Научная статья на тему 'Types of stylistic meaning'

Types of stylistic meaning Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
TYPES OF MEANING / GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL MEANING / EXPRESSIVENESS / EMOTIVENESS

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Turgunova Ra'No

In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are foregrounded, for instance, made more conspicuous, more effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are called expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic markers, stylistic devices, tropes, figures of speech and other names. All these terms are used indiscriminately and are set against those means which we shall conventionally call neutral. Most linguists distinguish ordinary (substantial, referential) semantic and stylistic differences in meaning.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Types of stylistic meaning»

TYPES OF STYLISTIC MEANING Turgunova R.

Turgunova Ra 'no - Senior Teacher, DEPARTMENT OF THE THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGES UNDER THE ENGLISH LANGUAGES FACULTY 3, UZBEKISTAN STATE WORLD LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, TASHKENT, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

Abstract: in linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are foregrounded, for instance, made more conspicuous, more effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are called expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic markers, stylistic devices, tropes, figures of speech and other names. All these terms are used indiscriminately and are set against those means which we shall conventionally call neutral. Most linguists distinguish ordinary (substantial, referential) semantic and stylistic differences in meaning.

Keywords: types of meaning, grammatical and lexical meaning, expressiveness, emotiveness.

In fact all language means contain meaning—some of them contain generally acknowledged grammatical and lexical meanings [2], others besides these contain specific meanings which may be called stylistic. Such meanings go alongside primary meanings and, as it were, are superimposed on them.

Stylistic meanings are so to say de-automatized. As is known, the process of automatization, a speedy and subconscious use of language data, is one of the indispensable ways of making communication easy and quickly decodable.

But when a stylistic meaning is involved, the process of de-automatization checks the reader's perception of the language. His attention is arrested by a peculiar use of language media and he begins, to the best of his ability, to decipher it. He becomes aware of the form in which the utterance is cast and as the result of this process a twofold use of the language medium—ordinary and stylistic—becomes apparent to him. As will be shown later this

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twofold application of language means in some cases presents no difficulty. It is so marked that even a layman can see it, as when a metaphor or a simile is used. But in some texts grammatically redundant forms or hardly noticeable forms, essential for the expression of stylistic meanings which carry the particular additional information desired, may present a difficulty.

What this information is and how it is conveyed to the mind of the reader can be explored only when a concrete communication is subjected to observation, which will be done later in the analyses of various stylistic devices and in the functioning of expressive means.

What then is a stylistic device? Why is it so important to distinguish it from the expressive and neutral means of the language? To answer these questions it is first of all necessary to elucidate the notion 'expressiveness'.

The category of expressiveness has long been the subject of heated discussions among linguists. In its etymological sense expressiveness may be understood as a kind of intensification of an utterance or of a part of it depending on the position in the utterance of the means that manifest this category and what these means are [1].

But somehow lately the notion of expressiveness has been confused with another notion, viz. emotiveness. Emotiveness, and correspondingly the emotive elements of language, are what reveal the emotions of writer or speaker. But these elements are not direct manifestations of the emotions—they are just the echoes of real emotions, echoes which have undergone some intellectual recasting. They are designed to awaken co-experience in the mind of the reader.

Expressiveness is a broader notion than emotiveness and is by no means to be reduced to the latter. Emotiveness is an integral part of expressiveness and, as a matter of fact, occupies a predominant position in the category of expressiveness. But there are media in language which aim simply at logical emphasis of certain parts of the utterance. They do not evoke any intellectual representation of feeling but merely serve the purpose of verbal actualization of the utterance.

Now it should be possible to define the notion of expressive means. The expressive means of a language are those phonetic, morphological, word-building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist in language-as-a-system for the purpose of logical and/or emotional intensification of the utterance [3].

Stylistics studies the expressive means of language, but from a special angle. It takes into account the modifications of meanings which various expressive means undergo when they are used in different functional styles. Expressive means have a kind of radiating effect. They noticeably colour the whole of the utterance no matter whether they are logical or emotional.

Not every stylistic use of a language fact will come under the term SD, although some usages call forth a stylistic meaning. There are practically unlimited possibilities of presenting any language fact in what is vaguely called its stylistic use.' For a language fact to be promoted to the level of an SD there is one indispensable requirement, which has already been mentioned above, viz. that it should so be used to call forth a twofold perception of lexical or/and structural meanings. Even a nonce use can and very often does create the necessary conditions for the appearance of an SD. Only when a newly minted language unit which materializes the twofold application of meanings occurs repeatedly in different environments, can it spring into life as an SD and subsequently be registered in the system of SDs of the given language. Stylistic and rhythm-creating forms of cohesion in many cases interlace, as the above, mentioned forms also do by the way.

References

1. Gilbert M.L. Semantic relations and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

2. Watson R.W. Studies in Poetry. Georgia: Smarr Publishers, 2006.

3. Willbert C.D., Cruse A. Journal of Pragmatics. Oxford publishers, 2004.

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