Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies

2017-2018

Introduction to Stylistics

WEEK 3 - LECTURE 1Dr. Margherita Dore

margherita.dore@uniroma1.it

Some Reading Suggestions 3/3

11/11/17 Pagina 3

Overview• Stylistic Devices and Figures of Speech• Alliteration• Allusion• Hyperbole• Metaphor• Metonymy• The Stylistic Analysis of Humour - Ambiguity• Bilingual Humour (Italian)

Stylistic Devices & figures of speechAlliteration: repetition of initial consonant sound (e.g. for the greater good of; fantastic philosophy)

Allusion: indirect reference to a person, event or piece of literature (e.g. the Bible, Greek mythology)

Anaphora: successive clauses or sentences start with the same word(s) (e.g. The beginning of wisdom is silence. Thesecond step is listening)

Antithesis: contrasting relationship between two ideas (e.g. That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind)

Hyperbole: deliberate exaggeration (e.g. I have told you a thousand times)

Stylistic Devices & figures of speech

Hypophora: question raised and answered by the author/ speaker (e.g. Why is it better to love than be loved? It is surer)

Litotes: form of understatement (e.g. That's not bad. (instead of: That's good/great))

Onomatopoeia: word imitating a sound (e.g. The lion roared)

Parenthesis: additional information (e.g. We (myself, wife Ann and daughters Caroline and Joanna) boarded our boat)

Personification: attribution of human characteristics to animals, inanimate objects or abstractions (e.g. The frogs began their concert)

Stylistic Devices & figures of speech

Repetition: repeating words or phrases (e.g. Down, down,down. Would the fall never come…)

Rhetorical Question: question without a direct answer (e.g.When public money brings windfalls to a few, why should thestate not take a share?)

Simile: direct comparison (with like) (e.g. The rabbit-hole wentstraight on like a tunnel)

Synecdoche: using a part instead of the whole or vice versa(e.g. Troops halt the drivers (troops = soldiers))

Understatement: weaken or soften a statement (e.g. I thinkwe have slightly different opinions on this topic)

7

REPETITIONThere was an old lady of Ryde

Who ate some green apples, and died.

The apples fermentedInside; they lamented

Made cider inside ‘er inside.

(Willard Espy)

MetaphorA metaphor is a mapping between two different conceptualdomains. The different domains are known as the target (moreabstract, e.g. ARGUMENT, ANGER) and the source domain (moreconcrete, e.g. WAR, A HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER). The targetdomain is the topic or concept that you want to describe throughthe metaphor while the source domain refers to the concept thatyou draw upon in order to create the metaphorical construction:

ARGUMENT IS WAR:I defended my viewsHe shot down all of my arguments

ANGER IS A HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER:She really blew her lidShe blew her topShe just exploded

Metaphors are the basic schemes by which peopleconceptualise their experience and their external world.

Example – Friends, series 1Metaphor: SEX IS A ROCK CONCERTMonica: What you guys don't understand is, for us, kissing is as importantas any part of it.Joey: Yeah, right!.......Y'serious?Phoebe: Oh, yeah!Rachel: Everything you need to know is in that first kiss.Monica: Absolutely.Chandler: Yeah, I think for us, kissing is pretty much like an openingact, y'know? I mean it's like the stand-up comedian you have to sitthrough before Pink Floyd comes out.Ross: Yeah, and-and it's not that we don't like the comedian, it's thatthat... that's not why we bought the ticket.Chandler: The problem is, though, after the concert's over, no matter howgreat the show was, you girls are always looking for the comedianagain, y'know? I mean, we're in the car, we're fighting traffic... Basicallyjust trying to stay awake.Rachel: Yeah, well, word of advice: Bring back the comedian.Otherwise next time you're gonna find yourself sitting at home,listening to that album alone.Joey: Are we still talking about sex?

MetaphorHowever, literature metaphors are typically more novel andless clear. Writers consciously strive for novelty in literaryexpression. Let’s look for instance at these lines by SylviaPlath’s poem ‘Metaphors’ (and consider that the author mayhave thought to be pregnant at the time she wrote this):

[I’m] An elephant, a ponderous house,A melon strolling on two tendrils.PREGNANT WOMEN ARE BIGSYLVIA IS AN ELEPHANT(big animal)SYLVIA IS A HOUSE (a big building)SYLVIA IS A MELON (a big round fruit) standing on thin sticks(=legs)

Exercise 1Read this passage from Fiends, Series 1, and try to explain the metaphor in it:

[Context: Ross has just been left by his lesbian wife and he is very upset. He suggests that if there is only one woman for every man he has lost his chance to be happy. Joey tries to cheer him up]

Joey: What are you talking about? ‘One woman’? That's like saying there's is only one flavor of ice cream for you. Lemmetell you something, Ross. There's [sic.] lots of flavors out there. There's Rocky Road, and Cookie Dough, and Bing! Cherry Vanilla, You could get 'em with Jimmies or nuts, or whipped cream! This is the best thing that ever happened to you! You got married, you were, like what, eight? Welcome back to the world! Grab a spoon!

