Ellipsis. One-member sentences. Aposioposis. Apokoinou
The deliberate omission of one or more words in the sentence for definite stylistic purpose is called the stylistic device of ellipsis.
The omission of some parts of the sentence is an ordinary and typical feature of the oral type of speech. In belle-letters style the peculiarities of the structure of the oral type of speech are partially reflected in the speech of characters (for example, the informal and careless character of speech).
Some parts of the sentence may be omitted due to the excitement of the speaker.
The stylistic device of ellipsis is sometimes used in the author’s narration but more frequently it is used in represented speech.
The stylistic device of ellipsis used in represented inner speech creates a stylistic effect of the natural abruptness and the fragmentary character of the process of thinking.
It is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between elliptical sentences and one-member sentences.
One-member sentences may be used to heighten the emotional tension of the narration or to single out the character’s or the author’s attitude towards what is happening.
e.g. A dark gentleman… A very bad manner. In the last degree constrained, reserved, diffident, troubled.
One-member sentences
One-member sentences in English are of two types: nominal sentences and verbal sentences. Nominal sentences are those in which the principal part is expressed by a noun. They state the existence of the things expressed by them. They are typical of descriptions. Nominal sentences may be: a) unextended. Silence. Summer. Midnight. b) extended.
Example: Dusk - of a summer night. The grass, this good, soft, lush grass. English spring flowers! Verbal sentences are those in which the principal part is expressed by a non-finite form of the verb, either an infinitive or a gerund. Infinitive and gerundial one-member sentences are mostly used to describe different emotional perceptions of reality.
Example: To think of that! To think that he should have met her again in this way! Living at the mercy of a woman!
Aposiopesis
A sudden break in speech often occurs in the oral type of speech. It is caused by strong emotion or some reluctance to finish the sentence. In belle-letters style a break in speech is often used in dialogue to reflect its naturalness.
A sudden break in the narration when used in written speech for certain stylistic purposes, creates the stylistic device of aposiopesis. Aposiopesis is marked graphically by a series of dots or a dash. It is often used in represented speech.
|
|
|
Graphical expressive means, such as dash and dots are indispensable in aposiopesis.
e.g. I still don’t quite like the face, it’s just a trifle too full, but –“ I swung myself on the stool.
The Apokoinu Construction
The Apokoinu Construction is a blend of two sentences through a word which has two syntactical functions, one in each of the blended sentences.
Usually the word common for both sentences is a predicative or an object in the first sentence and subject in the second one. So far as such construction does not make part of the grammatically correct modern English, it almost does not occur in the author’s speech, having for its main stylistic function the characteristic of a personage through his speech. Apokoinu testifies as a rule the slovenly, careless or uneducated speech.
e.g. There was no breeze came through the door
Detachment. Parenthesis. Inversion. Parcellation.
Sometimes one of the secondary parts of a sentence by some specific consideration of the writer is placed so that it seems formally independent of the word it logically refers to. Such parts of structures are called detached. The essential quality of detached construction lies in the fact that the isolated parts represent a kind of independent whole thrust into the sentence or placed in a position which will make the phrase (or word) seem independent. But a detached phrase cannot rise to the rank of a primary member of the sentence—it always remains secondary from the semantic point of view, although structurally it possesses all the features of a "primary member”. Detached constructions in their common forms make the written variety of language akin to the spoken variety where the relation between the component parts is effectively materialized by means of intonation. In the English language detached constructions are generally used in the belles-lettres prose style and mainly with words that have some explanatory function. Detached construction as a stylistic device is a typification of the syntactical peculiarities of colloquial language.
|
|
|
A variant of detached construction is parenthesis. Parenthesis is a qualifying, explanatory or appositive word, phrase, clause, sentence, or other sequence which interrupts a syntactic construction without otherwise affecting it, having often a characteristic intonation and indicated in writing by commas, brackets or dashes.
Inversion - the reversal of the normal order of words in a sentence, for the sake of emphasis (in prose) or for the sake of the metre (in poetry): Dark they were and golden-eyed. Stylistic inversion aims at attaching logical stress or additional emotional coloring to the surface meaning of the utterance. Therefore a specific intonation pattern is the inevitable satellite of inversion. Stylistic inversion in Modern English should not be regarded as a violation of the norms of standard English. It is only the practical realization of what is potential in the language itself. Inversion as a stylistic device is always sense-motivated. There is a tendency to account for inversion in poetry by rhythmical considerations.
Stylistic inversion may be of various types:
1) the predicate may precede the subject of the sentence;
2) the object is placed before the predicate;
3) the attribute stands after the word it modifies (the post-position of an attribute).
Stylistic inversion is used to single out some parts of the sentence and sometimes to heighten the emotional tension.
Parcellation is a deliberate break of the sentence structure into two or more isolated parts, separated by a pause and a period. Parcellation is typical of colloquial speech. The main stylistic functions of parcellation are as follows:
1) specification of some concepts or facts, e.g. His wife had told him only the night before that he was getting a habit of it. Curious things, habits (A. Christie);
2) characterization of the personages' emotional state, e.g. It angered him finally. With a curious sort of anger Detached, somehow, separate from himself (C.B. Gilford);
3) description of the events or giving the personages' portrayal, e.g. I’d say he was thirty-five or –six. Sallow, dark hair and eyes, with the eyes set pretty close together, big mouth, long limp nose, bat-wing ears - shifty-looking (D.Hammett); A touring car, large, black, powerfully engined and with lowered curtains, came from the rear... Possibly a scout (D. Hammett).
