Aesthetic value of language units

Plan

Aesthetic value of language units.

Onomatopoeia.

Alliteration.

Graphical expressive means. (Graphon).

Rhythm and Metre.

Rhyme and As types.

Literature:

Grzlperib I.R. p. 123 – 135.

Screbnew Y.M. p 39 – 48; p. 133 – 145.

Aesthetic value of language units

The stylistic approach to the utterance is not confined to its structure and sense. Phonemes and their graphical representation can also be used with a stylistic purpose.

Dealing with various cases of phonemic and graphemic forge grounding we should not forget the unilateral nature of a phoneme: this language unit helps to differentiate meaningful lexemes but has no meaning of its own.

Cf: while unable to speak about the semantic of [ou], [ju:], we acknowledge their sense – differentiating significance in “sew” [sou] шить and “sew” [sju:] спускать воду; or [on], [ou] in “bow” бант, поклон.

Still, devoid of denotational or Connatational meaning, a phoneme, according to recent studies, has a strong associative and sound – incrementing power. This partially due to the variability of English pronunciation or in other words, possibilities of the choice between options.

An essential problem of stylistic possibilities of the choice between options is presented by co – existence in everyday usage of varying forms of the same word and by variability of stress within the limits of the ‘Standard’, or ‘Received Pronunciation’. The word negotiation has either [] or [s] for the first t. The word laboratory was pronounced a few decades ago with varying stress (nowadays the stress upon the second syllable seems preferable in Great Britain; Americans usually stress the first). The word phthisis (‘tuberculosis’) had six varieties of pronunciation [‘faIsIs], [‘aIsIs], [‘fIsIs], [‘IsIs], and [‘taIsIs], [‘tIsIs]. Modern dictionaries give only two varieties [‘fIsIs] and [‘IsIs].

It would be wrong to assume that the phonetic variability of certain words is of no interest in stylistic analysis. Every language user prefers only one of the possible variants, all the others appear to him to be alien, that is. Either in correct and low or, on the contrary, pedantically overcorrect, and hence, unacceptable, No individual judgment concerning the stylistic value of linguistic units can be objective to the end. For instance, a certain English writer expresses the option that angina [æb’d ain], pneumonia [nju’mouni], and uvula [‘ju:vjil], would make bountiful girl’s names instead of what he calls “Lumps of names like Joan, Joyce and Maud”.

Another problem to be discussed is aesthetic evolution of sounds.

The connection between contest and form is by no means confined in phonetics to the sense differentiating function of phonemes. The sounds themselves, though they have no extralingual meaning, possess (or seem to possess) a kind of expressive meaning, and hence, stylistic and aesthetic value.

As early as the eighteenth century Alexandre Pope, a renowned poet of the epoch, wrote: “Soft is the sound when zephyr gently blows”, but when a tempest is depicted, “The hoarse rough sound should like the torrent roar”. On the whole, as Pope proclaimed, “The sound must seem and echo to the sense”. Even nowaleys, attempts to tie up sound and sense are made. S. Voronin, for one, a scholar of St. Petersburg, claims “sunbalic relevance of sound for naming objects”, or if we call a spade a spade, he means to have found a more or less direct connection between the meaning of the word and its form. Moreover, meaning in this case primary and the form, secondary: meaning predetermines form; the connection between form and meaning is not ‘arbitrary’ (as Ferdinand de Sanssure presumed), not socially conventional, but seems to have, according to the ideas of Voronin’s “phonosemantics”, certain natural, inherent foundations, (Воронин С.В. Основы фоносемантики. – Л., 1982).

The idea is not on original one Similar ones are found in the theory of the so-called “sound - symbolism”. The theory of sound symbolism is based on the assumption that separate sounds due to their articulatory and acoustic properties may awake certain idens, perceptions, feelings, images, vague though they might be.

Perhaps the only point to be admitted is that certain internal qualities of sounds contribute to a very generalized evaluation. So, for instance, the plosives, both voiced and voiceless [b, g. p, k] are abrupt in comparison with such sonorant consonants as [m], [n], [L]; the vowel [u:] [u:] is hardly more “tender” them the vowel [i:], rather the contrary.

According to George McKnight (a linguist of the early 20^th and his book “Words and Their Background – N.Y. – London, 1923”) and English – speaking person feels a certain quality combination to words ending in – sh: crush, bosh, squash, hush, mush, flush, blush. He believes that they mean something negative and up leasant. Words beginning with fl – as in flame, flutter, flare, flicker, flash, flirt, and flag, associate with deforming strength and quickness. A more or less definite stylistic value is observable in the vowel [I] at the end words. Here, the reason is quite obvious: this vowel is a diminutive suffix: Willie, Johnnie, birdie, kittie, McKnight also mentions whisky and brandy which, as he claims, contribute a certain popular quality to the ending; this is also seen in the words movie, bookie, newsie (newsboy), and even texi.