Общеметодологические, общенаучные основы стилистики, основные понятия стилистики

Тема 1. Общеметодологические, общенаучные основы стилистики, основные понятия стилистики

1. Определить основные особенности выразительного средства и стилистического приёма.
2. Дать характеристику стилю, как семиотическому понятию.

 

 

1. Stylistics, sometimes called  l i n g u o - s t y 1 i s t i c s, is a branch of general linguistics. It has now been more or less definitely outlined. It deals mainly with two interdependent tasks: a) the investigation of the inventory of special language media which by their ontological features secure the desirable effect of the utterance and b) certain types of texts (discourse) which due to the choice and arrangement of language means are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication. The two objectives of stylistics are clearly discernible as two separate fields of investigation. The inventory of special language media can be analyzed and their ontological features revealed if presented in a system in which the co-relation between the media becomes evident. The types of texts can be analyzed if their linguistic components are presented in their interaction, thus revealing the unbreakable unity and transparency of constructions of a given type. The types of texts that are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication are called functional styles of language (FS); the special media of language which secure the desirable effect of the utterance are called stylistic devices (SD) and expressive means  (EM).

 

The first field of investigation, i.e. SDs and EMs, necessarily touches upon such general language problems as the aesthetic function of language, synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea, emotional coloring in language, the interrelation between language and thought, the individual manner of an author in making use of language and a number of other issues.

The second field, i.e. functional styles, cannot avoid discussion of such most general linguistic issues as oral and written varieties of language, the notion of the literary (standard) language, the constituents of texts larger than the sentence, the generative aspect of literary texts, and some others.

 

In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are fore grounded, 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 and other names. All these terms are used indiscriminately and are set against those means which we shall conventionally call neutral. Most linguists distinguish ordinary (also: substantial, referential) semantic and stylistic differences in meaning. In fact all language means contain meaning—some of them contain generally acknowledged grammatical and lexical meanings (see p. 58). others besides these contain speсific meanings which may be called stylistic. Such meanings go alongside primary meanings and, as it were, are superimposed on them. Stylistic meanings are so to speak de-automatized. As is known, 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 decodable.

 

But when a stylistic meaning is involved, the process of de-automa-tization checks the reader's perception of the language. His attention is arrested by a peculiar use of language media and he begins, to the best of his ability, to decipher it. He becomes aware of the form in which the utterance is cast and as the result of this process a twofold use of the language medium—ordinary and stylistic—becomes apparent to him. As will be shown later this twofold application of language means in some cases presents no difficulty. It is so marked that even a layman can see it, as when a metaphor or a simile is used. But in some texts grammatically redundant forms or hardly noticeable forms, essential for the expression of stylistic meanings which carry the particular additional information desired, may present a difficulty.

 

What this information is and how it is conveyed to the mind of the reader can be explored only when a concrete communication is subjected to observation, which will be done later in the analyses of various stylistic devices and in the functioning of expressive means.

 

In this connection the following passage from "Investigating English Style" by D. Crystal and D. Davy is of interest: "Features which are stylistically significant display different kinds and degrees of distinctiveness in a text: of two features, one may occur only twice in a text, the other may occur thirty times,—or a feature might be uniquely identifying in the language, only ever occurring in one variety, as opposed to a feature which is distributed throughout many or all varieties in different frequencies."

 

What then is a stylistic device? Why is it so important to distinguish

it from the expressive and neutral means of the language? To answer these questions it is first of all necessary to elucidate the notion ‘ex-pressiveness'.

 

The category of expressiveness has long been the subject of heated discussions among linguists. In its etymological sense 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 of the means that manifest this category and what these means are.

But somehow lately the notion of expressiveness has been confused with another notion, viz. e m о t i v e n e s s. Emotiveness, and correspondingly the emotive elements of language, are what reveal the emotions of writer or speaker. But these elements are not direct manifestations of the emotions-they are just the echoes of real emotions, echoes which have undergone some intellectual recasting. They are designed to awaken co-experience in the mind of the reader.

 

Expressiveness is a broader notion than emotiveness and is by no means to be reduced to the latter. Emotiveness is an integral part of expressiveness and, as a matter of fact, occupies a predominant position in the category of expressiveness. But there are media in language which aim simply at logical emphasis of certain parts of the utterance. They do not evoke any intellectual representation of feeling but merely serve the purpose of verbal actualization of the utterance.

 

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. These intensifying forms, wrought by social usage and recognized by their semantic function, have been singled out in grammars, courses in phonetics and dictionaries (including phraseological ones) as having special functions in making the utterances emphatic. Some of them are normalized, and good dictionaries label them as "intensifiers". In most cases they have corresponding neutral synonymous forms.

