Chapter 4: Stylistic Devices
S.6
Rachid Acim
Academic Year: 2023-2024
To be stylistically distinctive, texts were expected to
include several rhetorical and stylistic devices that
accord them beauty and grant them credibility.
The employment and juxtaposition of metaphors,
sound patterning, repetition, etc., is not fortuitous
because it demonstrates that language users
constantly and consistently utilize a wide range of
options from the whole linguistic repertoire.
Where does MEANING reside?
There are at least three approaches to explaining how
representation of meaning through language works
(Hall, 1997, p. 24): the reflective, the intentional
and the constructionist or constructivist
approaches. Each of these approaches is an attempt to
answer the questions, ‘where do meanings come from?’
and ‘how can we tell the “true” meaning of a word or
image?’
In the reflective approach, meaning is thought to lie
in the object, person, idea or event in the real world,
and language functions like a mirror, to reflect the true
meaning as it already exists in the world. As the poet
Gertrude Stein once said, ‘A rose is a rose is a rose’.
The second approach to meaning in representation
argues the opposite case. It holds that it is the
speaker, the author, who imposes his or her
unique meaning on the world through language.
Words mean what the author intends they should
mean. This is the intentional approach.
The third approach recognizes this public, social
character of language. It acknowledges that neither
things in themselves nor the individual users of
language can fix meaning in language. Things do not
mean: we construct meaning, using representational
systems-concepts and signs. Hence it is called the
constructivist or constructionist approach to
meaning in language.
Almost like all modalities of discourse, newspapers’
language is forged to vehicle information to people,
yet information is not the only aim of newspapers
because at the very crux of media in general is
persuasion. The raison d’être for the newspapers, as
Cull et al (2003, p. 268) argue, is “persuasion,
“propaganda favoring a particular political view.”
Headlines, for example, have a persuasive function
when they are designed to attract the attention of the
reader and interest him/her in reading the story (or in
the case of front page headlines, in buying the
newspaper), but they can also be written to influence
the opinion of the reader (Reah, 1998, p. 28).
Metaphor: A metaphor functions like a simile, except
that it omits the words like or as. For example, the
metaphorical equivalent of the simile, “That bird looks
like a frog,” is simply, “That bird is a frog.” By
relating two hitherto unrelated objects, the
writer/speaker can widen the audience’s perception of
the topic. Martin Luther King expressed the problems of
black people by noting, “The Negro lives on a lonely
island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of
material prosperity.”
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
(Hope is the thing with Feather-
E. Dickinson)
Dreams
Langston Hughes (1901-1967)
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow
Personification: This device makes an inanimate
object sound as if it is humanic. Often this device
makes reading the poem a more dramatic and
compelling experience.
We ran as if to meet the moon
that slowly dawned behind the trees – R. Frost.
Sound patterning: this consists of repeated patterns
of sound such as alliteration, assonance and rhyme.
Such patterns bound ideas together and create
memorable effect.
fleet feet sweet by sleeping geeks [Assonance]
I dropped the locket in the thick mud [Consonance]
Oxymoron: is a paradox reduced to two words,
usually in an adjective-noun (eloquent silence) or
adverb-adjective (inertly strong) relationship, and is
used for effect, complexity, emphasis, or wit.
e.g. Good night, good night!
Parting is such sweet sorrow
Romeo and Juliet
Original copy; Alone together; Deafening silence;
Living dead
Onomatopoeia: it is the use of words that are formed
by imitating the sounds associated with an action. For
example, after the first bomb, ‘there was hissing, then
bang, bang, sparks flying all over.’
Simile: it is a figure of speech that explicitly
compares two things through some connectives such
as “like” and “as”. Sometimes, this is facilitated
through the use of verbs like “resemble”.
You look like an angel
Walk like an angel
Talk like an angel
But I got wise
You're the devil in disguise
Oh yes you are
The devil in disguise
(“Devil in Disguise” – Elvis Presely).
SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which Heaven gaudy day denies.
