Poetic Speech

Poetic Speech 1. Comment on the peculiarities of the words and forms marked My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man: So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die.'QN. Wordsworth)

2. Comment on the marked words; find their more up-to-date synonyms (from J. Byron's poem "Child Harold", Canto the first) Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth, Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight; But spent his days in riot most uncouth, And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. Ah, me! In sooth he was a shameless wight, Sore given to revel and ungodly glee; Few earthly things found favour in his sight Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. Childe Harold was he hight: — but whence his name And lineage long, it suits me not to say; Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame, And had been glorious in another day... Adieu, adieu/ My native shore Fades o'er the waters blue; The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild sea—mew. Yon sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his flight; Farewell awhile to him and thee, My native Land — Good night!

3. Find dialectal and archaic elements in R. Burns' poem: Should auld acquaintance be forgot. And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days о' lang syne ? For auld lang syne, my dears, For auld lang syne. We 'II tak a cup о 'kindness yet, For auld lang syne... And here's a hand, my trusty fiere, And gie 's a hand о' thine; And we 'II tak a right guid willie-waught For auld lang syne.

Structural Stylistic Devices

Structural Stylistic Devices 1. State the type of inversion: What the action of the play would have been like if Laertes had not had the occasion to revenge the death of his father, we cannot tell. (Literary criticism) Had this happened before supper, George would have expressed wishes and desires concerning Harris's fate in this world and the next that would have made a thoughtful man shudder. (Jerome) Calm and quiet below me in the sun and shade lay the old house. (Dickens) 2. What structural device is used below? A poor boy... No father, no mother, no any one. (Dickens) 3. Comment on the kind of repetition used: One may see by their footprints that they have not walked arm in arm; that they have not walked in a straight track, and that they have walked in a moody humour. (Dickens) / looked at the gun, and the gun looked at me. (R. Chandler) 4. Point out the devices of climax and anticlimax: Of course it's important. Incredibly, urgently, desperately important. (D. Cusack) // was a mistake ...a blunder... lunacy ... (W. Deeping) He was numbed. He wanted to weep, to vomit, to die, to sink away. (A. Bennet) They were absolutely quiet; eating no apples, cutting no names, inflicting no pinches, and making no grimaces, for full two minutes afterwards. (Dickens) 5. Explain the meaning of the periphrasis She was still fat; the destroyer of her figure sat at the head of the table. (A. Bennet) The hospital was crowded with the surgically interesting products of the fighting in Africa. (I. Shaw) 6. What device is created by the use of the marked words? Don't use big words. They mean so little. (Wilde) 7. What device is represented by the marked part of the sentence and what is the implication here? "But, John, you know I 'm not going to a doctor. I 've told you. " "You are going — or else... "(P. Qucntin)

8. What device is used in the marked parts? His nervousness about it irritated him: she had no business to make him feel like that. (Galsworthy) Angela looked at him with swimming eyes. He was really different from anything she had ever known, young, artistic, imaginative, ambitious... What a wonderful thing! (Dickens) 9. What ways of connection are used in the extracts below? And they wore their best and more colourful clothes. Red shirts and green shirts and yellow shirts and pink shirts. (P. Abrahams) The pulsating motion at Malay Camp at night was everywhere. People sang. People cried. People fought. People loved. People hated. (P. Abrahams)

10. Name the device used below "The day on which I had to take the happiest and best step of my life — the day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than any other man in the world — the day on which I give Bleak House its little mistress — shall be next month, then ", said my guardian. (Dickens) VI. Comment on the Phonetic Devices Used Below 'Sh-sh', shesaid. 'But I'm whispering!' This continual shushing annoyed him. (A. Huxley) The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees. (Tennison)

Figures of Speech

IV. Figures of Speech 1. State which of the comparative structures represent metaphors and similes He has a tongue like a sward and a pen like a dagger. (H. Caine)

You talk exactly like my father!

The laugh in her eyes died out... (M. Spillane) The grin made his large teeth resemble a dazzling miniature piano keyboard in the green light. (J. Jones) // was his habit not to jump or leap at anything in life but to crawl at everything. (Dickens)

2. Distinguish between metonymy and metaphor He earns his living by his pen. (S. Maugham) / ... came to the place where the Stars and Stripes stood shoulder to shoulder with the Union Jack. (Steinbeck) Money burns a hole in my pocket. (T. Capote) 3. State which of the attributes represent epithets ... whispered the spinster aunt with true spinster-aunt-like envy. (Dickens) A lock of hair fell over her eye and she pushed it back with a tired, end-of-the-dayjesture. (J. Braine) The money she had accepted was two soft, green, handsome ten-dollar bills. (Dreiser) 4. Comment on the play upon words: His arm about her, he led her in and bawled, 'Ladies and worser halves, the bride!' (S. Lewis) Then there were the twin boys, whom the family called "Stars and Stripes ", as they were whipped regularly. (O. Wilde) There comes a period in every man's life, but she's just a semicolon in his. (S. Evans) (period in American English means " a full stop") Did you hit a woman with a child? — No, sir, I hit her with a brick. (Th. Smith) lsn 't it discouraging when it takes two days to fly a letter from coast to coast? I get so mad I mark the envelopes 'Air-Snail". (example from the work) 5. Point out litotes and hyperbole She was not without realization already that this thing was impossible, so far as she was concerned. (Dreiser)

