Lecture 9, 10,11

SYNTACTICAL EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC DEVICES

The peculiarities of the structural design of utterance which bear some particular
emotional colouring, that is which are stylistic and therefore non-neutral, may also be
patterned and presented as a special system.

Stylistic Inversion: aims at attaching logical stress or additional emotional colouring to the
surface meaning of the utterance.
The following patterns of stylistic inversion are most frequently met in both English prose
and English poetry.
1. The object is placed at the beginning of the sentence. E.g. “Talent Mr. Macabre has; capital Mr.
Macabre has not”.
2. The attribute is placed after the word it modifies (post-position of the attribute). The model is
often used when there is more than one attribute.
E.g. Once upon a midnight dreary…”
3. a) the predicative is placed before the subject, as in “A good generous prayer it was”.
b) the predicative stands before the link-verb and both are placed before the subject, as in
“Rude am I in my speech…”
4. The adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence, as in: “My dearest daughter,
at your feet I fall”.
5. Both modifier and predicative stand before the subject, as in: “In went Mr. Pickwick”.
Inverted word-order, or inversion, is one of the forms of what are known as emphatic
constructions. In practice the enumerated structures are as common as the fixed or traditional word-
order structures. Therefore inversion must be regarded as an expressive means of the language
having typical structural models.

Chiasmus (Reversed Parallel Construction): belongs to the group of stylistic devices based
on the repetition of a syntactical pattern, but it has a cross order of words and phrases. The structure
of two successive sentences or parts of a sentence may be described as reversed parallel
construction, the word-order of one of the sentences being inverted as compared with that of the
other.
E.g. “Down dropped the breeze,
The sails dropped down.”
Chiasmus is a syntactical, not a lexical device, it is only the arrangement of the parts of the
utterance which constitutes this stylistic device. In the famous epigram by Byron:
“In the days of old men made the manners,
Manners now make men.”
There is no inversion, but a lexical device. Both parts of the parallel construction have the same, the
normal word-order. However, the witty arrangement of the words has given the utterance an
epigrammatic character.

Repetition: is an expressive means of language used when the speaker is under the stress of
strong emotion. It shows the state of mind of the speaker, as in the following passage from
Galsworthy:
 “Stop!”- she cried, “Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear; I don’t want to hear what you’ve
come for. I don’t want to hear”.
The repetition of “I don’t want to hear” is not a stylistic device. It is a means by which the exited
state of mind of the speaker is shown. This state of mind always manifests itself through intonation,
which is suggested here by the words “she cried”.
When used as a stylistic device, repetition acquires different functions. It doesn’t aim at
making a direct emotional impact. On the contrary, the stylistic device of repetition aims at logical
emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the utterance.
Repetition is classified according to compositional patterns. If the repeated word (or phrase)
comes at the beginning of two or more consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases, we have anaphora.
E.g. “Poor doll’s dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised
her up; how often so misdirected when loosing her way on the eternal road and asking guidance!
Poor, little doll’s dressmaker !”
If the repeated unit is placed at the end of connective sentences, clauses, or phrases, we
have the type of repetition called epiphora.
E.g. “I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am
above the rest of mankind, in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such a case as that.”
Repetition may also be arranged in the form of a frame: the initial parts of a syntactical unit,
in most cases of a paragraph, are repeated at the end of it, as in the example with anaphora. This
compositional pattern of repetition is called framing.
If the last word or phrase of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next
part, thus hooking the two parts together, we have anadiplosis (or reduplication). The writer, instead
of moving on, seems to double back on his tracks and pick up his last word.
E.g. “A smile would come into Mr. Pickwick’s face: the smile extended into a laugh into a
roar, and the roar became general”.
The compositional pattern of repetition is also called chain-repetition.

Suspense: is a compositional device which consists in arranging the matter of a

communication in such a way that the less important, descriptive, subordinate parts are amassed at
the beginning, the main idea being withheld till the end of the sentence. Thus, the reader’s attention
is held and his interest kept up.
E.g. “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.”
Due to its partly psychological nature (it arouses a feeling of expectation), is framed in one
sentence, for these must not be any break in the intonation pattern.

Climax (Gradation):is an arrangement of sentences (or of the homogeneous parts of one

sentence) which secures a gradual increase in significance, importance, or emotional tension in the
utterance, as in:
“It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of a city.”
A gradual increase in significance may be maintained in three ways: logical, emotional and
quantitative.
Logical climax is based on the relative importance of the component parts looked at from the
point of view of the concepts embodied in them. E.g. “It is done-past-finished. ”
Emotional climax is based on the relative emotional tension produced by words with
emotive meaning.
E.g. “That’s a nice girl; that’s a very nice girl; a promising girl!”
Quantitative climax is an evident increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts.
 E.g. “They looked at hundreds of houses; they climbed thousands of stairs; they inspected
innumerable kitchens.”