Ross: I honestly don't know if I'm hungry or horny!

Exercise 1 - keyJoey’s metaphor:

WOMEN ARE ICE-CREAM FLAVOURS

Describing women in terms of food is not novel in English as metaphors that define women as ‘tarts’ or ‘cakes’ are part of every day language (cf. Goatly 1997: 155-156 on ideology and metaphor). However, Joey’s use of ice-cream flavours is an example of a creative use of language. Joey’s metaphor portrays a scenario where human features and objects (food) are blending and clashing in an unresolved tension that triggers humour.

(Dore 2008)

Exercise 2

Read the stanza below and explain the figures of speech in it (along with anything else you can think of according to what we studied so far):

He was my North, my South, my East, my West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

(Funeral Blues, W. H. Auden)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtL51SvbRos

Exercise 2 - Key

He was my North, my South, my East, my West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The rhyme scheme is AABB (phonological parallelism). The poet conceptualises his lover in logically paradoxical (hyperbolic) ways. This stanza is effective in its parallel and large use of complements and lexical links that cover direction, days and time.

Metonymy

In Metonymy, the transfer occurs within a single conceptual domain. It involves the transportation between associated concepts in the same domain.It results in transfer between the part and the whole, a producer and the produced, an institution and its location, etc.

Buckingham Palace is thought to be furious

The Pentagon refused to comment on the story.

Greece beat England in today’s match.

Example

Now consider this metonymy taken again from SylviaPlath’s poem ‘Metaphors’:

O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!

This metonymy is linked to the metaphor we analysedabove. Fruit refers to nurturing, ivory to somethingprecious, timbers to security

11/11/17 Pagina 17

The Stylistic Analysis of Humour • Two key theoretical principles underpin the language ofhumour, the first of which is that humour requires anincongruity.

• The principle of incongruity applies more generally to(i) any kind of stylistic twist in a pattern of language or(ii) any situation where there is a mismatch between what

someone says and what they mean.

• incongruity can be situated in any layer of linguisticstructure.

11/11/17 Pagina 18

Puns and verbal play• The stylistic analysis of humour therefore involvesidentifying an incongruity in a text and pinpointingwhereabouts in the language system it occurs.

• One of the most commonly used stylistic devices forcreating humour is the pun, a form of word-play in whichsome feature of linguistic structure simultaneouslycombines two unrelated meanings (see Simpson 2004:45 for some interesting examples).

• Punning (or word-playing) is possible because of theinherent ambiguity that any language entails.

11/11/17 Pagina 19

Ambiguity

• Ambiguity is an inherent feature of language sincewords may have more than one meaning (polysemy)

• Words may be used to mean something else (metaphor):Mark is a pig (he is not literally a pig but he behaves assuch)

• Words may be used to refer to a whole by using just apart of it (metonymy):I drank a glass of water (the contained, not the container)

11/11/17 Pagina 20

Context

• Context helps us choose the correct meaning(disambiguation process)

In Hollywood you can see many stars

With a telescope you can see many stars in the sky

The disambiguation process is also possible thanks toyour encyclopedic knowledge about the word itself that isstored in your brain -> frames or scripts

Ambiguity and Phonological DeviationRead AGAIN the poem below titled Remembrance ofThings Pasta and consider how wordplay and phonologicaldeviation are presented

Ambiguity and Phonological Deviation - Key“Penne” sounds almost like “penny”; also, BB exploits the expression “a penny for your thoughts”; “cannelonely” sounds almost like “kind of lonely”

(technically speaking, these are instances of (semi)homophony which make the text deviant and surprise the reader);

11/11/17 Pagina 23

Intentional Ambiguity is FunCauliflower Olive Sheep Eggplant Penguins

Lettuce Duck

11/11/17 Pagina 24

Intentional Ambiguity is Fun

On a Garbage Truck: “Our business is pickingup.”

Optometrist’s Sign: “There’s more to a visionexamination than meets the eye.”

Ad for Aspirin: “We go to a lot of pains.”

11/11/17 Pagina 25

Unintentional Ambiguity is Funnier

Law School Questionnaire: “How many facultymembers do you have, broken down by sex?”

