Шпаргалка по "Стилистике"

13. Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices. Onomatopoeis. Alliteration

2,2.3. I. R. Galperin's classification of expressive means and stylistic devices

The classification suggested by Prof. Galperin is simply organised and very detailed. His manual "Stylistics" published in 1971 includes the following subdivision of expressive means and stylistic devices based on the level-oriented approach:

1. Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices To this group Galperin refers such means as:

1) onomatopoeia (direct and indirect): ding-dong; silver bells... tinkle, tinkle;

2) alliteration (initial rhyme): to rob Peter to pay Paul;

* To avoid repetition in each classification definitions of all stylistic devices are given in the glossary

3) rhyme (full, incomplete, compound or broken, eye rhyme, internal rhyme. Also, stanza rhymes: couplets, triple, cross, framingIring);

4) rhythm.

1. Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices To this group Galperin refers such means as:

1) onomatopoeia (direct and indirect): ding-dong; silver bells... tinkle, tinkle;

2) alliteration (initial rhyme): to rob Peter to pay Paul;

* To avoid repetition in each classification definitions of all stylistic devices are given in the glossary

3) rhyme (full, incomplete, compound or broken, eye rhyme, internal rhyme. Also, stanza rhymes: couplets, triple, cross, framingIring);

4) rhythm.

Syntagmatic phonetics deals with the interaction of speech sounds and intonation, sentence stress, tempo. All these features that charac¬terise suprasegmental speech phonetically are sometimes also called prosodic.

So stylistic phonetics studies such stylistic devices and expressive means as alliteration (recurrence of the initial consonant in two or more words in close succession). It's a typically English feature because ancient English poetry was based more on alliteration than on rhyme. We find a vestige of this once all-embracing literary device in proverbs and sayings that came down to us.

E. g. Now or never; Last but not least; As good as gold.

With time its function broadened into prose and other types of texts.

It became very popular in titles, headlines and slogans.

E. g. Pride and Prejudice. (Austin)

Posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club. (Dickens)

Work or wages!; Workers of the world, unite!

Speaking of the change of this device's role chronologically we should make special note of its prominence in certain professional areas of modern English that has not been mentioned by Skrebnev. Today alliteration is one of the favourite devices of commercials and advertising language.

E. g. New whipped cream: No mixing or measuring. No beating or bothering.

Colgate toothpaste: The Flavor's Fresher than ever - It's New. Improved. Fortified.

Assonance (the recurrence of stressed vowels).

E.g. ...Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden; I shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore. (Рое)

Paronomasia (using words similar in sound but different in meaning with euphonic effect).

The popular example to illustrate this device is drawn from E. A. Poe's Raven.

E. g. And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting Rhythm and meter.

The pattern of interchange of strong and weak segments is called rhythm. It's a regular recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables that make a poetic text. Various combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables determine the metre (iambus, dactyl, trochee, etc.).

Rhyme is another feature that distinguishes verse from prose and consists in the acoustic coincidence of stressed syllables at the end of verse lines.

Here's an example to illustrate dactylic meter and rhyme given in Skrebnev's book

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care, Fashion'd so slenderly Young and so fair.

(Hood)

The subject of stylistics can be outlined as the study of the nature, functions and structure of stylistic devices, on the one hand, and, on the other, the study of each style of language as classified above, i. e. its aim, its structure, its characteristic features and the effect it produces, as well as its interrelation with other styles of language. So, it’s necessary to make an attempt to single out such, problems as are typically stylistic and cannot be treated in any other branch of linguistic science.

The stylistic approach to the utterance is not confined to its structure and sense, there is another thing to be taken into account which, in a certain type of communication, viz. belles-lettres, plays an important role. This is the way a word, a phrase or a sentence sounds. The sound of most words taken separately will have little or no aesthetic value. It is in combination with other words that a word may acquire a desired phonetic effect, the way a separate word sounds may produce a certain euphonic impression, but this is a matter of individual perception and feeling and therefore subjective. For instance, a certain English writer expresses the opinion that angina [?n'dgain?], pneumonia [nju'mouni?], and uvula ['ju:vjul?] would make beautiful girl's names instead of what he calls «lumps of names like Joan, Joyce and Maud». In the poem «Cargoes» by John Masefield he considers words like ivory, sandal-wood, cedar-wood, emeralds and amethysts as used in the first two stanzas to be beautiful, whereas those in the 3rd stanza «strike harshly on the ear!»

