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

Lecture 5
Stylistic Grammar
Basic notions: the theory of grammatical gradation; marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures; grammatical metaphor; gramma­tical transposition; morphological stylistics; stylistic potential of the parts of speech; stylistic syntax: ellipsis, one-member sentences, break-in-the narrative, suppression and aposiopesis, decomposition, reiteration, anaphora, framing, anadiplosis, epiphora, inversion, interaction of adjacent sentences: parallel con­structions chiasmus, climax, anticlimax.
Plan:

1. 
   The theory of grammatical gradation. Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures.
   
2. 
   Grammatical metaphor and types of grammatical transposition
   
3. 
   Morphological stylistics. Stylistic potential of the parts of speech:
   

1. 
   The noun and its stylistic potential.
   
2. 
   The article and its stylistic potential.
   
3. 
   The stylistic power of the pronoun.
   
4. 
   The adjective and its stylistic functions.
   
5. 
   The verb and its stylistic properties.
   
6. 
   Affixation and its expressiveness.
   

4. 
   Stylistic syntax
   

1. The theory of grammatical gradation. Marked, semi-marked and unmarked structures.
One of the least investigated areas of stylistic research is the stylistic potential of the morphology of the English language. There is quite a lot of research in the field of syntagmatic stylistics connected with syntactical structures but very little has been written about the stylistic properties of the parts of speech and such grammatical categories as gender, number or person. So it seems logical to throw some light on these problems.
An essentially different approach of modern scholars to stylistic research is explained by a different concept that lies at the root of this approach. If ancient rhetoric mostly dealt in registering, classifying and describing stylistic expressive means, modem stylistics proceeds from the nature of the stylistic effect and studies the mechanism of the stylistic function. The major principle of the stylistic effect is the opposition between the norm and deviation from the norm on whatever level of the language, Roman Jacobson gave it the most generalized definition of defeated expectancy; he claimed that it is the secret of any stylistic effect because the recipient is ready and willing for anything but what he actually sees. Skrebnev describes it as the opposition between the traditional meaning and situational meaning. Arnold maintains that the very essence of poetic language is the violation of the norm. These deviations may occur on any level of the language—phonetic, graphical, morphological, lexical or syntactical. It should be noted though that not every deviation from the norm results in expressiveness. There are deviations that will only create absurdity or linguistic nonsense. For example, you can't normally use the article with an adverb or adjective,