VSUE Lectures on STYLISTICS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

VSUE Lectures on STYLISTICS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE Presented by Tamara Ivanovna Leontieva Foreign Languages Center, Department of Intercultural Communication and Translation 2008

Lexical Stylistic Devices Metonymy, Epithet

Contextual and Transferred Meanings Words in a context acquire additional lexical meanings, not fixed in dictionaries. They are contextual meanings. Transferred meaning is the interrelation between dictionary and contextual meanings of a word (SD).

What are the bases for SD? • Metaphor is based on affinity (similarity). • Metonymy is based on proximity (or symbol-referent relations). • Irony is based on opposition.

Definition of Metonymy is based on association between dictionary and contextual meanings. NB! In a metonymy the objects (phenomena) have common grounds of existence in reality.

NB! Common grounds E. g. : cup and tea; hand worker; Rome and Catholic belief; big bucks and wealth; underwear and reputation; beard and elderly age (respect or irony); the White House and the USA; Downing Street, 10 and the British Government, etc.

Types of Relations in a Metonymy 1 • A specific thing for an abstract notion: salad days, bottle, grave. • The container instead of the thing contained: Red Riding Hood, hall, town. • The material for the thing made of it: kid, bronze and clay.

Types of Relations in a Metonymy 2 • Instrument for the action: a good whip (about a horseman), in Russian: кулак не аргумент. • The relation of proximity: The round game table was boisterous and noisy. • Result instead of the cause: He (рыба) takes the death (глотает гибельный крючок).

Types of Relations in a Metonymy 3 • A characteristic trait instead of the person: Blue suit grinned, might even have winked. • An abstract notion meaning a feeling or emotion instead of the person possessing it: «Trouble, sir? » replied subservience, as if at a loss to understand a sinister allusion.

Synecdoche is based on a particular kind of metonymic relationship which may be considered quantitative: • A part stands for the whole for the part: May I put a word in? Wheels (a car), staged hand, hired hand. • An individual stands for a class: “… и ликовал француз”.

Antonomasia It is a lexical SD in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa: He is the Napoleon of crime; Mr. Murdstone, Scrooge, a ladykiller is Don Juan, a traitor may be referred to as Brutus.

Two types of antonomasia Metaphoric (based on similarity): The Gioconda smile. Look at those Romeo and Juliet. He is a regular Sher-lock Holmes. Metonymic (based on association): He has sold his Vandykes. I’ve just listened to Mozart. Do you like Brahms?

Carl Sandburg Fog The fog comes On little cat feet. It sits looking Over harbour and city On silent haunches And then moves on.

Walter de la Mare SILVER Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks through the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

Walter de la Mare SILVER From their shadowy coat the white breasts peep Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep; A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws and a silver eye; And moveless fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream.

EPITHET An epithet is a colorful attribute which characterizes a person, thing or phenome -non. Poetic epithet: a steel will. Simple adjective: a steel knife. Function: to reveal the emotionally colored individual attitude of the author towards the object described.

The structure of epithets 1. Metaphoric epithet: The ghost of a smile appeared on Soames’ face. 2. Phrase epithet: She gave him her best go-to -hell look, and backed away from the counter. 3. Transferred epithet: unbreakfasted morn ing, a disapproving finger, silver-feathered sleep. We heard the loud musicians play, etc.

Do the following exercises: 1. ИЯШ, 2002, № 2. - Pp. 53 -54 (27 sentences) 2. Ивашкин и др. Ex. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, pp. 1318. Take your time!