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55проелемы современного осрпзоопнип
D. Shalaginov
PROVISION OF HUMOROUS EFFECT BY MEANS OF STYLISTIC DEVICES
Keywords: linguistic identity, stylistic devices, style.
Abstract: The research deals with the characteristics of famous English writer P.G. Wodehouse as a linguistic identity, usage of various stylistic devices which follow the goal of amusing the reader, and frequency with which stylistic devices are used in his works (required for better characterization of linguistic identity on verbal-semantic level). The resource of examples is the treasury of P.G. Wodehouse's books.
Ключевые слова: языковая личность, стилистические приемы, стиль.
Аннотация: В данной работе рассматриваются основные стилистические приемы, используемые в произведениях известного английского писателя П.Г. Вудхауса. В работе дана оценка частотности различных приемов и производимом комическом эффекте (эти данные позволят дать более точную характеристику автора как языковой личности).
In general, stylistic or literary devices are a set of artistic structures that are very typical of every piece of literature. By means of stylistic devices, the author can enrich his work with colorful descriptions of scenery, give the personality of the character, and define his very special way of behavior because they always carry some kind of additional information, either emotive or logical. To reader's joy, all authors use stylistic devices; otherwise, every book could be like a scientific article. Literary devices are in the frame of stylistics, which is the study and interpretation of texts in regard to their linguistic and tonal style. Style has been an object of study from ancient times, but the traditional idea of style, as something properly added to thoughts, contrasts with the ideas derived from Charles Bally and Leo Spitzer who described style in language as the possibility of choice among alternative forms of expression. Russian academician Y. Stepanov followed the ideas of Charles Bally. He said that Style is the "flesh and body" of the language [1, 30]. If you want to understand the style you need to know all the mechanisms of the language, you need to know the history of the language. It is not possible that stylistics of language and stylistics of artistic speech should be separated [4, 14]. In this article the linguist describe stylistic devices employed by P.G. Wodehouse as part of his individual style which are used in the texts for humorous effect. Every writer has his individual manner of using language means to achieve the effect he desires. It is marked by its uniqueness which can be recognized by the specific and peculiar combination of language media and stylistic devices. But, of course, the individuality of a writer is also shown in his treatment of all the used means of language. It is really remarkable how a talented writer can make the readers feel and see everything the way he wants them to. P.G. Wodehouse is no exception.
P.G. Wodehouse is the master of words and humorous situations. He secures the humorous effect and uniqueness of his individual style in different ways, but the most frequent, of course, is the usage of literary devices. From the very beginning of any of his books the reader meets nearly all types of all possible devices: metaphor, metonymy, allusion, antithesis, epithet, chiasmus, etc. This researcher found about 300 examples covering the above-mentioned devices in his books. Average frequency of usage can be shown through the diagram:
Others on the diagram are the devices with less than 15 examples. The diagram is based on the material from the following books by P.G. Wodehouse: Meet Mr. Mulliner, Heavy Weather, Laughing Gas, Big Money and Blandings Castle.
So the most frequent device in the frame of this article is metaphor. Actually, the most quantitative device is simile, but it was described in a separate article. Sixty-three examples of metaphors out of 300, or 21% of the total, were found. For clarity, a metaphor is a transference of meaning based on the associated likeness between two objects. Not only objects can be compared using metaphors, but also phenomena, actions, qualities, etc. Metaphors can be expressed by all notional parts of speech, but the most complete identification of the associated phenomena is achieved in verb-metaphors. In many cases the author provides humorous effect by using this device:
The result was that, as the train reached the points, the flask leaped like a live thing, dived to the floor, and exploded. Even George was distinctly upset by the sudden sharpness of the report. His bun sprang from his hand and was dashed to fragments. He blinked thrice in rapid succession. His heart tried to jump out of his mouth and loosened a front tooth. [9]
While thinking about his beloved lady, George had completely forgotten that at some point the train had to make an abrupt turning, and the sudden jerking was so violent that it led to an unexpected fall and explosion of the flask with hot tea (which he had put on the seat), and it made him frightened to death and his heart was ready to jump out from his mouth with enough strength to loosen a front tooth. The metaphor his heart tried to jump out of his mouth is a trite one, but the author enlarged it with loosened a front tooth which made it original.
