functions.
- Common literary words
- Terms and learned words
- Poetic words
- Archaic words (archaisms)
- Literary coinages including nonce-words (neologisms)

• Stylistic difference between literary and colloquial words may be of various kinds:
- emotional tension connoted in a word;
- sphere of application or in the degree of the quality denoted.
• Colloquial words are always more emotionally coloured than literary ones.
• Both literary and colloquial words have their upper and lower ranges. The lower range of
literary words approaches the neutral layer and the same can be said of the upper range of
the colloquial layer so it can very easily pass into the neutral layer.
The difference in the stylistic aspect of words may colour the whole of an utterance.
Dora: Oh, I've let it out. Have I? But he's the right sort: I can see
that. You won't let it out downstairs, old man, will you?
Juggins: The family can rely on my absolute discretion.
(Shaw)
Stylistic functions:
1) A solemn or poetic word, placed in a stylistically neutral context, gives a solemn or
poetic tone to the statement (with the relevant subject of the speech or the relevant
situation):
It was many and many year ago
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee.
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
(Poe)
2) A word with a high stylistic tone in a neutral or solemn context with an inappropriate
subject or speech situation has a comic effect.
Soapy's mind became cognizant of the fact the time had come for him to resolve himself
into a singular Committee of Ways and Means to provide against coming rigour.
(O. Henry)
3) In informal conversation literary words and expressions may serve to mark the
pompous language of a character.
"I am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for
one destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary
involvements of a complicated nature."
(Ch. Dickens)
Terms:
 words denoting objects, processes, phenomena of science, humanities, technique;
 terms are characterised by their direct relevance to the system or set of terms used in
a particular science, discipline or act;
 de-terminization (loss of term characteristics), e. g. radio, television;
 Terms used in special works dealing with the notions of some branch of science;
 when used in a scientific text, special terminology is stylistically neutral, e.g.
gravity, enzyme, suable, genocide, etc.
Terms are used:
1) to indicate the technical peculiarities of the subject dealt with;
2) to make some reference to the occupation of a character whose language would
naturally contain special words and expressions;
3) as stylistic device:
"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clum replied, "to
go and marry a governess. There was something about the girl too."
"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development, " Squill remarked.
(Thackeray)
4) to create true-to-life atmosphere of the narration:
There was a long conversation - a long wait. His father came back to say it was doubtful
whether they could make the loan. Eight per cent, then being secured for money, was a
small rate of interest, considering its need. For ten per cent Mr Kuzel might make a call-
loan. Frank went back to his employer, whose commercial choler rose at the report."
 (T. Dreiser: The Financier)
5) with a parodying function to create humorous effect:
A young lady home from school was explaining: "Take an egg, make a perforation on the
base and a corresponding one in the apex. Then apply the lips to the aperture, and by
forcibly inhaling discharge the shell of its contents". An old lady who was listening
exclaimed: "I'm amazed how folk do things nowadays. When I was a gal they made a hole
in each end and sucked."
Poetic words:
 a rather insignificant layer of the special literary vocabulary;
 mostly archaic or very rarely used highly literary words which aim at producing an
elevated effect;
 constitute poetic diction: quoth (said), spouse (wife, husband), woe (sorrow), foe
(enemy), swain (shepherd), steed, courser, charger, barb (horse), sylvan (woody),
realm (kingdom), aught (anything), naught (nothing), anon (at once), eke (also), ere
(before), whilom (formerly), albeit (though).
 main function: to sustain the special elevated atmosphere of poetry, colour the
utterance with a certain air of loftiness and evoke emotive meanings. In an ordinary
environment poetical words may have a satirical function.
Archaisms
 antiquated words or forms replaced in the modern language by new ones:
 the disappearance of the referent: hauberk - кольчуra, yeoman - иомен,
свободный крестьянин, землевладелец, falconet - фальконет, легкая
пушка
 the replacement by a synonym: main - ocean, to deem - to think, to consider
 the main function is to re-create the atmosphere of antiquity, to convey the local
colour, to make the described events correspond to the reality they reflect.
 used within the style of official documents, e. g. aforesaid, hereby, therewith,
moreover, furthermore, inasmuch as, in consequence, provided that, I beg to inform
you.
 function:
- to emphasise in speech the departure of the speaker or writer from a simplistic,
commonplace interpretation of the topic
- to maintain the exactness of expression necessary in official style.
 In imaginative writings archaic words and particularly archaic forms of words may
also serve to produce a humorous or satirical effect:
Here is an example of such a use of an archaic form. In Shaw's play "How He Lied to
Her Husband" a youth of eighteen, speaking of his feelings towards a "female of thirty-
seven" expresses himself in a language which is not in conformity with the situation. His
words are:
"Perfect love casteth off Tear."
 Neologisms
• new words built according to the existing language patterns;
• used to fill the need to designate new concepts resulting from the development of
science, to express nuances of meaning called forth by a deeper understanding of the
nature of the phenomenon in question: orbiter 'a spacecraft designed to orbit a celestial
body'; lander 'a spacecraft designed to land on such a body'; missileer – 'a person skilled
in missilery or in the launching and control of missiles'
• the new words of the literary-bookish type may sometimes be built with the help of
affixes and by other means which have gone out of use or which are in the process of
dying out.
• some affixes are themselves literary in character and naturally carry this property to
derivatives formed with them: anti-novelist, anti-hero, anti-world, anti-emotion, anti-
trend.
Abbreviations:
WHO (World Health Organisation),
PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation).
Acronyms:
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)
OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).
Some neologisms are called language coinages or occasional words – words, created
for special communicative situation only, and are not used beyond these occasions
(author's neologisms).
Their function is to create the effect of laconism or that of witty humour and satire:
Her nose was red and dew-droppy. (Aldington)
She was too… Jack-in-the-boxy (похожа на фигурку, выскакивающую из ящика -
игрушку) (Priestly)
We left the town refreshed and rehatted. (в новых шляпках) ((Fothergill)
9. Special literary vocabulary: barbarisms, foreignisms and their stylistic
functions.
Barbarisms and foreignisms are words and phrases borrowed from other languages
and adapted to the recipient language.
- Barbarisms – words which have already become facts of the English language.
Barbarisms are generally given in the body of the dictionary.
- Foreign words – words and phrases borrowed from other languages which have
not undergone grammatical and phonetic assimilation in English (they are not
registered by English dictionaries). In printed work foreign words and phrases are
generally italicized to indicate their alien nature or their stylistic value.
