Практикум з стилістики англійської мови

he tenor and the vehicle may be expressed in a brief "nucleus" manner, as in the above example, or may be extended. This last case of sustained expression of likeness is known as epic, or Homeric simile.

If you remember, in a metaphor two unlike objects (actions, phenomena) were identified on the grounds of possessing one common characteristic. In a simile two objects are compared on the grounds of similarity of some quality. This feature which is called foundation of a simile, may be explicitly mentioned as in: "He stood immovable like a rock in a torrent" (J.R.), or "His muscles are hard as rock". (T.C.) You see that the "rock" which is the vehicle of two different similes offers two different qualities as their foundation - "immovable" in the first case, and "hard" in the second. When the foundation is not explicitly named, the simile is considered to be richer in possible associations, because the fact that a phenomenon can be qualified in multiple and varying ways allows attaching at least some of many qualities to the object of comparison. So "the rose" of the previous case allows to simultaneously foreground such features as "fresh, beautiful, fragrant, attractive", etc. Sometimes the foundation of the simile is not quite clear from the context, and the author supplies it with a key, where he explains which similarities led him to liken two different entities, and which in fact is an extended and detailed foundation. Cf.: "The conversations she began behaved like green logs: they fumed but would not fire." (T.C.)

A simile, often repeated, becomes trite and adds to the stock of language phraseology. Most of trite similes have the foundation mentioned and conjunctions "as", "as...as" used as connectives. Cf.: "as brisk as a bee", "as strong as a horse", "as live as a bird" and many many more.

Similes in which the link between the tenor and the vehicle is expressed by notional verbs such as "to resemble", "to seem", "to recollect", "to remember", "to look like", "to appear", etc. are called disguised, because the realization of the comparison is somewhat suspended, as the likeness between the objects seems less evident. Cf.: "His strangely taut, full-width grin made his large teeth resemble a dazzling miniature piano keyboard in the green light." (J.) Orf "The ball appeared to the batter to be a slow spinning planet looming toward the earth." (В. М.)

Exercise III. Discuss the following cases of simile. Pay attention to the semantics of the tenor and the vehicle, to the briefer sustained manner of their presentation. Indicate the foundation of the simile, both explicit and implicit. Find examples of disguised similes, do not miss the link word joining the two parts of the structure:

1. The menu was rather less than a panorama, indeed, it was as repetitious as a snore. (O.N.)

2. The topic of the Younger Generation spread through the company like a yawn. (E.W.)

3. Penny-in-the-slot machines stood there like so many vacant faces, their dials glowing and flickering - for nobody. (B.N.)

4. As wet as a fish - as dry as a bone;

As live as a bird - as dead as a stone; As plump as a partridge - as crafty as a rat;

As strong as a horse - as weak as a cat; As hard as a flint - as soft as a mole; As white as a lily - as black as coal; As plain as a pike - as rough as a bear; As tight as a dram - as free as the air; As heavy as lead - as light as a feather; As steady as time - uncertain as weather; As hot as an oven - as cold as a frog; As gay as a lark - as sick as a dog; As savage as a tiger - as mild as ц dove; As stiff as a poker - as limp as a glove; As blind as a bat - as deaf as a post; As cool as a cucumber - as warm as toast; As flat as a flounder - as round as a ball; As blunt as a hammer - as sharp as an awl; As brittle as glass - as tough as gristle; As neat as a pin - as clean as a whistle; As red as a rose - as square as a box. (O.N.)

5. She has always been as live as a bird. (R.Ch.)

6. She was obstinate as a mule, always had been, from a child. (G.)

7. Children! Breakfast is just as good as any other meal and I won't have you gobbling like wolves. (Th.W.)

8. Six o'clock still found him in indecision. He had had no appetite for lunch and the muscles of his stomach fluttered as though a flock of sparrows was beating their wings against his insides. (Wr.)

9. And the cat, released, leaped and perched on her shoulder: his tail swinging like a baton, conducting rhapsodic music. (T.C.)

10. He felt that his presence must, like a single drop of some stain, tincture the crystal liquid that was absolutely herself. (R.W.)

11. He has a round kewpie's face. He looks like an enlarged, elderly, bald edition of the village fat boy, a sly fat boy, congenitally indolent, a practical joker, a born grafter and con merchant. (O'N.)

12. You could have knocked me down with a feather when he said all those things to me. I felt just like Balaam when his ass broke into light conversation. (S.M.)

13. Two footmen leant against the walls looking as waxen as the clumps of flowers sent up that morning from hothouses in the country. (E.W.)

14. The Dorset Hotel was built in the early eighteen hundreds and my room, like many an elderly lady, looks its best in subdued light. (J.Br.)

