Stylistic Phonetics

Phonographic Means of Stylistics.

The notion of EM and SD on the phonetic level.

 The most powerful expressive means of any language are phonetic, because the human
voice can indicate subtle nuances of meaning that no other means can attain.
 Phonetic stylistic devices are

 special combinations and alterations of sounds in their syntagmatic succession, which

in combination with other language means create different stylistic effects.
Phonetic Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices

 Phonetic EMs
- pitch, melody, stress, pause, whispering, singing, and other ways of using human voice

 PhoneticSDs
- assonance, alliteration,onomatopoeia, euphony, cacophony
The system of English versification and instrumentation

Models of the organization of the sound flow are divided into two groups:

 versification

 instrumentation.
 Rhyme and Rhythm. English metrical patterns. The system of English
versification.

 Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words.

The full rhyme :

 (might, right).
 When there is identity of the stressed syllable, including the initial consonant of the second
syllable (in polysyllabic words), we have exact or identical rhymes.
 A Fool might once himself alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.

Incomplete rhymes :

 vowel rhymes (flesh - fresh – press)

 consonant rhymes (worth - forth; tremble – trouble).

 Compound or broken
(upon her honour - won her; bottom - forgot'em - shot him).

 Eye-rhyme or half-rhyme
(love - prove, flood - brood, have – grave).
 framing or ring rhymes - abba.
According to the way the rhymes are
arranged within the stanza, certain models have been defined:

 couplets - aa.
(I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree." - Joyce Kilmer)
 triple rhymes - aaa. (sanity, vanity )
 cross rhymes - abab.
 Rhythm is the pattern of sounds perceived as the recurrence of equivalent “beats” at more
or less equal intervals.

 English rhythm is manifested in a metrical pattern, i.e. the sequence and measure beats
and “off-beats” arranged in verse lines and governing the alternations of stressed and
unstressed syllables.
 Foot is the smallest unit of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse.

 Iambus [ aıʹæmbəs ]

 Trochee [ troʊki ]
 Dactyl

 Anapest

 Amphybrach
 iambic foot
That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | behold

 trochaic foot
Tell me | not in | mournful | numbers

 anapestic foot
And the sound | of a voice | that is still

 dactylic foot
This is the | forest pri | meval, the | murmuring | pine and the | hemlocks
Types of instrumentation (sound-instrumenting)

 1) Alliteration

 E. g. live and learn

 last but not the least
 “Pride and Prejudice”
 forget and forgive
 2) Assonance

 E.g.The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.

 3) Onomatopoeia
 e.g. "hiss", “bump", “buwwow".
 Direct onomatopoeia
 e.g. cuckoo, buzz, roar, mew.
 Indirect onomatopoeia
 e.g. And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain (E. Poe). - the
repetition of the sound [s] produces the association of the rustling of the curtain.
 4) Euphony [
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into
nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet
breathing.”
--Endymion, by John Keats
 5) Cacophony

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
- “Jabberwocky”, by Lewis Carroll

“Lick, crack, sick, hack. The beggar harried her open back.
Crash, bang, clang!!
We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked will.”
-- Winston Churchill
GRAPHICAL STYLISTICS

 Graphical stylistic means include:

 1- punctuation marks
 2- typographic techniques
 3- graphons
  1- Punctuation marks

 divide sentences into synctactic units and texts into sentences;

 point out elements prominent emotionally (pauses, irony);
 render the author’s attitude to what he’s speaking about;
 reflect not only logical, but also rhythmical-melodical organization of
speech.
- Exclamation mark (!)

- e.g. “Wouldjer believe it!” cried the man.

- Interrogation mark (?)

- e.g. “Hello, Matfield. Going out are you?”

- A dash (–)

e.g. “Well, thanks very much,” he said, “but – I don’t know – you see – ”

- A full-stop(.) and a comma (,)

- e.g. He left the house. It was better outside, in the dark.

- Inverted commas (“ ”)

- e.g. Mr Dersingham was beginning to wear a look of great self-importance,

called a “big drive”.
Typographical techniques

- Italics

- e.g. I did weep most terribly, when he went away.

