Stylistic classification of the english vocabulary

a) Rhetorical Questions

The rhetorical question as a stylistic device presents a statement in the form of a question. There is an interaction of two structural meanings, that of the question and of the statement. Both meanings are materialized simultaneously.

The question is emphatic and mobilizes the attention of the reader even when the latter is not supposed to ans­wer anything, i.e. rhetorical question is not intended to draw an answer, and used for rhetorical effect. For example:

"Can anybody answer for all the grievances of the poor in this wicked world?" (Dickens)

The form of a rhetorical question is often negative:

"Who is here so vile that will not love his country?" (Shakespeare)

Rhetorical questions preserve the intonation of a question, though sometimes the assertion is so strong that both the intonation and the punctuation are changed to those of the exclamatory sentence: *

"Oh! Don't remember the days of my happy childhood? How different they are from my present ignoble state?" (Greenwood)

Both sentences of the above example are pronounced with the same intonation and have the same punctuation, though the second one is exclamatory, both by form and essence, while the first one presents a rhetorical question.

Rhetorical questions are realized in different const­ructions:

1. Interrogative sentences (general and special questions).

"Is there such a thing as a happy life" (R. Aldington). "What can any woman mean to a man in comparison with his mother?" (R. Aldington)

2. 
   Interrogative-negative constructions:
   

"Who has not seen a woman hide the dullness of a stupid husband? Have I not to wrestle with my lot?" (W. Thackeray)

2. 
   A rhetorical question contains the modal verb "should"+"but":
   

"Whom should they light but Rebecca and her husband?"

2. 
   Declarative sentences:
   

"So it was wicked, like being smutty, to fall happy when you looked at things and reaa Keats?" (R. Aldington)

2. 
   Infinitive constructions take part in the building of rhetorical questions to express indignation:
   

"A man like Matthew Brodie to return home at the childish hour of ten o'clock." (A. Cronin)

The stylistic function of rhetorical questions is to express doubt, assertion or suggestion. Rhetorical question is mainly iJsed in publicistic style and particularly in oratory, though it is more and more penetrating into other styles. So, it is widely employed in modern fiction for depicting the inner state of a personage, his meditations and reflections.

"There isn't one of them, Michael thought staring, unsmiling at their unwelcoming faces, that I would ever talk to any of them under any other circumstances. My neighbors. Who picket them? Where did they come from? What made them so eager to send their fellow-citizens off to war?" (Shaw).

It is most popular in poetry.

"They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair;

They come out of the sea and run shouting by

the shore.

My heart, have you no wisdom this to despair?

My love, my love, my love, why have left me alone?" (J.Joyce).

Rhetorical questions are more emotional than state­ments.

Not seldom rhetorical question can be met in informal dialogues:

"What the hell have you got to do here? I didn't invite you, not me." (E.Biggers)

Through frequent usage some rhetorical questions be­come traditional:

"What business is it of yours? What have I to do with him?"

Such questions usually imply a negative answer and reflect a strongly antagonistic attitude of the speaker towards his interlocutor or the subject discussed.