15. For a long while - for many years in fact - he had not thought of how it was before he came to the farm. His memory of those times was like a house where no one lives and where the furniture has rotted away. But tonight it was as if lamps had been lighted through all the gloomy dead rooms. (T.C.)

16. It was an unforgettable face, and a tragic face. Its sorrow welled out of it as purely, naturally and unstoppably as water out of a woodland spring. (J.F.)

17. He ached from head to foot, all zones of pain seemingly interdependent. He was rather like a Christmas tree whose lights wired in series, must all go out if even one bulb is defective. (S.)

18. Indian summer is like a woman. Ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is never sure whether she will come at all nor for how long she will stay. (Gr.M.)

19. You're like the East, Dinny. One loves it at first sight or not at all and one never knows it any better. (G.)

20. He felt like an old book: spine defective, covers dull, slight foxing, fly missing, rather shaken copy. (J.Br.)

21. Susan at her piano lesson, playing that thing of Scarlatti's. The sort of music, it struck him, that would happen if the bubbles in a magnum of champagne were to rush up rhythmically and as they reached the surface, burst into sound as dry and tangy as the wine from whose depth they had arisen. The simile pleased him so much. (A.H.)

22. There was no moon, a clear dark, like some velvety garment, was wrapped around the trees, whose thinned branches, resembling plumes, stirred in the still, warm air. (G.)

23. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and indignant hens who resemble Mrs. Bogart and when they are served at Sunday noon dinner, as fricasseed chicken with thick dumplings, they keep up the resemblance. (S.L.)

24. H.G.Wells r.eminded her of the rice paddies in her native California. Acres and acres of shiny water but never more than two inches deep. (A.H.)

25. On the wall hung an amateur oil painting of what appeared to be a blind man's conception of fourteen whistling swan landing simultaneously in the Atlantic during a half-gale. (Jn.B.)

26. Today she had begun by watching the flood. The water would crouch and heave at a big boulder fallen off the bluff-side and the red-and-white foam would fly. It reminded her of the blood-streaked foam every heave would fling out of the nostrils of a windbroke horse. (R.W.)

27. I'm not nearly hot enough to draw a word-picture that would do justice to that extraordinarily hefty crash. Try to imagine the Albert Hall falling on the Crystal Palace and you will have got the rough idea. (P.G.W.)

28. Her startled glance descended like a beam of light, and settled for a moment on the man's face. He was fortyish and rather fat, with a moustache that made her think of the yolk of an egg, and a nose that spread itself. His face had an injected redness. (W.D.)

29. Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions she had a strange resemblance to a captive owl bunched in its soft feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her body was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise, as though there were no longer any reason for being beautiful, and supple, and erect. (G.)

30. Someone might have observed in him a peculiar resemblance to those plaster reproductions of the gargoyles of Notre Dame which may be seen in the shop windows of artists' colourmen. (E.W.)

31. Walser felt the strangest sensation, as if these eyes of the trapeze gymnast were a pair of sets of Chinese boxes, as if each one opened into a world into a world, an infinite plurality of worlds, and these unguessable guests exercised the strongest possible attraction, so that he felt himself trembling as if he, too, stood on an unknown threshold. (An.C.)

32. All was elegant, even sumptuous, finished with a heavy rather queasy luxury that always seemed to have grime under its fingernails, the luxury peculiar to this country. (An.C.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

1. What is a simile and what is a simple comparison?

2. What semantic poles of a simile do you know?

3. Which of the link words have you met most often?

4. What is the foundation of the simile?

5. What is the key of the simile?

6. What is a trite simile? Give examples.

7. What is an epic simile?

8. What is a disguised simile?

9. What are the main functions of a simile?

10. Find examples of similes in your reading. State their type, structure and functions.

Litotes is a two-component structure in which two negations are joined to give a positive evaluation. Thus "not unkindly" actually means "kindly", though the positive effect is weakened and some lack of the speaker's confidence in his statement is implied. The first component of a litotes is always the negative particle "not", while the second, always negative in semantics, varies in form from a negatively affixed word (as above) to a negative phrase.

Litotes is especially expressive when the semantic centre of the whole * structure is stylistically or/and emotionally coloured, as in the case of the following occasional creations: "Her face was not unhandsome" (A.H.) or "Her face was not unpretty". (K.K.)

The function of litotes has much in common with that of understatement - both weaken the effect of the utterance. The uniqueness of litotes lies in its specific "double negative" structure and in its weakening only the positive evaluation. The Russian term "литота" corresponds only to the English "understatement" as it has no structural or semantic limitations.