(She walks in beauty –
Lord Byron)
Anaphora: Repetition of a word or words at the
beginning of two or more successive clauses or verses
especially for rhetorical or poetic effect. Halliday and
Hasan (1976) have noted that in longer turns, or texts
in general, repetition can also have a cohesive function
“since it can stabilize both reference and topic across a
stretch of discourse” (cited in Herman, 1995, p. 153).
An example of anaphora is the well-known passage
from the Old Testament (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2) that
begins:
For everything there is a season, and a time
for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up
what is planted: …
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understand as a child, but when
I became a man, I put away childish things – Corinthians 13:11
Neologism: this refers to newly coined terms, words,
or phrases that may be in the process of entering
common use. Yet, they have not been accepted in
mainstream language. The term ‘Macjob’ for example is
used to describe the fast-food chain, McDonald’s, and is
understood to mean any low-paid, low-skilled job.
Another example is the word webinar, for a seminar on
the web or the internet.
Aporia: this is a discursive device that is useful in
expressing doubt.
“I’m not really certain where to begin…”
- Narrator is potentially unreliable. What follows might include unclear or
ambiguous details.
“To be or not to be, that is the question” -- From Hamlet by Shakespeare.
Apostrophe: it is a sudden turn from the general
audience to address a specific group or a certain
people, either absent or present, real or imagined. Its
most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or
display intense emotion, which can no longer be held
back (does not occur much in argumentative writing).
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" – Romeo ad Juleit
Hyperbole: it is both a rhetorical device and a figure of
speech that involves the use of exaggeration. It is used
to evoke strong feelings and to create strong
impressions in readers.
e.g. A sweating, bespectacled farmer who was standing behind the camera
said that all the snakes had come out of the water and climbed into the
trees. “In some places there are 20 snakes to a tree,” he said.
“Are they poisonous?” I asked. – The New York Times.
Euphemism: it is the substitution of one more
pleasant expression for one whose meaning may
come across as rude or offensive.
e.g. Pass away instead of die
dearly departed instead of died
Pregnancy termination instead of abortion
earthly remains instead of corpse
Metonymy: is a term from the Greek meaning
“changed label” or “substitute name”; metonymy is a
figure of speech in which the name of one object is
substituted for that of another closely associated with
it. A news release that claims “the White House
declared” rather than “the President declared” is using
metonymy; ‘lend me your ear’ is a request for
attention, to listen. Another popular example of
metonymy is that a king is called the crown because he
wears one.
Synecdoche: it is closely linked to metonymy and
sometimes it is considered as a subclass of it.
Originally, it means accepting a part as responsible for
the whole or vice-versa.
e.g. boots on the ground – soldiers
new wheels – new car
suits – businesspeople
ask for her hand – marriage proposal
Rhetorical Question: it is one form of a question
that is raised in order to make a point. The question is
used as a rhetorical device in order to incite the
reader/listener to consider the whole message or
viewpoint.
e.g. Is the Pope Catholic?
Do dogs bark?
Can birds fly?
Understatement: it is a discursive strategy
whereby events and circumstances are made to
seem less important, less impressive or serious than
they really are.
e.g. I have to have this operation. It isn’t very serious. I have
this little tumor on the brain.
Overstatement (hyperbole), is the figure of speech
which writers and speakers employ when they make
exaggerations. For example, ‘You eat like a bird’; ‘It’s
hot, you could fry an egg on the sidewalk’; ‘That’s the
most beautiful baby in the world’; ‘I would die if I ever
met Brad Pitt in person; ‘I haven’t seen you in a million
years.’
In making a stylistic analysis we are not so much
focused on every form and structure in a text, as
on those which stand out in it. Such
conspicuous elements hold a promise of stylistic
relevance and thereby rouse the reader’s interest
or emotions. In stylistics this psychological
effect is called foregrounding, a term which has
been borrowed from the visual arts. Such
foregrounded elements often include a distinct
patterning or parallelism in a text’s typography,
sounds, word-choices, grammar, or sentence
structures. (emphasis is in Verdonk, 2002, p. 6)
Thank you for your attention