Antitheses: is based on relative opposition which arises out of objectively contrasting pairs.
E.g. “Youth is lovely, age is lonely,
Youth is fiery, age is frosty…”
Here “lovely” and “lonely” cannot be regarded as objectively opposite concepts, but being
drown into the scheme contrasting “youth” and “age,” they display certain features which may be
counted as antonymical. This is strengthened also by the next line where not only “youth” and “age”
but also “fiery” and “frosty” are objective antonyms. The antagonistic features of the two objects or
phenomena are more easily perceived when they stand out in similar structures.

Asyndeton: connection between parts of a sentence or between sentences without any

formal sign, becomes a stylistic device if there is a deliberate omission of the connective where it is
generally expected to be according to the norms of the literary languages.
E.g. “Bicket did not answer his throat felt too dry.”
The absence of the conjunction and a punctuation mark may be regarded as a deliberate
introduction of the norms of colloquial speech into the literary language. Such structures make the
utterance sound like one syntactical unit to be pronounced in one breath group. This determines the
intonation pattern.

Polysyndeton: is the stylistic device of the connecting sentences, or phrases, or syntagms, or

words by using connectives (mostly conjunctions and prepositions) before each component part.
E.g. “The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him
in only one respect.”
Polysyndeton has a disintegrating function. It generally combines homogeneous elements of
thought into one whole resembling enumeration. But, unlike enumeration, which integrates both
homogeneous and heterogeneous elements into one whole, polysyndeton causes each members of a
string of facts to stand out conspicuously. That is why we say that polysyndeton has a disintegrating
function.

The Gap-Sentence Link: is a peculiar type of connection of sentences which we call the
gap-sentence link. The connection is not immediately apparent and it requires a certain mental effort
to grasp the interrelation between the parts of the utterance, in other words, to bridge the semantic
gap.
E.g. “She and that fellow ought to be the sufferers, and they were in Italy”.
In this sentence the second part, which is hooked on to the first by the conjunction “and”, seems to
be unmotivated or in other words, the whole sentence seems to be logically incoherent. But this is
only the first impression. After a more careful supralinear semantic analyses it becomes clear the
exact logical variant of the utterance would be:
“Those who ought to suffer were enjoying themselves in Italy”(where well-to-do English
people go for holidays).
The gap-sentence link has various functions. It may serve to signal the introduction of inner
represented speech; it may be used to indicate a subjective evaluation of the facts; it may introduce
an effect resulting from a cause which has already had verbal expression. In all these functions gap-
sentence link displays an unexpected coupling of ideas. Even the cause-and-effect relations, logical
as they are, when embodied in gap-sentence link structure are not so obvious.
In contra-distinction to the logical segmentation of the utterance which leaves no room for
personal interpretation of the interdependence of the component parts, gap-sentence link aims at
stirring up in the reader’s mind the suppositions, associations and conditions under which the
sentence uttered can really exist.

Ellipsis: is a typical phenomenon in conversation, arising out of the situation. When used as
a stylistic device, it always imitates the common features of colloquial language, where the situation
predetermines not the omission of certain members of the sentence, but their absence. It would
perhaps be adequate to call sentences lacking certain members “incomplete sentences”, leaving the
term “ellipsis” to specify structures were we recognize a digression from the traditional literary
sentence structure.
Thus, the sentences “See you tomorrow,” “Had a great time?” “Won’t do.”, are typical of
the colloquial language. Nothing is omitted here. These are normal syntactical structures in the
spoken language and to call them elliptical, means to judge every sentence structure according to the
structural models of the written language.
Elliptical sentences are rarely used as stylistic device. Sometimes the omission of a link-verb adds emotional colouring and makes the
sentence sound more emphatic, as in these lines from Byron:
E.g. “Thrice happy he who, after survey of the good company, can win
a corner.”

