Practice Section II

1. What is the relationship between the denotative and connotative meanings of a word?

Can a word connote without denoting and vice versa?

What are the four components of the connotative meaning and how are they represented in a word if at all?

2. Expound on the expressive and emotive power of the noun thing in the following examples:

Jennie wanted to sleep with me—the sly thing!(emotive power) But I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night alone. (Oilman)

- / believe, one day, I shall fall awfully in love.

- Probably you never will, said Lucille brutally. That's what most old maids are thinking all the time.

Yvette looked at her sister from pensive but apparently insouciant eyes. Is it? she said. Do you really think so, Lucille? How perfectly awful for them, poor things!(emotive power) (Lawrence)

 

She was an honest little thing, (expressive power) but perhaps her honesty was too rational. (Lawrence)

 

So they were, this queer couple, the tiny, finely formed little Jewess with her big, resentful, reproachful eyes, and her mop of carefully-barbed black, curly hair, an elegant little thing(expressive power) in her way, and the big, pale-eyed young man, powerful and wintry, the remnant, surely of some old uncanny Danish stock... (Lawrence) (Ilona Tashlykova)

3. How do the notions of expressive means and stylistic devices correlate? Provide examples to illustrate your point.

4. Compare the principles of classifications given in chapter 2. Which of them seem most logical to you? Sustain your view. Classification by Galperin is simpler and more understandable than by Skrebnev. But Skrebnev’s classification is more details, and he shares each meaning by parts of speech. It is good if we review expressive means and stylistic devices as separate unit in the text.

Draw parallels between Leech's paradigmatic and syntagmatic deviations and Skrebnev's classification. Apply these criteria to the analysis of the use of brethren (formal, elevated) and married (deviation, formally (He truly had married not only my mother but…))in the following examples. Consider the grammatical category of number in A and the nature of semantic transfer in B. Supply the kind of tables suggested by Leech to describe the normal and deviant features of similar character.

Comment on the kind of deviation in the nonce-word sistem in A and the effect it produces.

A. Praise God and not the Devil, shouted one of the Maker's male skills from the other side of the room.

The criminal lowered his eyes and muttered at his shoes:

Ah cut anybody -who bruise me with Latin, goddammit.

Listen to him take the Mighty name in vain, brethren and sistern! she said

Reinhart. (Berger

B. My father was still feisty in 1940 - he was thirty years old and restless, maybe a link wild beneath the yoke of my mother's family. He truly had married not only my mother but my grandmother as well, and also the mule and the two elderly horses and the cows and chickens and the two perilous-looking barns and the whole rocky hundred acres of Carolina mountain farm. (Chappel) Smolkina Maya

5. What kind of syntagmatic deviation (according to Leech) is observed hi the following instance? What is the term for this device in rhetoric and other stylistic classifications? Where does it belong according to Galperin and Skrebnev?

And in the manner of the Anglo-Saxon poetry that was its inspiration, he ended his sermon resoundingly.

 

High on the hill in sight of heaven,

Our Lord was led and lifted up.

That willing warrior came while the world wept,

And a terrible shadow shaded the sun

For us He was broken and gave His blood

King of all creation Christ on the Rffod.

(Rutherfurd)alliteration (Smolkina Maya)

6. What types of phonographic expressive means are used in the sentences given below? How do different classifications name and place them?

C'mon, now. I'm not bringing this up with the idea of throwing anything back in your teeth—my God. (Salinger) repetition of letters, italics

 

Little Dicky strains and yaps back from the safety of Mary's arms. (Erdrich) onomatopoeia (yaps)

 

Why shouldn't we all go over to the Metropole at Cwmpryddygfor dinner one night? (Waugh) graphon (Cwmpryddygfor)

 

I hear Lionel's supposeta be runnin' away. (Salinger) graphon (supposeta) Who's that dear, dim, drunk little man? (Waugh) repetition of a letter

No chitchat please. (O'Hara) onomatopoeia

 

/ prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New York prayer... (Salinger) hyphenation (a-l-o-n-e)

 

Sense of sin is sense of waste. (Waugh) repetition of a letter

 

Colonel Logon is in the army, and presumably «the Major» was a soldier at the time Dennis was born. (Follett) inverted commas (to express an ironical intonation) (Zubchenko Vica)

7. Comment on the types of transfer used in such tropes as metaphor, metonymy, allegory, simile, allusion, personification, antonomasia. Compare their place in Galperin's and Skrebnev's systems. Read up on the nature of transfer in a poetic image in terms of tenor, vehicle and ground: И.В. Арнольд Стилистика современного английского языка M., 1990. C. 74-82. Name and explain the kind of semantic transfer observed in the following passages.

