Syntactical Stylistic Devices Based on Peculiar Use of Colloquial Constructions

Ellipsis, break in the narrative, represented speech.

Ellipsis - is a deliberate omission of some parts of the sentence for the purpose of shorter and more emphatic presentation of an emotionally coloured speech. It is the omission of a word necessary for the complete syntactical construction of a sentence, but not necessary for understanding The stylistic function of ellipsis is to speed up the tempo, to imitate the colloquial language, to connect its structure.

e. g. You feel all right? Anything wrong or what? Oh, finally! Go! Stop it! Nor more!

Aposiopesis (Break - in - the narrative). Sudden break in the narration has the function to convey the strong emotions, to reveal agitated state of the speaker, - he can’t proceed his speech.

e. g. You just come home or I’ll...

The difference between ellipsis and break is that in ellipsis the speaker deliberately stops to let the listener guess, and in the break- he really or feigningly can’t speak.

23. Represented speech

Represented speech (non-personal direct speech). There is also a device which coveys to the reader the unuttered or inner speech of the character, his thoughts and feelings. This device is also termed represented speech. To distinguish between the two varieties of represented speech we call the representation of the actual utterance through the author's language "uttered represented speech", and the representation of the thoughts and feelings of the character “unuttered or inner represented speech”.

Peculiarities:

1) the absence of quotation marks

2) the usage of the 3rd person sg- mostly

3) the specific choice of vocabulary

4) question and exclamatory marks in narrative

5) the great degree of emotional tension

6) the usage of interjections

24. Parts of speech and their stylistic potential

The article may be a very expressive element of narration especially when used with proper names. For example, the indefinite article may convey evaluative connotations when used with a proper name: I’m a Marlowe by birth, and we are a hot-blooded family (from “The Third Twin” by Ken Follett; born 5 June 1949, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom). It may be charged with a negative evaluative connotation and diminish the importance of someone’s personality, make it sound insignificant: A Forsyte is not an uncommon animal (John Galsworthy).

The definite article used with a proper name may become a powerful expressive means to emphasize the person’s good or bad qualities: You are not the Andrew Manson I married (from “The Citadel” by Archibald Joseph Cronin; 19 July 1896, Cardross, Scotland – 6 January 1981, Montreux, Switzerland).

The definite article in the following example serves as an intensifier of the epithet used in the character’s description: My good fellow, I said suavely, what brings me here is this: I want to see the evening sun go down over the snow-tipped Sierra Nevada. Within the hour he had spread this all over the town and I was pointed out for the rest of my visit as the mad Englishman (Atkinson).

The definite article may contribute to the devices of gradation or help create the rhythm of the narration: But then he would lose Sondra, his connections here, and his uncle – this world! The loss! The loss! The loss! (Theodor Dreiser; August 27, 1871, Terre Haute, Indiana – December 28, 1945, Hollywood, California).

No article or its omission before a common noun conveys a maximum level of abstraction, generalization: The postmaster and postmistress, husband and wife, looked carefully at every piece of mail (from “The Beet Queen” by Louise Erdrich; born June 7, 1954, Little Falls, Minnesota, United States).

The stylistic functions of the pronoun also depend on the disparity between the traditional and contextual (situational) meanings.

So, personal pronouns we, you, they and others can be employed in the meaning different from their dictionary meaning. For example, the pronoun we that means “speaking together or on behalf of other people” can be used with reference to a single person, the speaker, and is called the plural of majesty: And for that offence immediately do we exile him hence (William Shakespeare).

The plural of modesty, or the author’s we, is used with the purpose to identify oneself with the audience or society at large: My poor dear child, cried Miss Crawly, is our passion unrequited then? (William Makepeace Thackeray).

The pronoun you is often used as an intensifier in an expressive address or imperative: Just you go in and win (Evelyn Waugh).

Such pronouns as one, you, we have two major connotations: that of identification of the speaker and the audience and generalization (contrary to the individual meaning).

The pronoun I employed by the author as a means of speech characterization testifies to the speaker’s complacency and egomania when overused, while you or one used in reference to oneself characterize the speaker as a reserved, self-controlled person: - You can always build another image for yourself to fall in love with. – No, you can’t. That's the trouble, you lose the capacity for building. You run short of the stuff that creates beautiful illusions (from “Dangerous Corner” by John Boynton Priestly; 13 September 1894, Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England – 14 August 1984, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England).

Demonstrative pronouns may greatly enhance the expressive coloring of the utterance: That wonderful girl! That beauty! That world of wealth and social position she lived in! (Jack London).

Pronouns are a powerful means to convey the atmosphere of informal or familiar communication or an attempt to achieve it: Claws in, you cat (Bernard Shaw).

Through the figurative use of the personal pronouns the author may achieve metaphorical images and even create sustained compositional metaphors.

The only grammatical category of the English adjective today is that of comparison. Comparison is only the property of qualitative and quantitative adjectives, but not of the relative ones. When adjectives that are not normally used in a comparative degree are used with this category they are charged with a strong expressive power: Mrs. Thompson, Old Man Fellow’s housekeeper, had found him deader than a doornail... (from “The Perfect Murder” by R. L. Mangum).

The reader’s attention: The orangemostest drink in the world.

The use of comparative or superlative forms with other parts of speech may also convey a humorous coloring: He was the most married man I’ve ever met (from “Three Centuries of English Prose” by Irina Arnold and Nina Diakonova; born 20 October 1915, Petrograd).

