Контрольная работа по дисциплине «Стилистика»

Мин

Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение

высшего профессионального образования

Российский государственный профессионально-педагогический университет

 Институт лингвистики

Кафедра германской филологии

Контрольная работа по дисциплине

«Стилистика»

Вариант-5

Студентки группы ЗИА – 418С

Горбуновой Л.В.

Екатеринбург

2011

1. Стилистические ресурсы английского языка.

Задание. Answer the question.

On what principles are most figures of speech (syntactical stylistic devices) built? 

“Syntactical devices are structural elements having their own independent meaning and this meaning may affect the lexical meaning. As syntactical devices are syntagmatic they may impart a special contextual meaning to some of the lexical units” [2;191]. These characteristics are given by Prof. Galperin in his book “Stylistics”.

There are different syntactical stylistic devices and different classifications of it. For example, Galperin suggests the following principal criteria for classifying syntactical stylistic devices: the juxtaposition of the parts an utterance (e.g. inversion, detached constructions, parallel constructions, chiasmus, repetition, enumeration, climax, antithesis); the type of connection of the parts (e.g. asyndeton, polysyndeton, gap-sentence link); the peculiar use of colloquial constructions (e.g. ellipsis, aposiopesis, question in the narrative, represented speech); the transference of structural meaning (e.g. litotes, rhetorical questions) [2; 202-248].

All existed classifications show different categorization of expressive means connected with syntax.  However, there are a few general principles on which most of the syntactical stylistic devices are built. They will be illustrated further in brief:

1. The omission or absence of one or more parts of the sentence results in

ellipsis of various types. The omitted part can be reconstructed from the context. It can use in fiction, in casual talk, in represented speech with different purposes. There are different varieties of ellipsis:

1. one-member nominal sentences (they have no separate subject and predicate but one main part instead: “Matchbooks. Hotel towels”);
2. break-in-the narrative (a device that consists in the emotional halt in the middle or towards the end of an utterance: “You just come home or I’ll…”);
3. decomposition (splitting the sentences into separate snatches: “Him, of all things! Him! Never!”  (Lawrence)).

2. Reiteration (repetition) of some parts. It is never a mechanical repetition of

a word or structure. It is always accompanied by new connotations.  Different types of it may be classified on the compositional principle:

4. anaphora is the repletion of the same element at the beginning of two or

more clauses, sentences: “If only little Edward were twenty. If only his own debts were less.” (Rutherfurd);

5. epiphora consists in the repletion of certain elements at the end of two or

more clauses, sentences: “I don’t know  if I want a business or not. Or if I can pay for it, if I did want it” (Shute).

6. anadiplosis  is a word or a group of words completing a sentence is

repeated at the beginning of a succeeding sentence: “Three fishers went sailing out into the West. Out into the West, as the sun went down” (Kingsley);

3. Inversion. It is upsetting of the normal order of words. It can produce different specific effects: “In he got and away they went” (Waugh) – dynamic tone.
4. The interaction of adjacent sentences is a compositional syntactical technique. Parallel constructions are one of the major emphatic means. They are similarly built and used in close succession. For example, the parallel costruction where the word order of the first phrase is inverted in the second is called chiasmus: “They had loved her, and she loved them (Caldwell)” [3; 110-116].

2. Классификация экспрессивных средств и стилистических приемов.

Задание: Give an outline of the antique theory of rhetoric and language styles.

The problems of language in antique times became a concern of scholars because of the necessity to comment on literature and poetry. The first linguistic theory called sophistry in the 5th century B.C. Gorgeous and Trasimachus created the first school of rhetoric whose principles were later developed by Aristotle. He differentiated literary language and colloquial language. This first theory included 3 subdivisions:

1. The choice of words included lexical expressive means such as foreign words, archaisms, neologisms, poetic words, metaphor.
2. Word combinations involved three things: order of words, word-combinations, rhythm and period (a complete sentence).
3. Figures of speech included antithesis, assonance and equality of colons.

Later antique system was developed well. It was called the Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system. Look at it in brief.

All expressive means were divided into three large groups:

1. Tropes: metaphor (a mighty Fortress is our God), metonymy (crown for

sovereign), synecdoche (a fleet of 40 sails), catachresis (alibi for excuse), epithet (a lovely, summery evening), antonomasia (The Iron Lady).

