Аллитерация в русской и английской поэзии.

Alliteration in the Russian-English poetry.

Prepared by Poroshina Yana

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics.

 It studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on the linguistic knowledge (e.g. grammar, lexicon etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, knowledge about the status of those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and so on.

 In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.

 The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence. So an utterance describing pragmatic function is described as metapragmatic. Pragmatic awareness is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of language learning, and comes only through experience.

Pragmatic aspect of information.
- characterization of information in terms of usefulness, fitness for a solution. In this evaluation can be subjective, reflecting the views of the recipient of information (the interpreter).

I have dedicated my work the use of alliteration in English and Russian. I often notice that it is used in commercials, I wanted to find out its effect on my consciousness.

Alliteration 

is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this device lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words:

"The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence and feud, frosts and fires it follows the laws of progression." (Galsworthy)

Alliteration is the repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words.
Assonance and Consonance.

Alliteration is the genus, whereas, assonance and consonance are the species. So an example would be alliteration and then more specifically and exactly consonance or assonance.

"lady lounges lazily" is both alliteration and consonance

Example:
In cliches: sweet smell of success, a dime a dozen, bigger and better, jump for joy
Wordsworth: And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

The matching or repetition of consonants is called alliteration, or the repeating of the same letter (or sound) at the beginning of words following each other immediately or at short intervals. A famous example is to be found in the two lines by Tennyson:

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

The ancient poets often used alliteration instead of rhyme; in Beowulf there are three alliterations in every line. For example:

Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings, Leader beloved, and long he ruled In fame with all folk since his father had gone . . .

Modern poets also avail themselves of alliteration, especially as a substitute for rhyme. Edwin Markham's "Lincoln, the Man of the People" is in unrhymed blank verse, but there are many lines as alliterative as:

She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down To make a man to meet the mortal need A man to match the mountains and the sea The friendly welcome of the wayside well

Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man" begins:

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step. . . .

The eye immediately sees the alliteration in the "m's" in "Mary sat musing" and the "w's" in "Waiting for Warren. When. . . ." But it is the car that picks up the half-buried in "sounds in" lamp-flame sounds which act like faint and distant rhymes.

Like rhyme, alliteration is a great help to memory. It is powerful a device that prose has borrowed it. It is the alliteration which makes us remember such phrases as: "sink or swim," "do or die," "fuss and feathers," "the more the merrier," "watchful waiting," "poor but proud," "hale and hearty," "green as grass," "live and learn," "money makes the mare go."

While alliteration is the recurrence of single letter-sounds, there is another kind of recurrence which is the echo or repetition of a word or phrase. This is found in many kinds of poetry, from nonsense rhymes to ballads. The repeated words or syllables add an extra beat and accentuate the rhythm. They are often heard in "choruses" or "refrains," as in Shakespeare's "With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino" or Rudyard Kipling's:

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Chuck him out, the brute!
But it's "Savior of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.

Excellent use of repetition occurs through the whole of Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy" "Danny Deever" and Alfred Noyes's "The Barrel-Organ" especially in such lines as:

Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

Fun story filled with alliteration, Pecked by a Pesky Pelican.

For some fun, try Alliteration Plus

Alliteration in English poetry.

Old English poetry had no known rules or system left to us by the Anglo-Saxons, everything we know about it is based on modern analysis. The first widely accepted theory was by Eduard Sievers (1885) in which he distinguished five distinct alliterative patterns. The theory of John C. Pope (1942) uses musical notations which has had some acceptance; every few years a new theory arises and the topic continues to be hotly debated.

The most popular and well known understanding of Old English poetry continues to be Sievers alliterative verse. The system is based upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation. It consists of five permutations on a base verse scheme; any one of the five types can be used in any verse. The system was inherited and exists in one form or another in all of the older Germanic languages. Two poetic figures commonly found in Old English poetry are the Kenning, an often formulaic phrase that describes one thing in terms of another, e.g. in Beowulf, the sea is called the swan's road and Litotes, a dramatic understatement employed by the author for ironic effect.

Most Old English poets are anonymous; twelve are known by name from Medieval sources, but only three of those are known by their works to us today: Caedmon, Aldhelm, and Cynewulf.

Caedmon is the most well known and considered the father of Old English poetry. He lived at the abbey of Whitby in Northumbria in the 7th century. Only a single nine line poem remains, called Hymn, which is also the oldest surviving text in English:

• "You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife."
  (advertising slogan for Country Life butter)

• "A moist young moon hung above the mist of a neighboring meadow."
  (Vladimir Nabokov, Conclusive Evidence)

• "Guinness is good for you."
  (advertising slogan)

• "A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!"
  (Albert Brooks as Aaron Altman in Broadcast News, 1987)

• "The soul selects her own society."
  (Emily Dickinson)

• "[S]he had no room for gaiety and ease. She had spent the golden time in grudging its going."
  (Dorothy Parker, "The Lovely Leave")

• "Good men are gruff and grumpy, cranky, crabbed, and cross."
  (Clement Freud)

