Repetition

Syntactical Expressive means and Stylistic Devices

R epetition (1) is an expres­sive means of language used when the speaker is under the stress of strong emotion. It shows the state of mind of the speaker:

"Stop!"—she cried, "Don't tell me! / don't want to hear,

I don't want to hear what you've come for. / don't want to hear."

This is not a stylistic device; it is a means by which the excited state of mind of the speaker is shown. This state of mind always manifests itself through intonation, which is suggested here by the words 'she cried'.

The stylistic device of repetition aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the key-word of the utterance. For example:

"For that was it! Ignorant of the long and stealthy march of pas­sion, and of the state to which it had reduced Fleur; ignorant of how Soames had watched her, ignorant of Fleur's reckless desperation, ignorant of all this, everybody felt aggrieved." (Galsworthy)

Repetition is classified according to compositional patterns. If the repeated word (or phrase) comes at the beginning of two or more consec­utive sentences, clauses or phrases, we have anaphora. If the repeated unit is placed at the end of consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases, we have the type of repetition called epiph­ora:

"I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the rest of mankind, in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such a case as that. (Dickens)

Here the repetition has a different function: it becomes a background against which the statements preceding the repeated unit are made to stand out more conspicuously. This may be called the background function.

Repetition may also be arranged in the form of a frame: the initial parts of a syntactical unit, in most cases of a paragraph, are repeated at the end of it:

"Poor doll's dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road and asking guidance. Poor, little doll's dressmaker". (Dickens)

This compositional pattern of repetition is called framing. Framing makes the whole utterance more compact and more complete. Framing is most effective in singling out paragraphs.

Among other compositional models of repetition is linking or reduplication (also known as anad ipIosis). The last word or phrase of one part of an utterance is repeated at the beginning of the next part, thus hooking the two parts together. The writer seems to double back on his tracks and pick up his last word.

"Freeman and slave... carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolution­ary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

Any repetition of a unit of language will cause some slight modification of meaning, a modification suggested by a noticeable change in the intonation with which the repeated word is pronounced.

Sometimes a writer may use the linking device several times in one utterance:

“The smile extended into the laugh: the laugh into a roar, and the roar became general.”

This pattern of repetition is called chain-repetition.

The function of repetition is to intensify the utterance.

The distributional model of repetition is simple: it is succession of the parts repeated.

It may stress monotony of action, fatigue, despair, hopelessness, doom.

Repetition is polyfunctional. There is a variety of repetition which we shall call "root-repetition":

"To live again in the youth of the young." (Galsworthy),

"He loves a dodge for its own sake; being..—the dodgerest of all the dodgers." (Dickens)

"Schemmer, Karl Schemmer, was a brute, a brutish brute." (London)

In root-repetition it is not the same words that are repeated but the same root. We are faced with different words having different meanings (youth: young; brutish: brute), but the shades of mean­ing are perfectly clear.

Another variety of repetition may be called synonymicaI rep­etition. This is the repetition of the same idea by using synonymous words and phrases which by adding a slightly different nuance of mean­ing intensify the impact of the utterance:

"...are there not capital punishments sufficient in your statutes? Is there not blood enough upon your penal code?" (Byron)

There are two terms used to show the negative attitude of the critic to all kinds of synonymical repetitions. These are pIeonasm and tautology. Pleonasm is "the use of more words in a sentence than are necessary to express the meaning; redundancy of expression." Tautology is defined as "the repetition of the same statement; the repetition of the same word or phrase or of the same idea or statement in other words; usually as a fault of style."

"It was a clear starry night, and not a cloud was to be seen." "He was the only survivor; no one else was saved."

Both pleonasm and tautology may be acceptable in oratory inasmuch as they help the audience to grasp the meaning of the utterance.

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