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

Violation (decomposition) of phraseological units. Violation of phraseological units is a device based on the interaction between the primary and secondary meanings. The inner mechanism of this device lies in the literal interpretation of the elements of a phraseological unit, though the ways to achieve it are different
The expressive potentiality of a phraseological unit is increased when linguistic stability and semantic unity are violated and syntactical relations actualized in this case. It’s transformed into a free word combination and simultaneously realizes two semantic patterns: as a phraseological unit with a specific meaning and at the same time as a metaphor in the transformed variant of a phraseological unit. The fixed form is broken by replacing one word for another, by altering the whole structure or by some other changes. Ex.: “The number of women who flirt with her husband is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It’s simply washing dirty linen in public”. “Don’t cry, the milk is spilt.”
Violation of phraseological units can be realized in the author’s intrusion into the unit. E.g. “… it took a desperate, ungovernable, frantic hold of him.” (the original variant is – to take hold of )
Another way of violation of a phraseological unit is its prolongation. The semantic unity is violated by restoring primary meanings of the words in the phraseological unit. Ex.: “You’re pulling my leg”- I’m not pulling your leg. Nothing would make me pull or even touch your beastly leg.
She was born with a silver spoon in the mouth, but judging by the size of her mouth it must have been a ladle.
"Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his mouth which was rather curly and large." (Galsworthy) The word "mouth", with its content, is completely lost in the phraseological unit which means "to have luck, to be born lucky". Attaching to the unit of the qualification of the mouth, the author revives the meaning of the word and offers a very fresh, original and expressive description.
Very often violation of a phraseological unit takes place in proverbs and sayings, most of which are set phrases and fusions.
A false phraseological coinage occurs mainly in direct speech of personages to characterize them through their speech. The main stylistic function of the violation of phraseological units has the achievement of humorous effect.