Barbarisms, on the contrary, are not made conspicuous in the text unless they bear
a special load of stylistic information.
In the vocabulary of the English language there is a considerable layer of words
called barbarisms. These are words of foreign origin which have not entirely been
assimilated into the English language.
 - Most of them have corresponding English synonyms; e. g. chic (=stylish); bon mot
(=a clever witty saying); en passant (=in passing); ad infinitum (= to infinity) and many
other words and phrases. Barbarisms are words which have already become facts of the
English language. They are part and parcel of the English word-stock, though they remain
on the outskirts of the literary vocabulary. Foreign words, though used for certain stylistic
purposes, do not belong to the English vocabulary. They are not registered by English
dictionaries, except in a kind of addenda which gives the meanings of the foreign words
most frequently used in literary English.
There are foreign words in the English vocabulary which fulfil a terminological
function. Therefore, though they still retain their foreign appearance, they should not be
regarded as barbarisms. Such words as ukase, udarnik, soviet, kolkhoz and the like denote
certain concepts which reflect an objective reality not familiar to English-speaking
communities. There are no names for them in English and so they have to be explained.
New concepts of this type are generally given the names they have in the language of the
people whose reality they reflect.
It is evident that barbarisms are a historical category. Many foreign words and
phrases which were once just foreign words used in literary English to express a concept
non-existent in English reality, have little by little entered the class of words named
barbarisms and many of these barbarisms have gradually lost their foreign peculiarities,
become more or less naturalized and have merged with the native English stock of words.
Conscious, retrograde, spurious and strenuous are words in Ben Jonson's play "The
Poetaster" which were made fun of in the author's time as unnecessary borrowings
from the French. With the passing of time they have become common English
literary words. They no longer raise objections on the part of English purists. The same
can be said of the words scientific, methodical, penetrate, function, figurative, obscure,
and many others, which were once barbarisms, but which are now lawful members of the
common literary word-stock of the language.
Both foreign words and barbarisms are widely used in various styles of language
with various aims, aims which predetermine their typical functions.
- One of these functions is to supply local colour. In order to depict local conditions
of life,- concrete facts and events, customs and habits, special care is taken to introduce
into the passage such language elements as will reflect the environment. In "Vanity Fair"
Thackeray takes the reader to a small German town where a boy with a remarkable
appetite is made the focus of attention. By introducing several German words into his
narrative, the author gives an indirect description of the peculiarities of the German menu
and the environment in general. "The little boy, too, we observed, had a famous
appetite, and consumed schinken (=ham), and braten (=roast meat), and kartoffeln
(=potatoes), and cranberry jam... with a gallantry that did honour to his nation."
These words have not become facts of the English language and need special decoding to
be understood by the rank and file English-speaking reader.
- Another function of barbarisms and foreign words is to build up the stylistic
device of non-personal direct speech or represented speech. The use of a word, or a
phrase, or a sentence in the reported speech of a local inhabitant helps to reproduce his
actual words, manner of speech and the environment as well.
- Barbarisms and foreign words are used in various styles of language, but are most
often to be found in the style of belles-lettres and the publicistic style.
Foreign words and phrases may sometimes be used to exalt the expression of the
idea, to elevate the language.
- Barbarisms have still another function when used in the belles-lettres style. We may
call it an "exactifying" function. French "Au-revoir." When used in English as a formal
sign of parting it will either carry the exact meaning of the words it is composed of, 'See
you again soon', or have another stylistic function.
10. Special colloquial vocabulary: slang, jargonisms, professionalisms and their
stylistic functions.
1. Common colloquial words:
a) Specific colloquial synonyms for stylistically neutral words, all-overish
(=indisposed); back-chat ( = altercation); to bamboozle ( = to hoax); catcall (=whistle);
catchpenny (=claptrap); clean-up (= cleansing); chap ( = fellow); chunk (= lump); doxy (=
doctrine); to hobnob ( = to be boon-companions); fug (= stuffiness); interjections: gee, eh,
well, hot, drat; children's words: dad, mummy; tummy ( = stomach), baa-lamb, kitty etc.
b) Words that are stylistically neutral, but in colloquial speech are used with a
figurative meaning: spoon 'простофиля', hedgehog 'неуживчивый человек', jay 'болтун',
spiky 'сварливый', half-baked 'придурковатый', pretty 'довольно', crack
'первоклассный', drain 'глоток', to glue 'не отходить от кого-либо', juicy'сырой (о
погоде)' etc.
d) Phonetic variants of neutral words, gaffer = grandfather, baccy = tobacco,
feller = fellow
2. Slang:
•consist of highly colloquial words and expressions with a humorous,
emotional or vulgar connotation which are not recognized by literary usage;
•is noted for the abundance of its synonyms. It includes expressive, mostly
ironical names for some things or phenomena which are often referred to;
• the stylistic function of slang in the author's narration is to give an emotional
characterization of an object or a phenomenon, often by off- hand ridicule.
3. Jargonisms:
• is a recognized term for a group of words that exists in almost every language
and whose aim is to preserve secrecy within one or another social group;
 • jargonisms are generally old words with entirely new meanings imposed on
them, e. g. grease means 'money'; loaf means 'head'; a tiger hunter is 'a gambler'; a
lexer is 'a student preparing for a law course';
• jargonisms are social in character (the jargon of thieves and vagabonds,
generally known as cant; the jargon of jazz people; the jargon of the army, known as
military slang; the jargon of sportsmen, and many others)
• in imaginative writings jargon is used to characterize a personage
by his manner of speaking.
4. Professional words:
• the words used in a definite trade, profession or calling by people connected
by common interests both at work and at home;
• they name a new already-existing concepts, tools or instruments, and have the
typical properties of a special code;
•generally remain in circulation within a definite community, as they are linked
to a common occupation and common social interests.
• are used in emotive prose to depict the natural speech of a character.
•the skilful use of a professional word will show not only the vocation of a
character, but also his education, breeding, environment and sometimes even his
psychology.
• the use of professionalisms forms the most conspicuous element of
such literary device as speech-characterization.
• professionalisms do not allow any polysemy, they are monosemantic; e. g.:
tin-fish (submarine); block-buster (a bomb especially designed to destroy blocks of
big buildings); piper (a specialist who decorates pastry with the use of a cream-
pipe); a midder case (a midwifery case); outer (a knockout blow).
