Linguistic vs stylistic context, other types of context.

A linguistic context is the encirclement of a language unit by other language units in speech. Such encirclement makes the meaning of the unit clear and unambiguous. It is especially important in case with polysemantic words.

Types of linguistic context:

Microcontext is the context of a single utterance (sentence).

Macrocontext is the context of a paragraph in a text.

Megacontext is the context of a book chapter, a story or the whole book.

Stylistic context – unity of stylistic element and its surroundings.

Micropoetic – the context limited by a complete sentence.

Macropoetic – the context of paragraph or the whole text.

An extralingual (situational) context is formed by extralingual con-ditions in which communication takes place. Besides making the meaning of words well-defined, a situational context allows the speaker to economize on speech efforts and to avoid situationally redundant language signs. The com-mands of a surgeon in an operating room, such as "scalpel", "pincers" or "tampon", are understood by his assistants correctly and without any addi-tional explanations about what kind of tampon is needed.

Extralingual context can be physical or abstract and can significantly affect the communication Such surroundings form a physical context. A dialogue between colleagues can be affected by the nature of their relationship. That is, one may be of higher status than the other. Such nature forms an abstract context. Historical accounts are more easily understood when evoked in the context of their own time. Such context is called temporal or chronological. There would be a psychologi-cally advantageous context within which to tell one's spouse about that dent-ed bumper on the new car. Such context may be called psychological.

EM and SD.

Expressive means – is a marked member of stylistic opposition which has an invariant meaning in language.

-language

-paradigmatic relations

-stylistic meaning is not contextually bound

Expressive means of a language are those phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic units and forms which make speech emphatic. Expressive means introduce connotational (stylistic, non-denotative) meanings into utterances. Phonetic expressive means include pitch, melody, stresses, pauses, whispering, singing, and other ways of using human voice. Morphological expressive means are emotionally coloured suffixes of diminutive nature: -y (-ie), -let (sonny auntie, girlies). To lexical expressive means belong words, possessing connotations, such as epithets, poetic and archaic words, slangy words, vulgarisms, and interjections. A chain of expressive synonymic words always contains at least one neutral synonym. For ex-le, the neutral word money has the following stylistically coloured equivalents: ackers (slang), cly (jargon), cole (jargon), gelt (jargon), moo (amer. slang), etc. A chain of expressive synonyms used in a single utterance creates the effect of climax (gradation). To syntactic expressive means belong emphatic syntactic constructions. Such constructions stand in opposition to their neutral equivalents. The neutral sentence "John went away" may be replaced by the following expressive variants: "Away went John" (stylistic inversion), "John did go away" (use of the emphatic verb "to do"), "John went away, he did" (emphatic confirmation pattern), "It was John who went away" ("It is he who does it" pattern).

Stylistic device – an intentional change of fixed distribution of language unit in speech.

-speech

-syntactical relations

-stylistic meaning is contextually bound

Stylistic devices (tropes, figures of speech) unlike expressive means are not language phenomena. They are formed in speech and most of them do not exist out of context. According to principles of their formation, stylistic devices are grouped into phonetic, lexico-semantic and syntactic types. Basically, all stylistic devices are the result of revaluation of neutral words, word-combinations and syntactic structures. Revaluation makes language units obtain connotations and stylistic value. A stylistic device is the subject matter of stylistic semasiology.

11. Foregrounding: the evolution of the notion, major types.

Foregrounding is - a stylistic device that includes the principles of formal textual organization that focus the reader’s attention on some certain fragments of the message.

- a stylistic device that draws attention to itself by defamilarization from everyday speech.

The term is borrowed from art criticism which distinguishes between the foreground and the background of a painting.

2 ways of producing foregrounding:

- parallelism: unexpected regularity, “more of the same”

- deviation: unexpected irregularity

These are relative concepts, because something can only be unexpectedly regular or irregular within a particular context.

Types of foregrounding:

- convergence: combination or accumulation of stylistic devices promoting the same idea (e.g. “and heaved, and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as its vast tides were a conscience” – simile, repetition, inversion)

- coupling: semantically relevant appearance of equivalent elements in equivalent position. Coupling is based on the affinity of elements that occupy similar positions throughout the text. The affinity may be different in nature: phonetic, structural, semantic. Phonetic affinity is provided by the phonetic stylistic devices (alliteration, assonance, paronomasia), as well as such prosodic features as rhyme, rhythm and meter. Syntactical affinity is achieved by all kinds of parallelism and syntactical repetition – anadiplosis, anaphora, framing, chiasmus, epiphora, etc. Semantic coupling is demonstrated by the use of synonyms and antonyms, both direct and contextual, root repetition, paraphrase, sustained metaphor, semantic fields, recurrence of images, connotations or symbols.

- defeated expectancy: some element of the text receives prominence due to an interruption in the pattern of predictability. (e.g. “Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl … I have met … since I met you.” (O. Wilde)

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