Exercise IV. Analyse the structure, the semantics and the functions oflitotes:

1. "To be a good actress, she must always work for the truth in what she's playing," the man said in a voice not empty of self-love. (N.M.)

2. "Yeah, what the hell," Anne said and looking at me, gave that not unsour smile. (R.W.)

3. It was not unnatural if Gilbert felt a certain embarrassment. (E. W.)

4. The idea was not totally erroneous. The thought did not displease me. (I.M.)

5. I was quiet, but not uncommunicative; reserved, but not reclusive; energetic at times, but seldom enthusiastic. (Jn.B.)

6. He had all the confidence in the world, and not without reason. (J.O'H.)

7. Kirsten said not without dignity: "Too much talking is unwise." (Ch.)

8. "No, I've had a profession and then a firm to cherish," said Ravenstreet, not without bitterness. (P.)

9. I felt I wouldn't say "no" to a cup of tea. (K.M.) 10. I wouldn't say "no" to going to the movies. (E.W.)

11. "I don't think you've been too miserable, my dear." (P.)

12. Still two weeks of success is definitely not nothing and phone calls were coming in from agents for a week. (Ph.R.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

1. What is a litotes?

2. What is there in common between litotes and understatement?

3. Describe most frequently used structures of litotes.

Periphrasis is a very peculiar stylistic device which basically consists of using a roundabout form of expression instead of a simpler one, i.e. of using a more or less complicated syntactical structure instead of a word. Depending on the mechanism of this substitution, periphrases are classified into figurative (metonymic and metaphoric), and logical. The first group is made, in fact, of phrase-metonymies and phrase-metaphors, as you may well see from the following example: "The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa" (I.Sh.) where the extended metonymy stands for "the wounded".

Logical periphrases are phrases synonymic with the words which were substituted by periphrases: "Mr. Du Pont was dressed in the conventional disguise with which Brooks Brothers cover the shame of American millionaires." (M.St.) "The conventional disguise" stands here for "the suit" and "the shame of American millionaires" -- for "the paunch (the belly)". Because the direct nomination of the not too elegant feature of appearance was substituted by a roundabout description this periphrasis may be also considered euphemistic, as it offers a more polite qualification instead of a coarser one.

The main function of periphrases is to convey a purely individual perception of the described object. To achieve it the generally accepted nomination of the object is replaced by the description of one of its features or qualities, which seems to the author most important for the characteristic of the object, and which thus becomes foregrounded.

The often repeated periphrases become trite and serve as universally accepted periphrastic synonyms: "the gentle / soft / weak sex" (women); "my better half (my spouse); "minions of Law" (police), etc.

Exercise V. Analyse the given periphrases from the viewpoint of their semantic type, structure, function and originality:

1. Gargantuan soldier named Dahoud picked Ploy by the head and scrutinized this convulsion of dungarees and despair whose feet thrashed a yard above the deck. (Th.P.)

2. His face was red, the back of his neck overflowed his collar and there had recently been published a second edition of his chin. (P.G.W.)

3. His huge leather chairs were kind to the femurs. (R.W.)

4. "But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, this ruthless destroyer of . this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell street!" (D.)

5. He would make some money and then he would come back and marry his dream from Blackwood. (Dr.)

6. The villages were full of women who did nothing but fight against dirt and hunger and repair the effects of friction on clothes. (A.B.)

7. The habit of saluting the dawn with a bend of the elbow was a hangover from college fraternity days. (Jn.B.)

8. I took my obedient feet away from him. (W.G.)

9. I got away on my hot adolescent feet as quickly as I could. (W.G.)

10. I am thinking an unmentionable thing about your mother. (I.Sh.)

11. Jean nodded without turning and slid between two vermilion-coloured buses so that two drivers simultaneously used the same qualitative word. (G.)

12. During the previous winter I had become rather seriously ill with one of those carefully named difficulties which are the whispers of approaching age. (J. St.)

13. A child had appeared among the palms, about a hundred yards along the beach. He was a boy of perhaps six years, sturdy and fair, his clothes torn, his face covered with a sticky mess of fruit. His trousers had been lowered for an obvious purpose and had only been pulled back half-way. (W.G.)

14. When I saw him again, there were silver dollars weighting down his eyes. (T.C.)

15. She was still fat after childbirth; the destroyer of her figure sat at the head of the table. (A.B.)

16. I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. (Sc.F.)

17. "Did you see anything in Mr. Pickwick's manner and conduct towards the opposite sex to induce you to believe all this?" (D.)

