Rhetorical Questions

The rhetorical question is a special syntactical stylistic devise the essence of which consists in reshaping the grammatical meaning of the interogative sentences. In other words, the question is no longer a question but a statement expressed in the form of an interrogative sentences. Thus there is an interplay of two structural meanings:

1) that of the question and 2) that of the statement (eiher affirmative or negative). Both are materialized simultaneously. For example:

«Are these the remedies for a starving and desparate populace?»

«Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven and testify against you?» (Byron)

One can agree with Prof. Popov who states’the rhetorical question is equal to a categorical pronouncement plus an exclamation.’ Indeed, if we compare a pronouncement expressed as a statement with the same pronouncement expressed as rhetorical question by means of transformational analysis, we will find ourselves compelled to assert that the interrogative form makes the pronounsement still more categorical, in that it excludes any interpretation beyond that contained in the rhetorical question.

From the examples given above, we can see that rhetorical questions are generally structurally embodied in complex sentences with the subordinate clause containing the pronouncement. There is another example:

«...Shall the sons of Chimary

who never forgive the fault of a friend

Bid an enemy live?

(Byron)

There is another structural pattern of rhetorical questions, which is based on negation. In this case the question may be a simple sentence, as in:

«Did not the Italian Mosico Cazzani

Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?» (Byron)

«Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?

Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?»(Byron)

Negative-interrogative sentences generally have a peculiar nature. There is always an additional shade of meaning implied in them: sometimes doubt, sometimes assertion, sometimes suggestion. In other words, they are full of emotive meaning and modality.

The intonation of rhetorical questions, according to the most recent investigations, differs materially from the intonation of ordinary questions. This is also an additional indirect proof of the double nature of this stylistic device. In the question sentence:

«Is the poor privilege to turn the key

Upon the captive, freedom?» (Byron)

instead of a categorical pronouncement one can detect irony.

So rhetorical questions may also be defined as utterances in the form of questions which pronounce judgements andd also express various kinds of modal shades of meaning, as doubt, challenge, scorn, irony and so on.

It has been started elsewhere that quesitons are more emotional than statements. When a question is repeated, as in these lines from Poe’s «The Raven»:

«-Is there-is there balm in Gilead?! Tell me-tell me-I-implore!»

The degree of emotiveness increases and the particular shade of meaning (in this case, deapair) becomes more apparent.

Native in this respect. Here all the hachneyed phrases litotes carries the positive quality in itself can be analysing the semantic structure of the word which is negated.

Let us examine the following sentenses in which litotes is used:

1.«Whatever defects the tale posessed and they were not a few- it had, as delivered by her, the one merit of seeming like truth.»

2. «He was not without taste.»

3.«It troubled him not a little»

4.«He found that was no easy task»

Even a superfluous analysis of the litotes in the above sentenses clearly shows that the negation does not merely indicate the absence of the quality mentioned but suggests the presence of the opposite quality. Charles Bally, a well-known Swiss linguist, states that negative sentenses are used with the purpose of ‘refusing to affirm.’

Thus, like other stylistic devices, litotes displays a simultaneous materialization of two meanings: one negative, the other affirmative. That is why we may say that any negation only suggests an assertion. Litotes is a means by which this natural loigical and linguistic property of negation can be strengthened.

A variant of litotes is a construction with two negations, as in not unlike, not unpromising, not displeased and the like. Here, acorrding to general logical and mathematical principles, two negatives make a positive.

2. Litotes is used in different styles of speech, excluding those which may be called the matter-of-fact styles, like official style and scientific prose. In poetry it is sometimes used to suggest that language fails to adequately convey the poet’s feelings and therefore he uses negations to express the inexpressible. Sheakespear’s Sonnet No. 130 is to some extent illustrative in this respect. Here all the hachneyed phrases used by the poet to depict his beloved are negated with the purpose of showing the superioty of the earthly qualities of ‘My mistress.’ The first line of this sonnet ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun is a clear-cut litotes although the object to which the eyes are compared is generally perceived as having only positive qualities.

The literary communication most often materialized in the written form,is not homogeneous, and proceeding from its function (purpose).We speak of different functional styles,as the whole of the language itself, functional styles are also changable. Their quantity and quality change in the course of their development. At present we can distinguish:

1) The belles-lettres style

2) Publicistic

3) Newspaper style

4) Scientific Prose

5) Style of official documents

a) The Belles-lettres style. Each functional style is subdivided into a number of substyles. The Belles-Lettres style falls into 3 varieties

1) The language of poetry or simply verse. 2) Emotive prose are the language of function

3) The language of drama.

The purpose of belles-lettres style is not to prove but only to suggest a possible interpretation of the phenomene of life by forcing the leader to see the viewpoint of the writer. This is the cognitive function of the belles-lettres style. The belles-lettresb style is individual in essence. This is one of its most distinctive properties. Individuality in selecting language means (including SD) extremely apparent in poetic style, becomes gradually less in, let us say, publicistic style, is hardly noticable in the style of scientific prose and is entirely lacking in newspapers and in official style.

1) Language of poetry.

The first substyle we shall consider is verse. Its first differentiatiny property is its orderly form. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactical and semantical peculiarities which also fall into a more or less strict orderly arrangement. The various compasitional forms of rhyme and rhythm are generally studied under the torms versification or prosody.

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