Expressive Means based on the

Reduction of sentence structure

Deliberate omission of some obligatory
elements of the sentence structure that
includes: Ellipsis, Aposiopesis,
Nominative Sentences and Asyndeton
 Ellipsis is the omission from a syntactical
construction of one or more words which
might be clearly understood from context
used in conversational English or in fiction
to give speech characteristics, emphasize
some facts or imitate spontaneity.
Ex. “Ah, well, he’s gone to a better world.” “Did he…peacefully?” she asked.
(“Dubliners” by James Joyce)
Aposiopesis is a break in speech, while
the thought is not completed, which is
caused by the speaker`s inability or
unwillingness to finish the utterance
creating dramatic or comic effect
mainly used in dialogues or
spontaneous oral speech.
Ex. “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me…” (“Julius Caesar” by William
Shakespeare)
 Nominative Sentences are one-member sentences
with a noun, a prepositional noun-phrase or an
adverb which are grammatically independent. They
are often used in emotive prose in descriptions of
nature, interior, appearance, etc. to produce an
effect of a detailed background of an action
mentioning the emotions, attitudes, moods of the
characters and to increase the dynamism of
narration.

Ex. “London. Fog everywhere. Implacable November weather.” (Ch. Dickens)

 Asyndeton is a deliberate avoidance of
conjunction used to connect sentences,
clauses, or words to make narrative energetic,
tense and to create rhythmical arrangement.

Ex. “Call up her father.

Rouse him. Make after him, Poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets. Incense her kinsmen,
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell” (“Othello” by William Shakespeare)
Stylistic Devices based on
the Transposition of
syntactical meaning
 Rhetorical questions are negative or
affirmative statements rather than
questions, possible answers being
implied by the question itself. They are
often used in modern fiction in the
descriptions of the character`s inner
state/meditations/reflections.
 Ex. “What’s in a name? That which we
call a rose by any other name would
smell as sweet!” (“Romeo and Juliet” by
Shakespeare)

Ex. “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

(Play by Edward Albee)
EM based on the redundancy of
sentence structure

1.Repetition

Is a reiteration of the same word or phrase to lay

an emphatic stress on certain parts of the sentence
 Ordinary repetition
(repetition of a word in close
succession)
The president said, “Work,
work, and work,” are the keys
to success.
Anadiplosis or catch
repetition
( a repetition of the last word in
a sentence or clause at the
beginning of the next one)
“All service ranks the same with God,
With God, whose puppets, best and
worst, Are we."
Framing or ring repetition
( a repetition in which the opening
word or phrase is repeated at the end
of the sentence or a group of
sentences)
No wonder his father wanted
to know what Bosinney meant,
no wonder."
Chain repetition
( a combination of catch
repetitions)
Failure meant poverty,poverty
meant squalor, squalor led, in
the final stages,to the smells
and stagnation of B. InnAlley.
 2.Enumeration

Is a repetition of homogeneous parts of the sentence,

aimed at emphasizing the whole utterance
In competitive swimming, a medley is an event during which each
contestant swims four different strokes: the breast stroke, back-stroke,
butterfly and freestyle.
 3.Syntactical tautology

Is a superfluous repetition of semantically identical words or

phrases to lay stress on a certain part of the sentence
• “If we do not succeed, we run the risk of failure.”—
Dan Quayle

• “You can observe a lot by watching.”

• In my opinion, I think that...

 4.Polysyndeton

Is a repetition of conjunctions in close succession which are

used to connect sentences, clauses, or words and make the
utterance more rhythmical
• I like Jeff, but he likes Karen, but she likes Mark, but he likes
Marie, but she likes Morgan, but he likes me.

• For Christmas, I want a doll and a ball and an IPad and a

new pair of boots.
 5.Emphatic constructions

May intensify or contrast any part of the sentence

• used to emphasize a specific subject or object.

• It was I who received the promotion. It is the awful
It is/it weather that drives him crazy.
was

• used to emphasize a specific subject or object.

• What we need is a good long shower. What he thinks isn’t
What necessarily true.