• fulfil a socially useful function in communication, facilitating a quick
and adequate grasp of the message.
5. Dialectal words:
• words, which in the process of integration of the English national language
remained beyond its literary boundaries, and their use is generally confined to a
definite locality.
• are meant to characterize the speaker as a person of a certain locality,
breeding, education, etc. e. g. lass 'a girl or a beloved girl'; lad, 'a boy or a young
man';
draft 'of unsound mind, silly'; fash 'trouble, cares'.
6. Vulgar words:
1) expletives and swear words which are of an abusive character, like 'damn',
''bloody', 'to hell', 'goddamn' used now as general exclamations. The function of
expletives is to express strong emotions, mainly annoyance, anger, vexation and the
 like. They are not to be found in any functional style of language except emotive
prose, and here only in the direct speech of the characters.
2) obscene words. These are known as four-letter words the use of which is
banned in any form of intercourse as being indecent.
11. Special colloquial vocabulary: dialectal words, vulgarisms and their stylistic
functions.

Dialectal words:
 words, which in the process of integration of the English national language
remained beyond its literary boundaries, and their use is generally confined to a
definite locality.
 are meant to characterize the speaker as a person of a certain locality, breeding,
education, etc.
e. g. lass 'a girl or a beloved girl'; lad, 'a boy or a young man'; draft 'of
unsound mind, silly'; fash 'trouble, cares'.

Vulgar words:
1) expletives and swear words which are of an abusive character, like 'damn',
''bloody', 'to hell', 'goddamn' used now as general exclamations. The function of
expletives is to express strong emotions, mainly annoyance, anger, vexation and the
like. They are not to be found in any functional style of language except emotive
prose, and here only in the direct speech of the characters.
2) obscene words. These are known as four-letter words the use of which is
banned in any form of intercourse as being indecent.
12. Phraseology and its stylistic use.
Phraseology - a peculiar "stock" of expressive means of language; a special
language level, the units of which are not equivalent to words, but only correlate
with them;
Phraseological units (set expressions, set phrases, linguistic fusions, idioms) can
be defined as stable separate-formed but semantically integral combinations of
words with fully or partially reinterpreted meaning.
"Linguistic fusions are set phrases, the meaning of which is understood only
from
the combination as a whole" (I.R. Galperin)
Phraseological units:
 fulfil the function of nomination and communication;
 possess the property of syntactic diversity (can be modified to
create various
 stylistic effects);
  contain additional information (being the units of secondary
nomination)
E.g. good, marvelous, splendid - as good as a gold
a good thing - quite the potato
a difficult situation - a tight place, a tight corner

They can be formed by means of several SDs:

Decomposition (breaking up) of set expressions

 structural transformations (various transformations of the structure (or component
composition of aPE), coupled with a partial or complete change in its meaning)
1. expansion of the component composition of the PU (вклинивание): make
hay – making political hay
2. reduction of the component composition of the PU (to refer the listener to a
thought or image that is already known to him, to create a humorous effect): a
bird in the hand is worth two in the bush – a bird in hand
3. changing the component composition of the PU: God forbid! – Fact forbid!,
He is wasting time – He`s murdering time.
4. Inversion of components: I`ve always thought of you as Jame`s enthusiastic
right arm – Enthusiasm wears thin and arms get tired.
 contextual transpositions (a complete (or partial) reinterpretation of the meaning of
the set expression in a given context without changing its composition and
 structure): Pooh goes visiting and gets into a tight place – «tight place» here can
mean a difficult situation or a narrow passage from the other hand.
13. The interrelation between expressive means and stylistic devices.
 expressive means and stylistic devices have a lot in common but they are not
completely synonymous;
 stylistic devices are only slightly or not at all predictable (they carry a greater amount
of information and therefore require a certain effort to decode their meaning);
 expressive means have a greater degree of predictability (they follow the natural course
of thought, intensifying it by means commonly used in language);
 all stylistic devices belong to expressive means but not all expressive means are
stylistic devices.
The expressive means:
 those phonetic means, morphological forms, means of word-building, and lexical,
phraseological, and syntactical forms, all of which function in the language for
emotional or logical intensification of the utterance. (V.I. Shakhovsky);
 are registered in the language (fixed in dictionaries, studied in manuals of phonetics,
grammar, morphology, and lexicology);
 can be found at all language levels;
 in most cases have corresponding neutral synonymous forms (girlie - girl; flapper,
maiden - young girl; blockhead - obstinate).
Stylistic device:
 an artistic transformation of an ordinary language phenomenon;
 "SD is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or
semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a
generalized status and thus becoming a generative model" (I.Galperin),
e. g.
affinity (likeness by nature) -> metaphor
proximity (nearness in place, time, order, etc) -> metonymy
contrast (opposition) -> irony
14. Phonetic means of stylistics: onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyme,
rhythm.
onomatopoeia (a combination of speech-sounds which aims at imitating sounds
produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc), by things (machines or tools, etc), by people
(sighing, laughter, patter of feet, etc) and animals. These are such words as hiss, buzz,
rattle, bang, etc. or authorial nonce-words, e. g.
"I was just beginning to yawn with nerves thinking he was trying to make a fool of
me, when I knew his tattarrattat at the door."
James Joyce, Ulysses
 - alliteration (the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close
succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words), e. g.
While melting music steals upon the sky,
And soften'd sounds along the waters die
Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
-Assonance refers to a stylistic device in literature whereby vowel sounds are
repeated consecutively or close to each other in a word or line.
"We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,"
"In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae.
- rhyme (the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words);
“I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers (Shelley)
- rhythm (a flow, movement, procedure, etc., characterized by basically regular
recurrence of elements or features, as beat, or accent).
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
This rhythm consists of two syllables, the first of which is not stressed, while the
second syllable is stressed.
15. Lexical stylistic devices based on the interaction of primary dictionary and
contextually imposed meanings: metaphor, metonymy, irony.
