Introduction to Text Analysis: Introduction to Stylistics Lesson 2 Friday, March 9, 2018
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Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices ď Ž
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In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are foregrounded, i.e. made more conspicuous, more effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are called expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic markers, stylistic devices, tropes, figures of speech, etc. All these terms are used indiscriminately and are set against those means which we shall conventionally call neutral. 2
Meaning differences ď Ž
Most linguists distinguish ordinary (also: substantial, referential) semantic and stylistic differences in meaning.
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In fact all language means contain meaning – some of them contain generally acknowledged grammatical and lexical meanings, others besides these contain specific meanings which may be called stylistic.
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Not automatized ď Ž
We will also note at this point that the process of automatization, i.e. a speedy and subconscious use of language data, is one of the indispensable ways of making communication easy and quickly decidable.
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Stylistic meanings are so to say deautomatized.
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But when a stylistic meaning is involved, the process of deautomatization checks the reader’s perception of language.
His attention is arrested by a peculiar use of language media and so he attempts (to the best of his ability) to decipher it.
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Definition of EM ď Ž
The expressive means of a language are those phonetic, morphological, word-building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist in language-as-a-system for the purpose of logical and / or emotional intensification of the utterance [Galperin 1977, 27]. 6
Stylistic Intensification
Intensification is achieved by means of expressiveness and emotiveness.
Expressiveness may be understood as a kind of intensification of an utterance or of a part of it, depending on the position in the utterance that manifest this category, and also depending on what these means are. Emotiveness, and correspondingly the emotive elements of language, are the means that reveal the emotions of writer or speaker. However, these elements may not be straightforward and direct manifestations of the emotions – they are just the echoes of real emotions which have undergone some intellectual recasting. They are designed to awaken (inclusive) co-experience in the mind of the reader. 7
Phonetic EM ď Ž
Expressive means introduce connotational (stylistic, non-denotative) meanings into utterances.
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Phonetic expressive means include pitch, melody, stresses, pauses, whispering, singing, and other ways of using human voice. 8
Morphological EM
Morphological expressive means are, for example, The Historical Present; the use of shall in the second and third person; the use of some demonstrative pronouns with an emphatic meaning as those, them (“Those gold candles fixed in heaven’s air” – Shakespeare); Also, these are some cases of nominalization which acquire expressiveness in the context, and so on.
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Among the word-building means we find a great many forms which serve to make the utterance more expressive by intensifying some of their semantic and grammatical properties. The diminutive suffixes -y (-ie), -let, e.g. dearie, sonny, auntie, streamlet, add some emotional colouring to the words. We may also refer to what are called neologisms and nonce-words formed with non-productive suffixes or with Greek roots, as mistressmanship, cleanorama. Certain affixes have gained such a power of expressiveness that they begin functioning as separate words, absorbing all of the generalizing meaning they attach to different roots, as, for example, isms and ologies. 10
Lexical EM ď Ž
At the lexical level there are words with emotive meaning only (interjections), words which have both referential and emotive meaning (epithets), words which still retain a twofold meaning: denotative and connotative (love, hate, sympathy), words belonging to the layers of slang and vulgar words, or to poetic or archaic layers.
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Syntactic EM ď Ž
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To syntactic expressive means belong emphatic syntactic constructions. Such constructions stand in opposition to their neutral equivalents. The neutral sentence John went away may be replaced by the following expressive variants: Away went John (stylistic inversion), John did go away (use of the emphatic verb to do), John went away, he did (emphatic confirmation pattern), It was John who went away (It is he who does it pattern).
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Definition of SD
A stylistic device 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 [Galperin 1977, 30]. It follows then that an SD is an abstract pattern, or a “mould” into which any content can be poured.
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For a language fact to be promoted to the level of an SD there is one indispensable requirement: it should be used to call forth a twofold perception of specific lexical or / and structural meanings. Even a nonce use can and very often does create the necessary conditions for the appearance of an SD. 14
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But these are only the prerequisites for the appearance of an SD.
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Only when a newly minted language unit which materializes the twofold application of meanings occurs repeatedly in different environments, can it spring into life as an SD and subsequently be registered in the system of SDs of the given language.
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Stylistic Use vs Stylistic Device ď Ž
Therefore it is necessary to distinguish between a stylistic use of a language unit, which acquires what we call a stylistic meaning, and a stylistic device, which is the realization of an already well-known abstract scheme designed to achieve a particular artistic effect.
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Functional Styles of the English Language: Definition ď Ž
A functional style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication [Galperin 1977, 32-33].
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A functional style is thus to be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. 17
Classification ď Ž
1) 2) 3) 4) 5)
What we call functional styles are also called registers or discourses. In the English literary standard I.R. Galperin distinguishes the following major functional styles: The The The The The
language language language language language
of of of of of
belles-lettres. publicistic literature. newspapers. scientific prose. official documents 18
Each FS is subdivided into a number of substyles. These represent varieties of the abstract invariant. Each variety has basic features common to all the varieties of the given FS and peculiar features typical of this variety alone. Still a substyle can, in some cases, deviate so far from the invariant that in its extreme it may even break away. 19
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The belles-lettres FS has the following substyles: a) the language style of poetry; b) the language style of emotive prose; c) the language style of drama.
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The publicistic FS comprises the following substyles: a) the language style of oratory; b) the language style of essays; c) the language style of feature articles in newspapers and journals.
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The newspaper FS falls into a) the language style of brief news items b) the language style of newspaper headings and c) the language style of notices and advertisements.
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The scientific prose FS also has three divisions: a) the language style of humanitarian sciences (humanities); b) the language style of “exact” sciences; c) the language style of popular scientific prose.
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The official document FS can be divided into four varieties: a) the language style of diplomatic documents; b) the language style of business documents; c) the language style of legal documents; d) the language style of military documents.
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The colloquial styles include: a) the informal colloquial style, its substyle being the dialect and b) the style of the substandard or special colloquial English.
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