What is style?

Every type of speech uses its own lingual sub-systems: not all the forms comprising the national language but only a certain number of forms.

Every sub-system consists of:

1. linguistic units common to all the sub-systems;

2. specific linguistic units, to be found only in the given subsystem.

It is self-evident that sub-systems differ from one another by their specific spheres alone, because their non-specific spheres coincide. Hence, specific spheres differentiating the sub-systems (and, ultimately, types of speech) may be called their styles, or, style may be defined as the specific sphere of the given sub-system. Roughly speaking, style is a complex of lexical, grammatical, etc. peculiarities by which a certain type of speech is characterized.

Every linguistic unit, along with the meaning, has its stylistic value which may be characterized as connotation (i.e. additional meaning). The connotation of a linguistic unit is just what we think of it as belonging either to the specific sphere of a certain sub­system or to the non-specific sphere common to all the sub­systems. Hence, stylistic value is actualized by means of associations, namely:

• linguistic units that are used everywhere cause no definite associations with any particular type of speech. Thus, they have no definite stylistic value and are called stylistically neutral;

• linguistic units belonging to the specific sphere of a subsystem are mentally associated with that sphere. They are stylistically coloured.

LECTURE 2

Stylistic semasiology

Stylistic semasiology is a part of stylistics which investigates stylistic phenomena in the sphere of semantics, i.e. in the sphere of meanings, regardless of the form of linguistic units. As distinct from stylistic lexicology or stylistic syntax which deal with words and sentences, stylistic semasiology makes meaning the object of its investigation.

But some limitations to the object are to be borne in mind. Non-stylistic semasiology studies meanings. As concerns stylistic semasiology it is not so much the meaning itself that is investigated but the rules and laws of shifts of meanings; the patterns according to which meanings are shifted or either various combinations thus producing a certain stylistic effect. Stylistic semasiology also studies stylistic functions of shifts of meanings and of certain combinations of meanings.

Stylistic phenomena effected by various shifts of meanings are usually termed «figures of speech».

How shall we classify figures of speech?

Shifts of meanings can be divided into two large groups, namely:

1. there are cases when the disparity of the actual denomination of the referent with the usual, traditional denomination of it can be understood as quantitative, i.e.the referent is simply exaggerated or underestimated;

2. in some cases the disparity between the traditional and actual denominations is qualitative.

Hence, the corresponding figures of speech may be subdivided accordingly into figures of quantity (hyperbole, understatement, litotes) and figures of quality (metonymy, metaphor, irony). Both figures of quantity and figures of quality may be called figures of replacement since they are based on replacement of the habitual name of a thing by its situational substitute.

We can give the name of figures of co-occurence to those stylistic phenomena which are based on combination of meanings in speech. The difference between the figures of replacement and those of co-occurence is as follows. In the former, it is one meaning that produces stylistic effect; in the latter, it is a combination of at least two meanings that produces stylistic effect.

Thus, figures of replacement break down to figures of quantity and figures of quality.

Figures of quantity: hyperbole, understatement, litotes.

Figures of quality are subdivided into metonymical group (transfer by contiguity) consisting of metonymy, synecdoche, periphrasis; metaphorical group (transfer by similarity): metaphor, personification, epithet; and irony (transfer by contrast).

Figures of co-occurence are subdivided into three groups:

figures of identity (simile, synonymic repetition);

figures of inequality (gradation, anti-climax);

figures of contrast (antithesis, oxymoron).