'Are you insinuating that I am the sort of man who turns lightly from one woman to another - a mere butterfly who flits from flower to flower, sipping ...?' 'Yes, if you want to know, I think you are a born sipper.' [9]
A couple was arguing because the girl was too jealous. In this case, the young man's behavior was compared with a butterfly who flits from flower to flower in search of honeydew. Normally, women are compared with butterflies, not men.
Considering what a pleasant rarity sunshine in London is, one might have expected the man behind the Mammoth to beam back. Instead, he merely pressed the buzzer. His secretary appeared. He pointed silently. The secretary drew the shade, and the sunshine, having called without an appointment, was excluded. [7]
Lord Tilbury, who was the founder and the owner of a publishing company, was a very busy man. He was so busy that even such an unusual occurrence like sunny weather in England could not draw him away from work, especially considering the fact that the sunshine came without an appointment.
The heat wave which for the past two weeks had been grilling England was in the uncomfortable process of working up to a thunderstorm. [7]
This example is a rather unusual usage of the metaphor. English weather is known to be very changeable and sunny warm weather is not typical of the country. In his novel Cocktail Time, P.G. Wodehouse even uses understatement when describing weather: It was one of those perfect days which come from three to five times in an English summer.
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Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancée. It is a task that calls for coolness of head and the quiet marshalling of the thoughts, and Berry would have wished to sleep on this thing and go more deeply into it on the morrow. [5]
The author uses this original metaphor to show that thoughts were not just crossing his mind, but were solemnly marching in order to give enough time to the character for holding debates with himself as a preparation for the dialogue with his friend.
As far as this linguist can see, none of the metaphors are trite ones. The author uses both simple and complex metaphors in order to draw the humorous image of the situation in the reader's mind.
The second biggest group of devices is epithet. According to the definition provided by trustful British encyclopedia Britannica [http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/190396/epithet], epithet is "an adjective or phrase that is used to express the characteristic of a person or thing, such as Ivan the Terrible. In literature, the term is considered an element of poetic diction, or something that distinguishes the language of poetry from ordinary language". Epithet usually e x-presses characteristics of a person or an object. Its basic feature is its emotiveness and subjectivity, because it is the author himself who qualifies the person or the object, giving it his personal evaluation. The number of epithets is 44 out of 300, that is 15% of total. From the point of view of their compositional structure, epithets can be:
1. simple (adjectives, nouns, particles): e.g. Lord Emsworth sat in his library at Blandings Castle, drinking that last restful whisky and soda of the day. [6] restful (adj.) + whisky (noun)
2. compound: e.g. You seem to have forgotten that I knew you when you were an inky-faced kid at school, and that, if I liked, I could tell the world one or two things about you which would probably amuse it. [9]
3. sentence and phrase epithets: e.g. He seemed a bit restless, I thought, as if the National Geographic wasn't holding him absolutely spellbound. He would put it down for a minute and take it up for a minute and then put it down for a minute again, and it was during one of these putting-it-down-for-a-minute phases that he looked over at me. [8]
4. reversed epithets - composed of 2 nouns linked by an "of phrase": e.g. If she had been to a prize-fight or something and had conceived a sudden passion for some truck-horse of a chap just because his muscles bulged, I could understand it. But why should a girl want to change one Biskerton for another Biskerton? [5] Reversed epithets are mainly metaphorical.