18. Bill went with him and they returned with a tray of glasses, siphons and other necessaries of life. (Ch.)

19. It was the American, whom later we were to learn to know and love as the Gin Bottle King, because of a great feast of arms performed at an early hour in the morning with a container of Mr. Gordon's celebrated product as his sole weapon. (H.)

20. Jane set her bathing-suited self to washing the lunch dishes. (Jn.B.)

21. Naturally, I jumped out of the tub, and before I had thought twice, ran out into the living room in my birthday suit. (В. М.)

22. For a single instant, Birch was helpless, his blood curdling in his veins at the imminence of the danger, and his legs refusing their natural and necessary office. (T.C.)

23. The apes gathered around him and he wilted under the scrutiny of the eyes of his little cousins twice removed. (An.C.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

1. Speak about semantic types of periphrasis.

2. In what cases can a logical or a figurative periphrasis also be qualified as euphemistic?

3. What are the main stylistic functions of periphrases?

4. Which type of periphrasis, in your opinion, is most favoured in contemporary prose and why?

Exercise VI. Now, after you have been acquainted with the semantics, structures and functions of major syntactical stylistic devices, you may proceed, in the summarizing form, to cases of their convergence, paying attention to each SD contributing to the general effect and of course specifying those which bear the main responsibility for the creation of additional information and the intensification of the basic one:

1. In Paris there must have been a lot of women not unlike Mrs. Jesmond, beautiful women, clever women, cultured women, exquisite, long-necked, sweet smelling, downy rats. (P.)

2. The stables - I believe they have been replaced by television studios - were on West Sixty-sixth street. Holly selected for me an old sway-back black-and-white mare: "Don't worry, she's safer than a cradle." Which, in my case, was a necessary guarantee, for ten-cent pony rides at childhood carnivals were the limit of my equestrian experience. (T.C.)

3. However, there was no time to think more about the matter, for the fiddles and harp began in real earnest. Away went Mr. Pickwick -- hands across, down the middle to the very end of the room, and halfway up the chimney, back again to the door - poussette everywhere - loud stamp on the ground - ready for the next couple - off again - all the figure over once more - another stamp to beat out the time - next couple, and the next, and the next again - never was such going! (D.)

4. Think of the connotations of "murder", that awful word: the lossof emotional control, the hate, the spite, the selfishness, the broken glass, the blood, the cry in the throat, the trembling blindness that results in theirrevocable act, the helpless blow. Murder is the most limited of gestures.(J.H.)

5. There is an immensity of promenading on crutches and off, with sticks and without; and a great deal of conversation, and liveliness and pleasantry. (D.)

6. We sat down at the table. The jaws got to work around the table. (R.W.)

7. Babbitt stopped smoking at least once a month. He did everything in fact except stop smoking. (S.L.)

8. I'm interested in any number of things, enthusiastic about nothing. Everything is significant and nothing is finally important. (Jn.B.)

9. Lord Tompson owns 148 newspapers in England and Canada. He is the most influential Fleet-Street personality. His fortune amounts to 300 mln. He explains his new newspaper purchases so: "I buy newspapers to make money. I make money to buy more newspapers. I buy more newspapers to make more money, etc., etc. without end." (M.St.)

10. He illustrated these melodramatic morsels by handing the tankard to himself with great humility, receiving it haughtily, drinking from it thirstily, and smacking his lips fiercely. (D.)

11. The cigarette tastes rough, a noseful of straw. He puts it out. Never again. (U.)

12. The certain mercenary young person felt that she must not sell her sense of what was right and what was wrong, and what was true and what was false, and what was just and what was unjust, for any price that could be paid to her by any one alive. (J.F.)

13. A girl on a hilltop, credulous, plastic, young: drinking the air she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of expectant youth. (S.L.)

14 I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted and appointed him. In my will. (D.)

15. This is what the telegram said: Has Cyril called yet? On no account introduce him into theatrical circles. Vitally important. Letter follows. (P.G.W.)

16. In November a cold unseen stranger whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony touching one here and one there with icy fingers. Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. (O'N.)

17. He came to us, you see, about three months ago. A skilled and experienced waiter. Has given complete satisfaction. He has been in England about five years. (Ch.)

18. If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life, talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man, as now we do by an accident. Our words - our lives - our pains - nothing! The taking of our lives -lives of a good shoe-maker and a poor fish-peddler - all! That last mo'ment belongs to us - that agony is our triumph! (H.R.)

19. The main thought uppermost in Fife's mind was that everything in the war was so organized, and handled with such matter-of-fact dispatch. Like a business. Like a regular business. And yet at the bottom of it was blood: blood, mutilation, death. It seemed weird, wacky to Fife. (J.)

