LEXICO-SEMANTIC STYLISTIC DEVICES

1. Personification.

2. Allegory.

3. Metonymy. Metonymy and metaphor.

4. Synecdoche.

5. Antonomasia.

PERSONIFICATION [p ə,sonıfı'keıſn ] олицетворение

Personification consists in attributing human properties to lifeless objects – natural phenomena, abstract notions (thoughts, intentions, emotions, etc).

• E.g. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand on our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained face up to hers, and smiles, and though she does not speak, we know what she would say and lay our hot, flushed cheek against her bosom and the pain is gone (J.K.Jerome Three Men in a Boat).

Personification helps us visualize the description, conveys a particular mood of the viewer and revives the unity of Man and Nature, which originated in myths.

FORMAL SIGNS OF PERSONIFICATION

• Personal pronouns he/she with reference to lifeless things • E.g. her hand, her bosom Verbs denoting actions of human beings • • E.g. lays her hand, smiles, does not speak Capitalization of the word E.g. If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same… (R. Kipling) Direct address E.g. O stretch thy reign, fair Peace! From shore to shore Till conquest cease, and slavery be no more (A. Pope)

ALLEGORY [‘æl əgərı ] - аллегория

• • Allegory means “expressing abstract ideas through concrete pictures” (Skrebnev) It uses concrete images (animals, birds, lifeless things) to express general truths about human nature, life situations, etc.

The term is mostly applied to complete texts, not to individual metaphors.

ALLEGORY

• Proverbs – short allegorical texts; • • E.g. Make hay while the sun shines = do not miss an opportunity; make use of a favourable situation.

Every cloud has a silver lining = a period of distress is sure to have an end.

Allegorical genres: fairy tales, parables, fables; Allegory can also be found in philosophical and satirical novels: E.g. Gulliver’s Travels: Lilliputians and Brobdignagians.

METONYMY [m ə’tonəmı ] - метонимия

The trope consists in applying the name of an object to another object that is in some way connected with the first.

E.g. The kettle is boiling.

Зал затих, я вышел на подмостки…

Traditional/language metonymy

• • Traditional metonymy is part of language and is studied by lexicology. It has no expressive force.

Traditional metonymies are fixed in dictionaries and treated as derivative meanings of a word: E.g. GLASS – easily; 1) a hard, usu transparent substance that can break 2) a) a container for drinking from made of glass (a wineglass, a beer glass); b) the contents of this (a glass of water); 3) containers and articles made of glass (All our glass and china is kept here);……..

5) (pl) a pair of lenses in a frame that rests on the nose and ears (She wears glasses).

TYPES OF RELATIONS METONYMY IS BASED ON

• MATERIAL → OBJECT • E.g. IRON – 1) железо; …3) железное, скобяное изделие (pl стремена; клюшка с железной головкой (гольф); pl ножные протезы; утюг; pl оковы, кандалы).

CONTAINER → CONTAINED STUFF • E.g. Let’s drink a cup. The gallery applauded.

INSTRUMENT → THE ACTION PERFORMED WITH ITS HELP E.g. He earned his living by pen.

TYPES OF RELATIONS METONYMY IS BASED ON

• CONCRETE THING (→SYMBOL) →ABSTRACT NOTION • E.g. The Crown fell down in 1917.

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE OF AN OBJECT → OBJECT E.g. Blue suit grinned, might even have winked.

CONTEXTUAL/GENUINE METONYMY

• It reveals a quite unexpected substitution of one word for another, on the ground of some strong impression produced by a chance feature of the thing.

E.g. Miss Tox’s hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr. Dombey’s arm, and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and a Babylonian collar (Dickens).

E.g. A mop of blond hair glanced up at the intrusion (Fowles).

METONYMY AND METAPHOR

Both tropes are based on the transferred use of meaning, which makes them easily confusible.

The difference lies in the basis of this transfer of meaning: Metaphor: the shift of the meaning is based on similarity which is created by our imagination.

Metonymy: the shift is based on OBJECTIVE RELATIONS between objects which can be observed in reality.

SYNECDOCHE [sı’nekd əkı ] - синекдоха

A kind of metonymy which reflects one particular relationship between the whole and its part.

The name of the part is used to denote the whole or vice versa.

E.g.

Hands (=workers) wanted.

He found a roof there.

Two heads are better than one.

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind (Shakespeare).

Stop torturing the poor animal (=dog)!

ANTONOMASIA [ænt ənəu’meızıə ] антономасия

• Antonomasia consists in using a proper name for a common name and is formally marked by a capital letter.

E.g.

Society is now one polished horde, Form’d of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored (Byron) E.g.

There were six other candidates waiting to go in with me… There was the Nonchalant, lolling back on the rear legs of his chair with his feet on the table. […] There was the Crammer, fondling the pages of his battered textbook in a desperate farewell embrace… (R. Gordon)

METONYMIC ANTONOMASIA

The name of a person may stand for the thing he created E.g. He bought a Ford.

This is my real Goya (Galsworthy)

METAPHORICAL ANTONOMASIA

The use of a name of historical, literary, mythological, or biblical personage applied to a person whose characteristic features make him similar to the well-known original.

E.g. I know this Don Juan well.

You are Brutus (=traitor).

SUGGESTIVE/TELL-TALE NAMES – “говорящие” имена

Common nouns used to form proper names of literary characters, which give information about their bearers, point out their leading features and categorize them.

E.g.

Scrooge Murdstone Lady Sneerwell Mr. Backbite Молчалин Скалозуб Собакевич Иван Бездомный Miss Languish проф. Преображенский Rebecca Sharp

Sir Pottledeep, the mighty drinker. There was the sage Miss Reading. And the two co-heiresses Giltbedding.

There was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician, Who loved philosophy and a good dinner; Angle, the soi-disant mathematician; Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner. (Byron “Don Juan”)