Экзамен по стилистике Stylistics as a science and style as a main stylistic category

A cliché is generally defined as an expression that has become hackneyed and trite. It has lost its precise meaning by constant reiteration: in other words it has become stereotyped. Cliché is a kind of stable word combination which has become familiar and which has been accepted as a unit of a language, e. g. rosy dreams of youth, growing awareness.
Being constantly and mechanically repeated they have lost their original expressiveness. The following are perhaps the most generally recognised: the acid test, ample opportunities, astronomical figures, the arms of Morpheus), to break the ice, the irony of fate, etc.
In discussing cliché, it is important to note that it is a stylistic category rather than phraseological, in spite of its inclusion in many typologies of word combinations. By definition, cliché is a reflection of language change, since the term as popularly used is a comment by the listener on the speaker, who is unaware that the expression no longer possesses the figurative force it once had. The term is used well beyond the boundaries of phraseology to include an opinion expressed in any form:
The stylistic nature of cliché is seen in the fact that a phrase can become almost instantly a cliché. For example, in the space of a few utterances a UK TV documentary presenter produced the initially novel expression: explosively productive enterprise twice and then explosive productivity. It appeared to lose force very quickly and by the third time to be used rather self-consciously.
Allusion is an indirect reference to (a hint at) a historical or literary (mythological) fact (or personage) contained in the text or to a fact of everyday life made in the course of speaking or writing. The source of reference isn’t mentioned in it. It presupposes the knowledge of the fact, thing or a person alluded to by the reader or listener, so no particular explanation is given (although this is sometimes needed by the readers). Otherwise the allusion is lost to the reader and he will understand a contextual meaning only. Ex.: Her conversation was of a kind which would have Helen of Troy with any handsome man.
Very often the interpretation of the fact or person is broadened, generalized or even symbolized. Ex.: Hers was a forceful clarity and a colorful simplicity and a bold use of metaphor that Demosthenes would have envied (W. Faulkner) (allusion to the widely-known ancient Greek orator).
He felt as Balaam must have felt when his ass broke into speech (Maugham) (allusion to the biblical ‘parable of an ass that spoke the human language when its owner, the heathen prophet Balaam, intended to punish it).
Allusion mixes with the text and if the readers are acquainted with the event eluded they will have a more complete understanding of the phrase used in its original. The stylistic effect of an allusion can be achieved only if the facts and personages alluded to are well known to the reader.