1.2 Phonetic expressive means

The most powerful expressive means of any language are phonetic. Ways of the voice using are much more effective than any other means in intensifying an utterance emotionally or logically and the human voice can indicate most subtle nuances of meaning. In the language course of phonetics the patterns of emphatic intonation have been worked out, but many devices have so far been little investigated.

So, phonetic expressive means are the following:

Intonation, which is a language universal. Phoneticians give different definitions of intonation, but the most accepted one is by S.F. Leontyeva. According to Leontyeva’s point of view, intonation is considered to be a complex unity of pitch (melody), stress, tempo, temper and tamber and the way they are realized in speech.

Intonation is very important. It serves to form sentences and determines their communicative types. It divides sentences into intonation groups, it expresses the speaker’s thoughts and conveys the attitudinal meaning. One and the same sentence may express different meaning, when pronounced with different intonation:

e.g. When it’s a general question – Isn’t it ridiculous?

An exclamation – Isn’t it ridiculous!

Intonation determines the communicative type of sentences. The communicative types are differentiated in speech according to the aim of the utterance from the point of view of communication. There 4 main types of sentences:

Statements – I like music.

Questions – Can you do it?

Imperative sentences or commands – Just do it!

Exclamations – Right you are

The pitch component of intonation or a melody is the changers in the pitch of the voice in connected speech.

Sentence stress or accent is the greater prominence of one or more words among others words in the same sentence.

Word stress is realized since all the syllables in a word are pronounced with the same degree of force: usually one syllable is made more prominent than the others by means of stronger current of air, by a stronger expiration; such a syllable is called the stressed syllable. Word’s stress in English is free; the position of stress is not fixed:

e.g. ‘many – be’llow – photo’graphic.

 

Tempo of speech – the rate of utterance which is connected with rhythm – the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. It is so typical of an English phrase that the incorrect rhythm betrays the non-English origin of the speaker. Each sense-group of the sentence is pronounced at approximately the same period of time, unstressed syllables are pronounced more rapidly: the greater the number of unstressed syllables, the quicker they are pronounced. In its turn, rhythm is connected with sentence stress. Under the influence of rhythm words which are normally pronounced with two equally strong stress may lose one of them, or may have their word stress realized differently.

E.g., Picca’dilly -, Piccadilly ‘Circus – ‘close to, Picca’dilly, prin’cess – a, princess ‘royal

Temper is the relative speed with which sentences and intonation groups are pronounced in connecting speech.

Speech tamber is a special colouring of voice which shows the speaker’s emotions:

e.g. pleasure – displeasure

Paradoxal though it may seem, many of these means, the effect of which rests on a peculiar use of the voice, are banned from the linguistic domain. But there has appeared a new science – «paralinguistics» – of which all these devices are the inventory.

Vocal phenomena such as drawling, whispering, etc. should be regarded as parts of the phonemic system on the same level as pitch, stress and tune.

1.3 Phonetic stylistic devices

Now let us see what phonetic stylistic devices secure this musical function.

Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech sounds which aims at imitating sounds produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc.) by things (machines or tools, etc.) by people (singing, laughter) and animals. Therefore the relation between onomatopoeia and the phenomenon it is supposed to represent is one of metonymy There are two varieties of onomatopoeia: direct and indirect.

Direct onomatopoeia is contained in words that imitate natural sounds, as ding-dong, burr, bang, cuckoo. These words have different degrees of imitative quality. Some of them immediately bring to mind whatever it is that produces the sound. Others require the exercise of a certain amount of imagination to decipher it. Onomatopoetic words can be used in a transferred meaning, as for instance, ding – dong, which represents the sound of bells rung continuously, may mean

1) noisy, 2) strenuously contested.

Indirect onomatopoeia demands some mention of what makes the sound, as rustling of curtains in the following line:

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.

Indirect onomatopoeia is a combination of sounds the aim of which is to make the sound of the utterance an echo of its sense. It is sometimes called «echo writing».

An example is: «And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain» (E.A. Poe), where the repetition of the sound [s] actually produces the sound of the rustling of the curtain.

Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this device lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words: «The possessive instinct never stands still (J. Galsworthy) or, «Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before» (E.A. Poe).

Alliteration, like most stylistic devices, does not bear any lexical or other meaning unless we agree that a sound meaning exists as such. But even so we may not be able to specify clearly the character of this meaning, and the term will merely suggest that a certain amount of information is contained in the repetition of sounds, as is the case with the repetition of lexical units.

