Lecture 6

MORPHOLOGICAL STYLISTICS
STYLISTIC PHONETICS
GRAPHIC EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLITIC DEVICES

Morphological stylistics deals with morphological expressive means and stylistic

devices. Words of all parts of speech have a great stylistic potential. Being placed
in an unusual syntagmatic environment which changes their canonized
grammatical characteristics and combinability, they acquire stylistic significance.
The central notion of morphological stylistics is the notion of TRANSPOSITION.
Transposition is a divergence between the traditional usage of a neutral word and
its situational (stylistic) usage.

TRANSPOSITION OF NOUNS
Words of every par of speech are united by their semantic and grammatical
properties. General lexico-grammatical meaning of nouns is SUBSTANTIVITY,
which is the ability to denote objects or abstract notions. Due to the diverse nature
of substantivity, nouns are divided into proper, common, concrete, abstract,
material and collective. Cases of TRANSPOSITION emerge, in particular, when
concrete nouns are used as proper and vice versa. It results in creation of stylistic
devices names ANTONOMASIA or PERSONIFICATION: e.g. The Pacific
Ocean has a cruel soul. John will never be a Shakespeare.

Besides general lexico-grammatical meaning, nouns possess grammatical

meanings of the category of number and the category of case. These meanings may
also be used for stylistic objectives.
According to the category of number, nouns are classified into countable and
uncountable. Each group has its own regularities of usage. When these regularities
are broken for stylistic reasons, speech becomes expressive. Uncountable nouns
used in plural or countable nouns in the singular evoke picturesque connotations:
E.g. snow = snows, sand – sands, water – waters, time – times, to hunt tigers = to
hunt tiger etc.
Category of case. When inanimate nouns are used in genitive case (normally it’s a
form of animate nouns) their initial meaning of inanimateness is transposed. In
such cases they render the meaning of time and distance: (mile’s walk, hour’s
time), part of a whole (book’s page, table’s leg), or quantitative characteristics
(plan’s failure, winter’s snow).

TRANSPOSITION OF ARTICLES
Usually articles are not used with names of persons and animals, some classes of
geographical names, abstract nouns and names of material. Uncommon usage of
articles aims at adding specific shades of meaning into speech.
Thus, the indefinite article combined with names of persons may denote
 one representative of a family (Mary will never be a Brown)
  a person unknown to the communicants (Jack was robbed by a Smith)
 a temporary failure of character (That day Jane was different. It was a silly
Jane).
Stylistic usage of the definite article takes place
 when names of persons are modified by limiting attributes (You are not the
John whom I married)
 when a proper name denotes the whole family (The Browns are good people)
 when a name of a person is modified by a descriptive attribute denoting a
permanent feature of character (I entered the room. There she was – the clever
Polly).
Suchlike deviations of usage of articles are possible with other semantic classes of
nouns: geographical names, abstract nouns.

TRANSPOSITION OF VERBS
Transposition of verbs is even more varied than that of nouns. It is explained by a
greater number of grammatical categories the meanings of which may be
transposed.
Most expressive are TENSE FORMS, MOOD and VOICE.
TENSE. Commonly the present continuous tense denotes an action which takes
place at the moment of speaking. Thus, sentence ‘John constantly grumbles’ is a
mere statement of a fact. But stylistically used (John is constantly grumbling) it
introduces the negative connotations of irritation, regret etc.

Another peculiar verbal transposition is the change of temporary planes of

narration – when events of the past or future are described by present tense forms.
Such transposition brightens the narration, raises its emotional tension, expresses
intrigue. E.g. It was yesterday. The perpetrator comes to his victim, takes a long
dagger out of his inner pocket and stabs the poor man right into his belly without
saying a word. The man falls like a sack, a fountain of blood spurting from his
wound”.
Transposition is not the only way to make the verbs expressive. Many verbal forms
are expressive in themselves. For instance the imperative mood forms are not just
commands, requests or invitations. They may be used to render the person’s
emotions. The sentence “Just come to me now!” may contextually imply love or
hate, threat or warning, promise or desire.

ADJECTIVES
General lexico-grammatical meaning of adjectives is qualitativeness. Qualitative
adjectives are always estimative, that is why they are used as epithets (picturesque
view, crazy bicycle) and can form the degrees of comparison. Relative adjectives
normally do not form the degrees of comparison and serve as logical attributes
(red color, Italian car). However they may be occasionally transported into
qualitative. Such transposition imports originality and freshness in speech. ‘This is
the reddest color I’ve seen in my life’. ‘Ferrari is the most Italian car’.
Expressiveness of A. may also be enhanced by non-grammatical transpositions in
their formation of the degrees of comparison, when rules of their formation are
intentionally violated: ‘My bride was becoming beautifuller and beautifuller’. ‘You
are the bestest friend I ever met’.