• used in negative sentences in order to emphasize something

we feel strongly
• No that’s not true. John did speak to Mary. I do believe
Do/Did that you should think twice about this situation.
 6.Parenthetical clauses

Are sentences or phrases inserted into a syntactical structure

without being grammatically connected with it.
• Monty the Python— a snake in the grass if I ever
saw one—often pretends to have fang aches.

• Orange-nosed attack frogs— there’s one on your

shoulder now—defeat their enemies by sucking out
their wits.
SD based on formal and semantic
interaction of syntactical
constructions
Parallelism

Is a repetition in close succession of the constructions

formed by a similar syntactical pattern

Partial
Complete
It was the best of
The phone was
times, it was the
ringing, the dishes
worst of times, it was
were washing, and the
the age of wisdom, it
dinner was burning.
was the age of
foolishness, it was the
epoch of belief…
Chiasmus (reserves parallelism)

Is a kind of parallelism where the word order of the

sentence or clause that follows becomes inverted

• She went to church, but to the bar went he.

• Her life was full of children, and her children full of
life
• You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't
take the country out of the girl.
Anaphora
Is a repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of
successive clauses or sentences

• “My life is my purpose. My life is my goal. My

life is my inspiration.”

• “Every day, every night, in every way, I am getting

better and better.”
 Epiphora
Is the repetition of the final words or word-groups in
succeeding sentences or clauses

• I want pizza, he wants pizza, we all want pizza!

• The sky was bright. Her smile was bright. My heart was bright.
 EM based on the violation of the word-
order
- What is “Inversion”?

Inversion - is the violation of the fixed word order within an English

sentence.
- How many kinds of “Inversion” are there in the Eng.
language?

grammatical inversion stylistic inversion

Grammatical inversion results in the change of the
grammatical meaning of a syntactic structure (exclamatory
and interrogative sentences);
For example: “Does it surprise you?”, “Can’t you put it
off?”

Stylistic inversion results in adding to a sentence an

emotive and emphatic colouring;
For example: “Insolent, willful and singularly pretty was
her aspect.”, “In this society came Sonia van der Merwe
when her husband had been three years in priosn”.
 Two types:
comprising the principal parts of the sentence.
For example: “Here comes the rain again.” (Here is the rain
coming again.)

influencing the secondary parts of the sentence.

For example: “Never have I seen such awful behaviour.”

is the splitting of a noun phrase by

the attribute adjunct which is removed from the word it modifies
is a separation of a secondary part of the sentence
with the aim emphasizing it.
Stylistic devices based on the transformation of
types and means of syntactic connection
P a r ce l l a t i on is a liberate break of the sentence structure into two
or more isolated parts, separated by a pause and a period. It is
typical of colloquial speech.
The main stylistic functions of parcellation are as follows:
- Specification of some concepts or facts.
- Characterization of the personages’ emotional state.
- Description of the events or giving the personages’ portrayal.
The usage of coordination instead of subordination helps the author
to show different planes of narration. In this case the connection
itself is more important stylistically than the contents of the sentence
 Metonymy

Is realized on the basis of contiguity between the two objects

• We must wait to hear from the crown until we make any further
decisions.
• Saint Thomas will be coming to the soup kitchen to help out next Sunday
after Mass.
• Let me give you a hand
• “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”

By using metonymy, texts exhibit deeper or hidden meanings and thus

drawing readers’ attention. In addition, the use of metonymy helps
achieve conciseness.
• Is a variety of metonymy in which the transfer is based on the
association between a part and the whole ( the sg and the pl);
• Let us look at some of the examples of synecdoche that we can hear
from casual conversations:

• The word “bread” refers to food or money as in “Writing is my

bread and butter” or “sole breadwinner”.
• The phrase “gray beard” refers to an old man.
• The word “sails” refers to a whole ship.
• The word “suits” refers to businessmen.
• The word “boots” usually refers to soldiers.
• Look how Shelly uses synecdoche in his poem Ozymandias:

• “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

• Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
• The hand that mocked them.”

