Lecture Stylistics as a science. Problems of stylistic research. Plan

II. The principle for distinguishing is based on the interaction between two lexical meanings simultaneous­ly materialised in the context.
simile: treacherous as a snake, faithful as a dog, slow as a tortoise.
…morose étagères with bits of dark-looking glass in the back as mouruful as the eyes of old apes (V. Nabokov. Pnin).
“Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare” (Byron).
… two limpy old ladies in semitransparent rain-coats, like potatoes on cellophane (V. Nabokov, ‘Pnin’)
Periphrasis/circumlocution (renaming of an object by a phrase that emphasizes some particular feature of the object): a gentleman of the long robe (a lawyer); the fair sex, (women).
… an old inn frequented only by the peaceful sons of traffic (W. Irving).
Logical periphrasis: instruments of destruction (Dickens); the most pardonable of human weaknesses (Dickens); the object of his admiration (Dickens); that proportion of the population which... is yet able to read words of more than one syllable, and to read them without perceptible movement of the lips= ‘half-literate’.
Figurative periphrasis: ‘the punctual servant of all work’ (Dickens); ‘in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes’ (Shakespeare); ‘to tie the knot’.
Euphemism is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acceptable one: In private I should call him a liar. In the Press you should use the words: ‘Reckless disregard for truth’. (Galsworthy).
To pass away, to expire, to be no more, to depart, to join the majority, to be gone.
1) religious: Father, Mother, Son, children.
2) moral: smock/shift/chemise/combination/step-in; a woman of a certain type; a four-letter word; to glow – to sweat.
3) medical: madhouse – lunatic asylum – mental hospital; idiots, imbeciles, the feeble-minded – low, medium and high-grade mental defectives; insane – person of unsound mind, mentally-ill patients; ;