Syntactical devices based on peculiar arrangement of the members of the sentence (inversion, detachment, parallelism, chiasmus, antithesis)

The concept of imagery. Tropes

Art is virtually based on imagery. An arisctic image is a unit of art and it serves to reflect the reality as the author perceives it. The artistic image is an artistic presentation of the general through the individual, of the abstract through the concrete and the sensuous. In verbal art imagery is embodied in words used in a figurative way to attain a higher artistic expressiveness. Words in figurative expressions connote, or acquire additional layers of meaning in a particular context.

So, the verbal image is a pen-picture of a thing, person or idea expressed in a figurative way, i.e. by words used in their contextual meaning.  

Images – due to their frequent use – often become recognized symbols.

Linguistic figurativeness or linguistic imagery can be found in various lexical lingual means that are termed either tropes(Ancient Gk. tropos ‘to turn’), or – like in our course – lexical stylistic devices.

A literary trope is the figurative use of a word or a phrase that creates imagery.NB! Imagery can be created by lexical SD’s only.

The rest of stylistic devices (morphological and syntactical, phonetic, graphic) do not create imagery, but serve as intensifiers: they can add some logical, emotive, expressive information to the utterance.

The verbal image is described as a complex phenomenon, a double picture generated by linguistic means, which is based on the co-presence of two thoughts of different things active together:

the direct thought – the tenor (T).

the figurative thought – the vehicle (V).

E.g. She (T) is a bird of passage (V).

The tenor is the subject of thought, while the vehicle is the concept of a thing, person or an abstract notion with which the tenor is compared or identified.

As I.V. Arnold points out, the structure of a verbal image also includes: the ground of comparison (G) — the similar feature of Т and V; the relation (R) between Т and V; the type of identification/comparison or, simply, the type of a trope.

Images may be:

general (macroimages), e.g. ‘War and Peace’

individual (microimages), e.g. that great ocean of deep depression.

 I.R. Galperin divides images into three categories:

visual, e.g. It was a feast of colour.

aural (acoustic), e.g. ding-dong

relational, e.g. a man of figures, a man of great dignity.

Graphical stylistic means

Graph means are stylistically relevant because they let the reader understand what in oral speech is rendered with the help of prosodic elements: stress, pitch, pauses, the lengthening and multiplying of some sounds. Usually, graphical means render the emotional colouring of speech. They include: - punctuation marks - typographic techniques - graphons.

Punctuation marks alongside their function of dividing sentences into syntactic units and texts into sentences, they also point out elements prominent emotionallylike emotional pauses, irony and some others, reflect not only logical but, also, rhythmical-metodical organization of speech. Their aim is - to attract the attention of the reader and to foreground expressive, emotional, evaluative, functional-stylistic and aesthetic information. Several exclamation and interrogation marks used in close succession mean that that the text is emotionally charged. At the same time these marks may deviate from their traditional use of expressing delight, surprise. Accordingly, the interrogationmarkat the end of a sentence may indicate a rhetorical question, which, in fact, is a statement. A dash may be used to mark emotional pauses which may indicate such feelings as embarrassment, uncertainty, nervousness. Suspension marks may also be used in similar cases. A full-stop and a commaare often used to indicate detachment, which makes a member of the sentence more accented. The main function of inverted commas is to mark the beginning and the end of a quotation.

Special typographic techniques are used to reflect the emphasis and emotion of live speech. They are:

• Italics(letters slope forwards to the right), look [sound] emphatic,

• Printing in capital letters - the first letter in a word or the whole word. It also serves as a graphical basis for the formation of such stylistic device as autononiasia:

• Spacing outh a s

• Multiplicationthe absuuurdent creature

• Hyphenation: c-r-e-a-t-u-r-e

• Bold type

The graphonis an associative stylistic device of the phono-graphical level which is realized through the distortion of spelling norms. The changes in spelling supply some additional information about the character's social, regional, and national characteristics, his cultural and educational level, his age and his physical and emotional stale. (“So he ish”)

· the interior graphons (gotta, wonna, gimme, lemme)

· contact graphons (reflecting changes at word junctions when words are blended into one. e.g. o 'town —of town.