Represented speech: There are three ways of reproducing actual speech: a)repetition of the
exact utterance as it was spoken (direct speech), b)conversion of the exact utterance into the
relater’s mode of expression (indirect speech), and c)representation of the actual utterance by a
second person, usually the author, as if it had been spoken, whereas it has not really been spoken
but is only represented in the author’s words (represented speech).
There is also a device, which conveys to the reader the unuttered or inner speech of the
character, thus presenting his thoughts and feelings. This device is also termed represented speech.
To distinguish between the two varieties of represented speech we call the representation of the
actual utterance through the author’s language uttered represented speech, and the representation of
the thoughts and feelings of the character - unuttered or inner represented speech.
The term direct speech came to be used in the belles-letters style in order to distinguish the
words of the character from the author’s words. Actually, direct speech is a quotation. Therefore it is
always introduced by a verb like say, utter, reply, exclaim, shout, cry, yell, gasp, babble, chuckle,
murmur, sigh, call, beg, implore, comfort, assure, protest, object, command, admit, and others. All
these words help to indicate the intonation with which the sentence was actually uttered. Direct
speech is always marked by inverted commas, as any quotation is.

E.g. “You want your money back, I suppose,” said George with a sneer.
“Of course I do I always did, didn’t I?” says Dobbin. (Thackeray)

The most important feature of the spoken language intonation is indicated by different
means. In the example above we have 1) graphical means: the dash after ‘I do’, 2) lexical: the word
‘sneer’, and 3) grammatical: a) morphological different tenses of the verb to say (‘said’ and ‘says’),
b) syntactical: the disjunctive question ‘didn’t I?’.
Direct speech can be viewed as a stylistic device only in its setting in the midst of the
author’s narrative or in contrast to all forms of indirect speech. Even when the author addresses the
reader, we cannot classify the utterance as direct speech. Direct speech is only the speech of a
character in a piece of emotive prose.
We have indirect speech when the actual words of a character, as it were, pass through the
author’s mouth in the course of his narrative and in this process undergo certain changes. The
intonation of indirect speech is even and does not differ from the rest of the author’s narrative. The
graphical substitutes for the intonation give way to lexical units which describe the intonation
pattern. Sometimes indirect speech takes the form of a précis in which only the main points of the
actual utterance are given.
E.g. “Marshal asked the crowd to disperse and urge responsible diggers to prevent any
disturbance which would prolong the tragic force of the rush for which the publication of
inaccurate information was chiefly responsible ”.
When the direct speech is converted into indirect, the author not infrequently interprets in his
own way the manner in which the direct speech was uttered, thus very often changing the emotional
colouring of the whole.
Represented speech is that form of utterance which conveys the actual words of the speaker
through the mouth of the writer but retains the peculiarities of the speaker’s mode of expression.
Represented speech exists in two varieties: 1) uttered represented speech and 2) unuttered or inner represented speech.

a) Uttered Represented Speech: Uttered represented speech demands that the tense should be
switched from present to past and that the personal pronouns should be changed from 1 st and 2nd
person to 3rd person as in indirect speech, but the syntactical structure of the utterance does not
change.
E.g. “Could he bring a reference from where he now was? He could.” (Driser)

The shift from the author’s speech to the uttered represented speech of the maid is marked
only by the change in the syntactical pattern of the sentence from declarative to interrogative, or
from the narrative pattern to the conversational.

b) Unuttered or Inner Represented Speech: The thoughts and feelings going on in one’s mind and
reflecting some previous experience are called inner speech.
Inasmuch as inner speech has no communicative function it is very fragmentary, incoherent,
isolated, and consists of separate units which only hint at the content of the utterance but do not
word it explicitly.
Inner speech is a psychological phenomenon. But when it is wrought into full utterance, it
ceases to be inner speech, acquires a communicative function and becomes a phenomenon of
language. The expressive function of language is suppressed by its communicative function, and the
reader is presented with a complete language unit capable of carrying information. This device is
called inner represented speech.
However, the language forms of inner represented speech bear a resemblance to the
psychological phenomenon of inner speech. Inner represented speech retains the most characteristic
feature of inner speech . It is also fragmentary, but only to an extent which will not hinder the
understanding of the communication.
Inner represented speech, unlike uttered represented speech, expresses feelings and thoughts
of the character which were not materialized in spoken or written language by the character.
Unuttered or inner represented speech follows the same morphological pattern as uttered
represented speech, but the syntactical pattern shows variations which can be accounted for by the
fact that it is inner speech, not uttered speech. The tense forms are shifted to the past; the third
person personal pronouns replace the first and second. The interrogative word-order is maintained as
in direct speech. The fragmentary character of the utterance manifests itself in unfinished sentences,
exclamations and in one-member sentences.
E.g. “An idea had occurred to Soams. 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!” (Galsworthy)
This device is undoubtedly an excellent one to depict a character. It gives the writer an
opportunity to show the inner springs which guide his character’s actions and utterances. Being a
combination of the author’s speech and that of the character, inner represented speech, on the one
hand , fully discloses the feelings and thoughts of the character, his world outlook, and on the other
hand, through efficient and sometimes hardly perceptible interpolations by the author himself,
makes the desired impact on the reader.

