EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISTIC DEVICES

LECTURE

EXPRESSIVE MEANS AND STYLISSTIC DEVICES

In linguistics there are different terms to denote those particular means by which a writer obtains its effect.

Expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic devices and some other terms are often used indiscriminately. Thus, it is necessary to make “distinction” between Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices (SD).

All stylistic means of a language can be divided into expressive means which are used in some specific ways and special devices called Stylistic Devices.

The Expressive means of a language are those phonetic means, morphological forms, means of word building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms, all of which function in the language for the emotional or logical intensification of the utterance. These intensifying forms of the language have been fixed in Grammar and Dictionaries. Some of them are normalized and good  dictionaries label them as intensifiers.

In most cases they have corresponding neutral synonymous forms.

The most powerful Expressive Means of any language are phonetic. The human voice can indicate subtle nuances of meaning that no other means can attain.

Melody, stress, drawling, sing-song manner of speech and other ways of using the voice are more effective than any other means in intensifying the utterance emotionally and logically.

Among the morphological expressive means the use of Present Indefinite instead of Past Indefinite must be mentioned first – this has been acknowledged as a special means and is named Historical Present. In describing some past events the author uses the Present Tense achieving a more vivid picture of what was going on.

The use of “shall” in the second and third person may also be regarded as Expressive Means. 

He shall do it. He has to do it.

Among word-building we find a great many forms which serve to make the utterance more expressive and fresh or to intensify it.

The diminutive suffixes  -y/ie,- let – add some emotional colouring to the words. We may also refer to what are called neologisms and nonce words formed with non-productive suffixes or with Greek roots as mistressmanship.

 A certain suffix has gained suffix has gained such power of expressing and they began functioning as separate words, generalizing meaning they usually attain to different roots as for example – ism(s).

At the lexical level there are a great many words which due to their inner expressiveness constitute a special layer. There are:

1)  Words with emotive meaning only like interjections;

2)  Like some of the qualitative adjectives;

3)  Words which still retain a double meaning (two-fold) – denotative and connotative;

4)  Words belonging to special groups of literary English;

5)  Of non-standard English and some other groups;

The same can be said about the set-expressions of the language. Proverbs and sayings form a considerable number of language units which 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 tht their use in the process of communication passes almost unobserved, others are rare and therefore catch the attention of the reader or listener.

Finally, at the syntactical level there are many constructions which being set against synonymous ones, will reveal a certain degree of logical or emotional emphasis.

Let us compare the following pairs of structures.

1)  I have never seen such a film.

Never have I seen such a film.

2)  Mr. Smith came first.

It was Mr. Smith who came first.

The second structure in each pair contains emphatic elements. They cause intensification of the utterance: emotional in character and logical.

The Expressive Means of the language are studied respectively in manuals of phonetics, grammar, lexicology stylistics.

Stylistics, however, observes not only the nature of the Expressive means but also their potential capacity of becoming a Stylistic device.

When then is it a Stylistic Device? It is a conscious and intentional literary use of some facts of the language (including Expressive Means) in which the most essential feature (both structural and semantic) of language forms are raised to a generalized level and therefore present a generative model.

Most Stylistic Devices may be regarded as aiming at the further intensification of the emotional or logical emphasis contained in the corresponding Expressive Means.

This conscious transformation of a language fact into a Stylistic Device has been observed by certain linguists whose interest is scientific research which have gone beyond the boundaries of grammar.

The birth of SDs is not accidental. These SDs form a special group of Expressive means which are more abstract in nature than Expressive  Means of the language. It would be more correct to say that unlike Expressive Means, Stylistic Devices are patterns of the language while the Expressive Means do not form patterns. They are just like words themselves, they are facts of the language. So, they are registered in the dictionaries.

The interrelation between Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices can be outlined in terms of the theory of the information. 

-        Expressive Means have a greater degree of predictability than SDs.

-        Expressive are commonly use in the language and therefore easily predictable

-        Stylistic Devices carry a greater amount of information because if they are at all predictable, they are less predictable than Expressive Means.

It follows that Stylistic Devices must be regarded as a special code which has still to be decoded (deciphered).

The study of linguistic nature of Stylistic Devices in any language, therefore, becomes an essential condition for the general study of the functions of the stylistic devices and ultimately for the language in general, not excluding such elements of language as feeling with the emotional aspect.