But even so we may not be able to specify clearly the character of this meaning, and the term will merely suggest that a certain amount of information is contained in the repetition of sounds, as is the case with the repetition of lexical units.

However, certain sounds, if repeated, may produce an effect that can be specified.

For example, the sound [m] is frequently used by Tennyson in the poem «The Lotus Eaters»  to give a somnolent effect.

«How sweet it were,…

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly

To the music of mild minded melancholy;

To muse and brood and live again in memory.»

Therefore alliteration is generally regarded as a musical accompaniment of the author's idea, supporting it with some vague emotional atmosphere which each reader interprets for himself.

Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combination of words. Rhyming words are generally placed at a regular distance from each other. In verse they are usually placed at the end of the corresponding lines.

Identity and similarity of sound combinations may be relative. For instance, we distinguish between full rhymes and incomplete rhymes.

The full rhyme presupposes identity of the vowel sound and the following consonant sounds in a stressed syllable, including the initial consonant of the second syllable (in polysyllabic words), we have exact or identical rhymes.

Incomplete rhymes present a greater variety. They can be divided into two main groups: vowel rhymes and consonant rhymes.

In vowel-rhymes the vowels of the syllables in corresponding words are identical, but the consonants may be different as in flesh – fresh – press. Consonant rhymes, on the contrary, show concordance in consonants and disparity in vowels, as in worth – forth, tale – tool – treble – trouble; flung – long.

Modifications in rhyming sometimes go so far as to make one word rhyme with a combination of words; or two or even three words rhyme with a corresponding two or three words, as in «upon her honour – won her», «bottom – forgot them – shot him». Such rhymes are called compound or broken. The peculiarity of rhymes of this type is that the combination of words is made to sound like one word – a device which inevitably gives a colloquial and sometimes a humorous touch to the utterance. Compound rhyme may be set against what is called eye – rhyme, where the letters and not the sounds are identical, as in love – prove, flood – brood, have – grave. It follows that compound rhyme is perceived in reading aloud, eye – rhyme can only be perceived in the written verse.

Many eye-rhymes are the result of historical changes in the vowel sounds in certain positions. The continuity of English verse manifests itself also in retention of some pairs of what were once rhyming words. But on the analogy of these pairs, new eye-rhymes have been coined and the model now functions alongside ear-rhymes. 
Phonetic expressive means

1. Onomatopoeia - the formation of a word by imitating the natural sound; the use of words whose sounds reinforce their meaning or tone, esp. in poetry

(direct and indirect): ding-dong; silver bells... tinkle, tinkle; whoosh, hush, stop yodelling, yum, yak.

2. Alliteration - repetition of the same consonant or sound group at the beginning of two or more words that are close to each other

Now or never; Last but not least; As good as gold. E. g. New whipped cream: No mixing or measuring. No beating or bothering. Colgate toothpaste: The Flavor's Fresher than ever - It's New. Improved. Fortified.

3. Rhyme - a regular recurrence of corresponding sounds at the ends of lines in verse

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care, Fashion'd so slenderly Young and so fair.

4. Rhythm - a regular recurrence of elements in a system of motion: the rhythm of speech, dancing music, etc. 2. an effect of ordered movement in a work of art, literature, drama, etc. attained through patterns in the timing, spacing, repetition, accenting, etc. of the elements 3. in prosody: a metrical (feet) or rhythmical (iambus, trochee, etc.) form

But then he would lose Sondra, his connections here, and his uncle - this world! The loss! The loss! The loss! (Dreiser)

Figures of Speech that create Rhythm (Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system)

These expressive means were divided into 4 large groups:

Figures that create rhythm by means of addition

1. Doubling (reduplication, repetition) of words and sounds.

E.g. Tip-top, helter-skelter, wishy-washy; oh, the dreary, dreary moorland.

2. Epenalepsis (polysyndeton) conjunctions: use of several conjunctions.

E. g. He thought, and thought, and thought; I hadn't realized until then how small the houses were, how small and mean the shops. (Shute)

3. Anaphora: repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more clauses, sentences or verses.

E. g. No tree, no shrub, no blade of grass, not a bird or beast, not even a fish that was not owned!

4. Enjambment: running on of one thought into the next line, couplet or stanza without breaking the syntactical pattern.

E.g. In Ocean's wide domains Half buried in the sands Lie skeletons in chains With shackled feet and hands. (Longfellow)

5. Asyndeton: omission of conjunction.

E. g. He provided the poor with jobs, with opportunity, with self-respect.