Seminar 2 Basic Notions of Stylistics

1. The norm and the deviation from the norm.

2. Standard English.

3. Stylistic function, its types and features.

4. Stylistic language means:

a) Galperin’s classification;

2. Arnold’s classification.

Tasks

1. Listen to the song by Leonard Cohen.

A Thousand Kisses Deep

The ponies run, the girls are young,

The odds are there to beat.

You win awhile, and then it’s done

Your little winning streak.

And summoned now to deal

With your invincible defeat,

You live your life as if it’s real,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,

I’m back on Boogie Street.

You lose your grip, and then you slip

Into the Masterpiece.

And maybe I had miles to drive,

And promises to keep:

You ditch it all to stay alive,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,

The wretched and the meek,

We gather up our hearts and go,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Confined to sex, we pressed against

The limits of the sea:

I saw there were no oceans left

For scavengers like me.

I made it to the forward deck.

I blessed our remnant fleet

And then consented to be wrecked,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed,

I’m back on Boogie Street.

I guess they won’t exchange the gifts

That you were meant to keep.

And quiet is the thought of you,

The file on you complete,

Except what we forgot to do,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,

The wretched and the meek,

We gather up our hearts and go,

A Thousand Kisses Deep.

The ponies run, the girls are young,

The odds are there to beat…

II. Find in the song all cases of deviation from the norms of the English language and logic. Comment on them.

III. What stylistic language means can be found in the song? What stylistic function do they fulfill?

IV. Use them as examples while speaking about different classifications of stylistic language means. Find other examples.

Seminar 3 Stylistic Resources of Phonetics, Graphical Level and Morphology

1. Stylistic resources of phonetics:

1) intonation;

2) euphony and cacophony;

3) alliteration and assonance;

4) onomatopoeia;

5) rhythm and rhyme.

2. Graphical level:

1) interrelation of sound and graphical form;

2) punctuation;

3)changes of the type;

4) graphon.

3. Stylistic resources of morphological level:

1) stylistic potential of word-building elements;

2) stylistic potential of nouns;

3) stylistic functions of the article;

4) the system of pronouns in the text as a stylistic factor;

5) the adjective;

6) the adverb and its stylistic functions.

Tasks

I. Find examples of phonetic, graphical and morphological SD. (You may use Appendix I).

Seminar 4. Stylistic Analysis on Lexical and Phraseological Levels

1.The word and its meaning. Types of meanings. Types of connotations.

2. The lexico-thematic net.

3. Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary.

4. Stylistic resources of phraseology.

Tasks.

I. Give definitions of the words. Comment upon their denotational and connotational meanings:

Muggle, bluestocking, universe, molecule, Jack Frost, gorgeous, cheers, crap, highbrow, nitrocellulose, pontifical, retriever, please, Lent, man in the street.

II. Present the lexico-thematic net of the following extract from “The Ice Palace” by F.S. Fitzgerald.

All night in the Pullman it was very cold. She rang for the porter to ask for another blanket, and when he couldn’t give her one she tried vainly, by squeezing down into the bottom of her berth and doubling back the bedclothes to snatch a few hour’s sleep. She wanted to look her best in the morning.

She rose at six and sliding uncomfortably into her clothes stumbled up to the diner for a cup of coffee. The snow had filtered into the vestibule and covered the floor with a slippery coating. It was intriguing, this cold, it crept in everywhere. Her breath was quite visible and she blew into the air with a naive enjoyment. Seated in the diner she stared out the window at white hills and valleys and scattered pines whose every branch was a green platter for a cold feast of snow. Sometimes a solitary farmhouse would fly by, ugly and bleak and lone on the white waste; and with each one she had an instant of chill compassion for the souls shut in there waiting for spring.

As she left the diner and swayed back into the Pullman she experienced a surging rush of energy and wondered if she was feeling the bracing air of which Harry had spoken. This was the North, the North – her land now!

III. What layers of the English vocabulary do these words and phraseological units belong to?

Cabochon, pribble, cacoethes, moneybags, monocotyledon, to pass away, on-line, to get a load of, converse, whereof, heaven, mot, methinks, sewing-machine (= ‘machine-gun’), squaw, naught, drifter, put in a bag, womanity, a propos de bottes, to find fault, hatlessness.

Find other words to add to these groups.

Seminar 5