The first time my father met Johnson Gibbs they fought like tomcats. (Chappel)simile (comparison the behavior of two person with the behavior of aggressive tomcats)

 

/ love plants. I don't like cut flowers. Only the ones that grow in the ground. And these water lilies... Each white petal is a great tear of milk. Each slender stalk is a green life rope. (Erdrich) metaphor (the forms of water lilies are compared with a tear of milk and a life rope)

 

/ think we should drink a toast to Fortune, a much-maligned lady. (Waugh) personification (calling a Fortune a much-maligned woman)

 

...the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and potent spirit within him; something that struggled there like the Genius in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman. (Gather) personification (instruments sigh as humans), simile (struggle of feelings like struggle of persons), allusion (a hint at a Genie out of a bottle)

 

But he, too, knew the necessity of keeping as clear as possible from that poisonous many-headed serpent, the tongue of the people. (Lawrence) metaphor (evil tongue like a poisonous snake)

Lily had started to ask me about Eunice. «Really, Gentle Heart», she said, «what in the world did you do to my poor little sister to make her skulk away like a thief in the night?» (Shaw) antonomasia

 

The green tumour of hate burst inside her. (Lawrence) metaphor (a strong evil feeling like something which makes a person feel bad and makes it difficult to breath)

 

She adjusted herself however quite rapidly to her new conception of people. She had to live. It is useless to quarrel with your bread and butter. (Lawrence) allegory (bread and butter like one’s habits and interests)

 

...then the Tudors and the dissolution of the Church, then Lloyd George, the temperance movement, Non-conformity and lust stalking hand in hand through the country, wasting and ravaging. (Waugh) allusion (historical events are mentioned), personification (events like conquerors)

 

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

(Blake) periphrasis (spears and tears replace the “tracks of meteors”) (Zubchenko Vica)

 

8. As distinct from the above devices based on some sort of affinity, real or imaginary, there are a number of expressive means based on contrast or incompatibility (oxymoron, antithesis, zeugma, pun, malapropism, mixture of words from different stylistic strata of vocabulary). Their stylistic effect depends on the message and intent of the author and varies in emphasis and colouring. It maybe dramatic, pathetic, elevated, etc. Sometimes the ultimate stylistic effect is irony. Ironic, humorous or satiric effect is always built on contrast although devices that help to achieve it may not necessarily be based on contrast (e. g. they may be hyperbole, litotes, allusion, periphrasis, metaphor, etc.)

Some of the basic techniques to achieve verbal irony are:

• praise by blame (or sham praise) which means implying the opposite of what is said;
• minimizing the good qualities and magnifying the bad ones;
• contrast between manner and matter, i. e. inserting irrelevant matter in presumably serious statements;
• interpolating comic interludes in tragic narration;
• mixing formal language and slang;
• making isolated instances seem typical;
• quoting authorities to fit immediate purpose;
• allusive irony: specific allusions to people, ideas, situations, etc. that clash discordantly with the object of irony;
• connotative ambivalence: the simultaneous presence of incom­patible but relevant connotations.

Bearing this in mind comment on the humorous or ironic impact of the following examples.

Explain where possible what stylistic devices effect the techniques of verbal irony.

- Have you at any time been detained in a mental home or similar

institution ?If so, give particulars.

I was at Scone College., Oxford, for two years, said Paul.

The doctor looked up for the first time. - Don't you dare to make jokes here, my man, he said, or I'll have you in the strait-jacket in less than no time. (Waugh)

• allusive irony: specific allusions to people, ideas, situations, etc. that clash discordantly with the object of irony; (Scone College., Oxford replace the mental home)

 

 

• / like that. Me trying to be funny. (Waugh) self-irony, mixing formal language and slang;

 

 

/ drew a dozen or more samples of what I thought were typical examples of American commercial art. ...I drew people in evening clothes stepping out of limousines on opening nights—lean, erect, super-chic couples who had obviously never in their lives inflicted suffering as a result of underarm carelessness—couples, in fact, who perhaps didn't have any underarms. ...I drew laughing, high-breasted girls aquaplaning without a care in the world, as a result of being amply protected against such national evils as bleeding gums, facial blemishes, unsightly hairs, and faulty or inadequate life insurance. I drew housewives who, until they reached for the right soap flakes, laid themselves wide open to straggly hair, poor posture, unruly children, disaffected husbands, rough (but slender) hands, untidy (but enormous) kitchens. (Salinger) hyperbole, metaphor (ex. Underarms). Idealization of situation.

 

/ made a Jell-O salad. - Oh, she says, what kind? - The kind full of nuts and bolts, I say, plus washers of all types. I raided Russel's toolbox for the special ingredients. (Erdrich) connotative ambivalence: the simultaneous presence of incom­patible but relevant connotations, metaphor

 

Was that the woman like Napoleon the Great? (Waugh) metaphor or allusive irony: specific allusions to people, ideas, situations, etc. that clash discordantly with the object of irony;

 

They always say that she poisoned her husband... there was a great deal of talk about it at the time. Perhaps you remember the case? - No, said Paul. -Powdered glass, said Flossie shrilly, in his coffee. - Turkish coffee, said Dingy. (Waugh) – antithesis (Paul and Flossie), sarcasm

 

You folks all think the coloured man hasn't got a soul. Anythin's good enough for the poor coloured man. Beat him, put him in chains', load him with burdens... Here Paul observed a responsive glitter in Lady Circumference's eye. (Waugh) metaphor, maybe allegory (coloured man), maybe oxymoron (poor coloured man.)

