Organization of lexical stylistic devices

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The word is a complex phenomenon bearing meaning. It can be represented as a complex structure:

Connotation

Denotation

Cultural element in meaning

Grammatical meaning

Primary meaning

Secondary meaning

Contextual meaning

Dictionary meaning

Stylistic charge

Each aspect of meaning can be a source of stylistic expressiveness. Some words have more of what might be called outside meaning than others. Much-repeated words may mean less after a while. Common expressions even lose meaning. The same word often has different meanings, depending on how it's used with other words. Not only do the same words have different meanings; the same groups of words often do. A phrase or clause doesn't always mean the same as its words. The meaning a word refers to is its denotation. What a word suggests because of the speaker's or listener's attitude is its connotation.

Choice of language often has social meaning. An informal “Yeah” in the neighborhood carries a relaxed meaning. Often it is replaced by a formal “Yes” in a classroom or at a job interview.

Some meanings, called grammatical meanings, attach to the signals of grammar.

Playing with these meanings the speaker can create various effects.

In written and spoken language there are certain ways of playing with meaning, fixed in structure and contents. They are called figures of speech or stylistic devices. They are used to emphasize, clarify, and embellish what is being said.

Some stylistic devices are very popular, some are less frequently used. The following devices are known since ancient times.

Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that is used to indicate resemblance. Metaphor is such a common and useful type of figure of speech that it often escapes notice. Such terms as “the eye of the storm, ” “the hand of God, ” and “the mouth of the river” are metaphors, but have become so common that for all but specialists they have replaced other words for these things. Sometimes natural phenomena are applied to other areas for purposes of illustration in such expressions as “a mountain of work” and “the river of time.”

Simile A figure of speech that resembles the metaphor is the simile. Whereas a metaphor is an implied resemblance, a simile is a stated resemblance—in other words, a similarity. And it uses the words “like” or “as” in showing how one thing is similar to another. Rockefeller.”

Metonymy and Synecdoche Two other kinds of figures of speech are related: metonymy and synecdoche. Metonymy means using the name of one thing for another closely related term.

Hyperbole and Understatement

Two other related and effective figures of speech are hyperbole, a form of exaggeration, and understatement, a negative exaggeration.

" Make practical stylistic tasks

Determine lexical stylistic devices, underlined in the text

{{{ I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act; my feet, and my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at the usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around. The gas-light which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. There it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured; that was all. I closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) }}} The mist grew thicker and thicker, and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smoke -- or with the white energy of boiling water -- pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words " a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night." Was it indeed some such spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was composed of both the day and the night-guiding, for the fire was in the red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me; till, as I looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes, such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary's Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one's reason if there were too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear to alarm them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into their fears for me. To-night I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If I do not, I shall to-morrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral; that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night's sleep. Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all.

J Offer your variant of translating the extract Pay attention to preserving stylistic devices.

" Make practical stylistic tasks

Find lexical stylistic devices in the text, explain what aspect of meaning is used for creating expressiveness

From DRACULA by Stoker Bram

29 September, night. -- A little before twelve o'clock we three -- Arthur, Quincey Morris, and myself -- called for the Professor. It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one, andstrolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton, under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of fair weight.

When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all looked -- Arthur trembling like an aspen -- and saw that the body lay there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul. I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing: --

Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?

It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you shall see her as she was, and is.

She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth -- which it made one shudder to see -- the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. When all was ready, Van Helsing said: --

Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead become themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not: `It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose? ' Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?

We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow: -- My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!

Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said: -- Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal -- be not deceived in that -- but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time.

" Make practical stylistic tasks

Note the interplay of meaning and form in the text

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