• "Forget the most obvious problem with collegiate calorie counting, that studying Kierkegaard or Conrad after a dinner of seitan and soy chips would render even robust stomachs seasick, sometimes outright ill. And I won’t harp on the clear link between vigorous salad consumption and sulkiness."
  (Marisha Pessl, "Seize the Weight." The New York Times, Oct. 6, 2006)

• "Miss Twining teaches tying knots
  In neckerchiefs and noodles,
  And how to tell chrysanthemums
  From miniature poodles."
  (Dr Seuss, Jack Prelutsky, and Lane Smith, Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! Knopf, 1998)

• "In a somer seson, whan soft was the sonne . . ."
  (William Langland, Piers Plowman, 14th century)

• "The sibilant sermons of the snake as she discoursed upon the disposition of my sinner's soul seemed ceaseless."
  (Gregory Kirschling, The Gargoyle, 2008)

• "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
  (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

• "The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life."
  (F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)

• "Pompey Pipped at the Post as Pippo Pounces"
  (sports headline, Daily Express, Nov. 28, 2008)

• "Alliteration, or front rhyme, has been traditionally more acceptable in prose than end-rhyme but both do the same thing--capitalize on chance. . . . This powerful glue can connect elements without logical relationship."
  (Richard Lanham, Analyzing Prose. Continuum, 2003)

• "My style is public negotiations for parity, rather than private negotiations for position."
  (Jesse Jackson)

• "Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed."
  (Bob Dylan, "Lay, Lady, Lay")
  

Alliteration in Russian poetry.

Russian native poetry takes one of the most important places in country’s culture. You can see assortment of literary devices. Sonorous alliterations are scattered in the text of «Слова о полку Игореве»:

...Трубы трубят в Новеграде, стоять стязи в Путивле...
...Нощь стонущи ему грозою, птичь убуди; свист зверин въста близ...
...С зарания в пятк потопташа поганыя плъкы половецкыя...

        In 18 century, when reformers of Russian Poetry V. Trediakovski и М. Lomonosov developed foundations of a new metric verse, there was a tendency to use alliteration as a means of sonic expression. Scientist and experimenter, Lomonosov created poems with using alliteration, where prevailed letter «г»:

Бугристы берега, благоприятны влаги,
О, горы с гроздьями, где греет юг ягнят,
О, грады, где торги, где мозго-круглы браги...

         Derzhavin’s, Batushkov’s Sumarokov’s Experiences of alliteration poetry was successfully too, but Pushkin’s alliteration poetry is more spread.

Нева вздувалась и ревела,
Котлом клокоча и клубясь.
Шипенье пенистых бокалов
И пунша пламень голубой

Кто к торгу страстному приступит?
Свою любовь я продаю...

In the following verses, Pushkin used fine alliteration - a combination of sounds of consonants and vowels:

Унылая пора! очей очарованье!
Приятна мне твоя прощальная краса...

In the spirit of Pushkin's artistry meets a beautiful alliteration of other poets, such as:

Как Волги вал белоголовый
Доходит целый к берегам.
(Н. Языков)

Волга, Волга, весной многоводной

Ты не так заливаешь поля...
(Н. Некрасов)

Вечер. Взморье. Вздохи ветра.
Величавый возглас волн.
Близко буря, в берег бьется
Чуждый чарам черный челн...
Чуждый чистым чарам счастья,
Челн томленья, челн тревог
Бросил берег, бьется с бурей,
Ищет светлых снов чертог...
Другое стихотворение Бальмонта «Влага» сплошь аллитери-ровано на «л»:
С лодки скользнуло весло,
Ласково млеет прохлада.
«Милый! Мой милый!» — Светло,
Сладко от беглого взгляда.
Лебедь уплыл в полумглу,
Вдаль, под луною белея.
Ластятся волны к веслу,
Ластится к влаге лилея.
Слухом невольно ловлю
Лепет зеркального лона.
«Милый! Мой милый! Люблю» —
Полночь глядит с небосклона.

One of elementary type of alliteration is onomatopoeia, For examplein poem of Umber «Пулковский меридиан» (growl Nazi’s planes over the besieged city):

Вверху рычат германские моторы:
— Мы фюрера покоррные рабы,
Мы превращаем горрода в грробы,
Мы — смерть... Тебя уже не будет скоро

Impact of alliteration

 Today, alliteration effects  to the reader . We can see, that it using in commercials and in music. With the help of many studies, scientists proved that alliteretion could use as a weapon to penetrate the human psyche.

This process is in the phonetic level and based in the phonetic of main words.

Fine views of alliteration creates a kind of rhythmic pattern. Full-Figured rhythmic symmetry would make the phrase monotonously-monotone, which contradicts the aesthetics of speech perception.

I wanted to see the effect of alliteration in the human psyche. I made some experiences and learns , what letters in Russian and English Language more common  in alliteration methods.

Among Russian:  В, Б, С, Ч

Among English: S, T, F, R

Analyzing the results,I made Graphics, that let us sure, what color prevails in each letter.