- Bold type
e.g. Muriel, I want to know.
- Spacing out
e.g. Well, she h a s been stuffing you nicely with importance.
Printing in capital letters
- e.g. The Grand Perhaps!

Multiplication of letters
-e.g. Well, Alice has a dog, the absu-u-urdest creature.

Hyphanation
-e.g. And the ship’s the L-e-m-m-a-l-a,
Lemmala. Can you remember that?
The graphon

 is an associative stylistic device of the phono-graphical level which is realized through the
distortion of spelling norms

e.g. “Sho he ish,” her husband assured her,

“but that’sh what hish firm shellsh.”
 Graphons can be classified according to the quality of distorted sounds into:
 those that reflect changes in vowels e.g. girl – gal
 those that reflect changes in consonants e.g. that – dat

Contact graphons

e.g. lemmi – let me

o’town – of town
Examples of graphons can also be
found:

 in Cockney (lydy - lady)

 in Northern dialect (coom - come)
 in American English (dey - they)
Graphic Means of Stylistics

 are a set of external organization of the text, that is of the ways of arrangement of elements and
parts of the text (paragraphs, headlines) and of other polygraphic means (sizes and types of
prints, ways of their arrangement, kinds of printing) which add visual expressiveness to the text
that helps to comprehend the context of the text.
Various ways of arrangement (segmentation) of the text

1) Traditional Segmentation of the Text

 The banner

 The overline

 The headline
The underhead is of 3 kinds:
 The bank (a secondary headline);
 The read-out (explanation to the banner);
 The subhead (the head which is located within the text).

 The leading paragraph

 2)Violation of the Segmentation of the Text

The text can lack traditional components (e.g. paragraphs, lines, etc.):
e.g.
Mouse)Won
mouse)Won
derfully is
anyone else entirely who doesn't
move (Moved more suddenly than) whose tiniest smile? May Be
bigger than the fear of all
hearts never which have
(Per
haps) loved…
(E.E.Cummings)
3) Macrosegmentation of the Text

The text may be segmented into parts by the use of empty space or change of the print:

e.g. "How did it feel, John?

It felt terrible. The worst moment in my life. Terrible, it felt. It still does.

It always will. It's going to be with me forever, this; the moment…

Has it changed your life in any way, John?

It has changed my life. It's changed it in a lot of ways…"

"The Thing He Loves", by B.Glanwill

4) Microsegmentation of the Text (Microparagraph)

Each sentence can be graphically arranged into a paragraph in order to emphasize its logical and
expressive significance:

e.g. "Someone's behind us", Nisus said. They were at the first of the boats now. Again the
noise behind them… (J.Aldridge)
 5)Graphic Segmentation of the Paragraph

Different print in the paragraph can represent inner and external speech of the characters:
e.g. "I can give you sedative and sleeping pills, of course, but that's not going to touch what's really
wrong".
"Which is, all this unnatural mixing of the classes. Doesn't do, you know. People should know their
place and stick to it. I'd like some sleep-pills, all the same". (D. Lessing)
6) Absence of a Part of the Text

The author can omit a part of the text deliberately. In such a way he gives the readers an
opportunity to guess the possible context:
e.g. "…But the passion between those two children was a genuine thing.

……………………………………………………………
…………
"For quite three years George was under the influence of his passion for Priscilla, never really forgot
her, always in a dim, dumb, subconscious way felt the
frustration…" (R. Aldington)
7)Transposition of the Graphic Model of the Text

The means of arrangement of an official text

can be used in fiction for the humorous effect:
e.g.
PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROO
 General remarks. Kanga runs faster than any of US, even Me.
 More general remarks. Kanga never takes her eye off baby Roo, except when he's
safely buttoned up in her pocket.
 Therefore. If we are to capture Baby Roo, we must get a Long Start, because Kanga
runs faster than any of Us, even Me. (See 1)… ("Winnie the Pooh" by A. Milne)