Linguistic Stylistics - Gabriela Missikova part2

is most frequently used in enumeration, antithesis and in climax. As a rhetoric device, parallel constructions can be found in public speeches. The famous speech by Martin Luther King provides an example:

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.... I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin...”

Parallel constructions belong to the main foregrounded features on a syntactic level. Another source of examples of paralellism is the language of poetry. In the following poem by E.E.Cummings each stanza opens with parallel construction:

maggie and milly and may

went down to the beach (to play one day)and

maggie discovered a shell that

sang so sweetly she coudn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find

in the see

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‘The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.’

(Ch. Dickens)

Litotes

is a stylistic device consisting of a peculiar use of negative constructions. The negation plus noun or adjective serves to express a positive evaluation of a person or phenomenon. When compared with a synonymous expression which directly states the positive quality, litotes expresses it in a smaller ‘amount’. For instance, the sentence ‘We are not rivals’ can be understood as ‘We are partners’ but the established quality of a friendly relationship is weaker than in the sentence ‘We are colleagues’ or ‘We are friends‘. Similarly, the following pairs of sentences establish a positive evaluation of a person or a thing: ‘It’s not a bad thing’ means ‘It’s a good thing’ and ‘He is no coward’ means ‘He is a brave man’. Litotes can be used in various styles, however, it is not acceptable in technical language, for example in the language of official documments and scientific prose.

Repetition

Repetition is considered to be an effective expressive means of language. In colloquial speech repetition indicates strong emotions or stress of the speaker, it reflects his state of mind. When used as a stylistic device it does not aim at making a direct emotional impact. It aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the keywords of the utterance. Traditional classification of repetition is based on compositional design (repetition at the begining of two or more consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases is called anaphora, repetition at the end is called epiphora, patterns of repetition arranged into a frame are named framing, etc.). Anaphoric and epiphoric repetitions are strong cohesive means in the text. The following example of epiphora from K. Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle illustrates the case:

‘...and I knew some pretty sordid things about Dr Asa Breed, things that Sandra told me. Sandra told me everyone in Illium was sure that Dr Breed had been in love with Felix Hoenikker‘s wife. She told me that most people thought Breed was the father of all three Hoenikker children. ...’

The following abstract from H. Zahavi’s novel Dirty Weekend (1992) shows that repeated items and structures are foregrounded in the text, and catch the reader’s attention efficiently:

“It was Friday night. The weekend begins on Friday night. The good times begin on Friday night. She sat in her kitchen and sipped chilled vodka and waited for him to call.

She wanted him to call. She couldn’t do it, if he didn’t call. She needed him to

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make the move. She had to hear his murmur down the line. She had to hear him murmur darkly down the line. She couldn’t find the courage, unless his voice came trickling down the line.

Later, much later, years later, two days later, she’d know you mustn’t wait. Within two days, she would have learnt that you mustn’t wait too long before you do it. If you wait too long, you go under.”

The following example from V. Woolf‘s The Legacy can be seen as framing:

“For Sissy Miller.” Gilbert Clandon, taking up the pearl brooch that lay among a litter of rings and brooches on a little table in his wife’s drawing-room, read the inscription: “For Sissy Miller, with love.”

Repetition patterns vary enormously, from simple repetition of two elements toward the most sophisticated and complex patterns. Generally, they support melody, rhyme and rhythm, create echo effects and strongly appeal on the recipient (reader/ listener). Thus the language of lyrics provides quite many examples:

If you believe they put a man on the moon, man on the moon.

If you believe there’s nothing up my sleeve, then nothing is cool. Here’s a little agit for the never believer, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, Here’s a little ghost for the operator, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Here’s a truck stop instead of Saint Peter’s, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Mister Andy Kaufman‘s gone wrestling, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah ...

(R.E.M.: Man on the Moon)

Anadiplosis

Anadiplosis is a term used to name the repetition of the last part of one unit or sentence at the beginning of the next. It is a stylistic device which used to be popular in Elizabethan poetry:

‘My words I know do well set forth my mind; My mind bemoans his sense of inward smart; Such smart may pity claim of any heart;

Her heart, sweet heart, is no tiger’s kind.’’

(P. Sidney, in K.Wales, ibid., p.22)

Anadiplosis is also known as linking or reduplication. The writer, instead of moving on, seems to double back on his tracks and pick up his last word. Sometimes a writer may use the linking device several times in one utterance, this compositional form of repetition is called chain-repetition, as in:

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(G. G. Byron)

It resembles anadiplosis because it requires the linking of words between clauses, the last lexical item of one clause beginning the next, but the climactic buildup of an argument is important:

‘Of sloth cometh pleasure, of pleasure cometh spending, of spending cometh whoring, of whoring cometh lack, of lack cometh theft, of theft cometh hanging, and here an end for this world.’

(T. Wilson. In: K. Wales, ibid., p. 67)

I. R. Galperin (ibid.) distinguishes between emotional and logical climax. 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. This relative importance can be evaluated objectively and subjectively. Emotional climax is based on the relative emotional tension produced by words with emotive meaning, as in the first example, with the words ‘lovely’, ‘beautiful’, ‘fair’. The following example illustrates so called quantitative climax which shows an evident increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts, as in:

‘They looked at hundreds of houses, they climbed thousands of stairs, they inspected innumerable kitchens.’

