lexical stylistic devices

We deal with zeugma when polysemantic verbs that can be combined with nouns of most varying semantic groups are deliberately used with two or more homogeneous members which are not connected semantically, as in such example: “He took his hat and his leave”. Zeugma is highly characteristic of English prose of previous centuries.When the number of homogeneous members, semantically disconnected but attached to the same verb increases we deal with semantically false chains, which are thus a variation of zeugma. As a rule, it is the last member of the chain that falls out of the semantic group, producing humorous effect. The following case may serve an example: “A Governess wanted. Must possess knowledge of Rumanian, Italian, Spanish, German, Music and Mining Engineering”.

In most examples of zeugma the verb loses some of its semantic independence and strength being considered as member of phraseological unit or cliche.

Nonsense of non-sequence results in joining two semantically disconnected clauses into one sentence, as in: “Emperor Nero played the fiddle, so they burnt Rome”. Two disconnected statements are forcibly linked together.

In all previously discussed lexical stylistic devices we dealt with various transformations of the denotational meaning of words, which participated in the creation of metaphors, metonymies, puns, zeugmas, etc. Each of these lexical stylistic devices added expressiveness and originality to the nomination of the object. Their subjectivity relies on the new and fresh look at the object mentioned and shows the object from a new and unexpected side.

Irony

In irony subjectivity lies in the evaluation of the phenomenon. The essence of irony consists in the foregrounding not of the logical but of the evaluative meaning. Irony thus is a stylistic device in which the contextual evaluative meaning of a word is directly opposite to its dictionary meaning.

The context is arranged so that the qualifying word in irony reverses the direction of the evaluation and a positive meaning is understood as a negative one and (much-much rare) vice versa. “She turned with the sweet smile of an alligator”. The word ”sweet” reverse their positive meaning into the negative one due to the context. So, like all other lexical stylistic devices irony does not exist outside the context.

There are two types of irony: verbal irony and sustained irony. In the stylistic devise of verbal irony it is always possible to indicate the exact word whose contextual meaning diametrically opposes its dictionary meaning. And we deal with sustained irony when it is not possible to indicate such exact word and the effect of irony is created by number of statements by the whole text. This type of irony is formed by the contradiction of the speaker’s (writer’s) considerations and the generally accepted moral and ethical codes.

Antonomasia

Antonomasia is a lexical stylistic device in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa. Logical meaning serves to denote concepts and thus to classify individual objects into groups (classes). The nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning and acquires the new – nominal – component. Nominal meaning has no classifying power for it applies to one single individual object with the aim not of classifying it constituting a definite group, but, on the contrary with the aim of singling it out of the group of similar objects, of individualizing one particular object. The word “Mary” does not indicate if the denoted object refers to the class of women, girls, boats, cats, etc. But in example: “He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, something…” the attribute “each”, used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any woman. Here we deal with a case of antonomasia of the first type.

Another type of antonomasia we meet when a common noun is still clearly perceived as a proper name. So, no speaker of English today has it in his mind that such popular English surnames as Mr.Smith or Mr.Brown used to mean occupation and the color. While such names as Mr.Snake or Mr.Backbite immediately raise associations with certain human qualities due to the denotational meaning of the words “snake” and “backbite”.

Antonomasia is created mainly by nouns, more seldom by attributive combinations (as in “Dr.Fresh Air”) or phrases (as in “Mr.What’s-his-name’).

Epithet

Epithet is a lexical stylistic device that relies on the foregrounding of the emotive meaning. The emotive meaning of the word is foregrounded to suppress the denotational meaning of the latter. The characteristic attached to the object to qualify it is always chosen by the speaker himself. Epithet gives opportunities of qualifying every object from subjective viewpoint, which is indispensable in creative prose, publicist style and everyday speech.

Like metaphor, metonymy and simile epithets are also based on similarity between two objects, on nearness of the qualified objects and on their comparison.

Through long and repeated use epithets become fixed. Many fixed epithets are closely connected with folklore. First fixed epithets were found in Homer’s poetry (e.g. “swift-footed Achilles”).Semantically, there should be differentiated two main groups. The biggest one is affective epithets. These epithets serve to convey the emotional evaluation of the object by the speaker. Most of qualifying words found in the dictionary can be and are used as affective epithets. The second group – figurative epithets. The group is formed of metaphors, metonymies and similes and expressed predominantly by adjectives (e.g. “the smiling sun”, “the frowning cloud”), qualitative adverbs (e.g. “his triumphant look”), or rarely by nouns in exclamatory sentences (e.g. “You, ostrich!”) and postpositive attributes (e.g. “Richard of the Lion Heart”).

Two-step epithets are so called because the process of qualifying passes two stages: the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification itself, as in “an unnaturally mild day”. Two-step epithets have a fixed structure of Adv+Adj model.