Expressive means and stylistic devices (EMs and SDs)

The subject of stylistics can be outlined as the study of the nature functions and structure of stylistic devices, on the one hand, and, оn 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. The task we set before ourselves is to make an attempt to single out such problems as are typically stylistic and cannot therefore be treated in any other branch of linguistic science.

Now a question arises: why are some of the notions of style enumer­ated not treated in this lecture? The reply is that, on the one hand, not all of these notions are relevant to the domain of linguistics, and, on the other, this work is intended to be a theoretical course of stylistics in which only crucial issues shall be taken up. Indeed, individual styles or manners of writing do not come under our observation, this being an entirely different field of linguistic and literary study. It has already been pointed out that individual manner, though it may conform to the norms of the language to a greater or lesser degree, will never­theless be the practical realization of abstract language units. In other words here we have I a nguage-i n-actio n, that is, speech. Stylistic devices are abstract categories of language-as-a-sys-t e m, that is, language proper. But the practical applica­tion of these abstract categories, being spontaneous, represents language-in-action, or speech. This is in accordance with the laws which govern the functioning of every language fact.

We shall therefore make an extensive analysis of individual usage of stylistic devices inasmuch as they disclose their as yet unknown or unused potentialities. But it must be. remembered that the use made in this lecture of individual styles, i. e. the writings of well-known Eng­lish men-of-letters, will not have as its aim the generalization of the data obtained. Our task is to show the variable functioning of stylistic devices. This will help us to define the means existing in the English language, and perhaps in other languages as well, which are used to serve definite aims of communication. It is obvious that observation of the variety of uses to which a stylistic device can advantageously be put, can only be carried out where there is a field for innovation and contextual meanings, viz., in the style of belles-lettres.

As regards style as technique of expression, we hold the view that this very important issue must be presented in a special work on com­position.

In the recent development of the theory of language the dichotomy of language and speech occupies an important place. Language-as-a-system may figuratively be depicted as a usurper or an exploiter of language-in-action, or speech. Whenever Speech produces anything that can be given a name, whatever it may be, it immediately becomes a fact of language-as-a-system. It is hallowed into a language means.

So it is with stylistic devices. Being born in speech, after recogni­tion as rightful members of the system in which they generally operate, they are duly taken away from their mother's breast, Speech, and made independent members of the family, Language.

As regards the system of styles of language in English, we are in a position to point out the most characteristic features of the styles of language.These features have been carefully stud­ied and on the basis of previous investigation into the linguistic char­acter of stylistic devices brought into a kind of system. It is sometimes enough merely to point out the interrelation of the characteristic fea­tures of a given style of language to be able to tell one style from another.

A course in this relatively new science, stylistics, will be profitable to those who have a sound linguistic background. The expressive means of English and the stylistic devices used in the literary language can only be understood (and made use of) when a thorough knowledge of the phonetic, grammatical and lexical data of the given language has been attained. The stylistic devices (SD) must be observed on different levels: on the phonetic, morphemic, lexical, phraseological, syntactic­al levels and on the utterance level. If a thorough command of language data has not been acquired, the subtleties of the theory of stylistics may escape the student or may prove to be beyond his grasp.

For example, we can easily distinguish between a piece of emotive prose and a business letter. Just as easily can we tell a newspaper brief from a scientific thesis; a poem from a military document; a piece of oratory from a diplomatic pact and so on. Apparently our knowledge of the characteristic features of different styles of language is based not only on our intuition. There must be some objective criteria which the system relies on and which we can define as the leading or princi­pal features of a given style.

A special part of this lecture is devoted to a description of the styles which have already manifested themselves as more or less independent systems.

In linguistics there are different terms to denote those particular means by which a writer obtain his affect. Expressive means,stylistic means, stylistic devices and other terms are all used indiscriminately. For one purpose it is necessary to make a distinction between expressive means (EMs),which are used in some specific way, and special devices called stylistic devices (SDs).

The expressive means of a language are those phonetic means,morphological forms,means of word-building,and lexical,phraseological and syntactical forms,all of which function in the language for emotional or logical intensification of the utterance.These intensifying forms of the language,wrought by social usage and recognized by their semantic function have been fixed in grammars and dictionaries label them as intensifiers. In most cases they have corresponding neutral synonymous forms.