(W. S. Maugham)

Antithesis

Stylistic opposition which is given a special name, the term antithesis, is based on a relative opposition which arises out of the context through the expansion of objectively contrasting pairs, as in:

‘Youth is lovely, age is lonely, Youth is fiery, age is frosty.’

(H. W. Longfellow)

Antithesis effectively contrasts ideas by contrasting lexical items in a formal structure of paralellism. For example, the sentence originally pronounced by Hippocrates, later quoted by Seneca, Chaucer, Goethe, Longfellow and others:

‘Life is short, art is long.’

K. Wales (ibid.) quotes an extended example involving explicit antonymy at the opening passage of Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities:

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‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...’

K. Wales also points out that many famous quotations are based on witty or satirical antithteses, for example:

‘Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.’

(S. Johnson: Rasselas)

Oxymoron and paradox are other devices based on the relation of antonymy.

7.2.4 The Length of a Sentence and its Type

The length and the type of a sentence, that is the fact wheather a sentence is a parataxis, hypotaxis, periodic sentence, etc., are also stylistically relevant. Together with deviant syntactic constructions (e.g. syllepsis, zeugma, anacoluthon, etc.) they bring expressiveness to the text.

7.2.5 Syntactic Constructions Based on the Relation of Synonymy

Isocolon

Isocolon (from Gk ‘equal member’) is a stylistic device where phrases or clauses are of equal length and parallel in syntax and hence in rhythm. K. Wales (ibid.) points out that it is frequent especially in the prose style of writers influenced by Latin rhetoric. In the following example isocolon is used for elaboration of argument and for emphasis:

The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

(S. Johnson: Letter to Lord Chesterfield)

Redundancy vs pleonasm

When more words than necessary are used for stylistic purposes, for instance, emphasis, we discuss either redundancy (e.g. flowery language: in the month of June

: in June, or the sentences like It was a clear starry night, and not a cloud was to be seen. He was the only survivor, no one else was saved, etc.), or pleonasm, when redundant words are used, for example, He kicked the ball with his foot. I can see with my own eyes. Redundancy should be avoided in creative writing, pleonasm is sometimes accepted. In general, both are felt deviant and considered as defect constructions. They are tolerated in emphatic spoken utterances where the use of ‚more words than necessary‘ indicates strong emotions or desire to emphasise certain meanings.

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Tautology vs paraphrasis

If the same proposition is repeated in different words we refer to tautology, for example Kids are kids, Boys will be boys, etc. Examples of a paraphrasis can be included here, too.

Recursive constructions

Syntactic structures which, embedded or juxtaposed in a sentence, can be repeated indefinitely (at least in theory) are termed recursions. In practice, extended recursion, although acceptable, is rare. Examples can be found in nursery rhymes, such as the following string of relative clauses:

This is the farmer sowing his corn,

that kept the cock, that crowed in the morn, that waked the priest all shaven and shorn, that ... etc.

(The House that Jack Built.)

It is not only the clause type that can be recursive (an example above), a syntagm can be recursive too:

the meat [[on the [table] in [the kitchen]]

Recursive clauses are typical in spoken utterances, for example:

[he said [that she had promised [she would come] ] ] a b c c b a

Clause c is a complement of promised (i.e. clause b) which is in turn a complement of said (i.e. clause a) which could be a complement in a sentence like

I was told [he said that she had promised she would come] a a

and so on.

There is also a different form of recursion in which co-ordination is involved:

I looked for that which is not, nor can be

The relative clause contains two predicates, joined by the conjunction nor, we could, in principle add a third (which is not, nor can be, nor should be) or a third and a fourth, etc.

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7.2.6 Transferred Use of Structural Meaning

Similar to transference of lexical meaning, in which words are used in other than their primary logical sense, syntactic structures may also be used in meanings other than their primary ones. Every syntactic structure has its definite function which is sometimes called its structural meaning. When a structure is used in some other function it may be said to assume the new meaning which is similar to a lexical transferred meaning. Among syntactic stylistic devices there are two in which this transference of structural meaning is to be seen. They are rhetoric question and question-in-the-narrative.

Rhetoric Question

is a special syntactic stylistic device. The essence of it consists of reshaping the grammatical meaning of the interrogative sentence. In other words, a 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 a statement. Both are materialised simultaneously. The following are examples of its literary use:

‘Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace?’

‘Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven and testify against you?’

(G. G. Byron)

Rhetoric questions used in colloquial speech express various feelings, emotions or a particular state of mind of a speaker. The more intense the feelings of a speaker are the more repetitions, gradations and exaggerations are used. The following examples express disappointment, bitter feelings, disagreement, reproaches and anger:

‘Is this what you wanted to achieve? Is this what you meant? Was this your goal?’

‘Aren‘t children beautiful when they‘re asleep?’

‘Are you going to stay in bed for the rest of your life?’ ‘Are you deaf?’

‘Are you kidding me?’

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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.

‘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.’

(Ch. Dickens)

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