Child, kid, youngster, tot;
• In a paradigm, we are confronted with the language expressive potential called "expressive means”which are marked members of stylistic oppositions, having their invariant meaning in language. They are "those phonetic, morphological, word-building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist in language-as-system for the purpose of logical and/or emotional intensification of the utterance" (Galperin)
Stylistic devices
Lexical stylistic device is such type of denoting phenomena that serves to create additional expressive, evaluative, subjective connotations. In fact we deal with the intended substitution of the existing names approved by long usage and fixed in dictionaries, prompted by the speaker’s subjective original view and evaluation of things. Each type of intended substitution results in a stylistic device called also a trope.
Convergence as the term implies denotes a combination or accumulation of stylistic devices promoting the same idea, emotion or motive. Stylistic function is not the property and purpose of expressive means of the language as such. Any type of expressive means will make sense stylistically when treated as a part of a bigger unit, the context, or the whole text. It means that there is no immediate dependence between a certain stylistic device and a definite stylistic function.
A stylistic device is not attached to this or that stylistic effect. Therefore a hyperbole, for instance, may provide any number of effects: tragic, comical, pathetic or grotesque. Inversion may give the narration a highly elevated tone or an ironic ring of parody.
This "chameleon" quality of a stylistic device enables the author to apply different devices for the same purpose. The use of more than one type of expressive means in close succession is a powerful technique to support the idea that carries paramount importance in the author's view. Such redundancy ensures the delivery of the message to the reader.
An extract from E. Waugh's novel "Decline and Fall" demonstrates convergence of expressive means used to create an effect of the glamorous appearance of a very colorful lady character who symbolizes the high style of living, beauty and grandeur.
The door opened and from the cushions within emerged a tall young man in a clinging dove-gray coat. After him, like the first breath of spring in the Champs-Elysee came Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde - two lizard-skin feet, silk legs, chinchilla body, a tight little black hat, pinned with platinum
and diamonds, and the high invariable voice that may be heard in any Ritz Hotel from New York to Budapest.
Inversion used in both sentences (...from the cushion within emerged a tall man; ...like the first breath of spring came Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde) at once sets an elevated tone of the passage.
The simile that brings about a sensory image of awakening nature together with the allusion to Paris - the symbol of the world's capita! of pleasures - sustains this impression: like the first breath of spring in the Champs-Ely see. A few other allusions to the world capitals and their best hotels - New York, Budapest, any Ritz Hotel all symbolize the wealthy way of life of the lady who belongs to the international jet-set distinguished from the rest of the world by her money, beauty and aristocratic descent.
The use of metonymy creates the cinematographic effect of shots and fragments of the picture as perceived by the gazing crowd and suggests the details usually blown up in fashionable newspaper columns on high society life: two lizard-skin feet, silk legs, chichilla body, a tight little black hat... the invariable voice.
The choice of words associated with high-quality life style: exotic materials, expensive clothes and jewelry creates a semantic field that enhances the impression still further (lizard, silk, chinchilla, platinum and diamonds). A special contribution to the high-flown style of description is made by the careful choice of words that belong to the literary bookish stratum: emerge, cushions, dove, invariable.
Even the name of the character - Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde - is a device in itself, it's the so-called speaking name, a variety of antonomasia. Not only its implication (best) but also the structure symbolizes the
lady's high social standing because hyphenated names in Britain testify to the noble ancestry. So the total effect of extravagant and glamour is achieved by the concentrated use of at least eight types of expressive means within one paragraph.
Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices.
Major patterns of sound arrangement
• Versification
rhyme
rhythm
• Sound-instrumentation
alliteration
assonance
onomatopoeia
• Rhyme denotes a complete (or almost complete) coincidence of acoustic impressions produced by stressed syllables (often together with surrounding unstressed ones).
As a rule, such syllables do not immediately follow each other: they mostly recur at the very end of verse lines
Types of rhyme
According to the variants of stress:
• male (the last syllables of the rhymed words are stressed) DREAMS-STREAMS
• female (the next syllables to the last are stressed) DUTY-BEAUTY
• dactylic (the third syllables from the end are stressed) BATTERY — FLATTERY
According to the position of the lines:
• adjacent rhymes aabb
• crossing rhymes abab
• ring rhymes abba
• inner rhyme (I am the daughter of earth and water.(Shelley))
According to the quality of sounds:
• complete WEEK-WEAK
• Broken FEET-FEEL
• Eye-rhyme WOOD-FLOOD
• Rhythmis a recurring stress pattern in poetry. It is an even alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables
• A footis a combination of one stressed and some unstressed syllables
• Types of foot:
• Trochee (-.), iambus (.-),
• Dactyl (-..), amphibrach (.-.)
• Anapest (..-)
Sound instrumentation
• Alliterationis a stylistically motivated repetition of consonants
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
(Ch. Dickens)
• Assonanceis the repetition of similar vowel sounds
Tell this soul with sorrow laden,
if within the distant Aiden,
I shall clasp a sainted maiden,
whom the angels name Lenore
(E.A. Poe)
Onomatopoeia
formation of a name or word by an imitation of the sound associated with the thing or action
• Direct onomatopoeia
buzz, beep, quack-quack
• Indirect onomatopoeia
hiss, rustle, whistle, whisper
• Lexical onomatopoeia
thud, crack, slurp, buzz
• Nonlexical onomatopoeia
brrrrm, vroom-vroom
4. Syntactical stylistic devices; their structural, semantic and functional characteristics
STYLISTIC SYNTAX
• syntax, as contrasted to lexis, is incapable of conveying emotions as such, but it immediately reacts to their presence or absence (K.Dolinin)
• expressiveness in syntax is the structural reaction of syntax to the presence or absence of emotions as well as to the varying degrees of their presence (E.Trofimova).