Part VI. Functional Styles of the English Language 6 страница

We have already pointed out that there are different ratios of emotive and logical relations in epithets. In some of them the logical meaning is hardly perceived, in others the two meanings co-exist. In oxymoron the logical meaning holds fast because there is no true word-combination, only the juxtaposition of two non-combinative words.

But still we may notice a peculiar change in the meaning of the qualifying word. It assumes a new life in oxymoron, definitely indicative of the assessing tendency in the writer's mind.

Let us take the following example from O. Henry's story "The Duel" in which one of the heroes thus describes his attitude towards New York. "I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the haughtiest beggars, the plainest beauties, the lowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw."

Even the superlative degree of the adjectives fails to extinguish the primary meaning of the adjectives: poor, little, haughty, etc. But by some inner law of word-combinations they also show the attitude of the speaker, reinforced, of course, by the preceding sentence: "I despise its very vast-ness and power."

It will not come amiss to express this language phenomenon in terms of the theory of information, which states that though the general tendency of entropy is to enlarge, the encoding tendency in the language, which strives for an organized system of language symbols, reduces entropy. Perhaps, this is due to the organizing spirit of the language, i.e. the striving after a system (which in its very essence is an organized whole) that oxymoronic groups, if repeated frequently, lose their stylistic quality and gradually fall into the group of acknowledged word-combinations which consist of an intensifier and the concept intensified.

Oxymoron has one main structural model: adjective + noun. It is in this structural model that the resistance of the two component parts to fusion into one unit manifests itself most strongly. In the a d-v e r b + adjective model the change of meaning in the first element, the adverb, is more rapid, resistance to the unifying process not being so strong.

Sometimes the tendency to use oxymoron is the mark of certain literary trends and tastes. There are poets in search of new shades of meaning in existing words, who make a point of joining together words of contradictory meaning. "Two ordinary words may become almost new," writes V. V. Vinogradov, "if they are joined for the first time or used in an unexpected context." *

Thus, 'peopled desert', 'populous solitude', 'proud humility' are oxymoronic.

Sometimes, however, the tendency to combine the uncombinative is revealed in structurally different forms, not in adjective-noun models. Gorki criticizes his own sentence: "I suffered then from the fanaticism of knowledge," and called it "a blunder". He points out that the acquiring of knowledge is not blind as fanaticism is. The syntactic relations here are not oxymoronic. But combinations of this kind can be likened to oxymoron. The same can be said of the following lines from Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

"Fair Greece! sad relic of departed Worth! Immortal, though no more, though fallen, great!"

' Oxymoronic relations in the italicized part can scarcely be felt, but still the contrary signification is clearly perceived. Such structures may be looked upon as intermediate between oxymoron and antithesis (see p. 222).

4. INTERACTION OF LOGICAL AND NOMINAL MEANINGS

Antonomasia

We have already pointed out the peculiarities of nominal meaning. The interplay between the logical and nominal meanings of a word is called an t o no ma si a. As in other stylistic devices based on the interaction of lexical meanings, the two kinds of meanings must be realized in the word simultaneously. If only one meaning is materialized in the context, there is no stylistic device, as in hooligan, boycott and other examples given earlier. Here are some examples of genuine antonomasia. "Among the herd of journals which are published in the States, there are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of character and credit. From personal intercourse with accomplished gentlemen connected with publications of this class, I have derived both pleasure and profit. But the name of these is Few, and of the other Legion, and the influence of the good is powerless to counteract the mortal poison of the bad. (Dickens)

The use of the word name made the author write the words 'Few', and 'Legion' with capital letters. It is very important to note that this device is mainly realized in the written language, because generally capital letters are the only signals to denote the presence of the stylistic device. The same can also be observed in the following example from Byron's "Don Juan":

"Society is now one polished horde,

Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored."

In these two examples of the use of antonomasia the nominal meaning is hardly perceived, the logical meaning of the words few, legion, bores, boredbeing too strong. But there is another point that should be mentioned. Most proper names are built on some law of analogy. Many of them end in -son (as Johnson) or -er (Fletcher). We easily recognize such words as Smith, White, Brown, Green, Fowler and others as proper names. But such names as Miss Blue-Eyes (Carter Brown) or Scrooge or Mr. Zero may be called token or telling names. They give information to the reader about the bearer of the name. In this connection it is interesting to recall the well-known remark by Karl Marx, who said that we do not know anything about a man if we only know that he is called Jacob. The nominal meaning is not intended to give any information about the person. It only serves the purpose of identification. Proper names, i.e. the words with nominal meaning, can etymologically, in the majority of eases, be traced to some quality, property or trait of a person, or to his occupation. But this etymological meaning may be forgotten and the word be understood as a proper name and nothing else. It is not so with antonomasia. Antonomasia is intended to point out the leading, most characteristic feature of a person or event, at the same time pinning this leading trait as a proper name to the person or event concerned. In fact, antonomasia is a revival of the initial stage in naming individuals.