20. Constance had said: "If ever I'm a widow, I won't wear them, positively," in the tone of youth; and Mrs. Baines had replied: "I hope you won't, my dear." That was over twenty years ago, but Constance perfectly remembered. And now, she was a widow! How strange and how impressive was life! And she had kept her word; not without hesitations; for though times were changed, Bursley was still Bursley; but she had kept it. (A.B.)

21. The reasons why John Harmon should not come to life: Because he has passively allowed these dear old faithful friends to pass into possession of the property. Because he sees them happy with it. Because they have virtually adopted Bella, and will provide for her. Because there is affection enough in her heart to develop into something enduringly good, under favourable conditions. Because her faults have been intensified by her place in my father's will and she is already growing better. Because her marriage with John Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would be a shocking mockery. Because if John Harmon comes to life and does not marry her, the property falls into the very hands that hold it now. (D.)

22. In Arthur Calgary's fatigued brain the word seemed to dance on the wall. Money! Money! Money! Like a motif in an opera, he thought. Mrs. Argyle's money! Money put into trust! Money put into an annuity! Residual estate left to her husband! Money got from the bank! Money in the bureau drawer! Hester rushing out to her car with no money in her purse... Money found on Jacko, money that he swore his mother had given him. (Ch.)

23. Mr. Pickwick related, how he had first met Jingle; how he had eloped with Miss Wardle; how he had cheerfully resigned the fady for pecuniary considerations; how he had entrapped him into a lady's boarding school; and how he, Mr. Pickwick, now felt it his duty to expose his assumption for his present name and rank. (D.)

24. "And with a footman up behind, with a bar across, to keep his legs from being poled! And with a coachman up in front sinking down into a seat big enough for three of him, all covered with upholstery in green and white! And with two bay horses tossing their heads and stepping higher than they trot long-ways! And with you and me leaning back inside, as grand as ninepence!" (D.)

25. I looked at him. I know I smiled. His face looked as though it were plunging into water. I couldn't touch him. I wanted so to touch him I smiled again and my hands got wet on the telephone and then for the moment I couldn't see him at all and I shook my head and my face was wet and I said, "I'm glad. I'm glad. Don't you worry. I'm glad." (J.B.)

26. What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows.

No time to see when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see in broad day light,

Streams full of stars like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

(W.H.D.)

CHAPTER IV. TYPES OF NARRATION

Author's Narrative. Dialogue. Interior

Speech. Represented Speech. Compositional Forms

A work of creative prose is never homogeneous as to the form and essence of the information it carries. Both very much depend on the viewpoint of the addresser, as the author and his personages may offer different angles of perception of the same object. Naturally, it is the author who organizes this effect of polyphony, but we, the readers, while reading the text, identify various views with various personages, not attributing them directly to the writer. The latter's views and emotions are most explicitly expressed in the author's speech (or the author's narrative).

The uhfoldinof me plot is mainly concentrated here, personages are given characteristics, the time and the pla'ce of action are also described here, as the author sees them. The author's narrative supplies the reader with direct information about the author's preferences and objections, beliefs and contradictions, i.e. serves the major source of shaping up the author's image.

In contemporary prose, in an effort to make his writing more plausible, to impress the reader with the effect of authenticity of the described events, the writer entrusts some fictitious character (who might also participate in the narrated events) with the task of story-telling. The writer himself thus hides behind the figure of the narrator, presents all the events of the story from the latter's viewpoint and only sporadically emerges in the narrative with his own considerations, which may reinforce or contradict those expressed by the narrator. This form of the author's speech is called entrusted narrative. The structure of the entrusted narrative is much more complicated than that of the author's narrative proper, because instead of one commanding, organizing image of the author, we have the hierarchy of the narrator's image seemingly arranging the pros and cons of the related problem and, looming above the narrator's image, there stands the image of the author, the true and actual creator of it all, responsible for all the views and evaluations of the text and serving the major and predominant force of textual cohesion and unity.

Entrusted narrative can be carried out in the 1st person singular, when the narrator proceeds with his story openly and explicitly, from his own name, as, e.g., in The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, or The Great Gatsby by Sc. Fitzgerald, or All the King's Men by R.f.Warren. In the first book Holden Caulfield himself retells about the crisis in his own life which makes the focus of the novel. In the second book Nick Carraway tells about Jay Gatsby, whom he met only occasionally, so that to tell Gatsby's life-story he had to rely on the knowledge of other personages too. And in the third book Jack Burden renders the dramatic career of Willie Stark, himself being one of the closest associates of the man. In the first case the narration has fewer deviations from the main line, than in the other two in which the narrators have to supply the reader also with the information about themselves and their connection with the protagonist.

