II. Modern Classifications

Nowadays there exist dozens of classifications of expressive means of a language and all of them involve more or less the same elements, but they can differ in terminology and criteria. The classification of expressive means of a language is not a simple matter; any discussion of it is bound to reflect more than one angle of vision. We’ll regard commonly recognized ones which are used in teaching stylistics today.

1. G. Leech’s Classification Of Expressive Means.

In his book “Essays on Style and Language” 1967 G. Leech tried to modernize traditional rhetoric system. The scholar builds his classification on the principle of distinction between the normal and deviant features in the language of literature. He calls them ‘register scale’ and ‘dialect scale’.

Register scale distinguishes spoken language from written language, the language of respect from that of condescension, advertising from science etc. The term covers linguistic activity within society.

Dialect scale differentiates language of people of different age, sex, social status, geographical area or individual linguistic habits (idiolect).

Among deviant features he distinguishes syntagmatic and paradigmatic deviations.

According to Leech, linguistic units are connected syntagmatically when they combine sequentially in a linear linguistic form. Syntagmatic items can be viewed horizontally, paradigmatic – vertically.

Syntagmatic deviant features are characterized by the author’s imposing the same kind of choice in the same place. This principle visibly stands out in some tongue-twisters due to deliberate overuse of the same sound in every word or phrase, e.g.: ‘Robert Rowley rolled a round roll round’ instead of ‘Robert turned over a hoop in a circle’.

Paradigmatic items enter into a system of possible selections at one point of the chain. They are based on the effect of gap in the expected choice of a linguistic form. E.g. of paradigmatic deviations:

This classification includes other minor subdivisions.

2. I.R. Galperin’s Classification Of Expressive Means.

The professor classifies SDs and EMs in his manual “Stylistics” (1971) first according to levels of language-as-a-system (phonetic, lexical and syntactical).

PhoneticEMs and SDs include Onomatopoea, Alliteration, Rhyme and Rhythm.

Lexical, in their turn, fall into the following groups:

-Interaction of Primary Dictionary and Contextually imposed Meanings (metaphor, metonymy, irony);

- Interaction of Primary and Derivative Local Meanings (Zeugma, Puntonomasia);

-Interaction of Logical and Emotional Meanings (interjections, exclamatory words, Epithet, Oxymoron);

- Interaction of Logical and Nominal Meanings (Antonomasia);

- Intensification of a certain feature of a thing or phenomenon (Simile, Periphrasis, Euphemism, Hyperbole);

- Peculiar Use of Set Expressions (cliché, Proverbs and sayings, Epigrams, Quotations, Allusions, Decompositions of Set Phrases).

SyntacticalSDs and EMs are based on the following principles:

Compositional Patterns of Syntactical Arrangement (Detached, Parallel Constructions, Repetition, Enumeration, etc.);

- Particular Ways of Linking (Asyndeton, Polysyndeton, The Gap-Sentence Link);

- Particular Ways of Colloquial Constructions (Ellipsis, Aposiopesis);

- Stylistic Use of Structural Meaning (Rhetorical Questions, Litotes).

3. Y.M. Skrebnev’sClassification Of Expressive Means

Yuri Maximovich Skrebnev’s book “Fundamentals of English Stylistics” (1994) gives an approach that combines both the principles observed in Leech’s system of paradigmatic and syntagmatic subdivision and the level-orientated approach on which Galperin’s classification is founded. Albeit there’s no denying that he created a new consistent method of the hierarchal arrangement of the complicated material.

Skrebnev first subdivides stylistics into paradigmatic (stylistics of units) and syntagmatic (stylistics of sequences). Then he explores the levels of the language in both paradigmatic and syntagmatic stylistics.

He adds one more level to phonetics, morphology, lexicology and syntax – that is semasiology/semantics.

Paradigmatic stylistics

phonetics morphology lexicology syntax semasiology/semantics

Syntagmatic stylistics

.

According to Skrebnev the relationship between these 5 levels and the two aspects of stylistic analysis is bilateral.

4.G. Williams’Classification Of Expressive Means

Professor Grant Williams suggests classifying all Figures of Speech on the basis ofLink (Tropes, Metaplasmic Figures, Figures of Omission, Figures of Repetition (words), Figures of Repetition (clauses and ideas), Figures of Unusual Word Order, Figures of Thought)