Antonomasia may be likened to the epithet in essence if not in form. It categorizes the person and thus simultaneously indicates both the general and the particular.

Antonomasia is a much favoured device in the belles-lettres style. In an article "What's in a name?", Mr. R. Davis says: "In deciding on names for his characters, an author has an unfair advantage over other parents. He knows so much better how his child will turn out. When Saul Bellow named Augie March, he had already conceived, a hero restlessly on the move, marching ahead with august ideas of himself. Henry James saw in Adam Verver of "The Golden Bowl" a self-made American, sprung from the soil, full of verve and zest for life. In choosing names like 'Murd-stone', 'Scrooge', and 'Gradgrind', Dickens was being even more obvious.

In Russian literature this device is employed by many of our classic writers. It will suffice to mention such names as Vralman, Molchalin, Korobochka and Sobakevich to illustrate this efficient device for characterizing literary heroes, a device which is now falling out of use. These Russian names are also coined on the analogy of generally acknowledged models for proper names, with endings in -man, -in, -vich.

An interesting literary device to emphasize token names is employed by Byron in his "Don Juan" where the name is followed or preceded by an explanatory remark, as in the following:

"Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker." "There was the sage Miss Reading." "And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding." "There was Dick Dubious, the metaphysician, Who loved philosophy and a good dinner; Angle, the soi-disant mathematician; Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner."

The explanatory words, as it were, revive the logical meaning of the proper names, thus making more apparent the interplay of logical and nominal meanings.

The use of antonomasia is now not confined to the belles-lettres style. It is often found in publicistic style, that is, in magazine and newspaper articles, in essays and also in military language. The following are examples:

"I say this to our American friends. Mr. Facing-Both-Ways does not get very far in this word."

"I suspect that the Noes and Don't Knows would far outnumber the Yesses." (The Spectator)

So far we have dealt with a variety of antonomasia in which common words with obvious logical meaning are given nominal meaning without losing their primary, basic significance. But antonomasia can also make a word which now has a basic nominal meaning acquire a generic signification, thus supplying the word with an additional logical meaning. The latter can only be deciphered if the events connected with a certain place mentioned or with a conspicuous feature of a person are well known. Thus, the word Dunkirk now means 'the evacuation of troops under heavy bombardment before it is too late', Sedan means' a complete defeat', Coventry—'the destruction of a city by air raids', a quizling now means 'a traitor who aids occupying enemy forces'.

The spelling of these words demonstrates the stages by which proper nouns acquire new, logical meanings: some of them are still spelt with capital letters (geographical names), others are already spelt with small letters showing that a new word with a primary logical meaning has already come into existence.

This variety of antonomasia is not so widely used as a stylistic device, most probably due to the nature of words with nominal meaning: they tell very little or even nothing about the bearer of the name.

C. INTENSIFICATION OF A CERTAIN FEATURE OF A THING OR PHENOMENON

In order to understand the linguistic nature of the SDs of this group it is necessary to clear up some problems, so far untouched, of d e f i n i-t i o n as a philosophical category. Any definition can point out only one or two properties of a phenomenon. Therefore in building up a definition the definer tries to single out the most essential features of the object. These are pinned down by the definer through a long period of observation of the object, its functioning, its growth and its changes.

However, no definition can comprise all the inner qualities of the object and new combinations of it with other objects as well; a deeper penetration into the ontology of the object will always reveal some hitherto unknown qualities and features.

In the third group of stylistic devices, which we now come to, we find that one of the qualities of the object in question is made to sound essential. This is an entirely different principle from that on which the second group is based, that of interaction between two lexical meanings simultaneously materialized in the context. In this third group the quality picked out may be seemingly unimportant, and it is frequently transitory, but for a special reason it is elevated to the greatest importance and made into a telling feature.

Simile

Things are best of all learned by simile. V. G- Betinsky

The intensification of some one feature of the concept in question is realized in a device called simile. Ordinary comparison and simile must not be confused. They represent two diverse processes. Comparison means weighing two objects belonging to one class of things with the purpose of establishing the degree of their sameness of difference. To use simile is to characterize one object by bringing it into contact with another Object belonging to an entirely different class of things. Comparison takes into consideration all the properties of the two objects, stressing the one that is compared. Simile excludes all the properties of the two objects except one which is made common to them. For example, 'The boy seems to be as clever as his mother' is ordinary comparison. 'Boy' and 'mother' belong to the same class of objects—human beings—so this is not a simile but ordinary comparison.