Entrusted narrative may also be anonymous. The narrator does not openly claim responsibility for the views and evaluations but the manner of presentation, the angle of description very strongly suggest that the story is told not by the author himself but by some of his factotums, which we see, e.g., in the prose of Fl. O'Connor, C. McCullers, E. Hemingway, E. Caldwell.

The narrative, both the author's and the entrusted, is not the only type of narration observed in creative prose. A very important place here is occupied by dialogue, where personages express their minds in the form of uttered speech. In their exchange of remarks the participants of the dialogue, while discussing other people and their actions, expose themselves too. So dialogue is one of the most significant forms of the personage's self-characterization, which allows the author to seemingly eliminate himself from the process.

Another form, which obtained a position of utmost significance in contemporary prose, is interior speech of the personage, which allows the author (and the readers) to peep into the inner world of the character, to observe his ideas and views in the. making. Interior speech is best known in the form of interior monologue, a rather lengthy piece of the text (half a page and over) dealing with one major topic of the character's thinking, offering causes for his past, present or future actions. Short insets of interior speech present immediate mental and emotional reactions of the personage to the remark or action of other characters.

The workings of our brain are not intended for communication and are, correspondingly, structured in their own unique way. The imaginative reflection of mental processes, presented in the form of interior speech, being a part of the text, one of the major functions of which is communicative, necessarily undergoes some linguistic structuring to make it understandable to the readers. In extreme cases, though, this desire to be understood by others is outshadowed by the author's effort to portray the disjointed, purely associative manner of thinking, which makes interior speech almost or completely incomprenensible. These cases exercise the so-called stream-of-consciousness technique which is especially popular with representatives of modernism in contemporary literature.

So the personage's viewpoint can be realized in the uttered (dialogue) and inner (interior) speech forms. Both are introduced into the text by the author's remarks containing indication of the personage (his name or the name-substitute) and of the act of speaking (thinking) expressed by such verbs as "to say", "to think" and their numerous synonyms.

To separate and individualize the sphere of the personage, language means employed in the dialogue and interior speech differ from those used in the author's narrative and, in their unity and combination, they constitute the personage's speech characteristic which is indispensable in the creation of his image in the novel.

The last - the fourth - type of narration observed in artistic prose is a peculiar blend of the viewpoints and language spheres of both the author and the character. It was first observed and analysed almost a hundred years ago, with the term represented (reported) speech- attached to it. Represented speech serves to show either the mental reproduction of a once uttered remark, or the character's thinking. The first case is known as represented uttered speech, the second one as represented inner speech. The latter is close to the personage's interior speech in essence, but differs from it in form: it is rendered in the third person singular and may have the author's qualitative words, i.e. it reflects the presence of the author's viewpoint alongside that of the character, while interior speech belongs to the personage completely, formally too, which is materialized through the first-person pronouns and the language idiosyncrasies of the character.

The four types of narration briefly described above are singled out on the basis of the viewpoint commanding the organization of each one. If it is semantics of the text that is taken as the foundation of the classification then we shall deal with the three narrative compositional forms traditionally singled out in poetics and stylistics. They are: narrative proper where the unfolding of the plot is concentrated. This is the most dynamic compositional form of the text. Two other forms - description and argumentation - are static. The former supplies the details of the appearance of people and things "populating" the book, of the place and time of action, the latter offers causes and effects of the personage's behaviour, his (or the author's) considerations about moral, ethical, ideological and other issues. It is rather seldom that any of these compositional forms is used in a "pure", uninterrupted way. As a rule they intermingle even within the boundaries of a paragraph.

All the compositional forms can be found in each of the types of narration but with strongly varying frequences.

Exercise I. Find examples of various types of narration and narrative compositional forms. Pay attention to language means used in each one. State their functions. Discuss correlations existing between the type of narration, compositional form and the language of the discourse:

1. Novelists write for countless different reasons: for money, for fame, for reviewers, for parents, for friends, for loved ones; for vanity, for pride, for curiosity, for amusement; as skilled furniture-makers enjoy making furniture, as drunkards like drinking, as judges like judging, as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy's back. I could fill a book with reasons, and they would all be true, though not true of all. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator: a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live. (J.F.)

2. He refused a taxi. Exercise, he thought, and no drinking at least a month. That's what does it. The drinking. Beer, martinis, have another. And the way your head felt in the morning. (I.Sh.)

3. Now she come my room, he thought. "What you want?" he demanded.

"May I come in?"

"This house," he said slowly, "she yours."

"Tell me your name," she said. "You," he burst out. "This long time and no know my name - and no ask! What my name? Who me? You no care." (R.W.)

