General notes on style and stylistics

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General notes on style and stylistics

Anna Prihodko,

Zaporizhzhia National University



Abstract

In the proposed text the basic concepts of stylistics as a branch of linguistics are considered. The focus is made on the characteristics of stylistic devices, their nature and functions in different language styles, as well as the principles of their decoding in the text.

Key words: stylistics, style, expressive means, stylistic devices, meaning.



Приходько Г.І.

Загальні поняття стилістики

У запропонованому тексті розглянуто основні поняття стилістики як розділу лінгвістики. Акцент робиться на характеристиці стилістичних засобів, їх природі та функціях у різних мовних стилях, принципах декодування в тексті. language styles linguistics

Ключові слова: стилістика, стиль, виражальні засоби, стилістичні прийоми, значення.



Outline

1. The Notion of Stylistics

2. The Notion of Style

3. The Objectives of Stylistics

4. The Place of Stylistics among other LanguageStudying Sciences and its Peculiarities

5. Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices

6. Meanings of Language Units

The Notion of Stylistics

The academic discipline of stylistics is a twentieth-century invention. Stylistic approach to linguistic facts differs radically from traditional description of language phenomena on the lexical, grammatical and phonetic levels.

There are many definitions of Stylistics as a science. Let's regard some of them.

Stylistics is a branch of general linguistics which has to do with expressive possibilities of the language - its vocabulary, the structure and the sound arrangement of the sentence or the paragraph. It is a science dealing with rather a complicated phenomenon - the formation of the transferred or figurative meanings.

Stylistics is a language science which deals with the results of the act of communication. (Galperin, 1977). It is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in context. For example, the language of advertising, politics, religion, individual authors, etc., or the language of a period in time, all belong in a particular situation. In other words, they all have `place'.

The science also attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language, such as socialization, the production and reception of meaning, critical discourse analysis and literary criticism.

Other features of stylistics include the use of dialogue, including regional accents and people's dialects, descriptive language, the use ofgrammar, such as the active voice or passive voice, the distribution of sentence lengths, the use of particular language registers, etc.

Many linguists do not like the term `stylistics'. The word `style`, itself, has several connotations that make it difficult for the term to be defined accurately. However, in "Linguistic Criticism", Roger Fowler makes the point that, in non-theoretical usage, the word stylistics makes sense and is useful in referring to an enormous range of literary contexts, such as John Milton`s `grand style', the `prose style' of Henry James, the `epic` and `ballad style' of classical Greek literature, etc. (Fowler, 1996: 185) In addition, stylistics is a distinctive term that may be used to determine the connections between the form and effects within a particular variety of language. Therefore, stylistics looks at what is `going on' within the language; what the linguistic associations are that the style of language reveals.

The Problem of the Norm

The treatment of the selected elements brings up the problem of the norm. The notion of the norm mainly refers to the literary language and always presupposes a recognized or received standard.

Academician Scherba wrote: "Very often when speaking of norms people forget about stylistic norms which are no less, if not more, important than all others."

The norm should be regarded as the invariant of the phonemic, morphological, lexical and syntactical patterns circulating in language-inaction at a given period of time. There is a tendency to estimate the value of individual style by the degree it violates the norms of the language.

The problem of variants of the norm, or deviations from the norm of the literary language, has received widespread attention among linguists and is central to some of the major current controversies.

Itistheinadequacyofthe concept "norm" thatcauses the controversy. At every period in the development of a literary language there must be a tangible norm which first of all marks the difference between literary and non-literary language.

The Notion of Style

The word has derived from the Latin word "stilus" which meant a sharpened stick used by Romans for writing on wax tablets. In the course of time it came to stand for the product of it.

The concept is so broad that it is hardly possible to regard it as a term. We speak of style in architecture, literature, behaviour, linguistics, dress and other fields of human activity.

Even in linguistics the word style is used so widely that it needs interpretation. The majority of linguists who deal with the subject of style agree that the term applies to the following fields of investigation:

— correspondence between language and expression;

— addition to language;

— technique of expression;

— a literary genre;

— individual style;

— expressive means in language;

— synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea;

— emotional colouring of language;

— a system of special devices called stylistic devices.

In this connection there are many definitions of style. Let us regard some of them:

1. Style is the correspondence between thought and expression. The notion is based on the assumption that language is said to have two functions: it serves as a means of communication and also as a means of shaping one's thoughts. The first function is called communicative, the second - expressive, the latter finds its proper materialization in strings of sentences especially arranged to convey the ideas and also to get the desired response.