Also, following the ideas of I. Galperin [7] epithets can be:
1. associated with the noun following it, pointing to a feature which is essential to the objects they describe: e.g. His moonlike face was drawn and grave. The situation, he realized, was becoming too complex for comfort. [7]
2. unassociated with the noun, epithets that add a feature which is unexpected and which strikes the reader: e.g. Ann turned away, and, doing so, was aware that her sylvan solitude had been invaded. Over the gate of the house named The Nook a young man / was leaning. The smoke of his tobacco floated up towards the smiling sky. [5]
After even a brief look at the found cases of epithets in Wodehouse's works, we can state that most of the used epithets are unassociated with the noun. At this point, they have some special feature which is totally not common for the noun it describes. Let's have a look at the examples: It was a fat and gurgly voice. Hearing it, you would have conjectured that its owner had a red face and weighed a good deal more than he ought to have done. [5]
In this example, the author uses adjectives fat and gurgly, when fat is normally used for description of body condition and gurgly is an onomatopoeia to express the sound produced by water. This kind of description will help the reader to draw the picture of the character with such a voice. Another example shows us an opposite characteristic: You need a voice that has been trained on the open prairie and that has gathered richness and strength from competing with tornadoes. You
need a manly, sunburned, wind-scorched voice with a suggestion in it of the crackling of corn husks and the whisper of evening breezes in the fodder. [9]
In this case, the voice should belong to a real man of prairie, who is strong, experienced and devoid of fear. The author describes the conditions in which the character could get this kind of voice.
The author also likes to use epithets for descriptions of different situations for the book characters: 'I can't possibly explain the situation to you. It would take too long. But you can rest assured that nothing you can say will make the slightest difference. I won't publish.' There was a pregnant silence. [7]
Just imagine a condition when you can have a pregnant silence. It seems that everybody participating in the conversation was silent but they were all eager and ready to start speaking giving their points of view.
By means of epithets, the author, for example, can easily express the condition of a person who had a sleepless night because of much drinking: I had just begun to write this story, when a literary pal of mine who had had a sticky night out with the P. E. N. Club blew in to borrow bicarbonate of soda. [8]
Another group of stylistic devices is allusion. According to I.R. Galperin [2, 48], the main semantic feature of allusion for realization of irony is that the meaning of a word (allusion) should be collaborated as a form for the new meaning. The first meaning of a word or a phrase which is probably known (that is allusion) is a vessel to which a new meaning is added. By means of allusion the author enriches his work of literature and adds new dimension. During the analysis the researcher found three main groups of allusion:
1. Bible and mythology, e.g. And conceive my gratification on discovering that Joey Cooley, whatever his shortcomings in the matter of physique, was an extraordinarily fine shot with an orange. David, having his unpleasantness with Goliath, could not have made better target practice. [11]
Here we have allusion from the Bible - the author compares Joey's orange throw with a shot of David's sling when he defeated Goliath.
2. Literary works, e.g. When I heard this story, like Desdemona, I loved him for the dangers he had passed, and he loved me that I did pity them. [7]
In this case the allusion is taken from Shakespeare's work - the author draws the analogy with Desdemona who fell in love with Othello for his stories of great victories.
3. Famous people and events of history, e.g. He rose from his chair and began to pace the room. Always Napoleonic of aspect, being short and square and stumpy and about twenty-five pounds overweight, he looked now like a Napoleon taking his morning walk at St Helena. [8] This allusion is made to Napoleon Bonaparte - the author gives the physical description of his book character and compares him with the great emperor who was at a loose end and was planning to restitute his former greatness.
Usage of allusion helps the author to evaluate the identity of characters, allowing cumulating additional comicality at a certain moment. Of course readers should have some background knowledge for better understanding of an author's irony.
The next frequent device is litotes. According to V.A. Kucharenko [3], litotes is a two-component structure in which two negations are joined to give a positive evaluation. Litotes is found on lexico-syntactical level. The first component of litotes is usually the negative particle "not", while the second, always negative in semantics, varies in form from a negatively affixed word (as above) to a negative phrase.