The most powerful expressive means of any language are phonetic.The human voice can indicate subtle nuances of meaning that no other means can attain.Pitch, melody, stress, pausation, drawling.drawling out certain syllables, whispering,a sing-song manner of speech and other ways of using the voice are more effective than any other means in intensifying the utterance emotionally or logically.

Among the morphological expressive means the use of the Present Indefinite instead of the Past Indefinite must be mentioned first. This has already been acknowledged as a special means and is named the Historical Present.In describing some past event the author uses the present tenses,thus achieving a more vivid picturisation of what was going on.

Among word-building means we find a great many forms which serve to make the utterance more expressive and fresh or to intensify it.The diminutive suffixes as –y (ie),-let,e.g.dear,dearie,stream,streamlet,add some emotional colouring to the words.We may also refer to what are called neologisms and nonce-words formed with non-productive suffixes or with Greek roots,as:mistressmanship,cleanorama,walkathon.

At the lexical level there are a great many words which due to their inner expressiveness, constitute a special layer.

Finally at the syntactical level there are many constructions which,being set against synonymous ones,will reveal a certain degree of logical or emotional emphsis.

Let us compare the following pairs of structures:

“I have never seen such a film.” “Never have I seen such a film.”

“Mr.Smith came in first.” “It was Mr.Smith who came in first.”

The second structure in each pair contains empatic elements.

The expressive means of the English language have so far been very little investigated except, perhaps, certain set expressions and to some extent affixation. Most of them still await researchers. They are widely used for stylistic purposes, but these purposes likewise have not yet been adequately explained and hardly at all specified.

Yet they exist in the language as forms that can be used for empha­sis, i. е., to make a part of the utterance more prominent and conspic­uous, as a segmental analysis of the utterance shows. This inevitably calls for a more detailed analysis of the nature of the emphatic elements which we have named expressive means of the language. Not infre­quently, as we shall see later, some expressive means possess a power of emotional intensification which radiates through the whole of the utterance. Lately a new concept has been introduced into linguistics— that of super-segmental analysis. This takes into account not only what the words mean in the given context, but also what new shades of meaning are at issue when the utterance is analysed as a whole.

The expressive means of the language are studied respectively in manuals of phonetics, grammar, lexicology and stylistics. Stylistics, however, observes not only the nature of an expressive means, but also its potential capacity of becoming a stylistic device.

What then is a stylistic device (SD)? It is a conscious and intentional literary use of some of the facts of the language (in­cluding expressive means) in which the most essential features (both structural and semantic) of the language forms are raised to a general­ized level and thereby present a generative model. Most stylistic devic­es may be regarded as aiming at the further intensification of the emo­tional or logical emphasis contained in the corresponding expressive means.

This conscious transformation of a language fact into a stylistic device has been observed by certain linguists whose interests in scien­tific research have gone beyond the boundaries of grammar. Thus A. A. Potebnja writes:

"As far back as in ancient Rome and Greece and with few exceptions up to the present time, the definition of a. figurative use of a word has been based on the contrast between ordinary speech, used in its own, natural, primary meaning and trans­ferred speech."¹

A. A. Potebnja thus shows how the expressive means of the Russian language are transformed into stylistic devices. He describes how Go­gol uses the literal repetition characteristic of folklore instead of' allu­sions and references.

The birth of an SD is not accidental. Language means which are used with more or less definite aims of communication and in one and the same function in various passages of writing, begin gradually to develop new features, a wider range of functions and become a relative means of expressiveness alongside the already recognized expressive means of the language, like proverbs or sayings, diminutive suffixes and the like. These SDs form a special group of language means which are more abstract in nature than the expressive means of the language. It would perhaps be more correct to say that unlike expressive means, stylistic devices are patterns of the language whereas the expressive means do not form patterns. They are just like words themselves, they are facts of the language, and as such are, or should be, registered in dictionaries.

This can be illustrated in the following manner:

Proverbs and sayings are facts of language. They are collected in dictionaries. There are special dictionaries of proverbs and sayings. It is impossible to arrange proverbs and sayings in a form that would present a pattern even though they have some typical features by which it is possible to determine whether or not we are dealing with one. These typical features are: rhythm, sometimes rhyme and/or allit­eration.

