Гальперин И. Р. Стилистика английского языка

"It is high time this people had recovered from the passions of war. It is high time that counsel were taken from statesmen, not demagogues... It is high time the people of the North and the South understood each other and adopted means to inspire confidence in each other"
Further, anadiplosis is used:
"The South will not secede again. That was her great folly-folly against her own interest, not wrong against you.
A mere repetition of the same idea and in the same linguistic form may bore the audience and destroy the speaker-audience contact, therefore synonymic phrase repetition is used instead, thus filling up the speech with details and embellishing it, as in this excerpt from a speech on Robert Burns:
"For Burns exalted our race, he hallowed Scotland and the Scottish tongue. Before his time we had for a long period been scarcely recognized; we had been falling out of the recollection of the world. From the time of the Union of the Crowns, and still more from the legislative union, Scotland had lapsed into obscurity. Except for an occasional riot or a Jacobite rising, her existence was almost forgotten."
Here synonymic phrase repetition ('been scarcely recognized', falling out of the recollection of the world', 'had lapsed into obscurity', 'her existence was almost forgotten') is coupled with climax.
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Repetition can be regarded as the most typical stylistic device of English oratorical style. Almost any piece of oratory will have parallel constructions, antithesis, suspense, climax, rhetorical questions and questions-in-the-narrative. It will be no exaggeration to say that almost all the typical syntactical stylistic devices can be found in English oratory. Questions are most frequent because they promote closer contact with the audience. The change of intonation breaks the monotony of the intonation pattern and revives the attention of the listeners.

The desire of the speaker to convince and to rouse his audience results in the use of simile and metaphor, but these are generally traditional ones, as fresh and genuine stylistic devices may divert the attention of the listeners away from the main point of the speech. Besides, unexpected and original images are more difficult to grasp and the process takes time. If a genuine metaphor is used by an orator, it is usually a sustained one, as a series of related images is easier to grasp and facilitates the conception of facts identified one with another.
Allusions in oratorical style depend on the content of the speech and the level of the audience.
Special obligatory forms open up and end an oration, e.g. My Lords; Mr. President; Mr. Chairman; Your Worship; Ladies and Gentlemen, etc. At the end of his speech the speaker usually thanks the audience for their attention by saying: Thank you or Thank you very much. Expressions of direct address may be repeated in the course of the speech and can be expressed differently: dear friends, my friends, Mark you!, Mind!
Here is a sample of the speech made by a member of the House of Commons in Parliament in April 1956 when the problem of air pollution was discussed. It is an ordinary speech almost devoid of any signs of elevation so typical when the orator tries to convince the audience.
"There has been a tremendous change in the Minister's attitude since the Bill was first brought to the House. When we embarked upon the Committee stage we were begging for bread and he gave us a stone. Now, seemingly, when we are coming to the end of the feast he is putting many sweets in front of us. The Minister hopes that we shall accept this proposal without too critical an examination. While welcoming the Minister's proposals about the Clean Air Council up to a point, there should be no interference with the council’s accountability to Parliament because the chairman of the council will be the Minister.
When the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) introduced a Private Bill, the Minister consulted at great length with interested bodies, and particularly with local authorities. It is within my knowledge that during those consultations suggestions were made to him by people who had practical experience. . Those suggestions have not been accepted and woven into the Bill. I do not want the Clean Air Council to become a kind of smokescreen behind which the Minister makes a report to his own liking and which may contain views at variance with those of members of the council.
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It is essential, if the council is to be effective, that it includes people who are interested and who have the knowledge and who have undertaken the scientific-research involved. It must be remembered that they will have a great deal more knowledge of the subject than will the chairman of the council. They will, therefore, have a totally different point of view about what is happening in the country than will the Minister. We should provide that we have the uncompromising opinions of the members of the council, including those members appointed to it because of their knowledge of the problems of various localities.
