VSUE

Lectures on
STYLISTICS OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE
Presented by Tamara Ivanovna
Leontieva
Foreign Languages Center, Department of
Intercultural Communication and
Translation
2008
Lexical Stylistic Devices

Metonymy, Epithet
Contextual and Transferred
Meanings
Words in a context acquire
additional lexical meanings, not
fixed in dictionaries. They are
contextual meanings. Transferred
meaning is the interrelation between
dictionary and contextual meanings
of a word (SD).
What are the bases for SD?

• Metaphor is based on affinity

(similarity).
• Metonymy is based on proximity
(or symbol-referent relations).
• Irony is based on opposition.
 Definition of Metonymy

Metonymy is based on association

between dictionary and contextual
meanings.
NB! In a metonymy the objects
(phenomena) have common
grounds of existence in reality.
 NB! Common grounds
E.g.: cup and tea;
hand and worker;
Rome and Catholic belief;
big bucks and wealth;
underwear and reputation;
beard and elderly age (respect or irony);
the White House and the USA;
Downing Street, 10 and the British
Government, etc.
 Types of Relations in a Metonymy
1

• A specific thing for an abstract notion:

salad days, bottle, grave.
• The container instead of the thing
contained: Red Riding Hood, hall,
town.
• The material for the thing made of it:
kid, bronze and clay.
 Types of Relations in a Metonymy
2
• Instrument for the action: a good whip
(about a horseman),in Russian: кулак не
аргумент.
• The relation of proximity: The round
game table was boisterous and noisy.
• Result instead of the cause:
He (рыба) takes the death (глотает
гибельный крючок).
Types of Relations in a Metonymy
3

• A characteristic trait instead of the person:

Blue suit grinned, might even have winked.
• An abstract notion meaning a feeling or
emotion instead of the person possessing it:
«Trouble, sir?» replied subservience, as if
at a loss to understand a sinister allusion.
 Synecdoche
Synecdoche is based on a particular kind
of metonymic relationship which may
be considered quantitative:
• A part stands for the whole or the whole
for the part: May I put a word in?
Wheels (a car), staged hand, hired
hand.
• An individual stands for a class: “… и
ликовал француз” .
 Antonomasia
It is a lexical SD in which a
proper name is used instead of a
common noun or vice versa: He
is the Napoleon of crime; Mr.
Murdstone, Scrooge, a lady-
killer is Don Juan, a traitor may
be referred to as Brutus.
Two types of antonomasia
Metaphoric (based Metonymic (based
on similarity): on association):
The Gioconda He has sold his
smile. Look at Vandykes. I’ve just
those Romeo and listened to Mozart.
Juliet. He is a Do you like
regular Sher-lock Brahms?
Holmes.
 Carl Sandburg
Fog

The fog comes

On little cat feet.
It sits looking
Over harbour and
city On silent
haunches And
then moves on.
 Walter de la Mare
SILVER

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks through the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
 Walter de la Mare
SILVER

From their shadowy coat the white breasts

peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
 EPITHET
An epithet is a colorful attribute
which characterizes a person, thing or
phenome -non.
Poetic epithet: a steel will.
Simple adjective: a steel knife.
Function: to reveal the emotionally
colored individual attitude of the author
towards the object described.
 The structure of epithets
1. Metaphoric epithet: The ghost of a smile
appeared on Soames’ face.
2. Phrase epithet: She gave him her best go-to-
hell look, and backed away from the counter.
3.Transferred epithet: unbreakfasted morn -ing,
a disapproving finger, silver-feathered sleep.
We heard the loud musicians play,etc.
 Read the following:
1. Galperin I.R. STYLISTICS, pp.140-142.
2. Беспальчикова Е.В. Обучение анализу
текста // ИЯШ, 2002. - №2. - С.52-55 (blue
file in the Resource Center).
3. Ивашкин Н.П. и др. Практикум по
стилистике… - С.6-13.
4. Казакова Т.А. Практические основы
перевода. - СПб.: Союз, 2000. - С.259-265.
 Do the following exercises:

1. ИЯШ, 2002, №2. - Pp.53-54 (27

sentences)
2. Ивашкин и др. Ex. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, pp.13-
18.
Take your time!