Indeed, every sentence may be characterized from two sides: whether or not the string of language forms expressed is something well-known and therefore easily understood and to some extent predictable; whether or not the string of language forms is built anew; is, as it were, an innovation made on the part of the listener to get at the meaning of the utterance and is therefore unpredictable.

The main trend in most of the observations on the interrelation between thought and expression may be summarized as follows: the linguistic form of the idea expressed always reflects the peculiarities of the thought. And vice versa, the character of the thought will always manifest itself in the language forms chosen for the expression of the idea.

2. Style is addition to language. This concept is popular and is upheld in some of the scientific papers on literary criticism. Language and style are regarded as separate bodies, but language can easily dispense with style. Moreover, style as an embellishment of language is viewed as something that hinders understanding. In its extreme, style may dress the thought in such fancy attire that one can hardly get at the idea hidden behind the elaborate design of tricky stylistic devices.

This notion presupposes the use of bare language forms deprived of any stylistic devices and of any expressive means deliberately employed. Perhaps it is due to this notion that the word "style" itself still bears a somewhat derogatory meaning. It is associated with the idea of something pompous, showy artificial, something that is set against simplicity, truthfulness, the natural.

3. Style is technique of expression. In this sense style is generally defined as the ability to write clearly, correctly and in a manner calculated to the interest of the reader. Style in this utilitarian sense should be taught, but it belongs to the realm of grammar, and not to stylistics. It sets up a number of rules as to how to speak and write and discards all kinds of deviations as being violations of the norm. The norm itself becomes rigid, self-sustained and to a very great extent inflexible.

4. Style signifies a literary genre. Thus we speak of classical style or the style of classicism; realistic style; the style of romanticism and so on. On the other hand, the term is widely used in literature, being applied to the various kinds of literary work, the fable, novel, ballad, story etc. The word is also used to denote the way the plot is dealt with, the arrangements of the parts in a literary composition to form the whole, the author's place and the role in describing and depicting events.

We also speak of the different styles of language. A style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication. The peculiar choice of language means is primarily dependent on the aim of communication.

Thus we may distinguish the following styles within the English literary language: 1) the belles- letters style; 2) the public style; 3) the newspaper style; 4) the scientific prose style; 5) the style of official documents and presumably some others. The classification presented here is not arbitrary, the work is still in the observational stage. The classification is not proof against criticism, though no one will deny that the five groups of styles exist in the English literary language.

"Style is a contextually restricted linguistic variation" (P. Enkvist);

"Style is a selection of non-distinctive features of language" (L. Bloomfield).

5. Individual style / idiostyle / idiolect can also stand for a unique combination of language units, expressive means and stylistic devices peculiar to a given writer, which makes his / her works / utterances easily recognizable. Hence, individual style may be linked to a proper name. The main feature of individual style is idiosyncratic and deliberate choice of language, and the ways the selected elements are treated. "The wording is different because the inner world is different" (N. Kozlov "Fairy Tales with Philosophical Tinge").

The most frequent definition of style is one expressed by Seymour Chatman: "Style is a product of individual choices and patterns of choices among linguistic possibilities". This definition directly deals with the idiosyncrasies peculiar to a given writer. Thus, for instance, we speak of O. Wilde's idiolect with witticisms in a form of paradoxes, E. Hemingway's idiolect full of short dialogues with iceberg technique involved, etc.

The Objectives of Stylistics

The central problem of stylistics is the selection of adequate linguistic means to convey an idea, to build up the mood, to evoke desired feelings. Stylistics deals not only with the aesthetic and emotional impact of the language. It also studies the means of producing impressions in our mind, which is the first stage of concept. The problem of abstractness, and its degree, is one of vital importance in stylistics in more than one respect.

The two objectives (interdependent tasks) of stylistics are the following two fields of investigation:

1) stylistic devices and evaluative means (SDs and EMs). Here belongs the investigation of the inventory of special language media which by their ontological features secure the desirable effect of the utterance. This field touches upon the aesthetic function of language, synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea, emotional coloring in language, the interrelation between language and thought, the individual manner of an author in making use of language and other issues;

2) functional styles (FSs), which are certain types of texts (discourse) which due to the choice and arrangement of language means are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication. The field deals with oral and written variety of language, the notion of the literary (standard) language, the constituents of texts larger than the sentence, the generative aspect of literary texts and some others.