Another point with which I want to deal was touched upon by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. During the Committee stage we debated at great length the topic of research into noxious fumes, especially sulphuric oxides. We especially pleaded that the Clean Air Council should have co-ordinating powers so that it could co-ordinate the activities of bodies conducting research into problems of oxides and noxious fumes. Indeed, we thought that the Minister's opinion upon that subject was the same as ours. As the Bill is now drafted, certain powers are given to local authorities to contribute towards the cost of investigation and research into the pollution of the air.
We know that scientific and technical institutes and the fuel technology sections of some universities are conducting research into the problem of sulphuric pollution; yet we do not see any power given to the Clean Air Council to deal with the problem of sulphuric oxides, even though sulphuric pollution is one of the worst forms of air pollution. Will the Minister give us an assurance that he will specially direct the attention of the Clean Air Council to its duties in co-ordinating research into the problem of sulphuric oxides? Will he at the same time look again at the problem of Parliamentary accountability to make it possible for the council to give an annual report to the House, irrespective of the opinions of the Minister?"
The ornamental elements in this speech are reduced to the minimum. It is a matter-of-fact speech where no high-flown words or elaborate stylistic devices are to be found.
It will be of considerable interest to compare this speech to Byron's Maiden Speech in the House of Lords in defence of the Luddites, which can be regarded as a perfect specimen of oratorical style. Byron used his eloquence against the Bill providing capital punishment for the destruction of machines. His purpose was to prevent the passage of the Bill, to get an impartial examination of the facts.
Byron's speech is rich in oratorical devices. All these devices are motivated, they are organically connected with the utterance: the form by no means dominates the content.
In contradistinction, an examination of the following speech will show that it is practically devoid of meaning. The speaker is merely seeking an effect.
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"Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is indeed a great and undeserved privilege to address such an audience as I see before me. At no previous time in the history of human civilization have greater problems confronted and challenged the ingenuity of man's intellect than now. Let us look around us. What do we see on the horizon? What forces are at work? Whither are we drifting? Under what mist of clouds does the future stand obscured?
My friends, casting aside the raiment of all human speech, the crucial test for the solution of all these intricate problems to which I have just alluded is the sheer and forceful application of those immutable laws which down the corridor of Time have always guided the hand of man, groping, as it were, for some faint beacon light for his hopes and aspirations. Without these great vital principles we are but puppets responding to whim and fancy, failing entirely to grasp the hidden meaning of it all. We must re-address ourselves to these questions which press for answer and solution. The issues cannot be avoided. There they stand. It is upon you, and you, and yet even upon me, that the yoke of responsibility falls.
What, then, is our duty? Shall we continue to drift? No! With all the emphasis of my being I hurl back the message No! Drifting must stop. We must press onward and upward toward the ultimate goal to which all must aspire.
But I cannot conclude my remarks, dear friends, without touching briefly upon a subject which I know is steeped in your very consciousness. I refer to that spirit which gleams from the eyes of a new-born babe, that animates the toiling masses, that sways all the hosts of humanity past and present. Without this energizing principle all commerce, trade and industry are hushed and will perish from this earth as surely as the crimson sunset follows the golden sunshine.
Mark you, I do not seek to unduly alarm or distress the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters gathered before me in this vast assemblage, but I would indeed be recreant to a high resolve which I made as a youth if I did not at this time and in this place, and with the full realizing sense of responsibility which I assume, publicly declare and affirm my dedication and my consecration to the eternal principles and receipts of simple, ordinary, commonplace justice." ¹
The proper evaluation of this speech should be: "Words, words, words." The whole speech is made to hide the fact that the speaker has no thought. Questions remain unanswered, climaxes are not motivated. What is the subject that 'cannot be left untouched'? This is really a masterpiece of eloquent emptiness and verbosity.
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¹ The example is borrowed from Altick, R. D. Preface to Critical Reading. Holt, N. Y., 1956, pp. VII – VIII.
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