The interaction or interplay between the primary dictionary meaning (the meaning which
is registered in the language code as an easily recognized sign for an abstract notion
designating a certain phenomenon or object) and a meaning which is imposed on the word
by a micro-context may be maintained along different lines. One line is when the author
identifies two objects which have nothing in common, but in which he subjectively sees a
function, or a property, or a feature, or a quality that may make the reader perceive these
two objects as identical (metaphor). Another line is when the author finds it possible to
substitute one object for another on the grounds that there is some kind of interdependence
or interrelation between the two corresponding objects (metonymy). A third line is when
a certain property or quality of an object is used in an opposite or contradictory sense
(irony). The stylistic device based on the principle of identification of two objects is
called a metaphor. The SD based on the principle of substitution of one object for
another is called metonymy and the SD based on contrary concepts is called irony.
- The term 'metaphor' (a lexical stylistic device resulting from the logical association of
similarity between two objects, in which words or phrases denoting one object are
transferred to others in order to indicate a resemblance between them), as the etymology of
the word reveals, means transference of some quality from one object to another. From the
times of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric, the term has been known to denote the
transference of meaning from one word to another. It is still widely used to designate the
process in which a word acquires a derivative meaning. Metaphor is the prototype of all
tropes. In the wider sense it includes a number of allied figures, all of them based on some
kind of analogy between two ideas — allegory, hyperbole, irony, etc.
– Aristotle: ‘The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This
alone cannot be imparted to another: it is the mark of genius.’
A metaphor becomes a stylistic device when two different phenomena (things,
events, ideas, or actions) are simultaneously brought to mind by the imposition of some or
all of the inherent properties of one object on the other which by nature is deprived of
these properties. Such an imposition generally results when the creator of the metaphor
finds in the two corresponding objects certain features which to his eye have something in
common. Metaphors, like all stylistic devices, can be classified according to their degree
of unexpectedness. Thus metaphors which are absolutely unexpected, i.e. are quite
unpredictable, are called genuine metaphors. A distinction is usually made between lexical
(dead, trite, hackneyed, stale) metaphors and poetic (fresh, original, genuine) metaphors.
Lexical metaphor is a commonly reproduced lexical unit. It gradually loses its
expressiveness often becoming just another entry in the dictionary. Poetic metaphor is
based upon a discovery of some new, fresh and striking analogy between two things.
Poetic metaphor is always an individual creation. e.g. Her eyes were two profound and
menacing gun-barrels (A. Huxley). By its structure metaphor can be simple (elementary)
or sustained (extended, prolonged). When the speaker (writer) in his desire to present an
elaborated image does not limit its creation to a single metaphor but offers a group of
them, each supplying another feature of the described phenomenon, this cluster creates a
sustained metaphor. e.g. Mr. Dombey’s cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment,
however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on
the dust in the by-path of his little daughter (Ch. Dickens).
- Here are some examples of metaphors that are considered trite. They are time-
worn and well-rubbed into the language: 'a ray of hope', 'floods of tears', 'a storm of
indignation', 'a flight of fancy', 'a gleam of mirth', 'a shadow of a smile' and the like.
- Metonymy (A lexical stylistic device based on contiguity of objects or phenomena. e.g.
crown (= king, queen), hand (= worker), cradle (= infancy, earliest stages, place of
origin), grave (= death)/the act of referring to something using a word that describes one
of its qualities or features) is based on a different type of relation between the dictionary
and contextual meanings, a relation based not on identification, but on some kind of
association connecting the two concepts which these meanings represent.
Thus, the word crown may stand for 'king or queen', cup or glass for 'the drink it
contains'.
Here are some more widely used metonymical meanings, some of which are
already fixed in dictionaries without the label figurative: the press for '(the personnel
connected with) a printing or publishing establishment', or for 'the newspaper and
periodical literature which is printed by the printing press'. The bench is used as a
generic term for 'magistrates and justices'. A hand is used for a worker, the cradle
stands for infancy, earliest stages, place of origin, and the grave stands for death.
- His mom has signed off on them going public with the truth, which is
incredible, but there’s no reason to expect that from the crown.
Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue
= Metonymy is based in the interaction of primary dictionary and contextually
imposed meaning of the word the crown, where the primary meaning is ‘a
circular decoration for the head, usually made of gold and jewels, and worn by a
king or queen at official ceremonies’ and contextually imposed meaning
‘monarch, monarchy’.
Traditional metonymical meanings have become rather common and are fixed in
dictionaries, e.g. the press for ‘(the personnel connected with) a printing or publishing
establishment’ or for ‘the newspaper and periodical literature which is printed by the
printing press’. Genuine metonymy reveals a quite unexpected substitution of one word
for another, on the ground of some strong impression produced by a chance feature of the
thing. e.g. Then they came in. two of them, a man with long fair moustaches and a
silent dark man… Definitely, the moustache and I had nothing in common (D.
Lessing) (moustache stands for the man himself).
Metonymic relations are varied in character: 1) the container for the thing
contained (e.g. Will you have another cup? The hall applauded); 2) the instrument for
the action (e.g. a writer who earns his living by his pen (S. Maugham); 3) a concrete
thing used instead of an abstract notion. In this case the thing becomes a symbol of
the notion (e.g. the crown = the royal power); 4) the material instead of the thing made
of it (e.g. satin = skirt).
- Irony is a stylistic device also based on the simultaneous realization of two logical
meanings—dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings stand in opposition to each
other. For example:
"It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one's
pocket." - The italicized word acquires a meaning quite the opposite to its primary
dictionary meaning, that is, 'unpleasant', 'not delightful'.
The word containing the irony is strongly marked by intonation. It has an emphatic
stress and is generally supplied with a special melody design, unless the context itself
renders this intonation pattern unnecessary. Irony must not be confused with humour,
although they have very much in common. Humour always causes laughter. But the
function of irony is not confined to producing a humorous effect. In a sentence like "How
clever of you!" where, due to the intonation pattern, the word 'clever' conveys a sense
opposite to its literal signification, the irony does not cause a ludicrous effect. It rather
expresses a feeling of irritation, displeasure, pity or regret. Richard Altick says, "The
effect of irony lies in the striking disparity between what is said and what is meant." This
"striking disparity" is achieved through the intentional interplay of two meanings, which
are in opposition to each other. Irony is generally used to convey a negative meaning.
16. Lexical stylistic devices based on the interaction of primary and derivative
logical meanings: zeugma, pun.
Stylistic device is an artistic transformation of an ordinary language phenomenon;
SD is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or
semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized
status and thus becoming a generative model" (I. Galperin), e. g. affinity (likeness by
nature) -> metaphor proximity (nearness in place, time, order, etc) -> metonymy contrast
(opposition) -> irony
• interaction of primary and derivative logical meanings (polysemantic effect):
zeugma, pun
Time and her aunt moved slowly.