Rhetorical question is a special syntactical stylistic device the essence of which consists in
reshaping the grammar meaning of the interrogative sentence . In other words, the question is no
longer a question but a statement expressed in the form of an interrogative sentence. Thus there is an
interplay of two structural meanings: 1) that of the question and 2) that of the statement (either
affirmative or negative). Both are materialized simultaneously.
E.g. “Is the poor privileged to turn the key
Upon the captive, freedom? ” (Byron)
So rhetorical questions may also be defined as utterance in the form of questions which
pronounce judgments and also express various kinds of modal shades of meaning, as doubt,
challenge, scorn, irony and so on.
The rhetorical question re-enforces this essential quality of interrogative sentences and uses
it to convey a stronger shade of emotive meaning. Rhetorical questions, due to their power of
expressing a variety of modal shades of meaning, are most often used in publicistic style and
oratory, where the rousing of emotions is the effect generally aimed at.

Litotes: Litotes is a stylistic device consisting of a peculiar use of negative constructions.

The negation plus noun or adjective serves to establish a positive feature in a person or thing. The
positive feature, however, is somewhat diminished in quality as compared with a synonymous
expression making a straightforward assertion of the positive feature. Let us compare the following
two pairs of sentences:
1. It’s not a bad thing. - It’s a good thing.
2. He is no coward. - He is a brave man.
Not bad is not equal to good although the two constructions are synonymous. The same can be said
about the second pair, no coward and a brave man. In both cases the negative construction is weaker
than the affirmative ones. Moreover, it should be noted that the negative constructions here have a
stronger impact on the reader than the affirmative ones. The latter have no additional connotation;
the former have. That is why such constructions are regarded as stylistic devices. Litotes is a
deliberate understatement used to produce a stylistic effect. It is not a pure negation, but a negation
that includes affirmation. Therefore here, as in the case of rhetorical questions, we may speak of
transference of meaning, i.e. a device with the help of which two meanings are materialized
simultaneously: the direct (negative) and transferred (affirmative).
The stylistic effect litotes depends only on intonation. If we compare two intonation patterns,
one which suggests a mere denial (It is not bad as a contrary to It is bad) with the other which
suggests the assertion of a positive quality of the object (It is not bad = it is good), the difference
will become apparent. The degree to which litotes carries the positive quality in itself can be
estimated by analyzing the semantic structure of the word which is negated.
Litotes is used in different styles of speech, excluding those, which may be called the matter-
of-fact styles, like official style and scientific prose. In poetry it is sometimes used to suggest that
language fails to adequately convey the poet’s feelings and therefore he uses negations to express
the inexpressible.