• “The hand” in the above lines refers to the sculptor who carved the
“lifeless things” into a grand statue.
• (Greek: peri- around; phraseo – speak) is a stylistic figure which
substitutes a word designating an object for a word- combination which
describes its most essential and characteristic features.
• Both names and describes;
• It is a stylistic device that can be defined as the use of excessive and
longer words to convey a meaning which could have been conveyed with
a shorter expression, or in a few words. It is an indirect or roundabout
way of writing about something. For example, using the phrase “I am
going to” instead of “I will” is periphrasis.
• Sonnet 74 (By William Shakespeare)
“When that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away.”

• In this extract, Shakespeare is explaining death and its consequences.

He has used an indirect way of illustrating death as “when that fell.”
Here it means, when death comes, no one would be able to save him.
• The Importance of Being Earnest (By Oscar Wilde)

• “I was within a hair’s-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement,

and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say.”

• In the above passage, periphrasis is employed to describe earnestness.

• E.g. The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products (the
wounded) of the fighting in Africa (I.Shaw)
Euphemism
(Greek :speaking well)
• Is a variety of periphrasis which is used to replace an unpleasant
word or expression by a more acceptable one.
• Euphemisms may be divided into several groups according to the
spheres of usage:
1. Religious: God may be replaced by Lord, Heaven;
2. Connected with Death: to join the majority, to go to the way of
all flesh, to breathe one`s last, to depart etc.
3. Political: economic tunnel (for the crisis)
• Euphemism masks a rude or impolite expression but conveys the concept
clearly and politely. Several techniques are employed to create
euphemism.

• It may be in the form of abbreviations e.g. B.O. (body odor), W.C. (toilet)
etc.
• You are becoming a little thin on top (bald).
• Our teacher is in the family way (pregnant).
• We do not hire mentally challenged (stupid) people.

Writers skillfully choose appropriate words to refer to and discuss a subject

indirectly which otherwise are not published due to strict social censorship
 SEMASIOLOGY
is a branch of linguistics
which studies semantics or
meaning of linguistic units
belonging to different
language levels.
 Types of semasiology

Lexical Stylistic
the meaning of words semantic relations and changes which
and word combinations, form the basis of EM and SD
relations between these meanings
changes these meanings undergo
 FIGURES OF SUBSTITUTION
(Semasiological EM)

Figures of quantity Figures of qualification

Metonymy
Synechdoche
Hyperbole
Periphrasis
Euphemism

Meiosis Metaphor
Antonomasia
Litotes Personification
Allegory
Epithet

Irony
 • is a deliberate overstatement or
exaggeration.
Hyperbole • “I had to wait in the station for ten days –
an eternity.” J.Conrad
• The boy was dying to get a new school bag.

• is a deliberate understatement or
Meiosis underestimation of some feature of an
object.
means “to make • It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little
smaller” tumor on the brain.
• Don't worry, I'm fine. It's only a scratch.

• presents a statement in the form of negation

( the usage of not before a word with a
negative prefix)
Litotes • I’m not as young as I used to be.
• New York is not an ordinary city.
 is a secondary nomination unit based on likeness,
similarity or affinity (real or imaginary) of some features of two
different objects.

a) nominative metaphor;
b) cognitive metaphor;
c) generalizing metaphor;
d) figurative or image-bearing metaphor.
a.simple or elementary;
b.Prolonged or sustained
Stylistic functions of metaphor are the following:

1) makes the author`s thought more concrete, definite and clear;

2) reveals the author`s emotional attitude towards what she/he
describes.
The main function of figurative metaphor is not merely
communicative but aesthetic. It appeals to imagination rather than
gives information.
 is a peculiar variety of metaphor. There are two
types of antonomasia:
a) the usage of a proper name foe a common noun (Romeo, Hamlet);
b) the usage of common nouns or their parts as proper names (Mr.
Owl Eyes)
The main stylistic function: characterizing a person
simultaniuesly with naming him/her.

is also a variety of metaphor which

is based on ascribing some features and characteristics of a
person to a thing.
 differs from metaphor as it mainly used
in fiction and it differs from personification as it
appears only in a text no matter how short it may be
(e.g. proverbs, fables or fairy tales).

is the usage of a word having a positive

meaning to express a negative one.
In irony the transfer is based on the opposition
of the objects.
Thank you for
attention!