Figures of quantity.

Here belong figures based on comparison of two different phenomena or their characteristics with general for them quantitive characteristics. Here the mutual characteristic characterizes one of the compared subjects. If this characteristic is prescribed to the object in a much greater degree appears hyperbole, if in lesser degree then appears meiosis, litotes.

Hyperbole is a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of dimensions or other properties of the object, the aim of which is to intensify one of the features of the object: ‘ God, I cried buckets. I saw it ten times. ’, A 1000 apologies; to wait an eternity; he is stronger than a lion.

Meiosis – a deliberate diminution of features of objects in order to underline the insignificance of the described object. Most often these features are size, volume, distance, time: I was half afraid you had forgotten me.

A humorous effect is observed when meiotic devices (words and phrase called 'downtoners' - maybe, please, would you, mind, etc) co-occur witty rough, offensive words in the same utterance:

It isn't any of your business maybe.

Would you mind getting the hell out of my way?

A special kind of meiosis is litotes - an affirmation is expressed by denying its contrary. It is based on discrepancy between the syntactical form, which is negative, and the meaning, which is positive. Its function is to convey doubts of the speaker concerning the exact characteristics of the object or a feeling.

e.g. It's not a bad thing - It's a good thing.

e.g. He is no coward. He is a brave man.

The structure of litotes is rather rigid: its first element is always the negative particle ‘not’ (or ‘no’) and its second component is, too, always negative in meaning if not in form: not without doubt; He is no fool.

41. Figures of quality: metonymical group.

Figures of quality give qualitative characteristics of the object of speech. Here belong figures based on comparison of features and characteristic properties of two objects of different kinds with mutual for them qualitative features.

Here belong metonymy, metaphor, irony.

The metonymic group includes such figures of speech in which the transfer of the name from one object to another is based on contiguity of two objects (the object implied and the object named).

Metonymy is most often expressed by nouns. That is why the syntactic functions and positions of metonymic words are those of the subject, object and predicative.

To this group belong metonymy, synecdoche, periphrasis, and to some degree euphemisms.

Metonymy as secondary speech nomination is based on real relations of subject of nominator with that object whose name is transferred to the object of nomination.

Lexical metonymy – when the name of one object, not unfrequently proper name, is transferred to the other object: the press (instead of people writing for newspapers). Such metonymic meanings are registered in dictionaries.

About stylistic metonymy we talk when new, unexpected relations between two objects are realized.

In metonymy relations between the object named and the object implied are various and numerous:

1) Names of tools (or an organ of the body) instead of names of actions - ‘As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so should it be the last’.(Byron). ‘Give every man thine ear and a few thy voice’. 2) Consequence instead of cause - … ‘the fish desperately takesthedeath’ (instead of it snaps at the fish-hook).

3) Relations between a feature of face and face proper - But bignose in the grey suit still stared’. (Priestly)

4) Symbol instead of object symbolized – crown for king or queen.

5) The container instead of the thing contained – The hall applauded.

6) The material instead of the thing it is made of – “The marble spoke’.

7) Relations between clothes or a peace of clothes that a person wears and person proper. - ‘ Bluesuit greened, might have even winked

Metonymy as a stylistic device (a genuine stylistic device) is used to achieve concreteness of description. By giving a specific detail connected with the phenomenon, the author evokes a concrete and life-like image and reveals certain feelings of his own.

Synecdoche - using the name of a part to denote the whole or vice versa.

A typical example of traditional synecdoche is the word hands used instead of the word worker (s) (Hands wanted). The same in the use of the singular (the so called generic singular) when the plural (the whole class) is meant – A student is expected to know… (or The student…)

Periphrasis – stylistic figure of substitution when the name (meaning) of an object is substituted by description of its important features or denoting their characteristic features. Periphrasis not only intensifies expressiveness of speech because it not only names an object but also describes it.

As some of them are often used, they become synonyms of other words which denote the same denotatum. E.g. my better half (wife)

Periphrasis are divided into:

1. Logical - based on inherent properties of a thing.

e. g. Instrument of destruction, the object of administration.

2. Figurative - based on imagery: sustained metaphor or metonymy

e. g. To tie a knot - to get married; in disgrace of fortune - bad luck. Most often it’s seen in literary prose, also in publicistic style.