 

 

Passing over to some preliminary remarks op the morphological expressive m e a n s of the English language, we_must point to what is now а гаthеr impoverished set of media to which the quality of expressiveness can be attributed. However, there are some which alongside their ordinary grammatical function display a kind of emphasis and thereby are promoted to EMs. These are, for example, The Historical Present; the use of shall in the second and third реrson; the use of some demonstrative pronouns with an emphatic meaning as those, them ("Those gold candles fixed in heaven's air"—Shakespeare); some cases of nominalization, particularly when conversion of verbal stems is alien to the meaning of the verbs or the nominalization of phrases and sentences and a number of other morphological forms, which acquire expressiveness in the context, though this capacity is not yet registered as one of the latent properties of such forms.

Among the  w o r d - building means we find a great many forms which serve  to make the utterance more expressive by intensifying some of their semantic and/or grammatical properties. The diminutive suffixes -y (-ie), -let, e.g. 'dearie', 'sonny', 'auntie', 'streamlet', add some еmotional 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' (see p.  92).

At the l e x i c a l  l e v e l there are a great many words which due to their inner expressiveness constitute a special layer (see chart on p. 71). 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. The expressive power of these words cannot be doubted, especially when they are compared with the neutral vocabulary.

All kinds of set phrases (phraseological units) generally possess the property of expressiveness. Set phrases, catch words, proverbs, sayings comprise a considerable number of language units which serve to make speech emphatic, mainly from the emotional point of view. Тheir use in every-day speech is remarkable for the subjective emotional colouring they produce.

It must be noted here that due to the generally emotional character of colloquial language, all kinds of set expressions are natural in everyday speech. They are, as it were, part and parcel of this form of human intercourse. But when they appear in written texts their expressiveness comes to the fore because written texts, as has already been pointed out, are logically directed unless, of course, there is a deliberate attempt to introduce an expressive element in the utterance. The set expression is a time-honored device to enliven speech, but this device, it must be repeated, is more sparingly used in written texts. In everyday speech one can often hear such phrases as: "Well, it will only add fuel to the fire" and the like, which in fact is synonymous to the neutral: "It will only make the situation worse."

Finally, at the s y n t а с t i с a l  level there are many constructions which, when set against synonymous neutral ones, will геveаl a certain degree of  logical or  emotional  emphasis.

In order to be able to distinguish between expressive means and stylistic devices, to which we now pass, it is necessary to bear in mind that expressive means are concrete facts of language. They are studied in the respective language manuals, though it must be once again regretfully stated that some grammarians iron out all elements carrying expressiveness from their works, as they consider this quality irrelevant to the theory of language.

Stylistics studies the expressive means of language, but from a special angle. It takes into account the modifications of meanings which various expressive means undergo when they are used in different functional styles. Expressive means have a kind of radiating effect. They noticeably colour the whole of the utterance no matter whether they are logical or emotional.

What then is a stylistic device? It 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. It follows then that an SD is an abstract pattern, a mould into which any content can be poured. As is known, the typical is not only that which is in frequent use, but that also which reveals the essence of a phenomenon with the greatest and most evident force.

 

 

2. The word style is derived from the Latin word 'stilus' which meant a short stick sharp at one end and flat at the other used by the Romans for writing on wax tablets. Now the word 'style' is used in so many senses that it has become a breeding ground for ambiguity. The word is applied to the teaching of how to write a composition (see below); it is also used to reveal the correspondence between thought and expression; it frequently denotes an individual manner of making use of language; it sometimes refers to more general, abstract notions thus inevitably becoming vague and obscure, as, for example, "Style is the man himself" (Buffon), "Style is depth" (Darbyshire); "Style is deviations" (Enkvist); "Style is choice", and the like.

It follows then that the term 'style', being ambiguous, needs a restricting adjective to denote what particular aspect of style we intend to deal with. It is suggested here that the term individual style should be applied to that sphere of linguistic and literary science which deals with the peculiarities of a writer's individual manner of using language means to achieve the effect he desires. Deliberate choice must be distinguished from a habitual idiosyncrasy in the use of language units; every individual has his own manner and habits of using them. The speech of an individual which is characterized by peculiarities typical of that particular individual is called an idiolect. The idiolect should be distinguished from what we call individual style, inasmuch as the word 'style' presupposes a deliberate choice.

It follows then that the individual style of a writer is marked by its uniqueness. It can be recognized by the specific and peculiar combination of language media and stylistic devices which in their interaction present a certain system. This system derives its origin from the creative spirit, and elusive though it may seem, it can nevertheless be as-certained. Naturally, the individual style of a writer will never be entirely independent of the literary norms and canons of the given period.

This peculiarity in the manner of using language means in poetry and emotive prose has given rise to the notion of Style as Deviance.

1 Most illustrative of this tendency is George Saintsbury's statement made as far back as 1895: "It is in the breach or neglect of the rules that govern the structure of clauses, sentences, and paragraphs that the real secret of style consists..."

The same idea is expressed by G. Vandryes, one of the prominent linguists of today, who states that "The belles-lettres style is always a reaction against the common language; to some extent it is a jargon, a literary jargon, which may have varieties."