After composing graphics, I learned, that each color make individuality effect to the psyche, and all of colors govern not only to the mood, but even on the human condition.

For example

 Красный цвет (R, Б) Red is a stimulating, active color. It acts compulsively, forcibly. The breathe, pulse of human chance , but soon comes the fatigue, decreased attention and reaction.

Желтый цвет(T) color creates the illusion of sunlight. It is active. It creates  the perfect mood.

Голубой(B) Color is the weakening and slowing of life processes because it is a passive color. This reduces the activity and emotional stress, promotes a feeling of coolness

 Синий цвет(S,С) This reduces the activity of vital processes, normal breathing and pulse. Produces a state of contemplation and reflection.

Фиолетовый цвет(F) this is the most passive of all colors, causing a reduction in vitality, reduction in activity. With its long-term effects a state of depression and anxiety

Черный цвет(Ч) This causes a sharp drop in sentiment, as a gloomy, heavy, oppressive color.

After experiment, I was interest in effects, and their influence in the simple life. It is not a secret, that it using a lot of methods of suggestion in modern advertisement, to sell products favorably. People use slogans in advertisement creating,

When I saw some slogans, I noted that some of them was with alliteration and we can meet it every day in the streets or in the houses by TV.

For example:

• Ваши личные наличные
• We don’t have regular readers- Newspaper Employment
• It is time to take office(sale cash registers)
• And we - WITH OIL(restaurant advertising)
• Ваша киска купила бы Wiskas

Another slogans we meet in the cinema.

• above all things, this story is about love из "Мулен Руж
• Ваши карты будут биты

Also alliteration uses in social advertismant.

• Hope for Haiti. 
  Название-лозунг телемарафона и сбора средств в поддержку Гаити, пострадавшей от землетрясения, 2010

• Know your unit, know your limit. 
  ALCOHOL, KNOW YOUR LIMITS, британская программа против алкоголизма

• Kill a kid. Kill a family. 
  СОВЕТ ПЕШЕХОДОВ АВСТРАЛИИ. Социальный слоган за соблюдение автомобилистами скоростного режима вблизи школ, 2008
  Вслед за сбитым ребёнком автомобиль сбивает всю семью

We can see alliteration in the alias.

• Монро Мэрилин (амер.киноактриса) Норма Бейкер

• Морган Мишель (франц.киноактриса) Симона Руссель

• Тина Тернер амер. певица Энни Мэй Балок

Based on the data, we can come to the conclusion that alliteration can make "miracles" This can be considered for any of the examples. In the role of my example will an American actress Marilyn Monroe. Its name - the most vivid embodiment of alliteration. Her name does not go out of fashion to this day. I think that of  a part of fame she should be thankful to sounding its nickname, the perception of his associates.

Now I can accurately say that alliteration has an enormous impact on the perception of the world. But can there alliteration awaken any feelings? Is it possible to use alliteration in manipulation of people?

It turns out that the political slogans used alliteration. For what? It is used by politicians to attract the attention of voters to their party and political views.

 In the political slogans, we can see these examples:

• Россия победит бедность 
• Россия победит бесправие (Яблоко)

• «Возрождение России» - «Российская партия жизни». Слоганы:
  
• «Не выживать, а жить!» 

• Equal pay for equal work!
  Лозунг женской эмансипации

• Bread and roses! Лозунг 15 тысяч женщин, прошедших 8 марта 1908 года по улицам Нью-Йорка. С этого начался Международный женский день
• You won it, now earn it. Слоган-обращение к Бараку Обаме. Норвежские активисты вывесили его перед входом в городской холл города Осло в день вручения нобелевских премий, 2009
• Trust. Traditions. Transparency. Tolerance. «Четыре Т» – девиз саммита ОБСЕ, который проходит в Казахстане в 2010 

After reading some of the slogans, I remembered military Russian song. "Вставай, страна огромная».

I immediately noticed a bright alliteration. Sounds very difficult to perceive have been repeatedly consumed in the same sentence. While listening to this song you can feel the rush of emotions, it is quite difficult to describe in words .

This may explain the fury with which the soldiers went into battle. After all, in fact, we can assume that it is the alliteration, in which a kind, contributed to a successful end of the battles. I was curious about the British military songs.

I listened a lot of British military songs. I did not see alliteration there. For example a British song with which the soldiers went into battle.

Песня.

In my work I have traced the evolution of using alliteration. In the end, I found out for myself that alliteration has changed its function and value over time. Initially, it was necessary to create a sonorous poem. The authors, whose names sound nowadays, were addicted to alliteration poems and stories to create memorable works. Alliteration helped perpetuate in the memory of what that line, or quatrains. Alliteration helped perpetuate the memory of rows or quatrains.

But over time, alliteration lost ancestral function. Perhaps because of the ignorance of people of that period, perhaps because of the emergence of the media, but the fact remains. Now alliteration used in practical areas, in most cases. With alliteration can inspire, manipulate, influence mood. Alliteration in contact with psychology and this is a good tool for advertising. Of course, the alliteration used in poetry and prose, but it is the most intrusive advertising.