Lexical Expressive Means and Stylistic Devices

The pragmatic aspect is the part of lexical meaning that conveys information 
on the situation of communication. Like the connotational aspect, the pragmatic 
aspect falls into four closely linked together subsections. 
1) Information on the ‘time and space’ relationship of the participants. 
Some information which specifies different parameters of communication may be 
conveyed not only with the help of grammatical means (tense forms, personal 
pronouns, etc), but through the meaning of the word. For example, the words come 
and go can indicate the location of the speaker who is usually taken as the zero 
point in the description of the situation of communication. 
The time element when related through the pragmatic aspect of meaning is 
fixed indirectly. Indirect reference to time implies that the frequency of occurrence 
of words may change with time and in extreme cases words may be out of use or 
become obsolete. Thus, the word behold – ‘take notice, see (smth. unusual)’ as 
well as the noun beholder – ‘spectator’ are out of use now but were widely used in 
the 17
th
century.
2) Information on the participants and the given language community. 
The language used may be indicative of the social status of a person, his education, 
profession, etc. The pragmatic aspect of the word also may convey information 

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about the social system of the given language community, its ideology, religion, 
system of norms and customs. Let us consider the following sentences: 
a) They chucked a stone at the cops, and then did a bunk with the loot. 
b) After casting a stone at the police, they absconded with the money. 
Sentence A could be said by two criminals talking casually about the crime 
afterwards. Sentence B might be said by the chief inspector in making his official 
report.
3) Information on the tenor of discourse. The tenors of discourse reflect 
how the addresser (the speaker or the writer) interacts with the addressee (the 
listener or reader). Tenors are based on social or family role of the participants of 
communication. There may be situation of a mother talking to her small child, or 
about her children, or a teacher talking to students, or friends talking to each other.
4) Information on the register of communication. The conditions of 
communication form another important group of factors. The register defines the 
general type of the situation of communication grading the situations in formality.
Three main types of the situations of communication are usually singled out: