Stylistic classification of the english vocabulary

d) Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a stylistic device based on the interac­tion between the logical and emotive meanings of the word. It is deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of some quantity, quality, size, etc., the aim of which is to intensify one of the features of the object to such a degree that from the practical point of view the fulfilment of which is impossible. Both the writer and the reader (or the speaker and the listener) are fully aware of the delibe- rateness of the exaggeration. The use of hyperbole shows the overflow of emotions in the speaker and the listener.

Hyperbole may be expressed in a periphrastic descrip­tive way. E.g.:

"What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell" (J. K. Jerome)

"No tongue can tell" means "it is very difficult to express by means of the language". In this case hyperbole is based on metonymy (tongue).

Very often hyperbole is used to create humorous or satirical effect and so to express the author's attitude to­wards the described.

Like many stylistic devices, in the result of conti­nuous usage hyperbole may lose its originality and beco­mes a unit of the language-as-a-system, i.e. trite.

We constantly use expressions containing hyperbole in our everyday speech. Such exaggerations are distingui­shed from a hyperbole as a stylistic device.

I haven't seen you for ages, I asked him on my bended knees, You promised it one thousand times, A thousand pardons, scared to death, I'd give the world to see him, etc.

Such hyperboles are used in literature in direct speech to show the emotional state of the personage at the mo­ment of his uttering the remark.

Hyperbole may be used in combination with other stylistic devices - hyperbolic similes.

"His mind began to move like lightning."

Hyperbole may be found in repetition:

"I'd have been out there days ago, days ago". (S. Leacock)

In the result of exaggeration sometimes hyperbole en­larges, while understatement deliberately diminishes the described object, phenomenon, etc:

"The little woman, for she was of pocket size, crossed her hands solemnly on her middle". (Gals­worthy)

Hyperbole is a device which sharpens the readers abi­lity to make a logical assessment of the utterance.
С. Stylistic Use of Set Expressions

Alongside with separate words speakers use larger blocks consisting of more than one word - word combina­tions functioning as a whole. Word combinations similar to words are not created in speech but introduced into the act of communication ready-made. Such word combina­tions are called set expressions.

Set expressions are contrasted to free phrases and semi-fixed combinations. In free combinations lin­guistic factors are chiefly connected with grammatical properties of words.

A free phrase permits substitution of any of its ele­ments without semantic change: to cut bread, to cut chee­se, to eat bread.

In semi-fixed combinations lexico-semantic li­mits are manifested in restrictions imposed upon types of words which can be used in a given pattern. For example, the pattern consisting of the verb go followed by a preposition and a noun with no article before it is used; go to school, go to market, go to court.

Set expressions have their own specific features, which enhanced their stability. These are their euphonic, imaginative and connotative qualities. Many set expres­sions are distinctly rhythmical, contain alliteration, rhyme, imagery, contrast, are based on puns.

No substitution of any elements is possible in the fol­lowing stereotyped (unchangeable) set expressions:

the man in the street, heads or tails, first night, to hope for the best, busy as a bee, fair and square, tit for tat, to and fro.

Here no variation and no substitution is possible be­cause it would destroy the meaning or expressive qualities of the whole.

These features have always been treated from the po­int of view of style and expressiveness. E.g.:

"Tommy would come back to her safe and so­und." (O'Flaherty).

"Safe and sound" is more reassuring than the synony­mous word "uninjured", which could have been used.

These euphonic and connotative qualities also prevent substitution for another linguistic reason - any substitu­tion would destroy the emphatic effect.

There are several types of set expressions which will be dwelt on in this chapter.