文体学-Lexicology-2

1、英语文体学英语文体学Lexicology (II)Rhetorical DevicesMeaning transference (simile & metaphor; metonymy & synecdoche)Meaning extension and contraction (hyperbole & litotes/meiosis) (overstatement & understatement)Contradiction in logic (oxymoron, paradox, antithesis)Meaning conversion (irony)Pl

2、ay on homonymy (pun)SimileO, my loves like a red, red rose,Thats newly sprung in June:O, my loves like a melodyThats sweetly played in tune. 喻词O, my loves like a red, red rose,O, my loves like a melody tenor（主体） vehicle（喻体）Ground: the possible similarity of tenor and vehicle (loveliness, beauty, swe

3、etness)LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table;T. S.Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”Tenor? Vehicle? Ground?Metaphor Military glory（主体）is a bubble（喻体）blown from blood. X is Y in respect of Z.X: abstractY: concreteZ: Gr

4、oundDifferent types of metaphorsExplicit and embedded metaphorsExtended metaphorsPersonificationMixed metaphorsDead metaphorsExplicit and embedded metaphorsAlso called the concrete metaphors, which attribute concreteness or physical existence to an abstraction:the pain of separationthe light of lear

5、ningthe dawn of civilizationroom for negotiationBjork is pixieing around the stage.Extended metaphorsDeveloped by a number of different figurative expressions:You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? - From Bible, Matthew 5:13-16 If they be

6、two, they are two soAs stiff twin compasses are two;Thy soul, the fixd foot, makes no showTo move, but doth, if the other do.And though it in the centre sit,Yet when the other far doth roam,It leans, and hearkens after it,And grows erect, as that comes home.- John Donne, “A Valediction: Forbidding M

7、ourning”PersonificationAlso called humanizing metaphors, which attribute characteristics of humanity to what is not human:The cash machine ate my card.His appearance and manner speak eloquently for him.laughing valleysthis friendly riverThe grave yawned lazily.Mixed metaphorsMetaphors that combine d

8、ifferent images or ideas in a way that is foolish or illogical. A kind of metaphor to be avoided:If we want to get ahead well have to iron out the remaining bottlenecks.The hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket.Dead metaphorsMetaphors that have become everyday language usage and naturali

9、zed:the foot of a bedflower beda table legthe blacken ones namea black lookIts a black day for us.Metonymy & SynecdocheMetonymy（换喻）和 Synecdoche（提喻）：用指甲类事物或现象的词或词组去代指乙类事物，前提是两类事物间须存在某种相关性相关性,而非相似性相似性。什么相关性相关性呢？1-4: metonymy; 5-8: synecdoche工具 职业/动作/行为者：The pen is mightier than the sword.2. 人名 作品：

10、He read Aristotle and translated Thucydides.3. 地点 机构：The Wall Street definitely has more say in their policy making.4. 事物特征 事物本身：Fifty keels plough the deep. 5. 部分 整体：Ninety hands lost as the cement freighter sank.6. 材料 产品：The 29th Games in Beijing saw 51 golds and 21 silvers in Chinas pockets.7. 具体

11、 抽象：Romans, countrymen and lovers, lend me your ears.8. 容器 内容：What is learned in the cradle is carried to the grave.Rhetorical DevicesMeaning extension and contraction hyperbole & litotes/meiosis (曲言法）overstatement & understatementHyperbole (Overstatement)The noise is loud enough to wake the

12、 dead.The most effective water power in the world womens tears.She went straight home in a flood of tears.Litotes or Meiosis (Understatement)The face wasnt a bad one; it had what they called charm. His recent book is no small accomplishment.During last years Central Park Bicycle Race, five the racer

13、s were attacked and had their bikes stolen while the race was in progress. This is something of a handicap in a bicycle race.Human extinction is not that unlikely.Rhetorical DevicesContradiction in logic (or meanings in contradiction)oxymoron (between words)（矛盾修辞法）paradox (in a statement)（悖论、反论）anti

14、thesis (between two or more statements)（对照）Oxymoron胜利大逃亡Dudley Field Malone called my conviction a “victorious defeat”.Writing is busy idleness.living deathcruel kindnessHeres much to do with hate but more with love.Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,O anything of nothing first created!O heavy

15、 lightness, serious vanity,Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!This love feel I, that feel no love in this.From Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet 这些都是怨恨造成的后果，可是爱情的力量比它要大过许多。啊，吵吵闹闹的相爱，亲亲热热的怨恨！啊，无中生有的一切！啊，沉重

16、的轻浮，严肃的狂妄，整齐的混乱，铅铸的羽毛，光明的烟雾，寒冷的火焰，憔悴的健康，永远觉醒的睡眠，否定的存在！我感觉到的爱情正是这么一种东西，可是我并不喜爱这一种爱情。ParadoxParting is such sweetness.Freedom is another form of imprisonment. If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hu

17、rt, only more love. My Heart Leaps Up My Heart Leaps up when I beholdA 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!The Child is father of the Man;And I could wish my days to beBound each to each by natural piety.By William Word

18、sworth A visual paradoxAntithesisMan proposes, God disposes. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.Ask not what your country can do for you, - ask what you can do for your country. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it wa

19、s the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other wa

20、y. By Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two CitiesRhetorical DevicesMeaning conversion (字面意义与实际意义相反）Irony verbal situational dramaticVerbal Irony (词语反语）运用词汇、语法手段表示反意，即正话反说或反话正说：We should thank our enemy because they made our life so difficult.After a while, it is the setting of man against man and creed ag

21、ainst creed until we are marching backwards to the glorious age of the sixteenth century. Situational Irony （情景反语）Dramatic Irony（戏剧性反语）情景反语靠语境体现反意，指由于事态的发展同某人的意料或期待相反而造成的一种嘲弄；戏剧性反语指读者或观众知情，而台上或书中人物不知情，导致他/她说与实情相悖的话，产生幽默或悲剧效果； 前者如O Henry的短篇小说；后者如索福克里斯的俄狄浦斯王PunsPlay on homonymy Being in politics is ju

22、st like playing golf: you are trapped in one bad lie after another. Heisnotagravemanuntilheisagraveman.If we dont hang together, we shall assuredly hang separately.Father: Do remember,act to be a good boy when Im away.Son: Dollars?Father: Why? When I was your age I acted to be a good boy for nothing

23、.ExercisesPoint out what morphemic, lexical and rhetorical devices are used in the following passage. And name them.Here are the very heart of industrial America, the center of its most lucrative and characteristic activity, the boast and pride of the richest and grandest nation ever seen on earth a

24、nd here was a scene so dreadfully hideous,so intolerably bleak and forlorn that it reduced the whole aspiration of man to a macabre and depressing joke. HomeworkPoint out what morphemic, lexical and rhetorical devices are used in the following paragraphs. And name each of them.The first two paragrap

25、hs from “La Paz” by Jan Morris Southwards from the glistening steel-blue Titicaca runs the highway through the Bolivian altiplano, leaving the Peruvian highlands behind. To the east stand the splendours of the Andean cordillera, rank upon rank of noble snow-peaks, but the road passes through a lands

26、cape more lunar than celestial, an arid, drear, friendless kind of country, fourteen thousand feet above the sea. It is littered with the poor mud huts of the Aymara Indians, and the piles of stones they have scraped and scrabbled from their miserable soil, and sometimes you meet a peasant with his donkeys or his llamas, and sometimes you set the dust flying in an abode village, and sometimes you see far away across the wilderness some solitary Indian woman, like a huddled witch on a moor, hastening bent-back across the rubble. For sixty miles the road plods on through this