4. His mind gathered itself out of the wreckage of little things: out of all that the world had shown or taught him he could remember now only the great star above the town, and the light that had swung over the hill, and the fresh sod upon Ben's grave and the wind, and the far sounds and music, and Mrs. Pert.

Wind pressed the boughs, the withered leaves were shaking. A star was shaking. A light was waking. Wind was quaking. The star was far. The night, the light. The light was bright. A chant, a song, the slow dance of the little things within him. The star over the town, the light over the hill, the sod over Ben, night all over. His mind fumbled with little things. Over us all is some thing. Star night, earth, light... light... О lost!... a stone... a leaf... a door... О ghost!... a light... a song... a light... a light... a light awnings over the hill... over us all... a star shines over the town... over us all... a light.

We shall not come again. We never shall come back again. But over us all over us all... is - something.

A light swings over the hill. (We shall not come again.) And over the town a star. (Over us all, over us all that shall not come again.) And over the day the dark. But over the darkness - what?

We shall not come again. We never shall come back again.

Over the dawn a lark. (That shall not come again.) And wind and music far. О lost! (It shall not come again.) And over your mouth the earth. О ghost! But over the darkness - what? (T.W.)

5. "Honestly. I don't feel anything. Except ashamed." "Please. Are you sure? Tell me the truth. You might have been killed." "But I wasn't. And thank you. For saving my life. You're wonderful. Unique. I love you." (T.C.)

6. "What's your Christian name, Sir?" angrily inquired the little Judge. "Nathaniel, Sir." "Daniel - any other name?" "Nathaniel, Sir - my Lord, I mean." "Nathaniel Daniel or Daniel Nathaniel?" "No, my Lord, only Nathaniel - not Daniel at all." "What did you tell me it was Daniel for then, Sir?" inquired the Judge. (D.)

7. "Now I know you lying," Sam was emphatic. "You lying as fast as a dog can trot," Fishbelly said. "You trying to pull wool over our eyes," Tony accused. (Wr.)

8. "She thought he could be persuaded to come home." "You mean a dinge?"

"No, a Greek."

"Okey," Nulty said and spit into the wastebasket. "Okey. You met the big guy how? You seem to pick up awful easy."

"All right," I said. "Why argue? I've seen the guy and you haven't. In the morning I was a well man again." (R.Ch.)

9. "She's home. She's lying down."

"She all right?" "She's tired. She went to see Fonny."

"How's Fonny taking it?"

"Taking it."

"She see Mr. Hayword?"

"No. She's seeing him on Monday."

"You going with her?"

"I think I better." (J.B.)

10. "Ah, fine place," said the stranger, "glorious pile - frowning walls - tottering arches - dark nooks - crumbling staircases - old cathedral too - earthy smell - pilgrim's feet worn away the old steps - little Saxon doors - confessionals like money-taker's boxes at theatres - queer customers those monks - Popes and Lord Treasurers and all sort of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses turning up every day buff jerkins too - match-locks - Sarcophagus - fine place - old legends too - strange stories: capital." (D.)

11. "She's a model at Bergdorf Goodman's." "She French?"

"She's about as French as you are -" "That's more French than you think." (J.O'H.)

12. ...and the wineshops open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about with his lamp and О that awful deepdown torrent О and the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a flower of the mountains yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me yes.... (J.J.)

13. ...Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on. Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on head. Outohellout of that. Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. Corpus paradisum. Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. Forgotten. I too. And one day she with. Leave her: get tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big Spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevy hair uncombe'd. (J.J.)

14. The young man's name was Eddy Little John, but over dinner he said, look here, would they call him Ginger: everyone else did. So they began to call him Ginger, and he said wouldn't it be a good idea if they had another bottle of fizz, and Nina and Adam said yes, it would, so they had a magnum and got very friendly. (E.W.)

15. Every morning she was up betimes to get the fire lit in her gentlemen's sitting room so that they needn't eat their breakfasts simply perishin' with the cold, my word it's bitter this morning. (S.M.)

16. The girl noted the change for what she deemed the better. He was so nice now, she thought, so white-skinned and clear-eyed and keen. (Dr.)

17. But in any case, in her loving she was also re-creating herself, and she had gone upstairs to be in the dark. While downstairs Adam and I sat in the swing on the gallery, not saying a word. That was the evening Adam got counted out for all the other evenings, and out you go, you dirty dishrag, you. (R. W.)

18. And then he laughed at himself. He was getting nervy and het up like everybody else m the house. (Ch.)

19. Sometimes he wondered if he'd ever really known his father. Then out of the past would come that picture of a lithe, active young feller who was always good for an argument, always ready to bring company home, especially the kind of company that gives food for thought in return for a cup of tea and something to go with it. (St.B.)