The usage of coordination instead of subordination helps the author, to show differ-ent planes of narration. In this case the connection itself is more important stylistically than the contents of the sentence, e.g. He was more enthusiastic about America than ever, and he was not so simple, and he was not so nice (E. Hemingway).
|
|
|
Irony. Bathos.
Irony is a stylistic device also based on the simultaneous realization of two logical meanings—dictionary and contextual, but the two meanings stand in opposition to each other. For example: "It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one's pocket." Word “delightful” acquires a meaning quite the opposite to its primary dictionary meaning, that is, 'unpleasant', 'not delightful'. The word containing the irony is strongly marked by intonation. Irony must not be confused with humour, although they have very much in common. But the function of irony is not confined to producing a humorous effect. In a sentence like "How clever of you!" where, due to the intonation pattern, the word 'clever' conveys a sense opposite to its literal signification, the irony does not cause a ludicrous effect. It rather expresses a feeling of irritation, displeasure, pity or regret. A word used ironically may sometimes express very subtle, almost imperceptible nuances of meaning.
Irony may be expressed by any part of speech, most often by a noun, adjective and adverb.
The effect of irony largely depends on the unexpectedness and seeming lack of logic of a word used by the author in an incompatible context. The reader is fully aware of the contrast between what is logically expected and what is said. This contrast, this interaction of the contextual logical and logical meanings of the word often produces a humorous effect.
Irony may be used to achieve an effect of bitter mockery and sarcasm as well, especially when it concerns some social phenomena.
|
|
|
Bathos is a literary term derived from a Greek word meaning “depth”. Bathos is when a writer or a poet falls into inconsequential and absurd metaphors, descriptions or ideas in an effort to be increasingly emotional or passionate. Some confuse with pathos. The term was used by Alexander Pope to explain the blunders committed inadvertently by unskilled writers or poets. However, later on, the comic writers used it intentionally to create humorous effects. The most commonly used Bathos involves a sequence of items that descend from worthiness to silliness.
Jane Austen is among the few serious writers who used this tool. It helped her give a sense of merriness to her novelNorthanger Abbey. In this novel, Austen highlights the ingenuous and imaginative nature of the leading character Catherine Morland. She uses Catherine’s increasingly active imagination to work like Bathos in order to parody the plotused in Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novels and the likes of her.
In Northanger Abbey, Austen uses a mysterious chest in her story as a prop to build on and successfully satirize the extremes of the Gothic fiction of eighteenth century.
Catherine became skeptical when she saw the enormous chest in her room during her stay at the Abbey. Certain questions arose in her mind about that chest and about what it held and why it was placed in her room. Catherine, who seemed to be very naïve, went on investigating the chest. You can see that the novel at this particular point adopts a very gothic tone. It starts using short clauses that consist of many inauspicious words, for instance ‘trembling hands’, ‘alarming violence’ and ‘fearful curiosity’. The selection of words at this point aids in building up the suspense in the readers’ and audience’s heads only to discover consequently that the chest holds only a folded bed sheet.
Bathos is a device, which if used skillfully, can really build up a nice comic scene. Bathos brings a certain degree of wit to a scene by highlighting the contrast in tone. Initially, it is used to create a serious and powerful dramatic situation. This might be slightly hard to create for comedy writers. Thus, comedy writers must be very careful when they insert jokes here and there in the middle of a serious scene. There is a great danger that their jokes will break the tempo of a serious scene in a prose.
Epithet
Epithet is a stylistic device based on the interaction of the logical and emotive meanings. It shows the purely individual emotional attitude of the writer or the speaker towards the object mentioned.
Epithet is expressed by:
1) adjectives;
2) adverbs;
Adjectives and adverbs constitute the greatest majority of epithets.
3) participles, both present and past;
4) nouns, especially often in of-phrases;
5) word-combinations;
6) whole phrases.
The last two groups of epithets help the writer in a rather concise form to express the emotional attitude of a personage towards an object or phenomenon. In most cases it is a direct quotation of the character's remark. Such a usage of a quotation for an epithet stresses the subjectivity, individuality of the character's perception. It renders the emotional attitude of the personage.
Phrase-epithet helps not only to reveal the individual view of the author and his characters but at the same time to do it in a rather economical manner.
One more structural type of epithet is “monopolized” by the English language. It is based on the illogical syntactical relations between the modifier and the modified. Such constructions enable the writer to use nouns of high emotional coloring, supplying them with additional characteristics without overcrowding the description.
Epithets vary not only in structure but in the manner of application too. So, most often we meet one-word, or simple epithet. Rather often epithets are used in pairs. Not seldom three, four, five and even more epithets are joined in chains.
From the viewpoint of their expressive power epithets can be regarded as those stressing qualities of the object or phenomenon and as those transferring the quality of one object to its closest neighbour. When the same definition is given to a smile it becomes an individual evaluation of the same, and is classified as a transferred epithet. A metaphoric epithet presents a metaphor within an epithet.
In most cases metaphoric epithet is expressed by adjectives and adverbs. Into the same group of metaphoric epithets must be included compound epithets, the second element of which is “-like”.
As all the other stylistic devices, epithets become hackneyed through long usage.
Epithets should not be mixed up with logical attributes which have the same syntactical function but which do not convey the subjective attitude of the author towards the described object, pointing out only the objectively existing feature of the same.
e.g. “Can you tell me what time that game starts today?” The girl gave him a lipsticky smile.
Дата добавления: 2020-01-07; просмотров: 2343; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!