Zeugma (the use of a word in the same grammatical but different semantic relations
to two adjacent words in the context) is based on the interaction of primary and derivative
logical meanings of the verb to move. In the combination 'aunt moved' it is used in its
primary meaning 'to change position' and in the combination 'time moved' it is used in its
derivative meaning 'to pass'.
Q: How do you get down from elephants? down – fluff; get down – climb
A: You don't, you get it from ducks.
The name of Lolita’s narrator, Humbert Humbert, is a multilingual
pun. Humbert means “shadow” in French and “man” in Spanish. Thus, it is a play on
words that indicates the darkness of the character.
Pun (the use of a polysemantic word to suggest two or more meanings (commonly
literal and figurative) or the use of homonyms).
17. Lexical stylistic devices based on the interaction of logical and emotive
meanings: epithet, oxymoron.
Interaction of logical and emotive meanings: interjections, exclamatory words,
epithet, oxymoron.
Epithets wild wind, loud ocean, formidable waves, heart-burning smile
(subjectively evaluative, used to characterize objects, pointing out to the reader some
of the features of the objects with the aim of giving an individual perception and
evaluation of these features).
Word-combinations green meadows, white snow, round table, blue skies
(logical attributes; indicate generally recognized qualities).
 18. Lexical stylistic devices based on the interaction of logical and nominal
meanings: antonomasia.
Antonomasia is:
• a substitution of an adjective phrase or noun phrase for a (well-known) proper
name: The Iron Duke (The Duke of Wellington), The Virgin Queen (Elizabeth 1).
• the use of a proper name generically as a common noun, to refer to a class or
type: He is a Casanova.
Antonomasia is intended to point out the leading, most characteristic feature of
a person or event, at the same time pinning this leading trait as a proper name to the
person or event concerned. In fact, antonomasia is a revival of the initial stage in
naming individuals.
The use of antonomasia is now not confined to the belles-lettres style. It is
often found in publicistic style, that is, in magazine and newspaper articles, in essays
and also in military language: e.g. “I suspect that the Noes and Don't Knows would
far outnumber the Yesses.”
This variety of antonomasia is not so widely used as a stylistic device, most probably
due to the nature of words with nominal meaning: they tell very little or even nothing
about the bearer of the name.
19. Lexical stylistic devices based on the intensification of a certain feature of a
thing or phenomenon: simile, periphrasis, euphemism, hyperbole.
Simile (the use of an expression comparing one thing with another) is used for
intensification of the image of the mud that encompasses the city, making it filthy.
e.g. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face
of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus,…wandering like an
elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. (Ch. Dickens"Bleak House")
Periphrasis is a device which, according to Webster’s dictionary, denotes the use of a
longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter and plainer form of expression. One and the
same object may be identified in different ways and accordingly acquire different
appellations. Thus, in different situations a certain person can be denoted, for instance the
cap and gown (student body); a gentleman of the long robe (a lawyer); the fair sex
(women); my better half (my wife).
 Euhemism, as is known, is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or
expression by a conventionally more acceptable one, for example, the word 4o die’ has
bred the following euphemisms: to pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to join
the majority, to be gone, and the more facetious ones: to kick the bucket, to give up the
ghost, to go west. So euphemisms are synonyms which aim at producing a deliberately
mild effect.
Hyperbole has the function of intensifying one certain property of the object
described is. It can be defined as a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of a feature
essential (unlike periphrasis) to the object or phenomenon.
e.g. “He was so tall that I was not sure he had a face.” (O, Henry)
20. Syntactical stylistic devices and their classification.
SDs based on peculiar syntactical arrangement of utterances:
Stylistic inversion – based on deliberate violation of the fixed subject - predicate -
object word order:
• the object is placed at the beginning of a sentence (Talent Mr Micawber has; capital
Mr. Micawber has not);
• the attribute is placed after the word it modifies (with fingers weary and worn… ;
once upon a midnight dreary… )
• the predicate or part of the predicate is placed before the subject (Women are not
made for attack, wait they must; From my wings are shaken the dews);
• the adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence (Eagerly I wished
the morrow)
•both modifier and predicate stand before the subject: In came a fiddler, and tuned
like fifty stomach-aches (Dickens)
Stylistic inversion – aims at attaching logical stress or additional emotional
colouring to the surface meaning of the utterance; adding emphasis, vividness of
narration, dynamic effect, expressiveness, rhythm and other purposes.
Detached Constructions
• the detached part, being torn away from its referent, assumes a greater degree of
significance and is given prominence by intonation;
• the most comment pattern: attribute or an adverbial modifier is placed not in immediate
proximity to its referent: Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in his eyes.
(Thackeray)
• detached constructions make the written variety of language akin to the spoken variety,
where the relation between the component parts is effectively materialized by means of
intonation;
• they perform the same stylistic functions as inversion, but detached constructions
produce a much stronger effect.
Parallel Constructions - repetition of identical or similar syntactical structures:
• are often backed up by repetition of words (lexical repetition) and conjunctions and
prepositions (polysyndeton);
• are most frequently used in enumeration, antithesis and in climax;
• either emphasize the similarity or diversity and contrast of ideas;
• always generate rhythm
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it
was the age of foolishness… (Dickens)
Reversed Parallel Constructions / chiasmus
- derived from the Greek term for the letter X, or for a cross-over;
- based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern, but semantically it has a cross order of
words and phrases;
[P+S] - [S + P]
'Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down'.
- often used in public oratory for witty or aphoristic effect:
'And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you
can do for your country'
John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech as US President, 1961
Repetition
• aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention on the key-word of
the utterance
a) anaphora (the repeated word or phrase comes at the beginning of two or more
consecutive sentences);
b) epiphora (the repeated unit is placed at the end);
c) framing (the initial part is repeated at the end);
d) anadiplosis (linking, or reduplication), when the last word or phrase of one part of an
utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part:
Chain repetition - when the last word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of the
next part, and it is repeated:
'A SMILE would come into Mr Pickwick's face, THE SMILE extended into A LAUGH,
THE LAUGH into A ROAR, and THE ROAR became general' – (Ch. Dickens).