Joe Clegg also looked surprised and possibly not too pleased. (Christie) Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. (Fitzgerald) 6. Comment on the peculiarities of antonomasia Every Caesar has his Brutus. (O. Henry) There are three doctors in an illness like yours... Dr. Rest, Dr. Diet and Dr. Fresh air. (D. Cusack) 7. Explain the meaning of these euphemisms 7 expect you 'd like a wash,' Mrs. Thompson said. 'The bathroom 's to the right and the usual offices next to it'. (J. Braine) Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs. Merdle ...? (Dickens) 8. What allusion is made in the extract? "Christ, it's so funny! Madame Bovary at Columbia Extension School!" (Salinger) 9. What device is represented by the marked words? Break, break, break On the cold gray stones, О Sea! (A. Tennison) 10. Point out how irony is created below: To look at Montmorency, you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth. At first I never thought he would survive. I used to sit down and look at him as he sat on the rug and looked up at me, and think: "Oh, that dog will never live. He will be taken to the bright skies in a chariot, that's what will happen to him ". But when I had paid for about a dozen chickens that he had killed... then I began to think that maybe they would let him remain on earth a bit longer. (Jerome)

Formal Styles

III. Formal Styles 1. Analyse the peculiarities of the style of scientific texts; paraphrase the marked expressions by more neutral ones a) The degree of liberty possessed by the citizens of a state has become the key standard by which liberal democracies are compared with other forms of government.. However, there is much less consensus on the meaning of liberty.

In political thought liberty is largely synonymous with freedom. But it is as well to recall that liberty or freedom have not always been valued in Western or other forms of political thought. Indeed religious and political authoritarians, and many conservatives and traditionalists, equate liberty with licence, the absence of control, moral chaos. Moreover, many political philosophers, from Plato to Hobbes, have argued that human beings should sacrifice their freedom to ensure order or stability, in the form of strong and/or enlightened government. Many political theorists make a distinction between positive liberty ('freedom to do', or self-mastery') and negative liberty ('freedom from' or 'not being obstructed') although others argue that the distinction is not logically sustainable, that it just confuses matters. The concept of liberty, whether positive or negative, or both, evidently means 'not being controlled' or 'not being obstructed'. The most notable exponents of positive liberty were Rousseau and Kant. They argued that genuine freedom is possessed only by individuals who are autonomous agents — that is, by those whose power of reason is free from manipulation by others, and are capable of exercising self-determination in their moral and political choices. We are free only when we act rightly, and vice versa: we are free when our 'real self is in charge. This thesis can, of course, become a means for suggesting that people are not free even when they claim to be. The idea of negative liberty, by contrast, is derived from the doctrine of natural rights which claims that individuals have certain inalienable rights which should not be transgressed by any individual, group or government. Such rights are 'liberties', that is, rights to be free from control, and are most vigorously supported in the doctrine of libertarianism. Negative liberty exists where citizens are free to behave in any way which does not harm another citizen or contravene specific laws. Negative liberty is often tested in societies where governments or pressure groups attempt to define what constitutes harm to others: thus the private sexual activities of consenting adults would appear to be harmful to neither the practitioners nor the general public, yet many states prohibit by law certain types..

b) Such innovations will involve changes to the diet of the whole populations, including a sharp reduction in consumption of intensively- reared cattle. An international agreement was reached at the J 992 Earth Summit, although the policies agreed will only reduce the rate of increase of greenhouse gases. This, coupled with a fear that American voters regard their right to drive large cars as on a par with the constitutional right to bear arms, made the administration of President Bush very obstructive in international negotiations. Given the economic and political power of the USA, and their consumption of energy, this stance has reduced other countries' readiness to respond. Finally, it is worth noting that any suggestion that global warming threatens life on Earth is highly exaggerated. The changes in atmospheric composition are significant in relation to changes in the last few million years, but are neglectable compared with the changes brought about by life. 2. Analyse the peculiarities of publicist style in the following extract from the First Inaugural speech by Thomas Jefferson; paraphrase the bookish expressions by more neutral ones: Friends and Fellow Citizens ... During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussion and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others; that this should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans — we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. 1 know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it is the only one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Some Practical Assignments for Stylistic Analysis

Some Practical Assignments for Stylistic Analysis I. Stylistic Connotations in Vocabulary Point out stylistic differences within the groups of synonyms: face — visage — mug — deadpan nose — snout — beak — nasal cavity / think — / gather — I presume — I take it — / guess — methinks Boy — youth — lad — young male person — youngster — teenager lass — girl — maiden — wench — young female person nonsense — absurdity — rot — trash legs — pins — lower extremities Silence, please.'— Stop talking.'— Shut your trap! Wait! - Hold on! - Stand by! You are — thou art breathe in — inhale — gasp friend — comrade — pal — buddy — acquaintance Hurry up! — Move on! — Hasten your step!

II. Colloquial Vocabulary Paraphrase so as to show the different uses of the verb 'to do': 1) Have you done your homework? 2) I have to do a sum. 3) Will you please do the room? 4) Who does the cooking in your family? 5) Go and do your teeth! 6) I like the way you do your hair. 7) They do fish very well in this restaurant. 8) What subjects do you do at your University? 9) I did some music in my childhood. 10) This car can do 80 miles an hour. 11) What do you do for a living? 12) You did right to tell me about it. 13) That won't do. 14) Will this sum do for you? 15) It did me good. 16) He is doing well at school. 17) How are you doing? 18) He was up and doing at five in the morning. 19) What is doing here? 20) If you say it again, I'll do you! 21) Can we do Oxford in three days? 22) He does Ronald Reagan very well.