Litotes receives special expressiveness when the semantic center of the structure is stylistically or/and emotionally colored: As I sat there, a wave of not unmanly sentiment poured over me. [3] In the following examples we can state the weakening of positive evaluation:
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Hugo Carmody was not unsympathetic, but he had a fair mind and privately considered that Lord Tilbury had acted with great good sense. [7]
'I got fifteen hundred,' corrected his sister. 'In a moment of weakness - I can't imagine what I was thinking of - I lent you the rest.' 'Er - well, yes,' said Lord Hoddesdon, not unembarrassed. 'That is, in a measure, true. It comes back to me now.' [5]
... but fortunately his father had left him a comfortable income; and George spent a not unhappy life, residing in the village where he had been born and passing his days in the usual country sports and his evenings in doing cross-word puzzles. [9]
The main function of litotes in P.G. Wodehouse's works is to weaken the effect of the utterance by double negative structure.
Another common device is graphon. Graphon is represented on a phono-graphical level. A graphon is considered as "intentional violation of the graphical shape of a word (or word combination) used to reflect its authentic pronunciation" [3]. The device is used for individualization of characters and situations:
'The wur-wur-wur-weather,' he said, 'sus-sus-seems to be ter-ter-taking a tur-tur-turn for the ber-ber-better, der-doesn't it?' [9]
The author shows with the help of graphon that the man has a terrible stammer and it is very difficult for him to participate in conversation.
'Pardon me, but is it that you could dee-reck-ut me to Less-ess-ter Skervare?' Berry looked up. (...) It was a rather shocking-looking bounder with prominent eye-brows and a black beard of imperial cut. 'Leicester Square?' he said. 'You turn to the left and go across Piccadilly Circus.' 'I tank you, sare.' [5]
In this case Lord Biskerton wearing a false beard and moustache tries to imitate the speech of an illiterate man. He wants to be sure that nobody, even his close friend, will recognize him. With her brother's advent, Gladys, also, had lost diffidence and gained conversational aplomb. 'A treat, ain't they?' she agreed eagerly. 'I got em for im up at the big 'ahse. Coo! The old josser the plice belongs to didn't arf chase me. 'E found me picking em and 'e started somefin at me and come runnin' after me, but I copped im on the shin wiv a stone and 'e stopped to rub it and I come away.' [9]
Here Gladys is a little girl from a farmer's family. She is too small to know grammar well, and she also uses dialectal forms.
Graphon is a very useful device for supplying information about the speaker's origin, social and educational background, condition, etc.
In conclusion, the researcher can say that Wodehouse's works are full of funny situations in which his characters find themselves. They would not be so funny and humorous if the author did not use a lot of stylistic devices, which make his novels so emotional and entertaining. His vocabulary is so specific that if you start reading a book by Wodehouse, you cannot help but to read it up to the end and desire to read more books written by him.
This article is an attempt to describe part of the various stylistic devices used in Wodehouse's works. Further research can easily be done in this area of stylistic devises.
Bibliographic list
1. Bally S. French stylistics / S. Bally: translation from French by K.A. Dolinina; edited by E.G. Etkind. M.: Foreign Literature, 1961. - 394pp.
2. Galperin I.R. Stylistics (2nd edition). M.: High School, 1977, - 334pp.
3. Kucharenko V.A. Seminars in Stylistics. M.: Flinta: Nauka, 2009, -184pp.
4. Stepanov Y.S. French stylistics (in comparison with Russian). M.: Editorial URSS, 2002, - 359pp.
5. Wodehouse P.G. Big Money. Arrow Books, London, 2008, 295 pp.
6. Wodehouse P.G. Blandings Castle. Arrow Books, London, 2008, 301 pp.
7. Wodehouse P.G. Heavy Weather. Penguin Books, 1978, 248 pp.
8. Wodehouse P.G. Laughing Gas. Penguin Books, 1985, 248 pp.
9. Wodehouse P.G. Meet Mr Mulliner. Penguin Books, 1981, 170 pp.