The Place of Stylistics among other Language Studying Sciences and Its Peculiarities

Stylistics, as a branch of linguistics, can't avoid references to other disciplines and sciences for some of their issues overlap. Among them are: Theory of Information, Literature, Logic, Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Culturology, Sociology, Statistics.

Among linguistic disciplines we find: Semasiology, Onomasiology, Linguistic Anthropology, Generative Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Descriptive Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Comparative Linguistics, Etymology, Theory of Imagery, Theory of Literary Genres, The Art of Composition, etc.

We'll have a closer look on Semasiology and Onomasiology.

Semasiology is a branch of linguistics which studies a most complicated and vast sphere - that of meaning. It is often related to the theory of signs in general and deals with visual and verbal meanings. The major part of stylistic effects is based on the interplay between various meanings on different levels. There are also numerous types of linguistic meanings attached to linguistic units (lexical, grammatical, logical, denotative, connotative, emotive, evaluative, expressive and stylistic).

Onomasiology is the theory of naming which deals with the choice of words in the process of giving names to an object / phenomenon. Stylistic analysis often has to do with a transfer of nominal meaning in a text (antonomasia, metaphor, metonymy, etc.).

Stylistics has acquired its own status with its own set of tools (SDs and EMs) with its own object of investigation and with other methods of research. Since Stylistics is a two-folded phenomenon (expressive-evaluative means and functional styles), its place among other language-studying sciences is quite unique. It is also due to both its object and the principles of its investigation.

The chief peculiarities of the discipline can be summed up in the following manner:

— there are no rigid laws in the governing the system of language denomination;

— there are no hard lines between the connotation and the denotation meanings;

— the category of expressiveness is dispersed throughout the levels of the language system;

-- Stylistics has no definite means of expression, for subjectivity of perception allows more than one interpretation of the stylistic phenomenon.

In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means by which utterances are made 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 set against those means which we will call neutral.

Pragmatics as a Branch of Science

Pragmatics as a branch of science is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speaker's meaning. The study of how context influences the interpretation is then crucial. In this setting, context refers to any factor - linguistic, objective, or subjective - that affects the actual interpretation of signs and expressions.

Pragmatics is interested predominantly in utterances, usually in the context of conversations.

A distinction is made in pragmatics between sentence meaning and speaker' meaning. Sentence meaning is the literal meaning of the sentence, while the speaker' meaning is the piece of information (or proposition) that the speaker is trying to convey.

The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence.

Pragmatics reacted to the structuralist linguistics outlined by Ferdinand de Saussure. In many cases, it expanded upon his idea that language has a structure to be analyzed, made up of parts that can be defined in relation to others. It engages in synchronic study, as opposed to examining the historical development of language.



The Difference between Semantics and Pragmatics

According to Charles W. Morris, pragmatics tries to understand the relationship between signs and interpretations, while semantics tends to focus on the actual objects or ideas that a word refers to. Semantics is the literal meaning of an idea whereas pragmatics is the implied meaning of the given idea.

Semantics tells about the meaning in a language, code, or other form of representation - it is all about the meaning.

Pragmatics is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speaker's meaning - it is all about use.

Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices

Native scholars prefer to use terms expressive means (EMs) and stylistic devices (SDs). According to professor I. R. Galperin, SDs and EMs are the special media of language that secure the desirable effect of the utterance.

Being the first field of investigation, EMs and SDs deal with the aesthetic function of language, synonymous ways of expressing one and the same idea, emotional colouring in language, the interaction between language and thought, the individual manner of an author in making use of language. They are opposed to neutral means.

Expressive Means (EMs)

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 or/ and emotional intensification of the utterance.

E.g. He shall do it! = I shall make him do it.

The most powerful EM of any language are phonetic.

Pitch, melody, stress, pausation, intensifying certain syllables, whispering, a sing-song manner, and other ways of using the voice are much more effective than other means in intensifying an utterance emotionally or logically.

Morphological EMs of the English language is a rather impoverished set of media to which the quality of expressiveness is attributed.

These are:

— the Historical Present;

— the use of shall in the second and third person;

— the use of some demonstrative pronouns with the emphatic meaning as those, them (e.g. Those candid eyes of his);

— cases of nominalization, esp. when conversion of verbal stems is alien to the meaning of the verbs.

