Stylistic devices (SDs) and expressive means (EMs) in the English language

The special media of language which secure the desirable effect of the utterance are called sty­listicdevices (SD) and expressive means (EM). The types of texts that are distinguished by the prag­matic aspect of the communication are called functional styles (FS).

The first field of investigation, i.e. SDs and EMs touches upon such general language problems as the aesthetic function of language, synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea, emo­tional coloring in language, the interrelation between language and thought, the individual manner of an author in making use of language and a number of other issues.

The second field, i.e. functional styles, cannot avoid discussion of such most general linguistic issues as oral and written variety of language, the notion of the literary (standard) language, the con­stituents оf texts larger than the sentence, the generative (capable of production or reproduction) aspect of literary texts and some others.

In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are made more effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are called expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic markers, stylistic devices, tropes, figures of speech and other names. All these terms are set against those means which we will call neutral. Most linguists distinguish ordinary se­mantic and stylistic differences in meaning. In fact all language means contain meaning-some of them contain generally acknowledged grammatical and lexical meanings, others besides these contain spe­cific meanings which may be called stylistic. Such meanings go alongside primary meanings and are superimposed on them. Stylistic meanings are so to say de-automotized. As is known, the process of automotization, i.e. a speedy and subconscious use of language data, is one of the indispensable ways of making communication easy and quickly decodable. But when a stylistic meaning is involved the process of understanding depends on the ability to decipher this two-fold application of language means.

Expressiveness and emotiveness. In order to understand what a stylistic device is we should constitute the notions: expressive­ness and emotiveness. In its etymological sense "expressiveness' may be understood as a kind of in­tensification of an utterance or of a part of it depending on the position in the utterance of the means that manifest this category and what these means are.

Emotiveness is what reveals the emotions of a writer or speaker. But emotive elements are not direct manifestations of the emotions - they are just the echoes of real emotions. They are designed to awaken co-experience in the mind of the reader.

Expressiveness is a broader notion than emotiveness and is by no means to be reduced to the latter. Emotiveness is an integral part of expressiveness and, as a matter of fact, occupies a predomi­nant position in the category of expressiveness.

Expressive means of a language. The expressive means of a language are those phonetic, graphical, morphological, word-building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist in language-as-a-system for the purpose of logical and/or emotional intensification of the utterance. In most cases they have corresponding neutral syn­onymous forms. Compare, for example, the following pairs:

He will do it –I shall make him do it.

Isn't she cute? - She is very nice, isn't she.

Expressiveness may also be achieved by compositional devices, or syntactical stylistic devices.

The most powerful expressive means of any language are phonetic. The human voice can indi­cate subtle nuances of meaning that no other means contain. Pitch, melody, stress, pausation, drawling out certain syllable, whispering, a sing-song manner and other ways of using the voice are much more effective than any other means in intensifying an utterance emotionally or logically.

The intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word (or word-combination) used to reflect its authentic pronunciation is called graphon. Graphon proved to be an extremely concise but effective means by supplying information about the speaker’s origin, social and educational background, physical or emotional condition, irregularities or carelessness of pronunciation. Ex.: “You don’t mean to thay that thith ith your firth time” (D.Cusack) (physical defect). Graphon conveys the atmosphere of the authentic live communication, the informality of the speech act. Some amalgamated forms, which are the result of strong assimilation, became clichés in contemporary prose dialogue: “gimme (give me), “lemme” (let me), “gonna” (going to), “gotta” (got to), “coupla” (couple of), “mighta” (might have), “willya” (will you). Graphical changes may not only reflect changes of pronunciation, but are also used to convey the intensity of the stress, emphasizing and thus foregrounding the stressed words. To such purely graphical means, not including violations, we should refer all changes of the type (italics, capitalization - “Help. Help. HELP”), spacing of graphemes (hyphenation – “grinning like a chim-pan-zee”, multiplication - “Alllll aborrrrrd”) and of lines.

The number of morphological expressive means is not very big. However, there are some which alongside their ordinary grammatical function display a kind of emphasis and thereby are pro­moted to EMs. These are, for example the use of "shall" in the second and third person; the use of some demonstrative pronouns with an emphatic meaning as" those, them".

Among the word-building means we find a great many forms which serve to make the utter­ance more expressive by intensifying some of their semantic and/or grammatical properties.