Stylistic functions: to intensify the utterance, to clarify the utterance, to convey various
modal connotations - to stress monotony of action (thus presenting fatigue, hopelessness,
despair, regret, sadness, joy, etc.), to stress emphasis and rhythm
Enumeration - deliberately emphasizing the equality of different phenomena;
based on some clash between topical equivalence of the words enumerated:
'The principle production of these towns… appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk,
shrimps, officers and dock-yard men'
Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary
legatee, his sole friend and his sole mourner'
Note: enumeration becomes a stylistic device when words that fill in homogeneous parts
of a sentence structure denote heterogeneous notions.
Suspense - consists in arranging the matter of communication in such a way that
unimportant details are amassed at the beginning, the main idea being withheld till the end
of an utterance (usually suspense is framed in one sentence)
"Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read
and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw' (periodic
sentences or periods)
• aims at preparing the reader or listener for the main logical conclusion of the utterance;
to create suspense, to keep the reader in a state of uncertainty and expectation
Climax (gradation) - an arrangement of sentences or parts of one sentence in which
each preceding component is considered less important, the last being called the top of the
climax
Emotional climax - based on synonymous strings of words with emotional
meaning:
'A SMILE would come into Mr. Pickwick's face, THE SMILE extended into A LAUGH,
THE LAUGH into A ROAR, and THE ROAR became general'
Logical climax - based on the relative importance of components looked at from the
point of view of the concepts denoted by them
And you want down the old steep way… insane pride… lies… robbery… murder…
Quantitative climax - an increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts
They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of stairs; they inspected
innumerable kitchens
Antithesis (gradation) - a syntactical parallel arrangement of words, phrases or
sentences semantically opposed to one another.
Youth is lovely
Age is lonely
Youth is fiery
Age is frosty.
SDs based on peculiar syntactical means of connection in utterances
Syntactical connection:
 connection with the help of connective elements (coordinative and subordinate
words and word-groups);
 logical connection without formal signs (asyndeton, gap-sentence link).
Asyndeton - connection between parts of a sentence or between sentences without
any formal sign.
Note: it becomes a stylistic device if there is a deliberate omission of a connective in the
place where it is generally expected to be according to the grammatical norms of the
literary language.
Asyndeton
 indicates tense, energetic, organized activities;
 shows a succession of minute, immediately following each other actions;
 helps to give a laconic and at the same time detailed introduction into the action
proper.
It is full of dirty blank spaces, high black walls, a gas holder, a tall chimney, a main road
that shakes with dust, lorries'
Polysyndeton - deliberate repetition of connectives before each component part
where it is generally not expected.
 causes each member of a string of facts to stand out conspicuously;
 adds a rhythmical effect to an utterance;
 makes the ideas conveyed more prominent.
‘And wherever you go or turn on streets, or subways, or buses, or railroad stations, or
airports… or reading the newspaper, or the theatre program, or getting a cup of coffee, or
looking up at the sky your friendly advertiser is at you with his product’
The Gap-sentence link - a peculiar way of connecting sentences which seem to be
logically unconnected (generally indicated by and or but)
She says nothing, but it is clear that she is harping on this engagement, and - goodness
knows what'
 signals the introduction of inner represented speech;
 indicates a subjective evaluation of the facts;
 introduces an effect resulting from a cause which has already had verbal expression;
 stirs up in the reader's mind the suppositions and associations.
SDs based on peculiar use of colloquial constructions
Ellipsis - (Gk 'leaving out') - grammatical omission, i.e. omission of part of an
utterance or grammatical structure, which can be readily understood by the hearer or
reader in the co-text or the context, and which can be 'recovered' explicitly.
How does your garden grow?
[My garden grows] with silver bells and cockle shells.
 imitates the common feature of colloquial language;
 represents the lively norms of the spoken language
Break-in-the-Narrative (aposiopesis Gk 'to be silent') - the sudden breaking off of
an utterance before it is completed, usually in moments of emotion (e.g. What the…).
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.
It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms
further. And one fine morning -
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Question-in-the-Narrative - asked and answered by the same person, usually, the
author thus assuming a semi-exclamatory nature (often used in oratory)
For what is left the poet here? For Greeks a blush - for Greece a tear'
 establishes a certain kind of contact between the speaker and the listener;
 chains the attention of the listeners to the matter the orator is dealing with;
 gives the listeners time to absorb what has been said and prepare them for the next
point.
Represented Speech - a SD device which aims at retaining the peculiarities of the
speaker's mode of expression by conveying his actual words (or thoughts) not directly but
through the author.
 1) the shift of the tense-form from the present to the past;
2) the change of the pronoun from the first and the second person to the third;
3) a peculiar choice of vocabulary (a change for colloquial words and expressions);
4) the syntactical structure of the utterance does not change (e. g. Could he…).
Unuttered or inner represented speech - aims at conveying feelings and thoughts
of the character; helps the author to depict a character.
SDs based on stylistic use of structural meaning
The Rhetorical question - deliberate use of a statement in the form of a question
(the grammatical meaning of an interrogative sentence is reshaped).
 implies suggestion, doubt, irony, or criticism;
 widely used in publicistic style, oratory
Litotes - a peculiar use of a negative structural meaning (a deliberate
understatement); the assertion of an affirmative by negating its contrary,
e. g. "He's not the brightest man in the world" meaning "He is stupid."
21. The belles-lettres functional style.
The belles-lettres style is a generic term for three substyles in which the main
principles and the most general properties of the style are materialized. These three sub-
styles are:
1.The language of poetry, or simply verse.
2.Emotive prose, or the language of fiction.
3.Т'he language of the drama.
The common features of the substyles may be summed up as follows. First of all comes
the common function which may broadly be called "aesthetico-cognitive", - a double
function which aims at the cognitive process, which secures the gradual unfolding of the
idea to the reader and at the same time calls forth a feeling of pleasure, a pleasure which is
derived from the form in which the content is wrought. This pleasure is caused not only by
admiration of the selected language means and their peculiar arrangement but also by the
fact that the reader is led to form their own conclusions as to the purport of the author.
The purpose of the belles-lettres style is not to prove but only to suggest a possible
interpretation of the phenomena of life by forcing the reader to see the viewpoint of
the writer. This is the cognitive function of the belles-lettres style. The belles-lettres style
rests on certain indispensable linguistic features which are:
1. Genuine, not trite, imagery, achieved by purely linguistic devices.
2. The use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning, or
at least greatly influenced by the lexical environment.