Another stylistic aspect of the adjective comes to the fore when an adjective gets substantivized and acquires the qualities of a noun: All Europe was in arms, and England would join. The impossible had happened (from “Death of a Hero” by Richard Aldington).

The stylistic function of the adjective is achieved through the deviant use of the degrees of comparison that results mostly in grammatical metaphors and sometimes the lexical ones. The same effect is also caused by the substantivized use of the adjectives.

commercial functional style makes a wide use of the violation of grammatical norms to captivate the

25. Functional styles systems

Functional Style is a system of interrelated language means serving a definite aim in communication. It is the coordination of the language means and stylistic devices which shapes the distinctive features of each style and not the language means or stylistic devices themselves.

Each style, however, can be recoquized by one or more leading features which are especially conspicuous. For instance the use of special terminology is a lexical characteristics of the style of scientific prose, and one by which it can easily be recognized.

A style of language can be fined as a system of coordinated, interrelated and inter-coordinated language means intended to full-fill a specific function of communication and aiming at a defined effect. Style of language is a historical category.

The English literary system has evolved a number of styles easily distinguishable one from another. They are not homogeneous and fall into several variants of having some central point of resemblance or better to say. All integrated by the invariant – i.e. the abstract ideal system.

They are:

• 1) Official(documents and papers);
• 2) Scientific (brochures, articles, other scientific publications);
• 3) Publicistic (essay, public speech);
• 4) Newspaper style(mass media);
• 5) Belles-lettres style(genre of creative writing);

Each of mentioned here styles can be expressed in two forms: written and oral.

Stylistics is a sides that examines the complex of stylistically marked elements of any language level.

• 1) scientific style is employed in professional communication to convey some information. It’s most conspicuous feature is the abundance of terms denoting objects, phenomena and processes characteristics of some particular field of science and technique. Also precision clarity logical cohesion.
• 2) Official style is the most conservative one. It uses syntactical constructions and archaic words. Emotiveness is banned out of this style.
• 3) Publicistic style is famous for its explicit pragmatic function of persuasion directed at influencing the reader in accordance with the argumentation of the author.
• 4) Newspaper style – special graphical means are used to attract the readers attention.
• 5) Belles-lettres style – the richest register of communication besides its own language means, other styles can be used besides informative and persuasive functions, belles-lettres style has a unique task to impress the reader are aesthetically.
  26. Characteristic linguistic features of major functional styles
  A description of five major functional styles given in this section is based on their most distinctive features on each level of the language structure: pnonetical (where possible), morphological, syntactical, lexical and compositional. A peculiar combination of these features and special emphasis on some of them creates the paradigm of what is called a scientific or publicist text, a legal or other official document, colloquial or formal speech.
  Phonetic features
  Standard pronunciation in compliance with the national norm, enunciation.
  Phonetic compression of frequently used forms, e.g. it's, don't, I've.
  Omission of unaccented elements due to the quick tempo, e. g. yo_u know him?
  Morphological features Use of regular morphological features, with interception of evaluative suffixes e. g. deary, doggie, duckie.
  Prevalence of active and finite verb forms.
  Syntactical features
  Use of simple sentences with a number of participial and infinitive constructions and numerous parentheses.
  Syntactically correct utterances compliant with the literary norm.

Use of various types of syntactical compression, simplicity of syntac­tical connection.

Use of grammar forms for emphatic purposes, e. g. progressive verb forms to express emotions of irritation, anger etc.

Decomposition and ellipsis of sentences in a dialogue (easily recon­structed from the context).

Use of special colloquial phrases, e.g. that friend of yours. Lexical features

Wide range of vocabulary strata in accordance with the register of communication and participants' roles: formal and informal, neutral and bookish, terms and foreign words.

4.5. Distinctive linguistic features of the major functional styles

Basic stock of communicative vocabulary—stylistically neutral.

Use of socially accepted contracted forms and abbreviations, e. g. fridge for refrigerator, ice for ice-cream, TV for television, CD for compact disk, etc.

Use of etiquette language and conversational formulas, such as nice to see you, my pleasure, on behalf of, etc.

Extensive use of intensifiers and gap-fillers, e. g. absolutely, definitely, awfully, kind of, so to speak, I mean, if I may say so.

Use of interjections and exclamations, e. g. Dear me, My God, Goodness, well, why, now, oh.

Extensive use of phrasal verbs let sb down, put up with, stand sb up.

Use of words of indefinite meaning like thing, stuff.

Avoidance of slang, vulgarisms, dialect words, jargon.

Use of phraseological expressions, idioms and figures of speech.

Compositional features
Can be used in written and spoken varieties: dialogue, monologue, personal letters, diaries, essays, articles, etc.

Prepared types of texts may have thought out and logical composi­tion, to a certain extent determined by conventional forms (letters, Presentations, articles, interviews).

Spontaneous types have a loose structure, relative coherence and ^uniformity of form and content.

Phonetic features

Casual and often careless pronunciation, use of deviant forms, e. g, gonna instead of going to, whatcha instead of what do you, dunno instead of don't know.

Use of reduced and contracted forms, e.g. you're, they've, Pd.

Omission of unaccented elements due to quick tempo, e.g. you hear me?

Emphasis on intonation as a powerful semantic and stylistic instru­ment capable to render subtle nuances of thought and feeling.

Use of onomatopoeic words, e.g. whoosh, hush, stop yodelling, yum, yak.

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