Among the word-building means we find a great many forms which serve to make the utterance more expressive by intensifying some of their semantic / grammatical properties:

— the diminutive suffixes y, -ie, -let: sonny, auntie, streamlet;

— neologisms and nonce-words formed with non-productive suffixes, e.g. with Greek roots: cleanorama;

— some affixes which have gained expressiveness that they begin functioning as separate words, absorbing all the generalizing meaning they attach to different roots: "isms and ologies".

At the lexical level there are a great many words which due to their expressiveness constitute a special layer:

— with emotive meaning only (interjections);

— which have referential and emotive meaning (epithets);

— which still retain a twofold meaning (denotative and connotative) - love, sympathy, hate;

— belonging to the layers of slang and vulgar words;

— poetic or archaic words.

All kinds of phraseological units generally possess the property of expressiveness. They serve to make speech emphatic, esp. from the emotional point of view:

— set phrases;

— catch words;

— sayings;

— proverbs.

At the syntactical level there are many constructions which reveal a certain degree of logical or emotional emphasis.

EMs have a greater degree of predictability than SDs. EMs follow the natural course of thought, intensifying it by means commonly used in language. EMs are concrete facts of the language. They are studied in the respective language manuals.

Stylistics takes into consideration the modification of meanings which EMs undergo when they are used in different functional styles. EMs noticeably colour the whole of the utterance.

Stylistic Devices (SDs)

The stylistic device is a conscious and an intentional intensification of some typical structural and/ or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized status and thus becoming a generative model. A SD is an abstract pattern, a mould into which any pattern can be poured.

All SDs have developed within the framework of the literary form of the language. SDs carry a greater amount of information and require a certain effort to decode their meaning and purport. They must be regarded as a special code which has to be well known to the reader in order to be deciphered easily.

Most SDs display an application of two meanings: the ordinary one (established in the language-as-a- system) and a special meaning which is superimposed on the unit by the text (a meaning which appears in the language-in-action).

E.g. The night has swallowed him up.

The word "swallow" has two meanings: a) referential and b) contextual (to make vanish, to make disappear). The meaning B takes precedence over A.

Sometimes the twofold application of a lexical unit is accomplished by two words (generally synonyms) one of which is perceived against the background.

SDs function in texts as marked units. They always carry some kind of additional information, either emotive or logical, but any substitution may cause damage to the semantic and aesthetic aspect of the utterance.

SDs are abundantly used in poetry, sparingly in emotive prose.

It is necessary to distinguish between a stylistic use of a language unit, which acquires a stylistic meaning, and a stylistic device, which is the realization of an already well-known abstract scheme designed to achieve a particular artistic effect.

The birth of SDs is a natural process in the development of language media.

General View on Figures of Speech

A figure does not necessarily involve any alteration either of the order or the strict sense of words. A figure of speech, sometimes termed a rhetorical, or elocution, is a word or phrase that departs from straightforward, literal language. The term is used in two senses. In the first it is applied to any form in which thought is expressed, just as it is to bodies which, whatever their composition, must have some shape. In the second and special sense, in which it is called a schema, it means a rational change in meaning or language from the ordinary and simple form, that is to say, a change analogous to that involved by sitting, lying down on something or looking back. Figures of speech are often used and crafted for emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use.

As an example of the figurative use of a word, consider the sentence, I am going to crown you. It may mean:

-- I am going to place a literal crown on your head.

-- I am going to symbolically exalt you to the place of kingship.

-- I am going to punch you in the head with my clenched fist.

-- I am going to put a second draught piece on top of your draught piece to signify that it has become a king (as in the game of draughts/ checkers).

Scholars of classical Western rhetoric have divided figures of speech into two main categories: schemes and tropes.

Schemes (from the Greek schema, form or shape) are figures of speech in which there is a deviation from the ordinary or expected pattern of words. For example, the phrase, "John, my best friend" uses the scheme known as apposition. For example,

— alliteration: A series of words that begin with the same letter or sound alike

— anadiplosis: Repetition of a word at the end of a clause at the beginning of another

— ellipsis: Omission of words

— parallelism: The use of similar structures in two or more clauses

— parenthesis: Insertion of a clause or sentence in a place where it interrupts the natural flow of the sentence

Tropes (from the Greek tropein, to turn) involve changing or modifying the general meaning of a term. It is an artful deviation from the principal or ordinary signification of a word. An example of a trope is the use of irony, which is the use of words in a way that conveys a meaning opposite to its usual meaning ("For Brutus is an honorable man; / So, are they all, honorable men").