Euphemism is a kind of periphrasis based on substitution of rough, impolite expression for more polite; is used to avoid some unpleasant things, or taboo things.

Spheres of application:

1. religious euphemisms: devil – the dickens, old Nick, the deuce

2. moral: to die – to be gone, to go west, to pass away

3. medical: lunatic asylum – mental hospital, madhouse; insane – person of unsound mind

4. political: starvation – undernourishment, revolt – tension.

42. Figures of quality: metaphoric group. Types of metaphor.

Metaphor – expressive renaming on the basis of similarity, likeness, or affinity (real or imaginary) of two objects: the real object of speech and the one whose name is actually used.

Metaphors can be classified

1. according to their unexpectedness:

- genuine metaphors - absolutely unexpected;

- trite (dead, traditional) metaphors - are constantly used in speech and therefore are often fixed in dictionaries as expressive means (a ray of hope, floods of tears, a flight of imagination)

2. according to the function:

- nominative – when one name is substituted by another in order to extract a new name from the old word stock – the apple of the eye;

- cognitive – when objects are ascribed features of different objects – Time flies;

- generalizing – is used in naming some products – Burn;

- imaginary – presupposes that identifying lexical units are transferred into a predicate slot and as predicate units refer to other objects or a class of objects. In this case metaphor is a means of individualization, evaluation and discrimination of the shades of meaning - If Aitken found out about us the NY job would go up in a smoke.

3. according to their structure:

- simple – which is based on the actualization of one or several features common for two objects.

- sustained or prolonged – which is not limited to one feature that forms the central image but also comprises other features that develop the image in context.

Personification – is attributing human properties to lifeless objects, mostly to abstract notions, such as thoughts, actions, intentions, emotions, seasons of the year etc. (“ the face of London ", or " the pain of the ocean ".)

The stylistic purposes of personification are varied. In poetry and fiction the purpose of personification is to help to visualize the description, to impart dynamic force to it or to reproduce the particular mood of the viewer.

Antonomasia - using a proper name as a common noun and vice versa using a descriptive word-combination instead of a proper noun. It can be of two types:

5. a usage of a proper name for a common noun (He is a real Sherlock Holms);

6. a usage of common nouns or their parts as proper names (Mr.Known-All);

Allegory – is a means of expressing abstract ideas through concrete pictures. The purpose of allegory as a stylistic device is to intensify the influence of logical contents of speech by adding to it an element of emotional character.

Proverbs may serve as simplest examples of allegory. Thus in the proverb All is not gold that glitters the question is not about the gold and its glitter, but about the fact that not always outer beauty speaks of inner value. (=Appearances are deceptive).

The above mentioned proverb is metaphoric allegory as it is based on similarity of abstract and generalized notions to concrete things and phenomena.

In metonymic allegory the name of some object which is a traditional material sign of some idea, i.e. its symbol, is used instead of its direct expression.

When, for instance, we hear the words It is time to beat your swords into ploughshares, we understand it as an appeal to stop hostilities in favour of peace.

Epithet - expresses characteristics of an object, both existing and imaginary. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity: the characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself.

e.g. Shining serenely as some immeasurable mirror beneath the smiling face of the heaven, the solitary ocean lay in unrippled silence. (Fr. Bullen).

Epithets can be classified from the point of view of their compositional structure. They may be divided into simple, compound, and phrase epithets.

Simple epithets are ordinary adjectives or adverbs (see ex. above).

Compound epithets are built like compound adjectives, e.g. heart-burning sight, cloud-shapen giant.

The tendency to cram into one language unit as much information as possible has led to new compositional models for epithets which are called phrase epithets.

e.g. ‘So think first of her, but not in the ‘I love you so that nothing will induce me to marry you’ fashion. (Galsworhty).

Another structural variety of the epithet is the one that is called reversed. It is based on the illogical relations between the modifier and the modified. e.g. the shadow of a smile, a devil of a job, a dog of a fellow, a long nightshirt of mackintosh etc. In all the examples it is the second word (a smile, a job, a fellow, a mackintosh) that is modified but it is formally placed in the position of a modifier, while the actual modifier is given the place of the modified word.