The diminutive suffixes –y (ie), -let, like in words "deary; girlie, sonny; auntie; streamlet". An unexpected use of the author’s nonce-words like “He glasnosted his love affair with this movie star” (People) is another example of morphological expressive means. Certain af­fixes have gained such a power of expressiveness that they begin functioning as separate words; e.g. "isms, ologies".

At the lexical level there are a great many words which due to their inner expressiveness consti­tute a specific layer. There are words with emotive meaning only (interjections), intensifiers (awfully, terribly, absolutely), words which have both referential and emotive meaning (epithets), words which still retain a two-fold meaning, denota­tive and connotative (love, hate, sympathy), words belonging to the layers of slang and vulgar words, or to poetic or archaic layers. The expressive power of these words cannot be doubted, especially when they are compared with the neutral vocabulary. All kinds of set phrases (phraseological units) generally possess the property of expressiveness. It must be noted here that due to the generally emotional char­acter of colloquial language all kinds of set expressions are natural in everyday speech. They are part of this form of human intercourse. But when they appear in written texts their expressiveness comes to the force because written texts are logically directed unless, of course, there is a deliberate attempt to introduce an expressive element in the utterance. The" set expression" is a time-honored device used to enli­ven speech, but this device, it must be repeated, is more sparingly used in written texts. In everyday speech one can often hear such phrases as: "Well, it will only add fuel to the fire" and the like, which in fact is synonymous to the neutral: "It will only make the situation worse".

Finally, at the syntactical level there are many grammatical forms and syntactical patterns which, when set against neutral ones, will reveal a certain degree of logical or emotional emphasis. Ex.: I do know you! I’m really angry with that dog of yours! That you should deceive me! If only I could help you!

The same can be said of the set expressions of the language. Proverbs and sayings as well as catch – words (well-known words) for a considerable number of language units serve to make speech more emphatic, mainly from the emotional point of view. Their use in everyday speech can hardly be overestimated. Some of these proverbs and sayings are so well - known that their use in the process of communication passes almost unobserved.

The expressive means of the language are studied respectively in manuals of phonetics, grammar, lexicology and stylistics. Stylistics, however, observes not only the nature of an expressive means, but also its potential capacity of becoming a stylistic device.

As a conclusion we may say: expressive means are concrete facts of language. Expressive means have a kind of radiating effect. They noticeably color the whole of the utterance no matter whether they are logical or emotional. EMs ans SDs have a lot in common, but they are not completely synonymous. All SDs belong to EMs, but not all EMs are stylistic devices.

Stylistic devices. Stylistic device is a literary model in which semantic and structural features are blended so that it represents a generalized pattern. SD is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical, structural and/or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a general­ized status and thus becoming a generative model. It follows then that a SD is an abstract pattern, a mould into which any content can be poured. As is known, the typical is not only that which is in fre­quent use but that also which reveals the essence of a phenomenon with the greatest and most evident force.

SDs function in text as marked units. They always carry some kind of additional information, either emotive or logical. That is why the method of free variation employed in descriptive linguistics cannot be used in stylistics because any substitution may cause damage to the semantic and aesthetic aspect of the utterance.

Most SDs display an application of two meanings: the ordinary one, in other words, the meaning (lexical or structural) which has already been established in the language-as-a-system and a special meaning which is superimposed on the unit by the text, i.e. a meaning which appears in the language-in-action. In some SDs it can be grasped immediately, in others it requires a keen eye and sufficient training to detect it. It must be emphasized that the contrast reveals itself most clearly when our mind perceives two-fold meaning simultaneously. E.g.: The night has swallowed him up. The word " swallow " has two meanings: 1) referential, 2) contextual (to make disappear, to make vanish). The meaning (2) takes precedence over the referential meaning (1).

The interrelation between expressive means and stylistic devices can be worded in terms of the theory of information. Expressive means have a greater degree of predictability than stylistic devices. The latter may appear in an environment which may seem alien and therefore be only slightly or not at all predictable. Expressive means, on the contrary, follow the natural course of thought, intensifying it by means commonly used in language. It follows that SDs carry a greater amount of information and therefore require a certain effort to decode their meaning and purpose. SDs must be regarded as a spe­cial code which has to be well known to the reader in order to be deciphered easily.

It is necessary to distinguish between a stylistic use of a language unit, which acquires what we call a "stylistic meaning" and a stylistic device, which is the realization of an already well-known ab­stract scheme designed to achieve a particular artistic effect.