The idea has a long history. In the 1920s there arose a trend which was named formalism in literature and which has crucial relevance to present-day endeavors to analyze the role of form in embodying matter. Several literary critics representative of this school as well as a number of writers maintained the idea that language sometimes imposes intolerable constraints on freedom of thought. Hence all kinds of innovations were introduced into the language which sometimes not only disagree with the established norms of the language, but actually depart from them in principle. The result in many cases is that the language steps over the threshold of the reader's ability to perceive the message.

The essential property, indeed, merit of a truly genuine individual style is its conformity to the established norms of the language system in their idiosyncratic variations. This uniqueness of the individual style of an author is not easy to observe. It is due not only to the peculiar choice of words, sentence-structures and stylistic devices, but also to the incomparable manner these elements are combined.

One of the essential properties of a truly individual style is its permanence. It has great powers of endurance. It is easily recognized and never loses its aesthetic value.

What we here call individual style, therefore, is a unique combination of language units, expressive means and stylistic devices peculiar to a given writer, which makes that writer's works or even utterances easily recognizable.

 

Тема 2. Стилистическая фонетика и морфология современного английского языка.

1. Охарактеризовать графико-фонетические средства выделения предложения или его части и графико-фонетические средства выделения слова или словосочетания.
2. Определить особенности использования аффиксальной и корневой морфемы.
3. Сделать подборку примеров выразительных средств и стилистических приёмов на фонетическом и морфологических уровнях.

 

Существующие  графические средства пунктуации недостаточно полно и адекватно передают все  богатство и разнообразие интонаций живой речи. В связи с этим в художественной прозе и в поэзии широко применяются различные графические средства, употребление которых в какой-то степени компенсирует недостаточность традиционных средств орфографии и пунктуации. Такими графическими средствами являются разрядка, написание слова или предложения шрифтом, отличительным от шрифта всего текста, написание слов с заглавных букв, многоточие, изменение орфографии отдельных слов. Смыслового различия между этими средствами нет. Стилистический прием заключается в том, что графическая презентация той или иной единицы высказывания или текста каким-то образом отличается от графической презентации всего текста.

 

Можно разграничить две разновидности  графико-фонетических средств в  зависимости от сферы их применения: средства, выделяющие все предложение или его часть; средства, выделяющие отдельное слово или словосочетание. Рассмотрим каждую из разновидностей графико-фонетических средств отдельно.

 

1. В текстах художественной литературы предложение или его отдельные части могут быть выделены при помощи другого шрифта или разрядки. Иногда использование данного средства не связано со стилистической функцией — графическая маркировка предложения курсивом или прописными буквами лишь указывает на факт цитирования. Французская речь персонажей в рассказе О. Хаксли «Белила» выделяется курсивом: A door had opened; words articulated themselves.

 

«[...] bien tort, mon ami, si tu crois que je suis ton esclave. Je ferai ce que je voudrai».

 

«Moi aussi». Monsieur uttered a harsh, dangerous laugh.

 

В рассказе Д. Лессинг «Англия против Англии» заглавными буквами выделено название статьи в газете: «Wait», said Charlie excitedly, straightening the paper so he could see the front page. WARDROBE MURDERER GETS SECOND CHANCE, it said».

 

Иногда курсивом выделяется внутренняя речь персонажей (см. с. 64). Во всех этих случаях графические средства не передают фонетических особенностей речи, высказывания, а лишь указывают на цитату или изменение манеры изложения — переход от авторского повествования к передаче звучащей речи или внутреннего монолога персонажа.

 

Однако гораздо  чаще данные средства — курсив, употребление прописных букв, разрядка — употребляются для логического или эмоционального усиления мысли, выраженной в высказывании, поскольку они указывают на особую манеру произношения всего высказывания или его части.

 

В рассказе А. Кристи «Нимейский лев» курсивом выделяются высказывания персонажей, которые, благодаря интонации, несут особую логическую нагрузку:

 

Sir Joseph grunted. Не said:

 

«You surprise me! I should have said you'd have had no end of women pestering you about their pet dogs.»

 

«That, certainly. But it is the first time that 1 am summoned by the husband in the case.»

 

Miss Carnaby murmured faintly:

 

«So you know?»

 

Hercule Poirot nodded.

 

В рассказе А. Беннета «Ветер»  эмоциональная взволнованность  персонажа передается или при  помощи курсива:

 

Edna jumped from the car, and as she jumped shrieked;

 

«But where's my baby?»

 

«I never saw the baby, ma'am.» или путем употребления ряда восклицательных предложений: The mystery was awful and complete. Abandoned perambulator! Total disappearance of a baby! Rapine! Brigandage! Ransom! Horror! Martyrdom! Death!

 

Графическими  средствами, в частности многоточиями, может передаваться и паузация речи, отражающая нерешительность, сомнения или волнение говорящего: «No ... I can't find him. Nobody'll ever tell me where he is... We were on a ship together... an' ...» His voice tailed off (S. Barstow).