Лекции по "Иностранному языку"

 

 

 

INTENSIFICATION OF A CERTAIN FEATURE OF A THING OR PHENOMENA (PERIPHRASIS, EUPHEMISM, HYPERBOLE)

Periphrasis is a device which, according to Webster's dictionary, denotes the use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter and plainer form of expression. It is also called circumlocution due to the round-about or indirect way used to name a familiar object or phenomenon. One and the same object may be identified in different ways and accordingly acquire different appelations. Thus, in different situations a certain person can be denoted, for instance, as either 'his benefactor', or 'this bore', or 'the narrator', or 'the wretched witness', etc. These names will be his only in a short fragment of the discourse, the criterion of their choice being furnished by the context. Such naming units may be called secondary, textually-confined designations and are generally composed of a word-combination. This device has a long history. It was widely used in the Bible and in Homer's Iliad. As a poetic device it was very popular in Latin poetry. Ex. The cap and gown (student body); a gentleman of the long robe (a lawyer); the fair sex (women); my better half (my wife). Periphrasis as a stylistic device is a new, genuine nomination of an object, a process which realizes the power of language to coin new names for objects by disclosing some quality of the object, even though it may be transitory, and making it alone represent the object. 

 Euphemism, as is known, is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acceptable one, for example, the word 'to die' has bred the following euphemisms: to pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to join the majority, to be gone, and the more facetious ones: to kick the bucket, to give up the ghost. So euphemisms are synonyms which aim at producing a deliberately mild effect. Euphemism is sometimes figuratively called "a whitewashing device". The linguistic peculiarity of euphemism lies in the fact that every euphemism must call up a definite synonym in the mind of the reader or listener. Euphemisms may be divided into several groups according to their spheres of application. The most recognized are the following: religious, moral, medical and parliamentary.

The life of euphemisms is short. They very soon become closely associated with the referent (the object named) and give way to a newly coined word or combination of words, which, being the sign of a sign, throws another veil over an unpleasant or indelicate concept. This becomes particularly noticeable in connection with what are called political euphemisms. These are really understatements, the aim of which is to mislead public opinion and to express what is unpleasant in a more delicate manner. Sometimes disagreeable facts are even distorted with the help of a euphemistic expression.

Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression. Ex. "I tried a thousand times." Like many stylistic devices, hyperbole may lose its quality as a stylistic device through frequent repetition and become a unit of the language-as-a-system, reproduced -in speech in its unaltered form. Ex. 'scared to death’.

 

 

COMPOSITIONAL PATTERNS OF SYNTACTICAL ARRANGEMENT (REPETITION, TYPES OF REPETITION)

It has already been pointed out that repetition is an expressive means of language used when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion. When used as a stylistic device, repetition acquires quite different functions. It does not aim at making a direct emotional impact. On the contrary, the SD of repetition aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the key-word of the utterance. Repetition is classified according to compositional patterns. If the repeated word (or phrase) comes at the beginning of two or more consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases, we have anaphora. If the repeated unit is placed at the end of consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases, we have the type of repetition called epiphora. Among other compositional models of repetition is linking or reduplication. The structure of this device is the following: the last word or phrase of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part, thus hooking the two parts together.

 

 

 

NEWSPAPER STYLE: BRIEF NEWS ITEMS

The principal function of a brief news item is to inform the reader. It states facts without giving explicit comments. News items are essentially matter-of-fact. The language of brief news items is stylistically neutral. Newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of: special political and economic terms (socialism, president); non-term political vocabulary (public, people); newspaper clichés (pressing problem, danger of war); abbreviations (UNO- United Nations Organization); neologism (These are very common in newspaper vocabulary. The newspaper is very quick to react to any new development in the life of society, in science and technology. Hence, neologisms make their way into the language of the newspaper very easily and often even spring up on newspaper pages. E.g. stop-go police - contradictory). The basic peculiarities of news items lie in their syntactical structure. The reporter is obliged to be brief, he naturally tries to cram all his facts into the space allotted. This tendency predetermines the peculiar composition of brief news items and the syntactical structure of the sentences. The size of brief news items varies from one sentence to several (short) paragraphs. And generally, the shorter the news item, the more complex its syntactical structure. The following grammatical peculiarities of brief news items are: a) complex sentences with developed system of clauses; b) verbal constructions (infinitive, participial, gerund); c) syntactical complexes; d) attributive noun groups (heart swap patient); specific word order (journalistic practice has developed what is called ‘five-w-and-h-pattern rule’- who-what-why-how-where-when).