— allusion: An indirect reference to another work of literature or art

— antonomasia: The substitution of a phrase for a proper name or vice versa

— apostrophe: Addressing a thing, an abstraction or a person not present.

During the Renaissance, a time when scholars in every discipline had a passion for classifying all things, writers expended a great deal of energy in devising all manner of classes and sub-classes of figures of speech. Henry Peacham, for example, in his The Garden of Eloquence (1577) enumerated 184 different figures of speech.

Other definitions of the term Figure of speech:

— a mode of expression in which words are used out of their literal meaning;

— language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense;

— an expression that uses language in a nonliteral way, such as a metaphor or synecdoche, or in a structured or unusual way, such as anaphora or chiasmus, or that employs sounds, such as alliteration or assonance, to achieve a rhetorical effect;

— imaginative, non-literal ways of using language that will make your prose stronger and more effective when used properly.

Figures and Tropes. The resemblance between the two is so close that it is not easy to distinguish between them. The name of trope is applied to the transference of expressions from their natural and principal signification to another, with a view to the embellishment of style or, as the majority of grammarians define it, the transference of words and phrases from the place which is strictly theirs to another to which they do not properly belong. A figure, on the other hand, as is clear from the name itself, is the term employed when we give our language a conformation other than the obvious and ordinary. Therefore the substitution of one word for another is placed among tropes, as for example in the case of metaphor, metonymy, antonomasia, metalepsis, synecdoche, catachresis, allegory and hyperbole, which may, of course, be concerned either with words or things. Onomatopoeia is the creation of a word and therefore involves substitution for the words which we should use but for such creation. Again although periphrasis often includes the actual word whose place it supplies, it still uses a number of words in place of one. The epithet as a rule involves an element of antonomasia necessarily becomes a trope on account of this affinity.

Meanings of Language Units: A General Division

All language means contain meaning - generally acknowledged grammatical and lexical meanings, others beside these contain specific (stylistic) meanings.

As for lexical units, words are used on the one hand `to record, clarify and communicate' thoughts, whereas they are used on the other hand to show or create feelings, or to provoke people act in a certain way. The first kind of use has been termed "descriptive", the second "dynamic". Each word in particular, together with its prime (basic / denotative / dictionary / general) meaning, has got some connotative (stylistic / figurative / pragmatic) meaning as well, e.g. That's a fox. (basic). What a fox of a friend you are! (figurative).

Meanings of Language Units

A) General: denotative (logical), lexical, grammatical.

B) Additional (Stylistic, Pragmatic, Contextual): expressive, emotive, evaluative.

The two aspects of meaning that may be given approximate analyses are the connotative relation and the denotative relation. The connotative relation is the relation between signs and their interpretant signs. The denotative relation is the relation between signs and objects.

In general linguistics the problem of meaning deals mainly with such aspects of the term as the interrelation between meaning and concept, meaning and sign, meaning and referent. The general tendency is to regard meaning as something fixed at a given period of time.

Logical (denotative, referential) meaning is the precise naming of a feature or an idea, a phenomenon or an object, with the name of which we recognize the whole of the concept. Logical meanings are liable to change. As a result the logical meanings of one word may denote different concepts. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between primary and secondary logical meanings.

It is essential for stylistics to distinguish between the primary and the secondary logical meanings, as some SDs are built on the interplay between them, e.g. What lies at the bottom of the sea and trembles? / An old wreck / Meanings: a wrecked ship and a person with mental disorders.

Stylistic (Pragmatic) Meaning

A speech community is not a monolithic herd of people who use all words in the same way and with the same feelings.

Stylistics is a domain where meaning assumes paramount importance, because it is applied not only to words, word-combinations, sentences, but also to the manner of expression into which the matter is cast. When a twofold application of meaning is apparent a SD can be realized.

In stylistics it is important to discriminate shades or nuances of meaning in order to adequately comprehend the idea of a passage or a complete work. Here_meaning is also viewed as a category which is able to acquire meanings imposed on the words by the context. That is why they are called contextual meanings.

The choice of words for creating the necessary effect is based on the fact that besides the logical or denotative meaning words may have different connotations:

— expressive,

— emotive,

— evaluative.