Detached Construction
Words in a sentence by some specific consideration of the writer placed so that it seems formally
independent of structures are called detached. They seem in the sentence as isolated parts. The
detached part, being torn away from its referent, assumes a greater degree of significance and is
given prominence by intonation. examples:
1) "Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in
his eyes." (Thackeray)
2) "Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait." (Thackeray)
The essential quality of detached construction lies in the fact that the isolated parts represent a kind
of independent whole thrust into the sentence or placed in a position which will make the phrase (or
word) seem independent. But a detached phrase cannot rise to the rank of a primary member of the
sentence—it always remains secondary from the semantic point of view, although structurally it
possesses all the features of a"primary’ member. This clash of the structural and semantic aspects of
detached constructions produces the desired effect—forcing the reader to interpret the logical
connections between the component parts of the sentence. Logical ties between them always exist in
spite of the absence of syntactical indicators.
A variant of detached construction is p a re n t h e sis,
"Parenthesis is a qualifying, explanatory or appositive word, phrase, clause, sentence, or other
sequence which interrupts syntactic construction without otherwise affecting it, having often
characteristic intonation and indicated in writing by commas, brackets or dashes."
In fact, parenthesis sometimes embodies a considerable volume of predicativeness, thus giving the
utterance an additional nuance of meaning or a tinge of emotional colouring.
Parallel Construction
Parallel construction is a device which may be encountered not so much in the sentence as in the
macro-structures dealt with earlier, viz. the SPU and the paragraph. The necessary condition in
parallel construction is identical, or similar, syntactical structure in two or more sentences or parts of
a sentence in close succession, as in:
"There were, ..., real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it out of, and
plates of the same to hold the cakes and toast in." (Dickens)
Parallel constructions are often backed up by repetition of words (lexical repetition) and
conjunctions and prepositions (polysyndeton). Pure parallel construction, however, does not depend
on any other kind of repetition but the repetition of the syntactical design of the sentence. Parallel
constructions may be partial or complete. Partial parallel arrangement is the repetition of some parts
of successive sentences or clauses, as in:
"It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses—that man your navy and recruit
your army,—that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and
calamity have driven them to despair." (Byron)
The attributive clauses here all begin with the subordinate conjunction that which is followed by a
verb in the same form, except the last (have enabled). The verbs, however, are followed either by
adverbial modifiers of place (in your fields, in your houses] or by direct objects (your navy, your
army). The third attributive clause is not built on the pattern of the first two, although it preserves
the parallel structure in general (that+verb-predicate+object), while the fourth has broken ^away
entirely.
Complete parallel arrangement, also called balance, maintains the principle of identical structures
throughout the corresponding sentences, as in:
"The seeds ye sow — another reaps, The robes ye weave—another wears, The arips ye forge —
another bears."
(P. B. Shelley)
Parallel construction is most frequently used in enumeration, antithesis and in climax, thus
consolidating the general effect achieved by these stylistic devices.
Break-in-the-Narrative (Appsiopesis)
Aposiopesis is a device which dictionaries define as "A stopping short for rhetorical effect."
In the spoken variety of the language, a break in the narrative is usually caused by unwillingness to
proceed; or by the supposition that what remains to be said can be understood by the implication
embodied in what has been said; or by uncertajnty as to what should be said.
In the written variety, a break in the narrative is always a stylistic device used for some stylistic
effect. It is difficult, however, to draw a hard and fast distinction between break-in-the-narrative as a
typical feature of lively colloquial language and as a specific stylistic device. The only criterion
which may serve as a guide is that in conversation the implication can be conveyed by an adequate
gesture. In writing it is the context, which suggests the adequate intonation, that is the only key to
decoding the aposiopesis.
In the following example the implication of the aposiopesis is a warning
"If you continue your intemperate way of living, in six months' time ..."
In the sentence:
"You just come home or I'll ..."
the implication is a threat.
Aposiopesis is a stylistic syntactical device to convey to the reader a very strong upsurge of
emotions. The idea of this stylistic device is that the speaker cannot proceed, his feelings depriving
him of the ability to express himself in terms of language.
Break-in-the-narrative has a strong degree of predictability, which is ensured by the structure of the
sentence. As a stylistic device it is used in complex sentences, in particular in conditional sentences,
the //-clause being given in full and the second part only implied.
However, aposiopesis may be noted in different syntactical structures.
Thus, one of Shelley's poems is entitled "To—", which is an aposiopesis of a different character,
inasmuch as the implication here is so vague that it can be likened to a secret code.
Aposiopesis is a stylistic device in which the role of the intonation implied cannot be over-
estimated. The pause after the break is generally charged with meaning and it is the intonation only
that will decode the communicative significance of the utterance.
Question-in-the-Narrative
Questions, being both structurally and semantically one of the types of sentences, are asked by one
person and expected to be answered by another. This is the main, and the most characteristic
property of the question, i. e. it exists as a syntactical unit of language to bear this particular function
in communication. Essentially, questions belong to the spoken language and presuppose the
presence of an interlocutor, that is, they are commonly encountered in dialogue. The questioner is
presumed not to know the answer.
Question- in- the- narrative changes the real nature of a question and turns it into a stylistic device.
A question in the narrative is asked and answered by one and the same person, usually the author.
It becomes akin to a parenthetical statement with strong emotional implications.
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear."
As is seen from the example, the question asked, unlike rhetorical questions (see p. 244), does not
contain statements. But being answered by one who knows the answer, they assume a semi-
exclamatory nature, as in 'what to view?'
Sometimes question-in-the-narrative gives the impression of an intimate talk between the writer and
the reader. For example:
"Scrooge knew he was dead! Of course he did. How could it be, otherwise? Scrooge and he were
partners for I don't know how many years." (Dickens)
Question-in-the-narrative is very often used in oratory. This is explained by one of the leading
features of oratorical style— to induce the desired reaction to the content of the speech. Questions
here chain the attention of the listeners to the matter the orator is dealing with and prevent it from
wandering. They also give the listeners time to absorb what has been said, and prepare for the next
point.
Question-in-the-narrative may also remain unanswered
When a question begins to fulfil a function not directly arising from its linguistic and psychological
nature, it may have a certain volume of emotional charger. Question-in-the-narrative is a case of this
kind. Here its function deviates slightly from its general signification.
.