 

In the south they also drink a good deal of tequila, which is a spirit made from the juice of the cactus. It has to be taken with a pinch of salt. (Atkinson) metaphor, allegory (tequila is a spirit of the desert)

«They could have killed you too, he said, his teeth chattering. If you had arrived two minutes earlier. Forgive me. Forgive all of us. Dolce Italia.Paradise for tourists.» He laughed eerily. (Shaw) antithesis, maybe oxymoron (They could have killed you too- Forgive all of us)

 

• He was talking very excitedly to me, said the Vicar... He seems deeply interested in Church matters. Are you quite sure he is right in the head? I have noticed again and again since I have been in the Church that lay interest in ecclesiastical matters is often a prelude to insanity. (Waugh) - contrast between manner and matter, i. e. inserting irrelevant matter in presumably serious statements;

 

 

• So you're the Doctor's hired assassin, eh? Well, I hope you keep a firm hand on my toad of a son. (Waugh) metaphor, maybe pun,connotative ambivalence: the simultaneous presence of incom­patible but relevant connotations.

9. Explain why the following sentences fall into the category of quasi-questions, quasi-statements or quasi-negatives in Skrebnev's classification. What's their actual meaning? (Kate Kolbunova)

In these types of sentences the syntactical formal meaning of the structure contradicts the actual meaning implied so that negative sentences read affirmative, questions do not require answers but are in fact declarative sentences (rhetorical questions), etc. One communicative meaning appears in disguise of another.

- / wish I could go back to school all over again. - Don't we all, he said. (Shaw) – quasi-affirmative; We also want to.

 

Are all women different? Oh, are they! (O'Hara) – quasi-negative; Not all women are different.

 

I don't think no worse of you for it, no, darned if I do. (Lawrence) – quasi-affirmative; I think better of you.

 

If it isn't diamonds all over his fingers! (Caldwell) – quasi-question; Is it diamonds all over his fingers?

 

Devil if I know what to make of these people down here. (Christie) – quasi-negative; I don’t know…

 

Contact my father again and I'll strangle you. (Donleavy) – quasi-imperative; Do not contact my father.

 

Don't you ever talk to Rose?- Rose? Not about Mildred. Rose misses Mildred as much as I do. We don't even want to see each other. (O'Hara) - quasi-affirmative; You talked to Rose.

10. Why are instances of repetition in the sentences given below called disguised tautology? How does it differ from regular tautology? What does this sort of repetition imply? (Kate Kolbunova)
Regular tautology is a useless repetition of the same idea or meaning, usually as a fault. (e.g. He was the only survivor; no one else was saved.) But here is disguised tautology – semantic difference in formally coincidental parts of a sentence, repetition here does not emphasize the idea, but carries a different information in each of the 2 parts.

Life is life.

There are doctors and doctors.

A small town's a small town, wherever it is, I said. (Shute)

I got nothing against Joe Chapin, but he's not me. I'm me, and another man is still another man. (O'Hara)

Well, if it can't be helped, it can't be helped, I said manfully. (Shaw)

Milan is a city, which cannot be summed up in a few words. For Italian speakers, the old Milanese dialect expression «Milan I'e Milan» (Milan is just Milan) is probably the best description one can give. (Peroni)

Beer was beer, too, in those days - not the gassy staff in bottles. (Dickens)

11. Does the term anti-climax (back-gradation) imply the opposite of climax (gradation)? What effect does each of these devices provide? How is it achieved in the following cases:

- Philbrick, there must be champagne-cup, and will you help the men putting up the marquee? And Flags, Diana!... No expense should be spared... And there must be flowers, Diana, banks of flowers, said the Doctor with an expensive gesture. The prizes shall stand among the banks of/lowers...

Flowers, youth, wisdom, the glitter of jewels, music, said the Doctor. There must be a band.

-I never heard of such a thing, said Dingy. A band indeed! You'll be having fireworks next.

- And fireworks, said the Doctor, and do you think it would be a good thing to buy Mr. Prendergast a new tie? (Waugh)

 

We needed a kind rain, a blessing rain, that lasted a week. We needed water. (Erdrich)

 

At first there were going to be forty guests but the invitation list grew larger and the party plans more elaborate, until Arthur said that with so many people they ought to hire an orchestra, and with an orchestra there would be dancing, and with dancing there ought to be a good sized orchestra. The original small dinner became a dinner dance at the Lantenengo Country Club. Invitations were sent to more than three hundred persons... (O'Hara)

 

Even the most hardened criminal there-he was serving his third sentence for blackmail—remarked how the whole carriage seemed to be flooded with the detectable savour of Champs-Elysee in early June. (Waugh)

 

Hullo, Prendy, old wine-skin! How are things with you?

Admirable, said Mr. Prendergast. I never have known them better. I have just caned twenty-three boys. (Waugh)

Приложение 1 (Арнольд. И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка. М., 1973, с. 139-145)