But in the sentence:

"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare" (Byron), we have a simile. 'Maidens' and 'moths' belong to heterogeneous classes of objects and Byron has found the concept moth to indicate one of the secondary features of the concept maiden, i.e. being easily lured. Of the two concepts brought together in the simile—one characterized (maidens), and the other characterizing (moths) — the feature intensified will be more inherent in the latter than in the former. Moreover, the object characterized is seen in quite a new and unexpected light, because the writer, as it were, imposes this feature on it.

Similes forcibly set one object against another regardless of the fact that they may be completely alien to each other. And without our being aware of it, the simile gives rise to a new understanding of the object characterizing as well as of the object characterized.

The properties of an object may be viewed from different angles, for example, its state, actions, manners, etc. Accordingly, similes may be based on adjective-attributes, adverb-modifiers, verb-predicates, etc.

Similes have formal elements in their structure: connective words such as like, as, such~as~as~if, seem. Here are some examples of similes taken from various sources and illustrating the variety of structural designs of this stylistic device.

"His mind was restless, but it worked perversely and thoughts jerked through his brain like the misfiring of a defective carburetor." (Maugham)

The structure of this simile is interesting, for it is sustained. Let us analyse it. The word 'jerked' in the micro-context, i.e. in combination with 'thoughts' is a metaphor, which led to the simile 'like the misfirings of a defective carburettor' where the verb to jerk carries its direct logical meaning. So the linking notion is the movement jerking which brings to the author's mind a resemblance between the working of the man's brain and the badly working, i.e. misfiring, carburettor. In other words, it is action that is described by means of a simile.

Another example:

"It was that moment of the year when the countryside seems to faint from its own loveliness, from the intoxication of its scents and sounds." (J. Galsworthy)

This is an example of a simile which is half a metaphor. If not for the structural word 'seems', we would call it a metaphor. Indeed, if we drop the word 'seems' and say, "the countryside faints from...," the clue-word 'faint' becomes a metaphor. But the word 'seems' keeps apart the notions of stillness and fainting. It is a simile where the second member—the human being—is only suggested by means of the concept faint.

The semantic nature of the simile-forming elements seem and as // is such that they only remotely suggest resemblance. Quite different are the connectives like and as. These are more categorical and establish quite straightforwardly the analogy between the two objects in question.

Sometimes the simile-forming like is placed at the end of the phrase almost merging with it and becoming half-suffix, for example:

"Emily Barton was very pink, very Dresden-china-shepherdess like."

In simple non-figurative language, it will assume the following form:

"Emily Barton was very pink, and looked like a Dresden-china-shepherdess."

Similes may suggest analogies in the character of actions performed. In this case the two members of the structural design of the simile will resemble each other through the actions they perform. Thus:

"The Liberals have plunged for entry without considering its effects, while the Labour leaders like cautious bathers have put a timorous toe into the water and promptly withdrawn it."

The simile in this passage from a newspaper article 'like cautious bathers' is based on the simultaneous realization of the two meanings of the word plunge. The primary meaning to throw oneself into the water'—prompted the figurative periphrasis 'have put a timorous toe into the water and promptly withdrawn it' standing for 'have abstained from taking action.'

In the English language there is a long list of hackneyed similes pointing out the analogy between the various qualities, states or actions of a human being and the animals supposed to be the bearers of the given quality, etc., for example:

treacherous as a snake, sly as a fox, busy, as a bee, industrious as an ant, blind as a bat, faithful as a dog, to work like a horse, to be led like a sheep, to fly like a bird, to swim like a duck, stubborn as a guile, hungry as a bear, thirsty as a camel, to act like a puppy, playful as a kitten, vain (proud) as a peacock, slow as a tortoise and many others of the same type.

These combinations, however, have ceased to be genuine similes and have become clichés (see p. 177) in which the second component has become merely an adverbial intensifier. Its logical meaning is only vaguely perceived.

Periphrasis

Periphrasis is a device which, according to Webster's dictionary, denotes the use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter and plainer form of expression. It is also called circumlocution due to the round-about or indirect way used to name a familiar object or phenomenon. Viewed from the angle of its linguistic nature, periphrasis represents the renaming of an object and as such may be considered along with a more general group of word designations replacing the direct names of their denotata. One and the same object may be identified in different ways and accordingly acquire different appelations. Thus, in different situations a certain person can be denoted, for instance, as either 'his benefactor', or 'this bore', or 'the narrator', or 'the wretched witness', etc. These names will be his only in a short fragment of the discourse, the criterion of their choice being furnished by the context. Such naming units may be called secondary, textually-confined designations and are generally composed of a word-combination.