2. Figures of Speech create Rhythm:

1. by means of addition:  doubling of words and sounds (tip-top, wishy -washy), polysyndeton (he thought, and thought, and thought) and asyndeton (he provided the poor with jobs, with money, with respect), anaphora.
2. based on compression: zeugma (she dropped a tear and her money), chiasmus (I respect her and she respects me), ellipsis (Tomorrow at 5.30 ).
3. based on opposition : equality of colons, proportion and harmony of colons.

Colons – one of the sections of a rhythmical period in Greek chorus consisting of a sequence of 2 to 6 feet.

4. based on assonance or accord: antithesis (give me liberty or give me death), anastrophe (inversion in contemporary terms – Me he restored).

3. Types of speech were represented in a kind of hierarchy: elevated, flowery

exquisite, poetic, normal, dry, scanty, hackneyed, and tasteless.

Attempts to analyse and determine the style-forming features of prose also began in ancient times. Demetrius of Alexandria characterized styles by rhetoric of purpose that required certain grammatical constructions:

The Plain Style is simple, using many active verbs and keeping its subjects spare. It purposes include clarity, familiarity. It employs helpful connection terms and clear clauses with firm endings.

The Eloquent Style changes the natural order of events.  It may be called passive. Words can be unusual, coined; meanings can be implied, oblique and symbolic. Sentences are lengthy, rounded, well balanced.

For the Romans a recommended proportion for language units in verse was two nouns and two adjectives to one verb, which they called “the golden line”.

Finally the choices of certain stylistic features in different combinations settled into three types – plain, middle and high. [3;37-45]

3. Фонографические экспрессивные средства.

Задание. Identify and define the phonographic stylistic devices used in the given examples:

1. The telephone was buzzing insistently – onomatopoeia – sound imitation.
2. …and happy as the grass was green – assonance – the recurrence of stressed vowels.
3. The day is cold, and dark and dreary;

It rains, and the wind is never weary

The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,

But at every gust the dead leaves fall.

Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words.  It is internal rhyme (the rhyming words are placed not at the ends of the lines but within the line).

4. WILL YOU BE QUIET!- he bawled – capitalization – a graphic mean to

emphasise the “unheard” phonetic characteristics such as the pitch of voice, the stress and other melodic features.

4. Лексические стилистические приемы.

Задание. Identify and define the lexical stylistic devices used in the given examples.

1. She was a dynamo of activity. She was here, there and everywhere…  - metaphor – the application of a word to an object (concept) it doesn’t literally denote to suggest comparison with other object or concept.

hyperbole – use the exaggerated terms for emphasis.

2. I caught you in a lie! What will you say now, Mr.Honesty? – Я поймал вас во лжи! Что вы скажите сейчас, Мистер Честность?
3. They sent a fleet of fifty sail to the Mediterranean. – synecdoche-the mention of a part for the whole.  
4. Have you been seeing any spirits? inquired the old gentleman

Or taking any? added Bob Allen.  – Вы видели приведений? – спросил старый джентльмен.  – Или хватали его? – добавил Боб Ален

5. He is famous for his humble ambition and his proud humility.  – oxymoron – a logical collision of seemingly incompatible words.

5. Синтаксические стилистические приемы.

Задание. Identify and define the syntactical stylistic devices used in the given examples.

1. Youth is full of pleasance,

Age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn,

Age like winter weather.

It is antithesis – anti-statement, active confrontation of notions used to show the contradictory nature of the subject described.  

But also it is parallelism –structural repetition of sentences.

2. Flowers! You wouldn’t believe it, madam, the  flowers he used to bring me.  – inversion – upsetting of the normal order of words.
3. That he signs and his signs, and forever signs he-

I love my Love and my Love loves me!

- chiasmus – two parallel syntactical constructions contain a reserved order of their members.

4. What difference if it rained, hailed, blew or cyclone? – climax – gradation of emphatic elements growing in strength.
5. Three fishers went sailing out into the West.

Out into the west, as the sun went down. –anadiplosis – the final element of one sentence, paragraph is repeated in the initial part of the next sentence, paragraph.

Используемые  источники информации:

1. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка М., 2009- 384с.
2. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. Moscow, 1977-328p.
3. Znamenskaya T.A. Stylistics of the English language. Moscow, 2006 – 206p.