This additional meaning in words can be either fixed in the dictionary or brought out in the context. It is connected with the discourse / the act of communication, its participants and circumstances.

a) Expressive connotation in words depends on their unusual use. It can be the transferred meaning, the unexpected combination of words, the use of intensifiers - anything that aims at increasing the impact of the message. Expressiveness can be understood as a kind of intensification of an utterance or of a part of it depending on the position of its means that manifest this category and what these means are.

Expressiveness can be achieved by lexical and by syntactical means:

E.g. Mr. Smith was an extremely unpleasant person.

Why should I sweat about the place collecting dogs - of whatever nationality --for young Tuppy? (Wodehouse) (a reference to an Irish spaniel).

b) Emotive component is connected with the expression of feelings: pleasure, uneasiness, surprise, distress. Emotive meaning is an intensifying derivative meaning. Emotiveness is what reveals the emotions of a writer / speaker. The emotive elements of language are designed to awaken co-experience in the mind of a reader/listener. Emotiveness is an integral part of expressiveness.

E.g. He looked dreadfully pitiful (Maugham) (sympathetic)/

Isn't she cute! (positive, excitement, admiration).

It must be noted that emotional emphasis frequently overlaps with a logical one.

The meaning is `emotive' if it is used to express a personal feeling, say, the feeling that something is beautiful or ugly, pleasant or unpleasant. Emotive meaning is a kind of factual meaning.

Express ivenessis abroader 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.

The distinction here can be made between the spoken word and written text, spoken language having a possibly greater `emotive' function by emphasizing aspects of the language in its pronunciation. For example, in English stressed or unstressed words can produce a variety of meanings. Consider the sentence `I never promised you a rose garden' (the title of the autobiographical novel by Joanne Greenberg, which was written under the pen name of Hannah Green. 1964). This has a multitude of connotations depending on how the line is spoken. For example:

I never promised you a rose garden

I never promised you a rose garden

I never promised you a rose garden

I never promised you a rose garden

I never promised you a rose garden

I never promised you a rose garden.

c) Evaluative quality of a word expresses favorable or unfavorable attitude to the thing described.

E.g. The voice of young Bingo polluted the air (Wodehouse).

The evaluative meaning of a word (or phrase) may be positive (meliorative, laudatory), negative (pejorative, derogatory) or neutral (indifferent).

The evaluative meanings of a word can diverge widely, even when the word has no or hardly any established conceptual meaning. Thus the word god has a strong meliorative meaning for theists and a strong pejorative meaning for antitheists. Words such as good, right, nice and excellent, which are used to express a positive evaluation or emotion itself, are typically meliorative, may acquire a pejorative meaning due to the context, when the speaker does not like the situation.

Stylistic connotation in a word depends on its habitual use in one of the functional styles.

To the Question of Denotative and Connotative Meanings

The concepts of denotation and connotation refer practically to the same distinction as that between conceptual or descriptive and evaluative or emotive meaning. The connotation is, then, what is implied apart from what is explicitly named or described. It is the subsidiary meaning of a word of which the conceptual or descriptive meaning is of primary significance. It may also be the case, that only the emotive or evaluative meaning of a word or phrase is important, and that it has no, or only a vague, conceptual meaning. In that case the term connotation does not properly express the essentially evaluative nature of the word or phrase concerned. The distinction between conceptual and evaluative meaning is also present where it is said that linguistic symbols are not only related to concepts in a narrow sense but also to so-called `stereotypes'. These `stereotypes' then underly the emotive meanings of terms.

The majority of scholars believed that the relations between the denotative and the connotative meanings were of an exclusive character, and it was T.G. Vinokur who launched an idea that these connections are intermediate by their nature. The general conclusion is that there are no hard and fast lines between the denotative and the connotative meanings. They are indeed interchangeable sometimes.



References

1. Rowler, R. (1996). Linguistic Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2. Galperin, I. R (1977). Stylistics. Moscow: Higher School.

3. Prykhodko, H. I. (2014). Stylistyka anhliyskoi movy [English Stylistics]. Osnovy kursu: navchalnyi posibnyk dlia studentiv osvitnio-kvalifikatsiinoho rivnia "bakalavr" profesiinoho spriamuvannia "Mova ta literatura (anhliiska)", Zaporizhzhia: Kruhozir, 108 p. (in Ukrainian).

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