Diner Sign: “Wanted: Man to scrub floor and twowaitresses.”

Dance Hall Sign: “Clean and decent dancing everynight except Monday.”

11/11/17 Pagina 26

Bilingual Humour (Italian)What’s black and white and red all over?

A newspaper.

ITALIAN VERSION:Che cosa è nero, bianco e rosso ovunque?A. L’Unità, or (a Communist newspaper)B. Una zebra con l’abbronzatura (a zebra with a sunburn)

NOTE: The first “red” retains the “read” association, while thesecond “red” does not.

(Chiaro [2008]: 580)

11/11/17 Pagina 27

Bilingual Humour (Italian) - Discussion• Neither of these translations encapsulate the semantic

ambivalency attached to the words “red/read.” “Nevertheless, solution A does capture the ‘read’ element of the original riddle coupled with the metaphorical value of the colour term ‘red’ attached to a popular left wing newspaper L’Unità.”

• Since this is a children’s riddle, the first answer is inappropriate because children wouldn’t know about L’Unità.

• Furthermore the second answer has the kind of silliness that would be found in a children’s riddle.

(Chiaro [2008]: 580)

Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies

2017-2018

Introduction to Stylistics

WEEK 3 - LECTURE 2Dr. Margherita Dore

margherita.dore@uniroma1.it

11/11/17 Pagina 29

Overview• What is grammar for?• Types of Grammar• One English Grammar or Many?• Grammatical structure and function• Five functional elements• Interpreting a sentence

Before StartingLet’s look at this text. Can you find instances of metaphoric language(including similes)

DiscussionYou can distinguish a simile from a metaphor because the former always includes “like” (or “as”) whereas the latter does not. Hence:

Simile: “reading your paper was like watching unfamiliar…..”

Metaphor: “you didn’t submit a research paper. You submitted and hostage situation”

Source domain: HOSTAGE SITUATIONTarget domain: WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER

The elements mapped from the source domain are: people held hostage, kidnapping is a violent deed, it often happens at night, Therefore, “words” (like people) held in a place they don’t want to be (the research paper) because the kidnapper (the student) has violently forced them to be there.

Conceptual metaphor: READING THIS PAPER WAS A PAINFUL EXPERIENCE

Before Starting

Please watch this video by G. Lakoff who talks about howhe started to be interested in Conceptual Metaphor Theory

CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR

LOVE IS A JOURNEY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu-9rpJITY8

What is grammar for?

John is watching Amy

If we only know the meaning of each of the wordsabove, we cannot know that John is the persondoing the watching and Amy is the person beingwatched. The fact that in English subjects typicallycome before verbs, and objects typically come afterthem, enables us to know that John is doing thewatching and Amy is being watched. So grammaris used in languages to specify the relationsamong the words and phrases we use.

Types of Grammar

Synthetic languages: they can specify grammaticalrelations among words and phrases by addinggrammatical morphemes to words (e.g. Italian, Spanish,etc.)

Analytic languages: they can use place ordering byassociating particular grammatical functions with particularplaces in sentences, clause and phrases (e.g. MandarinChinese)

English is a predominantly analytic language, doing most of itsgrammar by place-ordering. However, it still uses grammaticalmorphemes to do some of its grammar, e.g. '-ed' past tenseendings on verbs, plural markers on nouns and comparative (-er') and superlative (-est) endings on short adjectives, etc.

One English Grammar or Many?

The grammar of (modern) Englishvaries over time (cf. Shakespeare’s vs.today’s) and according to places (inYorkshire you can still hear people use“thee” and “thou” instead of “you”).

So there is not one monolithic Englishgrammar - no complete system wecould call THE grammar of English

Example

[Daylong this tomcat lies…] Then reappear his eyes

(Ted Hughes, Easter's Tomcat)

Subjects in English clauses normally come before thepredicators they are acting as subject to. Hence, we shouldnormally have:

Then his eyes reappear

Comment: by using the unusual ordering, Hughesforegrounds the clause, and also positions the subject at theend of the clause, thus helping to 'enact' grammatically theidea of the eyes appearing out of nowhere (effect!).

Exercise 1

Place the words in what you consider it to bethe correct order, and work out why it is thatyour ordering feels more usual than the oneHughes uses.Then, think of the reason why Hughes usesthe ordering below:

Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry

(Ted Hughes, Easter's Tomcat)

Exercise 1 - key

His eyes and outcry go over the roofs

Comment: The noun phrase ‘his eyes and outcry’acts as subject to the predicator 'go' and thereforeneeds to be placed before that predicator. Theprepositional phrase ‘over the roofs’ needs to go atthe end of the sentences (the normal position inEnglish sentences).

