COMPARATIVE STYLISTICS

of ENGLISH and UKRAINIAN

Лектор -
доктор філологічних наук, професор
Мартинюк Алла Петрівна
LECTURE 2
PHONETIC AND GRAPHIC STYLISTIC RESOURCES OF
THE ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN LANGUAGES

Plan
1. Phonetic stylistic resources.
1.1. Phonetic symbolism.
1.2. Phonetic stylistic devices:
alliteration, assonance,
onomatopoeia.
2. Graphic stylistic resources.
 Phonetic stylistic resources

A phoneme is believed to represent phonetic level of

the language, the lowest level. It is believed to have no
meaning. Having no meaning of its own, it is used to
differentiate between the meanings of morphemes and
words.
E.g.: pet – let – met – set – get – vet (consonants
differentiate words);
sew [sou] шити / [sju:] спускати воду; (diphthongs
differentiate words)
bow [au] бант / [ou] уклін. (diphthongs differentiate
words)
Phonetic symbolism
If a phoneme has no meaning, it cannot
be stylistically coloured.
Yet, according to some scholars,
phonemes have some meaning and,
consequently, stylistic value.
The linguistic belief that
sounds/phonemes have meaning is called
phonetic symbolism.
 Evidence for phonetic symbolism
Edward Sapir‘s experiment (1929)
«mils» (front vowel) – small tables /
«mals» (back vowel) – big tables
Back vowels associate with something big /
heavy
and front vowels – with something small /
light.
The results were consistent regardless of whether
the participants were children (ages 11–18), university
students, American adults, or Chinese speakers.
Evidence for phonetic symbolism

Otto Jespersen (1922):

a) back vowels such as the sound in dull are very
often found in words expressing disgust or dislike:
blunder (mistake), bungle (mess), clumsy, sloven
(an untidy person), muck (dirt), muddle (mess);
b) words beginning with fl are often associated
with movement: flutter (fluttering butterfly), flap,
flit, flicker, flash;
c) words beginning with sl often have a negative
connotation: slut, sloven (prostitute, untidy person),
slime (mud).
Evidence for phonetic symbolism
Dwight Bolinger (1950):
half of all English words that begin with gl have a
visual connotation: glance, glitter (radiance), gleam,
glow (light, radiance).

Steven Pinker:
mice are teeny and squeak, elephants are
humongous and roar.
English speakers are likely to guess, correctly,
that of qing and zhong in Mandarin, qing is the one
that means "light", while zhong means "heavy".
Evidence for phonetic symbolism

Contemporary linguists:
a) German consonants pr are said to
associate with something → strong; r →
weak; tr → slow; gr → quick; tr →
unpleasant; kl → pleasant;
b) if phoneme r dominates in the text,
it brings about sad mood; kl is associated
with joy, positive atmosphere.
 Evidence for phonetic symbolism
The way the name of a politician sounds has some
effect on political elections.
«Comfort factor» linguistic signifiers –
positive (e.g., stressed middle vowel, two syllables,
initial stress) and
negative (e.g., stressed high back vowel as in yuck
(expression of distaste), phooey (expression of
contempt), initial fricative).
Thus, Jackson would receive a fairly high score and
Hughes would receive a fairly low score.
(83%) of the winning US presidents’ last names had
more positive comfort scores.
 Phonetic stylistic devices include:

1) all the ways of using a human voice to

make speech emphatic: whispering, shouting,
singing, drawing sounds or pronouncing them
staccato; low / high pitch;
2) foregrounding, specifically, –
instrumentation (V.Kukharenko) which is the
act of selecting and combining sounds in order
to make utterances expressive and melodic.
There are 3 basic phonetic stylistic devices.
They are: alliteration, assonance,
onomatopoeia.
Phonetic stylistic devices
Alliteration is the repetition of consonants usually in the
beginning of words.
The possessive instinct never stands still (J. Galsworthy)
Deep in the darkness peering,
Long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams
No mortals ever dared to dream before (E. Poe)
Я стою на кручі
За рікою дзвони
Жду твоїх вітрил я
Тінь там тоне, тінь там тоне (П. Тичина)
Море, море, рокіт горя (П. Тичина)
 Phonetic stylistic devices
Assonance is the repetition of vowels, usually in
stressed syllables.
Poetry abounds in alliteration and assonance.
Ти вчиш любити все, що перемінне
І що незмінне, як незмінний світ…
(П.Тичина)
Once upon a midnight dreary
While I pondered
Weak and weary… (E. Poe)
Scientists say that ancient English poetry was based
more on alliteration than on rhyme.
 Phonetic stylistic devices
Assonance and alliteration are found not only in
poetry but also in prose: He felt his horse’s chest
surging with the steeping of the slope and saw the gray
neck stretching (Hemingway);
especially in the titles of books: Sense & Sensibility
(Jane Austin); The School for Scandal (Sheridan),
Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (Ch. Dickens);
in proverbs: blind as a bat; It’s neck or nothing;
and sayings: We’ll croon in tune beneath the
moon / The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain / Safe
and sound/ through thick and thin / Now or never / Last
but not least / as good as gold;
Phonetic stylistic devices
slogans: work or wages;
tongue twisters: A tutor who tooted a flute
Tried to tutor two tutors to toot.
Said the two to the tutor:
“Is it harder to toot or
To tutor two tutors to toot?”
As the roaring rocket rose the restless roosters
rollicked / Far and fast the falcon flew;
commercials and advertising: New whipped
cream: No mixing or measuring. No beating or bothering
Colgate toothpaste: The Flavour’s Fresher than ever –
It’s New. Improved. Fortified.
 Phonetic stylistic devices
Assonance and alliteration both may
produce the effect of
euphony (a sense of ease and comfort in
pronouncing or hearing) or
cacophony (a sense of strain and discomfort
in pronouncing or hearing; unspeakable
combination of sounds):
Nor soul helps flesh now
More than flesh helps souls (R. Browning)
Phonetic stylistic devices
Onomatopoeia
is a combination of
sounds which
imitates some other
sounds founds in
the world of reality.

There are
2 varieties of
onomatopoeia:
1) direct;
2) indirect
 Phonetic stylistic devices

Direct onomatopoeia is the imitation of natural

sounds:
1) by natural phenomena like wind (swish), sea / lake
/ river (splash), water (gurgle), thunder (roar);
2) by machines or tools like bells (bang, ding-dong),
balls (ping-pong );
3) by animals like snakes (hiss), cats (murmur), tigers
(roar), cuckoo (cuckoo).
Phonetic stylistic devices

The words have different degrees of imitative

quality: some of them immediately bring to mind
whatever it is that produces the sound. Others require
the exercise of a certain amount of imagination to
decipher it.

Bark – гав; growl – ррр (рик); cluck – кудах; oink –

хрю; snarl – ррр (рик); screech – вереск; squeal –
писк; grunt – бурчання; howl – виття; whinny – тихе
радісне іржання; meow – мяо, няв; tweet – цвірінь;
bray – ослячий крик; moo – мууу;
 Phonetic stylistic devices
Indirect onomatopoeia is a combination of
sounds the aim of which is to make the sound
of the utterance an echo of its sense. It is
sometimes called echo-writing.
And the silken, sad, uncertain
Rustling of each purple curtain (E. Poe).
(the repetition of the sound [s] actually
produces the sound of the rustling of the
curtain)
 Phonetic stylistic devices

Indirect onomatopoeia
The sound [w] aims at reproducing the
sound of the wind:
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high
All night long in the dark and wet
A man goes riding by (R. Stevenson)
 Phonetic stylistic devices
Indirect onomatopoeia
The verse reproduces the sounds of the
bells’ ringing:
Silver bells, bells… how they twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle
From the bells, bells, bells –
From the jingling and the tinkling of the
bells (E. Poe)
 Phonetic stylistic devices
Indirect onomatopoeia
The words ending in –ing render the effect of
flowing water:
And nearing and clearing,
And falling and crawling and sprawling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming
and beaming
And in this way the water comes down at
Ladore (Robert Southey)
Pragmatic function of phonetic
stylistic devices:

 supply vivid portrayal of the situation;

