Stylistics of the English Language 6 Koroteeva Valentina Vladimirovna,

Devices

spoonerism
eggcorn
Freudian slip
consonance: alliteration
assonance
rhyme
rhythm

sound; the use of words whose sounds reinforce their meaning

or tone:
On the word level: giggle, grumble, murmur; mew, roar; bubble, splash;
On the sentence level: “And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” (E.A.Poe)

sounds produced in nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc.), by things

(machines or tools, etc.) by people and by animals:
Machine noises—honk, beep, clang, zap,
Animal names and sounds—twitter, croak, howl, cuckoo, whip-poor-will, whooping crane, chickadee
Impact sounds—boom, crash, whack, thump, bang
Sounds of the voice—shush, giggle, growl, whine, blurt, whisper, hiss
Nature sounds—splash, drip, whoosh, buzz, rustle

of which is to make the sound of the utterance

an echo of its sense. It is sometimes called “echo writing”: e.g. the imitation of the sounds produced by  the soldiers marching over Africa:
“We’re foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin' over Africa — Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin' over Africa — (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!)                 There's no discharge in the war!”
[Boots (Infantry Columns) by R.Kipling (1903)]

Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air

– Between the Heaves of Storm –

[“I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –” by Emily Dickinson]

sound words for euphonic (melodious) effect or for the reinforcement

of meaning or tone:

‘Let us say then it is a story about appetite: appetite in its many aspects and dimensions, its perversions and falling off, its strange reversals and refusals.’ [H.Mantel, Experiment in Love, 69]
‘It (the love affair) maybe insane but it’s not inane (senseless).’ [This Side of Paradise by F.S.Fitzgerald]

***sometimes paronyms are considered as words which are a derivative of another and have a related meaning: ‘wisdom’ is a paronym of ‘wise’

little more than kin, and less than kind… Not so,

my lord, I am too much in the sun……
[Hamlet by William Shakespeare]

word in place of a word with a similar sound

(which is often a paronym), resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance
comes from a character named "Mrs. Malaprop" in R.Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals. Mrs. Malaprop frequently misspeaks (to great comic effect) by using words which don't have the meaning she intends, but which sound similar to words that do
Characterture instead of charicature [To Kill a Mockingbird by H.Lee]

suffering from a nervous shakedown.” (substituted “shakedown” for “breakdown)
“This is

unparalyzed in the state’s history.” (substituted “unparalyzed” for “unparalled”)

proximity, either unintentionally as an error or intentionally for humorous

purposes:
“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy (surgical incision into a lobe of any organ).”

blushing crow.” (crushing blow)

“Is the bean dizzy?” - ?
“You have

hissed all my mystery lectures!” - ?

word or words that sound similar or identical. The new

phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original but plausible in the same context :
“old-timer’s disease” for “Alzheimer’s disease”
“mating name” for “maiden name”

speaker’s unconscious:
if someone wanted to say, “I really love

chocolate,” but instead said “I really love Charlie,” this might hint at an unconscious desire

day-today operations.
Unfortunately, my affluence over my niece is very small.
You

have tasted a whole worm.
Mercutio: “Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.” Romeo: “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble soles; I have a soul of lead … So stakes me to the ground I cannot move…” [Shakespeare]

repetition of the same consonant two or more times in

a short succession, as in “all mammals named Sam are clammy”
alliteration - a stylistic literary device identified by the repeated sound of the first consonant in a series of words: “friends and family”
creates aural harmony and rhythm

peck of pickled peppers.
Curiosity killed the cat.
A blessing in disguise.
“My

fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”—John F. Kennedy

vowel sounds to create an internal rhyming, to increase the

stress on a subject or to add flair/expressivity:

“I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers” (Shelly)

and their fronts up Like we got here by dumb luck But

they just want to become us.”

[“Bangarang” by Doomtree]

in order to produce euphonic effect, to serve as a

mnemonic device or to mark off the end of the lines:
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
You have brains in your head; you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. [Dr.Seuss]

- wing and caring; thing and missing
identical rhyme – way,

weigh and whey
eye rhyme – good and flood

it badly, wasting valued blood; Now when the call is given

to the good It is that knave who answers in my heart.”

[“Between the Acts” by Stanley Kunitz]

sentences; it is created by doubling of words and sounds;

polysyndeton, asyndeton; parallelism (anaphora, epiphora):

No tree, no shrub, no blade of grass, not a bird or beast, not even a fish that was not owned!

vici.” [Julius Caesar]
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” [Keats, "To

Autumn“]
“And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting.” [Poe, “The Raven”]
ba-ba in Chinese, tut-tut in French,  pu-pu in Japanese, fom-fom in Portuguese and bim-bim in Vietnamese
“Oxford is a richly diverse community. At Oxford Today, we endeavour to reflect that diversity, reporting objectively and independently on developments, discoveries and debates (sometimes heated) within one of the most celebrated centers of learning.” [Oxford Today, 2009, 3]

of letters
violation of type and spelling
the use of punctuation

reflect peculiarities of pronunciation or emotional state of the speaker;

it is identified with the help of deliberate misspelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, apostrophe:
“Aw – I b’lieve, the Umuricun revolution was lawgely an affair of the muddul clawses.” [S.Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, 8]
“Nemmine,” he managed to articulate drowsily. “Sleep in ‘em.” [S.Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, 192]

pettycoatbodice [Joyce]
graphically broken words: “How, is, my, lit, tle, friend?

how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?” [Dickens’s talking clock in Dombey and Son]

the form of the word in question, or to mark

the way the word is pronounced:
“Pale moons like that one” – Amory made a vague gesture - “make people mysterieuse. You look like a young witch…” [S.Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, 13]

the word, to mark headings or the way the word

or a sentence is pronounced:
Mr.Podsnap addressing foreigners: “How Do You Like London?” [Our Mutual Friend by Ch.Dickens]
‘In other words you do an old familiar thing, like bottling dandelion wine, and you put that under RITES AND CEREMONIES. And then you think about it, and what you think, crazy or not, you put under DISCOVERIES AND REVELATIONS.’
[Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, 1974, p. 15 ]

was very like riding into town and slipping off his

horse before it had stopped – yeehaa in a cloud of dust - and all the townsfolk scratching their foreheads and wondering who this goddamn good-lookin’ stranger was.’ [A.Thorpe, The Glow]

the word/phrase in question
To draw the speech portrait
To connote a

certain atmosphere or mood
To add euphony and flair to the utterance
To assist in memorising particular information

crazily houses
eyes people smiles
faces streets
steeples
are eagerly

tumbl

ing

through wonder
ful sunlight
[E.E.Cummings, 73 poems]

happy revelation of a person, probably in springtime
Graphical level:
the name

of the poem is in brackets and not capitalised, which looks like a remark and creates the atmosphere of intimacy with the reader
there are no commas and no full stops in the poem, all the words are put together resembling the stream-of-consciousness technique - suggesting the lack of order, everything being in a whirl
the meaning of the word “tumbl ing” is reinforced on the graphical level (the word being set apart from the rest of the poem and graphically broken) – message – being dizzy with the sun and a lot of life (and love?) around
the word “wonder ful” is graphically broken to convey the idea of sunlight being full of wonder

comes right after the name of the poem ‘listen’ which

immediately involves the reader;
two incongruent feelings are brought up in the poem: at the beginning unexpectedness and dizziness by Z-consonance (crazily, houses, eyes, smiles, faces) and in the second part harmony and love by L-consonance (steeples, eagerly, tumbling, wonderful, sunlight)