Semantically, there should be differentiated two main groups, the biggest of them being affective (or emotive proper). These epithets serve to convey the emotional evaluation of the object by the speaker. Most of the qualifying words found in the dictionary can be and are used as affective epithets (e.g. "gorgeous", "nasty", "magnificent", "atrocious", etc.).

The second group - figurative, or transferred, epithets - is formed of metaphors, metonymies and similes (which will be discussed later) expressed by adjectives. E.g. "the smiling sun", "the frowning cloud", "the sleepless pillow", ''the tobacco-stained smile", "a ghost-like face", "a dreamlike experience". Like metaphor, metonymy and simile, corresponding epithets are also based on similarity of characteristics of - two objects in the first case, on nearness of the qualified objects in the second one, and on their comparison in the third.

Epithets are used singly, in pairs, in chains, in two-step structures, and in inverted constructions, also as phrase-attributes.

43. Figures of quality: epithet. Semantic and structural types of epithets.

Epithet – an emotionally-evaluative or expressive-imaginary definition (attribute) of some denotatum. In epithet there’s a seme (минимальная единица содержания) which denotes the subjective attitude of speaker towards a subject of speech (poor mother – widowed mother).

It is essential to differentiate between logical attributes and epithets proper. Logical attributes are objective and non-evaluating (a round table, green meadows). Epithets proper are subjective and evaluative, mostly metaphorical. These qualifications make epithets expressive (wild wind, loud ocean).

Epithets may be classified on the basis of their semantic and structural properties.

Semantically, epithets fall into two groups: epithets associated with the nouns modified and epithets not associated with the nouns modified.

Associated epithets point out typical features of the objects which they describe. Such typical features are implied by the meaning of the nouns themselves:

If forest, then – dark

If tears, then – bitter.

Unassociated epithets ascribe such qualities to objects which are not inherent in them, as a result, metaphors emerge fresh, unexpected, expressive: voiceless sands, helpless loneliness.

From the point of view of their compositional structure epithets may be divided into:

1) simple (adjectives, nouns, participles): e.g. He looked at them in animal panic.

2) compound: expressed by compound adjectives e.g. an apple - faced man;

3) phrasal epithets: expressed by word-combinations of quotation type e.g. It is his do - it - yourself attitude.

4) clausal epithets: expressed by sentences: e.g. I-don’t-want-to-do-it felling.

5) reversed epithets - composed of 2 nouns linked by an of-phrase: e.g. "a shadow of a smile";

44. Figures of quality: Irony. Context types of irony.

Irony denotes a trope / figure based on direct opposition of the meaning to the sense. It is the use of words, word-combinations and sentences in the meanings opposite to those directly expressed by them (i.e. opposite to their logical meaning) for purpose of ridicule. Thus in the sentence: ‘It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one’s pocket.’ The word “delightful’ acquires a meaning quite the opposite to its primary dictionary meaning, that is ‘unpleasant’, ‘not delightful’.

Irony is generally used to convey a negative meaning. 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 of meanings very often produces a humorous effect.

Sometimes irony is not pointed out at all: its presence in the text is deduced only by reasoning. The reader cannot possibly believe that the author can be praising the object of speech in earnest. Sometimes the whole of the narrative is ironical, as the case is with the description the matrimonial schemes of Becky Sharp. (Thackeray)

In the stylistic device of irony it is always possible to indicate the exact word whose contextual meaning diametrically opposes its dictionary meaning. This is why this type of irony is called verbal irony. There are very many cases, though, which we regard as irony, intuitively feeling the reversal of the evaluation, but unable to put our finger on the exact word in whose meaning we can trace the contradiction between the said and the implied. The effect of irony in such cases is created by a number of statements, by the whole of the text. This type of irony is called sustained, and it is formed by the contradiction of the speaker's (writer's) considerations and the generally accepted moral and ethical codes. Many examples of sustained irony are supplied by D. Defoe, J. Swift or by such XX- th c. writers as S. Lewis, K. Vonnegut, E. Waugh and others.

Irony must not be confused with humor. Humor always causes laughter. Irony rather expresses a feeling of irritation, displeasure, pity, regret.

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