Examples of graphons can be found, also in Cockney, in Northern dialect, in American English - Negro pronunciation.

Tropes: metaphor

Metaphor is any kind of figurative use in art. As a SD metaphor is an imaginative identification of one concept (Т) with another (V), or a hidden comparison of two objects with no real connection. It is a transfer by similarity resulting in the violation of normal correspondence between concepts and words. Function. Metaphors make descriptions concrete and vivid. Metaphors can be embodied in all the basic parts of speech – nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Noun Metaphors. V.A. Maltzev isolated certain structural patterns of noun metaphors, depending on the type of identification of Т and V: Т is V: Love is a disease. Т turns into V: E.g. The fine autumn afternoon was turning into smoke and distant fading flame. Something makes Т into V: E.g. The rising sun made every cloud a bonfire. V replaces Т: E.g. Our lamp (life) is spent, its out.

Adjective, Adverb and Verb Metaphors.

In non-noun metaphors the vehicle is hidden and must be identified by properties or actions denoted by adjectives, adverbs and verbs. E.g. It was a fine romantic cigarette.

Metaphor has no formal limitations: it can be a word, a phrase, any part of a sentence, or a sentence as a whole.

Simple, sustained metaphors

Simple metaphors contain only one vehicle.

E.g. His life was a tragedy.

Sustained (extended) metaphors occur whenever one metaphorical statement, creating an image, is followed by another, containing a continuation, or logical development of the previous one.

E.g. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knock-about farce. (Maugham)

Genuine, trite metaphors

According to the degree of originality:

Genuine (authentic, 'living'). They are original, full of imagery, and therefore are treated as SD’s proper. Trite(dead, traditional, stereotyped). They are fixed in dictionaries clichés with faded imagery. E.g. a foot of a mountain, a mouth of a river, a root of the quarrel. Having become standardised through overuse, metaphors may also exist as idioms(to add fuel to the fire/flames).

Metaphor is also a common lingual means of occasional denomination that provides us with a means of explaining the unknown in terms of the known. Similarity on which metaphorical renaming is based may concern any property of the thing meant. It may be colour, form, character of motion, speed, value or anything else that shows a resemblance.

Syntactical devices based on peculiar arrangement of the members of the sentence (inversion, detachment, parallelism, chiasmus, antithesis)

Stylistic inversiondiffers from grammatical inversion. Stylistic inversion does not change the grammatical essence of the sentence.

It consists in an unusual displacement of words in order to make one of them more important, more emphatic, to make a logical stress on it or to add some expressive and emotive colour. Inversion may becomplete – when the predicate is displaced, partial – with the displacement of secondary members of the sentence. There are 5 most frequent structural types of inversion:the object is placed in pre-position, the attribute is placed after the word it modifies,the adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning, both the modifier and predicate stand before the subject.

Detachmentis an attribution of greater significance to а secondary member of the sentence, usu. an attribute or an adverbial modifier. due to which it is formally separated from the word it syntactically depends on. The stylistic effect of detachment is strengthening, emphasizing the word (phrase) . Detachment produces a stronger effect and sounds more independent. In oral speech a detached unit is marked by prominent intonation which in writing is indicated by the use of such punctuation marks as commas, full stops or dashes.

A variant of detachment is parenthesis.

Parallelismis a repetition of identical or similar syntactical patterns in two or more successive units. – Complete/Incomplete(depends on identity)

Parallelism performs different functions.

It contributes to rhythmic and melodic unification of adjacent sentences. It also either helps to emphasize the repeated element, or to create a contrast.

Chiasmus (kaiezmes)is sometimes characterized as 'parallelism reversed': it is also based on the repetition of syntactical patterns, but it has a reversed or inverted order in one of the two utterances. E.g. He came in and out went she.

Like parallel constructions, chiasmus contributes to the rhythmical quality of the utterance.

Antithesisis a balanced two-step structure in which the antagonistic objects or ideas are presented by dictionary or contextual antonyms.

E.g. Youth is lovely, age is lonely. The purpose is to demonstrate the contradictory nature of the referent, to compare things through a contrast and to attribute rhythm to the utterance.