As before, Hughes achieves a foregrounding effectby means of a deviant grammatical structure thatpushes the subject to the end of the sentence.

Grammatical structure and function

N V NJohn kissed Mary Mary kissed John

These two sentences have the same grammatical structure.However, they mean different things because the two words (or,more accurately, the two one-word phrases) 'John' and 'Mary'have different grammatical functions in the sentences.

REMEMBER: the verb is the PREDICATOR!

five functional elementsSubjects (S): A Noun Phrase; usually comes first in the sentence, before the Predicator.Predicators (P): A Verb Phrase which expresses the action/process or relationship.Objects (O): A Noun Phrase; refers to the entity which is the recipient of the action/process. Only occurs with transitive verbs. Usually comes after the Predicator.Complements (C): A Noun Phrase or Adjective Phrase; normally comes after a linking Predicator; expresses some attribute or role of the SUBJECT or the OBJECT.Adverbials (A): An Adverbial, Prepositional or Noun Phrase which usually specifies some condition related to the Predicator; Its most normal position is at the end of the sentence.

Grammatical structure and function (AGAIN)

N V NJohn kissed Mary

S P O

Mary kissed JohnS P O

Exercise 2

Let’s now look at these two sentences again and try to analyse them according to the five functional elements presented above:

Then reappear his eyes

Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry

Exercise 2 - key

Then reappear his eyesA P S

Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry.A P S

Interpreting a sentence

Picture the scene described by the following sentence:

Mary kissed the boy on the nose.

Interpreting a sentence

The grammatical analysis of the sentence isthe following:

Mary kissed the boy on the nose.S P O A

Interpreting a sentence

But the sentence is actually grammaticallyambiguous, leading to two different understandings(or 'readings') of it. Let's make the alternativemeaning obvious by adding a bit more context:

Mary kissed the boy on the nose. But thenose sneezed and the boy fell off.

This would also lead to a different analysis ofthe sentence:

Mary kissed the boy on the nose.S P O

Interpreting a sentence

If we wanted to avoid the ambiguity we wouldhave to change the structure, for example to:

Mary kissed the boy who was standing on the nose.S P O

Now only this absurd interpretation is possible.Note that to achieve the disambiguation wehave had to use a more complex structure.The above sentence now has a clauseembedded inside the noun phrase, post-modifying 'boy‘.

Exercise 3Find all the examples of deviant grammar and stylistic devices you canthink of. Also reflect on the possible meaning of this poem:love is more thicker than forgetmore thinner than recallmore seldom than a wave is wetmore frequent than to failit is most mad and moonlyand less it shall unbethan all the sea which onlyis deeper than the sealove is less always than to winless never than aliveless bigger than the least beginless littler than forgiveit is most sane and sunlyand more it cannot diethan all the sky which onlyis higher than the sky

(cummings 1954 [1939]: 381)

Exercise 3 - Key

love is more thicker than forgetmore thinner than recallmore seldom than a wave is wetmore frequent than to failit is most mad and moonlyand less it shall unbethan all the sea which onlyis deeper than the sealove is less always than to winless never than aliveless bigger than the least beginless littler than forgiveit is most sane and sunlyand more it cannot diethan all the sky which onlyis higher than the sky

(for a full commentary, please read Simpson, Stylistics, p.53-59)

...And to Cheer you up a bit A language group in France was asked whether the word 'computer‘ should be masculine or feminine. The men decided that 'la computer' was definitely right because:1) No-one but their creator understands their internal logic2) The native language they use to communicate is incomprehensible to everyone else3) Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for possible later retrieval4) As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay-cheque on accessories for it.

The women, however, concluded that computers should be masculine, 'le computer', because:1) In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on2) They have a lot of data, but they are still clueless3) They are supposed to help you to solve problems, but half the time they are the problem4) As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you'd waited a little you could have got a better model.

BibliographyWhat we covered so far:

• Leech, G. N. and Short, M. H. (2007) Style In Fiction, 2ndedition. London: Longman (Study Ch. 1, 2, 3)

• L. Wright, J. Hope, Stylistics, 1996 (Study Ch. 1, 2, 3)• C. Gregoriou, English Literary Stylistics, 2009 (Study Ch. 1

– potete NON studiare la sezione 1.2 su rhyhm and metre;2 and practice your understanding with Ch.3)

• Simpson, P. (2004) Stylistics: A Resource Book forStudents. London: Routledge. (Study Sections A1-A6 andB1-B4)