PRONOUNS
When objective forms of personal pronouns are used predicatively instead of
nominative forms, sentences obtain colloquial marking (It is him. It is her. It is
them etc).
The meaning of “I” may be rendered by ‘we’:
 in scientific prose for modesty reasons “We assume”
 humoristic effect (a tipsy man comes home and addresses his wife “Meet us,
darling!”)
When pronoun ‘you’ is replaced by ‘one’, the statement becomes generalized:
‘One should understand that smoking is harmful!”

STYLISTIC PHONETICS
While studying phonetic stylistic devices we deal with the way words sound in
combination. Phonetic stylistic devices are used to produce a certain acoustic effect
and add emphasis to the utterance, arousing certain emotions on the part of the
reader or listener.

EUPHONY
Euphony [‘jufeni] – благозвуччя (Greek eu=well + phone=sound) is a
combination of sounds capable of producing a pleasing acoustic effect. Euphony is
opposed to CACOPHONY (ill-sound). In neologisms, for instance, euphony may
play a part a brand name for a new kind of product must be easy to pronounce,
otherwise no one will ask for it by name. E.g. Persil is more acceptable than
Pseril.

ALLITERATION
Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sound at the beginning of
successive words or accented syllables.
As a deliberate phonological device, it is associated mostly with literary, especially
poetic, language. But it is also found in popular idioms (as dead as a doornail, live
and learn, safe and sound); tongue twisters (Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
pepper) and advertising language (Guinness is Good for you).
The foregrounding of the sounds can be used for EMPHASIS, and to aid
memorability.
The alliterated syllables are also the strongly accented or STRESSED syllables.
Alliteration is a stylistic device diploid in neuro-linguistic programming.

ASSONANCE
Assonance is a phonetic device close to alliteration. It is the repetition of stressed
vowels. Assonance is often connected with rhyme.
E.g.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wide sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light,
The year is dying in the night,
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die (Tennyson)

ONOMATOPOEIA
Onomatopoeia (from Greek ‘name-making’) is the use of words whose sounds
imitate those produced in nature by natural phenomena and machines, by people
and animals. In other words, O. is the LEXICAL PROCESS of creating words
which actually sound like their REFERENT. E.g. bang, crash, cuckoo, buzz, clap,
crack. Such words are called onomatopoeic.
The phonemic form of onomatopoeic words conforms to the language systems
they belong to. Thus, ducks say ‘quack-quack’ in English and they say ‘coin-coin’
in French.
In literary language O. is often much exploited as an expressive iconic device,
representing such phenomenon as ‘sound symbolism’.

RHYTHM
Rhythm is a regular alternation of similar or equal units of speech. When applied
to poetry rhythm means the regular alternation of accented and unaccented
syllables. When applied to prose, it means the measured flow of words and
phrases.
Rhythm in prose is also created by regular recurrence of some similar units of
language. Rhythmical prose is based on deliberately arranged syntactical groups,
as well as on elements of repetition and syntactical parallelism.

METRE
M. in English verse is a systematization of rhythm determined by the relationship
between accented and unaccented syllables. The unit of measure is called FOOT,
There are five basic feet in English poetry two disyllabic – iambus [ai’embis] and
trochee – хорей (troches) [‘trouki:]; three trisyllabic – dactyl [‘dektil], anapest
[‘enepist] and amphibrach [‘emfibrek].

GRAPHICAL STYLISTIC DEVICES

In oral speech such phonetic devices as intonation and stress are very important
means of enhancing the desired effect. In written speech they are substituted by
graphical means which include different types of print (ITALICS, BOLD TYPE,
SPACED LETTERS, CAPITALIZATION, HYPHENATION), and punctuation
(DASH, SERIES of DOTS, EXCLAMATION and QUESTION MARKS).

GRAPHON is the intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word (or word
combination) used to reflect its authentic pronunciation.
Graphons indicate irregularities or carelessness of pronunciation (they are used in
novels or media).
G. is an effective means of supplying inf-n about the speaker’s origin, social and
educational background, physical or emotional condition (such as stuttering –
заїкання or lisping – шепелявлення).

Some graphons are clichéd: “gimme’, ‘lemme’, gonna’, gotte’ etc.