Bright and yellow, hard and cold,

EM based on the redundancy of sentence structure

In Prof. Galperin’s interpretation these are ways of combining parts of the utterance.

These are sentences in which additional, superfluous elements (words) can be found. It must be borne in mind that all superfluous elements have a stylistic feature in common: additional words and more complicated construction aim at emphasizing the thought expressed.

1.Repetition is an expressive means, which is used to emphasise a certain statement by repeating one of the units of the sentence.

Reiteration is never a mechanical repetition of a word or structure. It is always accompanied by new connotations. The repetition stresses not the denotative but the connotative meaning first of all.

There distinguished several types of repetition:

I/ ordinary - the repetition of one and the same member of the sentence. E.g.: Please, get well — fast - fast - fast. (J.Webster)

Ordinary repetition emphasises both the logical and the emotional meanings of the reiterated word (phrase).

2/ framing or ring – is an arrangement of repeated elements at the beginning and at the end of the sentence that cerates a kind of structural encasement.

E.g. We are going to be lucky, we are. (J. Priestley)

3/ anadiplosis (catch repetition) — the repetition of the same unit at the end of the proceeding and at the beginning of the following sentence. E.g. It was a nice face, a face you get to like. (R.Chandler)

4 / chain repetition - is the combination of several catch repetitions.

E.g. The originals were returned to the envelopes, and the envelopes to the box, and the box to the vault. (R.Stout)

The effect is that of the smoothly developing logical reasoning.

There is a variety of repetition which is called "root-repetition".

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

He didn’t answer for a minute. His answer was no answer.

Examples of repetition are abundant in:

A/ colloquial speech

very, very good; a little, little girl; for ever and ever

B/ poetry

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

Heavy to get and light to hold (Hood)

The nominative sentence “Gold!” barely states the existence of this precious metal; being repeated four times, it proclaims the all-penetrating power of gold.

C/ imaginative prose

D/ emotional public speeches, which often appeal to the feelings of the listeners rather than to their logic, thus being examples of oratorical art, rich in stylistic devices, repetition included.

On the contrary, such repetition hardly ever occurs in scientific, technological and legal texts (official documents).

Like many stylistic devices, repetition is poly-functional.

It shows the state of mind of the speaker. Repetition also aims at logical emphasis, an emphasis necessary to fix the attention of the reader on the key word of the utterance.

Repetition may have a slightly 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 stress monotony of action, it may suggest fatigue, or despair, or hopelessness, or doom.

Functions and stylistic effect

- to enhance the rhythmical aspect of the utterance

- to show the state of mind of the speaker

- to carry out the background function

- to stress the monotony of action

E.g. "What has my life been? Fag and grind, fag and grind. Turn the wheel, turn the wheel." (Dickens)

Here the rhythm of the repeated parts makes the monotony and hopelessness of the speaker's life still more keenly felt.

2. Enumeration is the repetition of the homogeneous words or word combinations in the same syntactical position.

The grouping of sometimes absolutely heterogeneous notions occurs only in isolated instances to meet some peculiar purport of the writer.

E.g. Two minutes later, he had gone hooting into the lights and shadows of the city, which sent whirling past the windows a crazy frieze, glimmering, glittering, darkening, of shops, taverns, theatre doors, hoardings, church porches, crimson and gold segments of buses, little lighted saloon cars, railings and doorsteps and lace curtains, mounds and chocolate, thousands of cigarette packets, beer and buns and aspirin and wreaths and coffins and faces, faces, more and more faces, strange, meaningless and without end. (J.Priestly)

The stylistic effect here results from a kind of clash of concepts. This enumeration gives the reader an insight into the mind of the observer, into the great variety of miscella­neous objects, which caught his eye.

Functions and stylistic effect

- to give an insight into the mind of the character

- to show the clash of concepts and heterogeneous notions in describing a scenery or image

3. Syntactical tautology is the repetition of semantically identical ele­ments of the sentence (usually the subject expressed by a noun and a pronoun).

E.g. Judge Thatcher, he took it and put it out at interest. (M. Twain)

There are not only the juxtaposed repetitions of a constituent, but also distant repetitions of homogeneous members.

E.g. Не seems quite a good bloke, old Miller.

Those animals, I really loved them.

Tautology is widespread in nursery rhymes.

E.g. Jack Sprat’s pig,

He was not very little,

He was not very big

The stylistic function of this construction is topicalization (communicative emphasis) of the ‘theme”. The noun subject separated from the rest of the sentence by the unstressed pronominal subject comes to be detached from the sentence – made more prominent, more “rheme-like”

Tautology is often defined as a fault of style. Stylistics, it is … In this case it is regarded as a type of pleonasm.

Pleonasm is the use of more words in a sentence than are necessary to express the meaning; it is the redundancy of expression.

"He was the only survivor; no one else was saved."

It is not necessary to distinguish between these two terms. Any repetition may be found faulty if it is not motivated by the aesthetic purport of the writer. On the other hand, any seemingly unnecessary repetition of words or of ideas expressed in different words may be.

Pleonasm may also be called "the art of wordy silence."

Both pleonasm and tautology may be acceptable in oratory inasmuch as they help the audience to grasp the meaning of the utterance. In this case, however, the repetition of ideas is not considered a fault but is justified by the aim of the communication or aesthetic function.

Functions and stylistic effect

- to lay stress on a certain part of the sentence

4. Polysyndeton is the repetition of the same conjunction be­fore the enumerated components of the sentence.

E.g. It felt smooth, and soft, and warm, and comforting. (R. Chandler)

The function of polysyndeton is to strengthen the idea of equal logical (emotive) importance of connected words or phrases.

In poetry and fiction polysyndeton underlines the simultaneity of actions, or close connection of properties enumerated. A classical example of polysyndeton of this kind is the famous poem by Robert Southey. A few lines will suffice:

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