Functions and stylistic effects

Blondes, wars, famines - they all arrived on the same train. They unpacked together. They stayed at the same hotel. It is а small step from the playground into the classroom, and the men have already taken it.

Metaphor is usually realised in the predicative group.

E.g.: He turned his head. His eyes were lumps of ice. ( R. Chandler)

Functionally there are several types of metaphor:

- nominative (one name which is substituted for by another). The nominative metaphor gives a new name to a class of objects: a leg of the table, an arm of the clock

- cognitive (is created as a result of the shift in the combinability of qualifying lexical units, when their meaning becomes more abstract). Objects named are given the features of quite different objects: black despair, time flie.

- figurative or image bearing (a means of evaluation and discriminations of the shades of meaning): The machine sitting at that desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New York broker. (O. Henry)

Canonised metaphors turn into symbols: rose = love; dove = peace; red colour = love, passion

Functions and stylistic effects

- to carry out the aesthetic function (it appeals to imagination rather than gives information)

- to create imagery

- to reveal the author’s emotional attitude towards what he describes

There are several structural varieties of metaphors – metaphorical epithet, antonomasia, personification, allegory.

Antonomasia is an identification of human beings with things, which surround them. It is a type of renaming for giving an additional information about the bearer of the name.

There are two types:

1. the use of a proper name for a common noun: Othelo, Don Quixote;

He is the Napoleon of crime (C. Doyle)

But he kept snowing her in this Abraham Lincoln, sincere voice. (J. Salinger)

2. the use of common nouns as proper names (speaking/token/telling names): Mr. Murdstone; Mrs. Snake; Miss Toady

Functions and stylistic effects

- to characterise a person

- to point out the leading, most conspicuous features of a person

- to achieve a humorous effect

Personification is ascribing human behaviour and thoughts to inanimate objects. It is a transfer of features and characteristics of a person to a thing (very often nature); ascribing to a natural phenomenon qualities, feelings and thoughts of a human being.

E.g. She had been asleep, always, and now life was thundering imperatively at all her doors. (J. London)

Slowly, silently, now the moon walks the night in her silvery shoon (shoes) (de la Mare)

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster.

And treat those two impostors just the same (R. Kipling)

Old father time

My love is young.

Dylan Thomas in Under Milk Wood personifies the sunrise and likens it to an energetic person:

The sun springs down on the rough and tumbling town. It runs through the hedges of Goosegog Lane, cuffing the birds to sing. Spring whips green down Cockle Row, and the shells ring out.

It is realised only within a certain context and is used only in emotive prose/fiction.

Functions and stylistic effects

- to give vivid characteristics to a phenomenon

- to create the imagery

- to enhance the expressiveness of the text

Allegory is the expression of an abstract idea through some concrete image or object. It is realised within the frames of the whole text. It is Antonomasia realised within the whole text.

It may be presented by:

1. a proverb/saying: It’s time to turn ploughs into swords. All is not gold that glitters. Still waters run deep.

2. fable

3. literary fiction

Some genres of literature are fully based on allegory: fables, fairy tales.

After two centuries of crusades the Crescent (=the Moslem religion) defeated the Cross (= Christianity) in all south-western Asia.

- to stress the logical meaning of speech by adding to it some emotive colouring

- to enhance the poetic expressiveness of the text

Epithet – word or word combination used attributively to give not logical but expressive characteristics (both real and imaginary) of a thing or person. It is an interaction of logical and emotive meanings, which produce a subjective evaluation.

The iron hate in Soul pushed him on again. (M. Wilson)

The difference between a logical attribute and an epithet: the logical attribute is objective and non-evaluative: wooden table, blank sheet of paper.

The epithet gives an emotional assessment and individual evaluation to the object described: a wooden/blank face, iron lady.