This device has a long history. It was widely used in the Bible and in Homer's Iliad. As a poetic device it was very popular in Latin poetry (Virgil). Due to this influence it became an important feature of epic and descriptive poetry throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. It is due to this practice of re-naming things that periphrasis became one of the most favoured devices in the 17th and 18th centuries giving birth even to a special trend in literature in France and other countries called periphrastic. There exists in English a whole battery of phrases which are still used as periphrastic synonyms (see below) for ordinary denominations of things and phenomena.

V. N. Yartseva quotes S. K. Workman, an English literature scholar who states that "the most pervasive element in the aureate style—and the most vitiating—was periphrasis." Prof. Yartseva states that the use of periphrasis in the 16th century was in the nature of embellishment, thus justifying the attribute aureate, and that periphrasis became a feature of a definite literary style.1

As a SD periphrasis aims at pointing to one of the seemingly insignificant or barely noticeable features or properties of the given object, and intensifies this property by naming the object by the property. Periphrasis makes the reader perceive the new appellation against the background of the one existing in the language code and the twofold simultaneous perception secures the stylistic effect. At the same time periphrasis, like simile, has a certain cognitive function inasmuch as it deepens our knowledge of the phenomenon described. The essence of the device is that it is decipherable only in context. If a periphrastic locution is understandable outside the context, it is not a stylistic device but merely a synonymous expression. Such easily decipherable periphrases are also called traditional, dictionary or language periphrases. The others are speech periphrases. Here are examples of well-known dictionary periphrases (periphrastic synonyms):

the cap and gown (student body); a gentleman of the long robe (a lawyer); the fair sex (women); my better half (my wife).

Most periphrastic synonyms are strongly associated with the sphere of their application and the epoch they were used in. Feudalism, for example, gave birth to a cluster of periphrastic synonyms of the word king, as: the leader of hosts; the giver of rings; the protector of earls; the victor lord. A play of swords meant 'a battle'; a battle-seat was 'a saddle'; a shield-bearer was 'a warrior'.

Traditional, language or dictionary periphrases and the words they stand for are synonyms by nature, the periphrasis being expressed by a word-combination. Periphrasis as a stylistic device is a new, genuine nomination of an object, a process which realizes the power of language to coin new names for objects by disclosing some quality of the object, even though it may be transitory, and making it alone represent the object. Here are some such stylistic periphrases:

"I understand you are poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my son, who has been so prematurely deprived of what can never be replaced." (Dickens)

The object clause 'what can never, be replaced' is a periphrasis for the word mother. The concept is easily understood by the reader within the given context, the latter being the only code which makes the deciphering of the phrase possible. This is sufficiently proved by a simple transformational operation, viz. taking the phrase out of its context. The meaning of 'what can never be replaced' used independently will bear no reference to the concept mother and may be interpreted in many ways. The periphrasis here expresses a very individual idea of the concept.

Here is another stylistic periphrasis which the last phrase in the sentence deciphers:

"And Harold stands upon the place of skulls,

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo." (Byron)

In the following:

"The hoarse, dull drum would sleep*.;.h And Man be happy yet." (Byron)

the periphrasis can only be understood from a larger context, referring to the concept war. 'The hoarse, dull drum' is a metonymical periphrasis for war.

In some cases periphrasis is regarded as a demerit and should have no place in good, precise writing. This kind of periphrasis is generally called circumlocution. Thus Richard Altick states that one of the ways of obscuring truth "...is the use of circumlocutions and euphemisms." A round-about way of speaking about common things sometimes has an unnecessarily bombastic, pompous air and consequently is devoid of any aesthetic value. That is why periphrasis has gained the reputation of leading to redundancy of expression. Here is an example of the excessive use of periphrasis by such an outstanding classic English writer as Dickens:

"The lamp-lighter made his nightly failure in attempting to brighten up the street with gas (= lit the street lamps)."

In spite of the danger of being called "blasphemer", I venture to state that Dickens favoured redundant periphrastic expressions, seeing in them a powerful means to impose on his readers his own assessment of events and people. Here is another of his periphrases:

"But an addition to the little party now made its appearance (= another person came in)."