 render emotions;
 make speech melodic
Graphic expressive recourses
are all devices and they are defined as
intentional change of normal graphic representation
of speech with the aim to foreground or put in the
focus of attention some information.
The intentional violation of the graphical shape of
a word or word combination is called graphon
(V. Kukharenko).
Graphons were introduced into English novels
and journalism at the beginning of the 18th century.
Now they are used everywhere: fiction, journalism,
advertising, colloquial speech, etc.
 Graphons express:
1. All kinds of social characteristics of the
speaker:
а) the speaker’s social and educational
background + sarcastic attitude of the author:
– the famous Thackeray’s character – butler
Yellowplush – impresses his listeners with the learned
words pronouncing them as sellybrated (celebrated) /
bennyviolent (benevolent), illygitmit (illegitimate) ("The
Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush“);
– S. Lewis’s Mr. Babbitt uses peerading (parading),
peepul (people), Eytalians (Italians); a "person and
especially a business or professional man who conforms
unthinkingly to prevailing middle-class standards"
 Graphons express:
b) the speaker’s age (baby’s speech):
this morning she was saying "Gack!" over and over,
which probably meant, "Look at that mysterious figure
emerging from the fog!" – В цю мить вона,
наприклад, без угаву вигукувала "тям", що, мабуть,
означало: "Погляньте, що за дивна постать суне до
нас із туману! ";
"Wipi!'' Sunny shrieked, which meant "I'd much
prefer gardening to sitting around – Віпі! - крикнула
Сонечко, що означало "Серед квітів мені
подобається набагато більше"(Lemony Snicket, "A
series of unfortunate events");
Graphons express:
c) the speaker’s dialect:
– (cockney English): Theres menners
f' yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into
the mad – Оце тобі й манери. Два букети
хвіалків мені виваляв (B. Shaw,
"Pygmalion");
– (black English): He is a good boy,” Old
Leather-Face allowed. “Hit wuz a farh
fight,” but he had a lettle bad luck. He
stobbed the feller and he died (R. Warren,
"All the King’s Men")
 Graphons express:

d) the speaker’s accent: (German accent)

"But he iss a good boy," Silverstein was
contending. "He make der money, an' he safe
der money." –
Він славний такий хлопець,– сперечався
Сілверстайн. – Він заробляє гроші й дуже
ощадний. (J. London, "The Game ");
Graphons express
(French accent) “Sacredam!” he cried, when his eyes lit
upon Buck. “Dat one dam bully dog! Eh! How moch?” ­
Чорт ‘абирай! – крикнув маленький чоловік, коли в
його око впав Бек. – Оце справжній пес! Скільки?;
“Ah, my frien’s,” he said softly, “mebbe it mek you mad
dog, dose many bites. Mebbe all mad dos, sacredam!
Wot you t’ink, eh, Perrault?” – Ну, голуб’ята мої, –
сказав він ласкаво, – а що коли ви всі в нас
переказитесь?.. Чорт, стільки покусів!.. Невже ві
справді можете показитись? Що ти скажеш на це,
Перро? (J. London, "The Call of the Wild");
 Graphons express
2) Psycho-physical defects of the speakers like:
stuttering The bbbbbbbastud – he seen me ccccoming
(R. Warren’s Sugar Boy, " All the Kig’s Men ") or lisping
You don’t mean to thay that thith ith your firth time ;

3) Conveying the atmosphere of authentic live

communication: amalgamated forms like gimme (give
me), lemme (let me), gonna (going to), gotta (got to),
coupla (couple of), mighta (might have), willya (will
you) etc.
 Besides graphons

which involve violation there are graphical

devices which just bring some words in the
focus of attention with the help of
changes of type : italics, capitalization
(Help. Help. HELP (F. Huxley),
hyphenation (grinning like a chim-pan-zee
(F. O’Connor), multiplication (Allllllll
aboarrrrrrrrd! (S. Lewis)
Functions of graphic stylistic means

Graphic stylistic means have

pragmatic functions:
as any other stylistic devices, they
make speech emphatic, attract attention,
render the speaker’s attitude to what is
being described.
Мартинюк Алла Петрівна

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