3. A vocabulary which will reflect to a greater or lesser degree the author's personal
evaluation of things or phenomena.
4. A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax, a kind of lexical and
syntactical idiosyncrasy.
5. The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (in plays)
or a lesser one (in emotive prose) or a slight degree, if any (in poems).
The belles-lettres style is individual in essence. This is one of its most distinctive
properties.
1. LANGUAGE OF POETRY - Its first differentiating property is its orderly form,
which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The
rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactical and semantic peculiarities which also fall into a
more or less strict orderly arrangement. Both syntax and semantics comply with the
restrictions imposed by the rhythmic pattern, and the result is brevity of expression,
epigram-like utterances, and fresh, unexpected imagery. Syntactically this brevity is
shown in elliptical and fragmentary sentences, in detached constructions, in inversion,
asyndeton and other syntactical peculiarities. Rhythm and rhyme are immediately
distinguishable properties of the poetic substyle provided they are wrought into
compositional patterns. They can be called the external differentiating features of the
substyle, typical only of this one variety of the belles-lettres style.
2. EMOTIVE PROSE - The imagery is not so rich as it is in poetry; the percentage of
words with contextual meaning is not so high as in poetry; the idiosyncrasy of the author
is not so clearly discernible. Apart from metre and rhyme, what most of all distinguishes
emotive prose from the poetic style is the combination of the literary variant or the
language, both in words and syntax, with the colloquial, variant. It would perhaps be more
exact to define this as a combination of the spoken and written varieties of the language,
inasmuch as there are always two forms of communication present—monologue (the
writer's speech) and dialogue (the speech of the characters). The language of the writer
conforms or is expected to conform to the literary norms of the given period in ~the
development of the English literary language. The language of the hero of a novel, or of a
story will in the main be chosen in order to characterize the man himself. Emotive prose
allows the use of elements from other styles as well. Thus we find elements of the
newspaper style; the official style; the style of scientific prose.
- Emotive prose began to assume a life of its own in the second half of the 15th
century when romances and chronicles describing the life and adventures of semi-
legendary kings and knights began to appear. One of the most notable of these romances
was Malory’s ‘Morte Darthur’, printed by Caxton in 1471. The speech of the heroes
lacks elliptical sentences, breaks in the narrative and other typical features of the spoken
variety of English. Emotional colouring is shown not in the syntactical design of the
sentences but in the author's remarks and descriptions.
With the coming of the 16th century, which incidentally heralded a great advance in
all spheres of English social life, English emotive prose progressed rapidly. Numerous
translations from Latin and Greek played a great role in helping to work out stylistic
norms for the emotive prose of that period. A great influence on the further development
of the characteristic features of the belles-lettres style was exercised by Shakespeare.
 3. LANGUAGE OF THE DRAMA - The third subdivision of the belles-lettres style
is the language of plays; unlike poetry, which, except for ballads, in essence excludes
direct speech and therefore dialogue, and unlike emotive prose, which is a combination of
monologue (the author's speech) and dialogue (the speech of the characters), the language
of plays is entirely dialogue. The author's speech is almost entirely excluded except for the
playwright's remarks and stage directions. But the language of the characters is in no way
the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language, although the playwright seeks
to reproduce actual conversation as far as the norms of the written language will allow.
It follows then that the language of plays is always stylized, that is, it strives to retain
the modus of literary English. The stylization of colloquial language is one of the features
of plays.
22. The publicist functional style.
1. The oratorio substyle (oratory and speeches); • purpose: persuasion;
• The most typical features of the spoken variety of speech in oratory are: - direct
address to the audience (Ladies and gentlemen!)
- the use of the personal pronoun you and we to present the unity of the speaker or
they to set opponents off;
- The use of special obligatory forms to open up an operation: My lords, Mr:
President, Mr: Chairman, Your Worship, Ladies and gentlemen.
• The most frequent stylistic devices: antithesis, parallel construction, repetition,
anadiplosis, synonymous phrase repetition, suspense, climax, rhetorical questions and
questions-in-the-narrative;
• Simile and metaphor - trite;
• The use of allusion depends on the content of the speech and the level of the
audience.
2. The essays; a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social,
aesthetic or literary subjects;
• The most characteristic language features of the essay are:
1) brevity of expression,
2) the use of the first person singular,
3) a rather extended use of connectives,
4) the abundant use of emotive words,
5) the use of similes and sustained metaphors as one of the media for the cognitive
process.
3. The articles. • The character of the magazine as well as the chosen subject affects
the choice and usage of stylistic devices;
• Words of emotive meaning are few in popular scientific articles. Bookish words,
neologisms, traditional word combinations and parenthesis are more frequent in political
articles, whereas satirical articles may expose more consistent and expanded system of
emotive meanings.
Unlike other styles the publicistic style has spoken varieties.
• The general aim of publicistic style - to exert a constant and deep influence on
public opinion to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the
writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view
expressed in the speech, essays or article nor merely by logical argumentation but by
emotional appeal as well.
• it's coherent and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of
connectives and its careful paragraphing (similar to scientific prose).
• Its emotional appeal is achieved by the use of words with emotive meaning, the use
of imagery and other stylistic devices (similar to emotive prose).
• characterized by brevity of expression.
• general characteristics:
- coherent and logical syntactical structure
- expanded system of connectives
- careful paragraphing
- the use of words with emotive meaning
- the use of imagery and other stylistic devices (mainly trite)
- brevity of expression.
23. The newspaper functional style.
The newspaper style:
1. Brief news items;
2. Editorials, headlines;
3. Press reports (parliamentary, of court proceedings, etc.);
4. Articles purely informative in character;
5. Advertisements and announcements
The newspaper style:
End of the 16th century – short news pamphlets; the first of any regular series
of English newspapers was The Weekly News (1622); the first daily newspaper –
The Daily Courant (1702).
The newspaper style – a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and
grammatical means which is perceived by the community speaking the language as a
separate unit that basically serves the purpose of informing and instructing the reader.
Not all printed matter found in newspaper (i.e. stories, poems, crossword
puzzles, etc.) may be considered newspaper style. Nor can articles in special fields
can be classed as belonging to newspaper style.