In characterizing the individual manner of a bad writer, V. G. Belinsky says:

"One is particularly struck by the art he displays in the use of periphrasis: one and the same thought, simple and empty as, for example, 'wooden tables are made of wood', drags along in a string of long sentences, periods, tropes and figures of speech; he turns it around and around, extends it pages long and sprinkles it with punctuation marks. Everything is so flowery, everywhere there is such an abundance of epithets and imagery that the inexperienced reader marvels at these 'purple patches' of jeweled prose,— and his fascination vanishes only when he puts a question to himself as to the content of the flamboyant article: for to his surprise in lieu of any content he finds mere woolly phrases and fluffy self-conceit. This kind of writing often appears in the West, particularly since the West began to rot; here in Russia where authorship has not yet become a habit, such phenomena are hardly possible."3

The means supplied to enable the reader to decipher stylistic periphrasis are very subtle and have aesthetic value. In the following example the word of address is the key to the periphrasis:

"Papa, love. I am a mother. I have a child who will soon call Walter by the name by which I call you." (Dickens)

In some cases the author relies entirely on the erudition of the reader to decipher the periphrasis. Thus in the following example:

"Of his four sons, only two could be found sufficiently without the 'e' to go on making ploughs." (Galsworthy)

The letter 'e' in some proper names is considered an indirect indication of noble or supposed noble descent, cf. Moreton and Morton, Smythe and Smith, Browne and Brown, Wilde (Oscar) and Wyld (Cecil). The italicized phrase is a roundabout way of stating that two of his sons were unaristocratic enough to work at making ploughs.

Genuine poetical periphrasis sometimes depicts the effect without mentioning the cause, gives particulars when having in view the general, points out one trait which will represent the whole. Stylistic periphrasis, it must be repeated, like almost all lexical stylistic means, must efficiently and intentionally introduce a dichotomy, in this case the dichotomy of two designations for one object or idea. If it fails to do so, there is no stylistic device, only a hackneyed phrase.

Periphrases, once original but now hackneyed, are often to be found in newspaper language. Mr. J. Donald Adams, who has written a number of articles and books on the use of English words in different contexts, says in one of his articles:

"We are all familiar with these examples of distended English, and I shall pause for only one, quoted by Theodore M. Bernstein, who as assistant managing editor of this newspaper acts as guardian over the English employed in its news columns. It appears in his recent book, "Watch Your Language", and reads "Improved financial support and less onerous work loads." Translation (by Clifton Daniel): "High pay and less work."1

Here is another example of a well-known, traditional periphrasis which has become established as a periphrastic synonym:

"After only a short time of marriage, he wasn't prepared to offer advice to other youngsters intending to tie the knot... But, he said, he's looking forward to having a family." (From a newspaper article)

Here we have a periphrasis meaning to marry (to tie the knot). It has long been hackneyed and may be called a cliché. The difference between a cliché and a periphrastic synonym lies in the degree to which the periphrasis has lost its vigour. In clichés we still sense the dichotomy of the original clash between the words forming a semantic unity; in periphrastic synonyms the clash is no longer felt unless the synonyms are subjected to etymological analysis.

In such collocations as 'I am seeing things', or 'I'm hearing bells' we hardly ever perceive the novelty of the phrases and are apt to understand them for what they stand for now in modern colloquial English, i.e. to have hallucinations. Therefore these phrases must be recognized as periphrastic colloquial synonyms of the concepts delirium or hallucinations.

Stylistic periphrasis can also be divided into logical and figurative. Logical periphrasis is based on one of the inherent properties or perhaps a passing feature of the object described, as in instruments of destruction (Dickens) ='pistols'; the most pardonable of human weaknesses (Dickens) ='love'; the object of his admiration (Dickens); that proportion of the population which... is yet able to read words of more than one syllable, and to read them without perceptible movement of the lips 'half-literate'.

Figurative periphrasis is based either on metaphor or on metonymy, the key-word of the collocation being the word used figuratively, as in 'the punctual servant of all work' (Dickens) ='the sun'; 'in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes' (Shakespeare) ='in misfortune'; 'to tie the knot' =‘to marry’.

There is little difference between metaphor or metonymy, on the one hand, and figurative periphrasis, on the other. It is the structural aspect of the periphrasis, which always presupposes a word-combination that is the reason for the division.

Euphemisms

There is a variety of periphrasis which we shall call euphemistic.

Euphemism, as is known, is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acceptable one, for example, the word 'to die' has bred the following euphemisms: to pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to join the majority, to be gone, and the more facetious ones: to kick the bucket, to give up the ghost, to go west. So euphemisms are synonyms which aim at producing a deliberately mild effect.

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