Lecture 7 Stylistic Semasiology Tropes In focus

Lecture 7 Stylistic Semasiology. Tropes

In focus 1. The notions of image, trope, and expressive means 2. Tropes: mechanisms of creation a. Metaphor b. Metonymy c. Oxymoron 3. Verbal manifestations of conceptual metaphor, metonymy, and oxymoron

image 1) a psychological image; 2) a verbal image; 3) a literary image: a character / cumulative image; 3) a verbal poetic image / a trope.

verbal poetic image structure • • • the tenor the vehicle the ground relation between 1 and 2 technique of comparison verbal manifestation of a trope

terminology image → trope = verbal poetic image / expressive means

metaphor is an image based on the mechanism of transposing a name of one thing or phenomenon onto the other on the basis of similarity pertaining to them. • The metaphorical formula: X is Y. • e. g. , Life is a box of chocolates: you never know what you gonna get inside.

metaphor: ornamental or essential for meaning? metaphor is • a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language; • characteristic of language alone; • a matter of words rather than thoughts. • metaphor is pervasive in everyday life: in language, in thought, and in action

metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR • • Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on target. I demolished his argument. I’ve never won an argument with him. You disagree? Okay, shoot! If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out. He shot down all of my arguments.

metaphor the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (G. Lakoff, M. Johnson)

metaphor: conceptual content and linguistic expression “That man is a shark” (metaphor) “That man is like a shark” (simile) THE MAN IS A SHARK (conceptual metaphor)

metaphor: conceptual content and linguistic expression • • “that man is a shark” “shark-man” “he’s always got to keep moving forward” “he’s sharking”

visible and invisible metaphors • A visible metaphor manifests the metaphorical model X (tenor) is Y (vehicle) on the verbal level. • In an invisible metaphor the model X is Y is not fully realized on the verbal level. But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

metonymy • is a trope • based on the “stand-for” relationship • whose essence lies in substituting the whole image with its part or the part of the image with the whole image • e. g. The ham sandwich spilled beer over himself.

metonymy • involves transpositions between associated concepts • which commonly results in transfer between the part and the whole, a producer and the produced, an institution and its location, etc. • e. g. The Pentagon refused to comment on the story’

oxymoron • (Ancient Greek: Oxus = “sharp” Moros = “dull”, that is: a sharp dullness) is a trope whose tenor and vehicle are represented by two contrastive notions • e. g. , deafening silence

direct and indirect oxymora • The direct oxymoron consists of two terms which are direct antonyms, such as “silent sound”, “feminine man”, “living death”, etc. • The indirect oxymoron consists of what might be called “indirect antonyms”, terms that can only indirectly be regarded as contradictory, via their associations, such as “sweet sorrow” or “cold fire. ” (Y. Shen)

Verbal manifestations of conceptual metaphor, metonymy and oxymoron

simile • is an imaginative comparison of two unlike objects belonging to two different classes; • is a manifestation of a metaphorical mechanism; • verbally the tenor and vehicle are linked by the following elements: “like”, “as though”, “as like”, “such as”, “as … as”; • e. g. The menu was rather less than a panorama, indeed, it was as repetitious as a snore.

simile and ordinary comparison • She is like her mother (ordinary comparison = objects belonging to the same class are likened) • She is like a flower (simile = likening of objects belonging to two different classes)

disguised simile • is a simile 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”, • in a disguised simile likeness between two objects seems less evident: “His strangely taut, full-width grin made his large teeth resemble a dazzling miniature piano keyboard in the green light. ”

personification • is a trope that involves likeness between inanimate and animate objects; • e. g. “Snow speaks to the people, its falling above in the glooming sunlight. Its white sparkling voice echoes as it falls through the air”

epithet • is an expressive means that expresses characteristics of an object both existing and imaginary. • follows two models: Adj + Noun Adv + Verb

affective and figurative epithets 1) Affective epithets serve to convey the emotional evaluation of the object by a speaker (gorgeous, nasty, magnificent, atrocious). 2) Figurative epithets are the manifestations of the metaphorical or metonymical mechanisms. The metaphorical epithet: the sleepless pillow; the metonymical epithet: I know grass speaks. I hear that green chanting all day.

two-step epithets pass two stages: the qualification of the object and the qualification of the qualification itself, as in “unnaturally mild day”, “pompously majestic female”. • Two-step epithets have a fixed structure of Adv + Adj model.

phrase-epithet is a semantically self-sufficient word combination or a whole sentence which loses some of its independence and self-sufficiency and is used as an attribute: e. g. the sunshine-in-the-breakfast-room smell.

periphrasis is an expressive means whose essence lies in the use of a roundabout form of expression instead of a simpler one, the use of a more or less complicated syntactical structure instead of a word.

figurative and logical periphrases • The figurative periphrases are represented by phrase-metaphors and phrase metonymies, • E. g: “The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa”

figurative and logical periphrases • Logical periphrases are phrases synonymic with the words. • E. g. , “Mr. Du Pont was dressed in the conventional disguise with which Brooks Brothers cover the shame of American Millionaires”

allegory • is a description of one thing under the image of another. • a story in which people, things, and happenings have another meaning, as in a fable or parable: allegories are used for teaching and explaining. • "The yew’s black fingers wag: / Cold clouds go over. / So the deaf and dumb / Signal the blind, and are ignored. "

antonomasia • is the use of a proper name instead of a common noun and vice versa; • can be based on the metaphoric transposition or metonymic substitution; • The other term for this phenomenon is “talking name” which aims at depicting certain traits of human character: moral and psychological features, peculiarities of behavior, outlook, etc. : Mr. Snake, Mr. Lemon, Scrooge.