There is an interaction of logical and emotive meaning. It is markedly subjective and evaluative

I got up and started towards the door in a dead silence. (R. Chandler)

Semantically there are:

1. affective/emotive epithets: they convey the emotional evaluation of the object (gorgeous, atrocious);

2. figurative/unassociated: based on metaphors, metonymies and similes : a ghost-like face; helpless loneliness.

It was a sad old bathrobe (J.Salinger)

There is a group of associated/fixed/conventional/standing epithets: true love, Merry Christmas, fair lady.

Structurally the epithet may be:

1. simple (used singly (in the attributive or adverbial positions): an angry sky;

2. compound (a cloud-shaped giant);

3. two-step structures (a pompously majestic female);

4. a phrase/clausal (a don’t-care attitude, six-o’clock-in-the-evening-enthusiastic-determined-and-well-intentioned-studier-until-midnight type)

5. inverted/reversed/metaphorical is based on a metaphor and commonly expressed by an “of-phrase” (a toy of a girl).

The difference between the inverted epithet and an ordinary of-phrase: the article with the second noun: the toy of the girl is a noun phrase; the toy of a girl is an epithet.

A ghost of a smile appeared on Soames’s face. (J. Galsworthy)

Functions and stylistic effects

- to give an emotional evaluation

- to convey the subjective attitude of the writer

metaphor - metonymy

Thus, metaphor and metonymy are two basic and universal means of the transfer of a name from one denotate to another.

What is the difference between them?

Semantically:

1. Metonymical group of EM is based on the contiguity of two objects. Metaphorical group is based on the transfer of the meaning based on the likeness (real or imaginary) of two objects.

2. Both metonymical and metaphorical transfer of meaning depends on the lexical meaning of the units. However, metonymical transfer of meaning is characterised by widening of the lexical meaning: The hall applauded. The metaphorical transfer is characterised by the narrowing of the lexical meaning: He is a bear.

3. Metonymy and metaphor differ in the way they are deciphered. In the process of disclosing the meaning implied in a metaphor, one image excludes the other. E.g.: The sky lamp of the night – the moon. This is not the case with metonymy. Metonymy while presenting one object to our mind doesn’t exclude the other: The blue coat started laughing.

Syntactically:

There are two communicative functions, which influence the formation of categorial and lexical meanings of the word:

1. the function of identification/nomination – the theme of the sentence

2. the predicative function (the rheme of the sentence)

Metonymy is linked to the identification function. It is usually expressed by nouns and is used in syntactical functions characteristic of nouns. It is more often found in the subject and object group. E.g.: The bottle-neck coloured.

The primary function of the metaphor is that if the predicative, the secondary function is identification. Metaphor is commonly used in the predicative group. When it is used as a subject, it takes on an anaphoric pronoun. E.g.: She was a fox. But this fox was especially cunning.

Лапти потянулись в город. – metonymy – identification function - theme

Он – настоящий лапоть. – metaphor – it entered the position of the predicative.

Irony is also based on the transfer of the meaning, but if metaphor is based on similarity and metonymy on contiguity, irony is based on the opposition / difference of two meanings of a speech unit (the one that is expressed and the one that is meant). Words acquire meanings opposite to their primary language meanings.

Irony ( concealed mockery) is the use of a word, a phrase or a sentence, which has a positive meaning to express a negative one.

E.g. The house itself was not so much. It was smaller than Buckingham Palace, rather grey for California, and probably had fewer windows then the Chrysler Building. (R. Chandler)

Usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt. It foregrounds not the logical, but the evaluative meaning.

What a noble illustration of the tender laws of this favoured country! – They let the pauper go to sleep! (Ch. Dickens)

How early you’ve come!

The dictionary defines irony in many ways, but for our purposes, here are the three most relevant ones:

(1) the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning;

(2) an expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between the apparent and intended meaning;

(3) the incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.

I looked at the First of the Barons. He was eating salad – taking a whole lettuce leaf on his fork and absorbing it slowly, rabbit-wise – a fascinating process to watch. (K. Mansfield)

The intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by words used. The dictionary and contextual meanings stand in opposition to each other.

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