But the most characteristic feature of a proverb or a saying lies not in its formal linguistic expression, but in the content-form of the utterance. As is known, a proverb or a saying is a peculiar mode of utterance which is mainly characterized by its brevity. The utterance itself, taken at its face value, presents a pattern which can be success­fully used for other utterances. The peculiarity of the use of a proverb lies in the fact that the actual wording becomes a pattern which needs no new wording to suggest extensions of meaning which are contextual. In other words a proverb presupposes a simultaneous application of two meanings: the face-value or primary meaning, and an extended meaning drawn from the context, but bridled by the face-value meaning. In other-words the proverb itself becomes a vessel into which new content is poured. The actual wording of a proverb, its primary meaning, narrows the field of possible extensions of mean­ing, i. e. the filling up of the form. That is why we may regard the proverb as a pattern of thought. So it is in every other case at any oth­er level of linguistic research. Abstract formulas offer a wider range of possible applications to practical purposes than concrete words, though they have the same purpose.

The interrelation between expressive means and stylistic devices can be worded in terms of the theory of information. Expressive means have a greater degree of predictability than stylistic devices. The lat­ter may appear in an environment which may seem alien and there­fore be only slightly or not at all predictable. Expressive means are commonly used in language, and are therefore easily predictable. Sty­listic devices carry a greater amount of information because if they are at all predictable they are less predictable than expressive means. It follows that stylistic devices must be regarded as a special code which has still to be deciphered. Stylistic devices are generally used sparing­ly, lest they should overburden the utterance with information.

Not every stylistic use of a language fact will come under the term SD. There are practically unlimited possibilities of presenting any language fact in what is vaguely called its stylistic use. But this use in no way forms anSD. For a language fact to become an SD there is one indispensable requirement, viz., that it should be so much used in one and the same function that it has become generalized in its func­tions. True, even a use coined for the occasion, that is a nonce use can, and very often does create the necessary conditions for the appearance of an SD. Thus many facts of English grammar are said to be used with a stylistic function, e. g. some of the English morphemes are used in definite contexts as full words, but these facts are not SDs of the Eng­lish language. They are still wandering in the vicinity of the realm of stylistic devices without being admitted into it. Perhaps in the near future they will be accepted as SDs, but in the meantime they are not. This can indirectly be proved by the fact that they have no special name in the English language system of SDs. Compare such SDs as metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, parallel construction and the like. These have become facts of a special branch of linguistic science, viz., stylistics. All these facts, however, are facts of general linguistics as well.But in general linguistics they are viewed as means either of creat­ing new meanings of words, or of serving the purpose of making the utterance more comprehensible (cf. the repetition of the subject of a sentence when there is a long attributive clause following the subject, which breaks the natural sequence of the primary members of the sen­tence and therefore requires the repetition of the subject).

So far stylistic devices have not been recognized as lawful members of the system of language. They are set apart as stylistic phenomena, this being regarded as a special domain, not part and parcel of the system of language. But the process of the development of language does not take into consideration the likes or dislikes of this or that lin­guist, it establishes its own paths along which the formation of the whole system of a language is moulded. The stylistic devices of a highly developed language like English or Russian have brought into the lit­erary language a separate body of means of expression which have won recognition as a constituent to be studied in the branch of language study named Stylistics.

And yet some scholars still regard stylistic devices as violations of the norms of the language. (See Saintsbury, p. 13.) It is this notion which leads some prominent linguists (G. Vandryes, for example) to the conclusion that "The Belles-Lettres Style (where SDs flourish, /. G.) is always a reaction against the common language; to some extent it is a jargon, a literary jargon, which may have varieties."

The study of the linguistic nature of SDs in any language therefore.

Literature:

1. Galperin I.R. “Stylistics” Higher School.Moscow,1977.
2. Kukharenko Y.A.”A book of practice in stylistics”.Высшая школа.Москва 1986.
3. Screbnev. The fundamentals of English stylistics.Moscow,2000.
4. Znamenskaya T.A.Stylistics of the English Language.

5. А. В. Гвоздев. Очерки по стилистике русского языка. М., 1952, стр. 8.

6. See F. L. Lucas. Style. London. 1962.

Lecture #3

Meaning from a stylistic point of view:

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