The newspaper style / Brief-news Items
Function: to inform the reader;
 The bulk of the vocabulary is neutral and common literary;
news items, press reports and headlines contain:
a) special political and economic terms, e. g. constitution, president, by-
election, General Assembly.
b) non-term political vocabulary, e. g. public, nation-wide, unity, peace.
c) newspaper cliches, i. e. stereotyped expressions, commonplace phrases
familiar to the reader, e. g. vital issue, pressing problem, informed sources, danger of
war, to escalate a war, war hysteria, overwhelming majority, amid stormy applause.
news items, press reports and headlines contain:
a) abbreviations. Among them abbreviated terms - names of organizations,
public and state bodies, political associations, industrial and other companies, various
offices, etc., e.g. UNO (United Nations Organization), TUC (Trades Union
Congress), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), FO (Foreign Office), etc.
b) neologisms. The newspaper is very quick to react to any new development
in the life of society, in science and technology, thus initiating the creation of new
words (e. g. like sputnik, a splashdown, etc. That first appeared in the newspaper).
The basic peculiarities of news items lie in their syntactical structure:
a) complex sentences with developed system of clauses, e. g. "French Prime
Minister said yesterday that France was still not prepared to join in the plan since
France did not want to be drawn into a confrontation with the oil producers";
b) verbal constructions (infinitive, participial, gerundial) and verbal-noun
constructions: "Mr: N. Kishi, the former Prime Minister of Japan, has sought to set an
example to the faction-ridden Governing Liberal Democratic Party by announcing the
disbanding of his own faction numbering 47 of the total of 295 conservative members
of the Lower House of the Diet";
c) syntactical complexes, especially the nominative with the infinitive, e.g.
"Hawker Siddeley shop stewards are likely to make an urgent approach to industry
Minister Tony Benn over the company's decision yesterday to stop work on the HS
146 airliner";
d) attributive noun groups: "Profit boost plan", "Dutch move in UN on torture";
e) specific word-order: "Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply is
Neither".
"Five-w-and-h-pattern rule" (who-what-why-how-where-when) to represent
the information content of the newspaper (subject + predicate + (object) + adverbial
modifier of reason / manner / place / of time):
e.g. Arrangements have been made for a special train to take Scottish
delegates to the National Committee for the defense of Trade Unions conference in
London on Saturday March 22.
The newspaper style / Headlines
 The main function: to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is
about;
In most of the English and American newspaper sensational headlines are
common;
Contain emotionally colored word and phrases;
A deliberate breaking-up of set expressions is also common as in "Cakes &
Bitter Ale" (an allusion on "Cakes & Ale" by W.S.Maugham).

The most frequent structures or patterns are:

1. Full declarative sentences ("Alba at 13 is youngest to swim Channel").
2. Interrogative sentences ("Who can prove it?").
3. Nominative sentences ("New Oil Discovery", "Search for a strategy").
4, Elliptical sentences ("Four-month strike at RTZ over").
5. Sentences with articles omitted ("Plant stops over equal pay").
6. Phrases with verbals (infinitive, participial and gerundial) constructions
("Doctor to act", "To step up jobs drive", "Fighting wages").
7. Questions in the form of statements ("Sam's at class roads?").
8. Complex sentences ("Chrysler demo defies 'rescue' that means the sack").
9. Headline including Direct Speech ("Mr Peart: Ye dearer food due to EEC").
The newspaper style / Advertisements and Announcements
There are two types of advertisements and announcements in the modern
English newspaper: classified and non-classified;
In classified advertisements and announcements various kinds of information
are arranged according to subject matter into sections, e.g. BIRTHS, MARRIAGE,
PERSONAL, etc.
The vocabulary of classified advertisements and announcements is on the
whole neutral;
In non-classified advertisements the reader's attention is attracted by every
possible means: lexical, structural, graphical, etc.
The newspaper style / Editorials
The function: to influence the reader by giving interpretation of certain facts
commentaries on political and social events and happenings of the day;
or
Alongside emotionally neutral words there are colloquial words and
expressions, slang, professionalism;
Editorials may demonstrate both lexical and syntactical stylistic devices, but
mostly traditional ones are epithets, metaphors, allusions, repetition, parallel
constructions, antithesis, climax, rhetorical questions and the use of emotionally
charged lexis.
 24. The scientific functional style.
The language of science is governed by the aim of the functional, style of
scientific prose, which is to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose
the internal laws of existence, development, relations between different phenomena,
etc. The language means used, therefore, tend to be objective, precise, unemotional,
devoid of any individuality. The first and most noticeable feature of this style is the
logical sequence of utterances with clear indication of their interrelations and
interdependence. A second and no less important feature, and perhaps the most
conspicuous, is the use of terms specific to each given branch of science:

 Words used in scientific prose will always tend to be used in their primary
logical meaning.
 Scientific style has some sentence-patterns: postulatory, argumentative,
formulative. Therefore, every piece of scientific prose will begin with
postulatory pronouncements which are taken as self-evident and needing no
proof. The writer’s own ideas are also shaped in formulae, which are the
enunciation of a doctrine or theory, of a principle, an argument, the result of
an investigation, etc.
 Many quotations and references are used.
 The frequent use of foot-notes digressive in character. The writer’s own ideas
are also shaped in formulae, which are the enunciation of a doctrine or theory,
of a principle, an argument, the result of an investigation, etc.
 Impersonality of scientific writings. This quality is mainly revealed in the
frequent use of passive constructions.
25. The functional style of official documents.
 The main aim - to state the conditions binding two parties in an undertaking (the state
and the citizen, or citizen and citizen; a society and its members (statute or ordinance);
two or more enterprises or bodies (business correspondence or contracts; two or more
governments (pacts, treaties) etc.); to reach agreement between two contracting parties.
 The use of a special system of cliches, terms and set expressions, as e. g. I beg to
inform you, the above-mentioned, on behalf of, Dear Sir, etc.
 The use of abbreviations, conventional symbols and contractions as $ (dollar), Ltd
((Limited), M.P. (Member of Parliament).
 The use of words in their logical dictionary meaning;
 In military documents sometimes metaphorical names are given to mountains, rivers,
hills or villages, but these metaphors are perceived as code signs and have no aesthetic
value.
The integrating features:
l) conventionality of expression;
2) absence of any emotiveness;
3) the encoded character of language symbols (including abbreviations)
4) a general syntactical mode of combining several pronouncements into one sentence.
The Style of Official Documents implies four types of language:
1. The language of business documents;
2. The language of legal documents;
3. The language of diplomacy;
4. The language of military documents;