 

 

 

PUBLICISTIC STYLE: ESSAYS AND JOURNALISTIC ARTICLES

As a separate form of English literature the essay dates from the close of the 16th century. An essау is rather a series of personal and witty comments than a finished argument or a conclusive examination of any matter. This literary genre has definite linguistic traits which shape it as a variety of publicistic style. The most characteristic language features of the essay, however, remain 1) brevity of expression, reaching in good writers a degree of epigrammaticalness, 2) the use of the first person singular, which justifies a personal approach to the problems treated, 3) a rather expanded use of connectives, which facilitate the process of grasping the correlation of ideas, 4) the abundant use of emotive words, 5) the use of similes and sustained metaphors as one of the media for the cognitive process. It is in the interrelation of these constituents that the real secret of the essay substyle consists. Some essays, depending on the writer's individuality, are written in a highly emotional manner resembling the style of emotive prose, others resemble scientific prose, and the terms review, memoir or treatise are more applicable to certain more exhaustive studies. In comparison with oratorical style, the essay aims at a more lasting, hence, at a slower effect. Epigrams, paradoxes and aphorisms are comparatively rare in oratory, as they require the concentrated attention of the listener. In the essay they are commoner, for the reader has opportunity to make a careful and detailed study both of the content of the utterance and its form.

Irrespective of the character of the magazine and the divergence of subject matter—whether it is political, literary, popular-scientific or satirical, all the already mentioned features of publicistic style are to be found in any article. The character of the magazine as well as the subject chosen affects the choice and use of stylistic devices. Words of emotive meaning, for example, are few, if any, in popular scientific articles. Their exposition is more consistent and the system of connectives more expanded than,-say, in a satirical article. Literary reviews stand closer to essays both by their content and by their linguistic form. More abstract words of logical meaning are used in them, they often resort to emotional language and less frequently to traditional set expressions.

 

 

 

PECULIAR USE OF SET EXPRESSION (CLICHES, QUOTATIONS, ALLUSIONS)

A cliché is generally defined as an expression that has become trite. Cliché is a derogatory term and it is therefore necessary to avoid anything that may be called by that name. But the fact is that most of the widely recognized word-combinations which have been adopted by the language are unjustly classified as clichés. The aversion for clichés has gone so far that most of the lexical units based on simile are branded as clichés. Debates of this kind proceed from a grossly mistaken notion that the term 'cliché' is used to denote all stable word-combinations, whereas it was coined,*to denote word-combinations which have long lost their novelty and become trite,' but which are used as if they were fresh and original and so have become irritating to people who are sensitive to the language they hear and read. What is familiar should not be given a derogatory label. On the contrary, if it has become familiar, that means it has won general recognition and by iteration has been accepted as a unit of the language.

A quotation is a repetition of a phrase or statement from a book, speech and the like used by way of authority, illustration, proof or as a basis for further speculation on the matter in hand. What is quoted must be worth quoting, since a quotation will inevitably acquire some degree of generalization. If repeated frequently, it may be recognized as an epigram, if, of course, it has at least some of the linguistic properties of the latter. A quotation is the exact reproduction of an actual utterance made by a certain author. The work containing the utterance quoted must have been published or at least spoken in public; for quotations are echoes of somebody else's words. Quotations are used as a stylistic device, as is seen from these exam-j pies, with the aim of expanding the meaning of the sentence quoted and setting two meanings one against the other, thus modifying the original meaning. In this quality they are used mostly in the belles-lettres style. Quotations used in other styles of speech allow no modifications of meaning, unless actual distortion of form and meaning is the aim of the quoter.

An allusion is an indirect reference, by word or phrase, to a historical, literary, mythological, biblical fact or to "a fact of'everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. The use of allusion presupposes knowledge of the fact, thing or person alluded to on the part of the reader or listener. As a rule no indication of the source is given. This is one of the notable differences between quotation and allusion. Another difference is of a structural nature: a quotation must repeat the exact wording of the original even though the meaning may be modified by the new context; an allusion is only a mention of a word or phrase which may be regarded as the key-word of the utterance. An allusion has certain important semantic peculiarities, in that the meaning of the word (the allusion) should be regarded as a form for the new meaning. Allusions are based on the accumulated experience and the knowledge of the writer who presupposes a similar experience and knowledge in the reader. Allusions and quotations may be termed nonce-set-expressions because they are used only for the occasion. Allusions are used in different styles, but their function is everywhere the same. The deciphering of an allusion, however, is not always easy.