20. Well, I'll tell you. A man I know slightly, he was one of the smartest traders in Wall Street. You wouldn't know his name, because I don't think I ever had occasion to mention it except perhaps to your mother and it wouldn't have interested you. He was a real plunger, that fellow. The stories they told downtown about him, they were sensational. Well, as I say he's always been a pretty smart trader. They say he was the only one that called the turn in 1929. He got out of the market in August 1929, at the peak. Everybody told him, why, you're crazy, they said. Passing up millions. Millions, they told him. Sure, he said. Well, I'm willing to pass them up and keep what I have, he told them, and of course they all laughed when he told them he was going to retire and sit back and watch the ticker from a cafe in Paris. Retire and only thirty-eight years of age? Huh. They never heard such talk, the wisenheimers downtown. Him retire? No, it was in his blood, they said. He'd be back. He'd go to France and make a little whoopee, but he'd be back and in the market just as deeply as ever. But he fooled them. He went to France all right, and I suppose he made whoopee because I happen to know he has quite a reputation that way. And they were right saying he'd be back, but not the way they thought. He came back first week in November, two years ago, right after the crash. Know what he did? He bought a Rolls-Royce Phantom that originally cost eighteen thousand dollars, he bought that for a thousand-dollar bill. He bought a big place out on Long Island. I don't know exactly what he paid for it, but one fellow told me he got it for not a cent more than the owner paid for one of those big indoor tennis courts they have out there. For that he got the whole estate, the land house proper, stables, garages, everything. Yacht landing. Oh, almost forget. A hundred and eighty foot yacht for eighteen thousand dollars. The figure"! do know because I remember hearing a hundred dollars a foot was enough for any yacht. And mind you, the estate was with all the furniture. And because he got out in time and had the cash. Everything he had was cash. Wouldn't lend a cent. Not one red cent for any kind of interest. Just wasn't interested, he said. Buy, yes. He bought cars, houses, big estates, paintings worth their weight in radium, practically, but lend money? No. He said it was his way of getting even with the wisenheimers that laughed at him the summer before when he said he was going to retire. (J.O'H.)

21. Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with He was quiet in his ways and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin hawklike nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. (C.D.)

ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL

1. Indicate the types of narration which you know.

2. What is the difference between the author's narrative proper and the entrusted narrative?

3. What forms of entrusted narrative do you know?

4. Comment on the main functions of the image of the author.

5. How is speech characteristic of a personage formed?

6. What forms of interior speech do you remember?

7. What is represented speech and which of its types have you met more often?

8. What is stream of consciousness? Have you ever observed it in your reading?

9. What narrative compositional forms are mainly represented in a prose work?

10. Which compositional forms are considered static and why?

CHAPTER V. FUNCTIONAL STYLES

Colloquial vs. Literary Type of Communication. Oral vs.

Written Form of Communication

Language means which we choose for communication depend on several factors, the most important among them being the situation of the communication act. Indeed, depending on the situation (which includes the purpose of the communication and its participants) we adhere either to informal, or to formal manner. The former is observed in everyday non-official communication which is known as colloquial speech. Colloquial speech occupies a prominent place in our lives, and is viewed by some linguists as a system of language means so strongly differing from those presented in the formal (literary) communication that it can be classified as an independent entity with its own peculiar units and rules of their structuring. (See the works of O. Lapteva, O. Sirotinina, L. Zemskaya.)

The literary communication, most often (but not always) materialized in the written form, is not homogeneous, and proceeding from its function (purpose) we speak of different functional styles. As the whole of the language itself, functional styles are also changeable. Their quantity and quality change in the course of their development. At present most scholars differentiate such functional styles: scientific, official, publicist, newspaper, belles-lettres.

Scientific style is employed in professional communication. Its most conspicuous feature is the abundance of terms denoting objects, phenomena and processes characteristic of some particular field of science and technique. Scientific style is also known for its precision, clarity and logical cohesion which is responsible for the repeated use of such cliches as: "Proceeding from..."; "As it was said above..."; "In connection with.." and other lexico-syntactical forms emphasizing the logical connection and interdependence of consecutive parts of the discourse.

Official style, or the style of official documents, is the most conservative one. It preserves cast-iron forms of structuring and uses syntactical constructions and words long known as archaic and not observed anywhere else. Addressing documents and official letters, signing them, expressing the reasons and considerations leading to the subject of the document (letter) - all this is strictly regulated both lexically and syntactically. All emotiveness and subjective modality are completely banned out of this style.

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