Expressive means and stylistic Devices — страница 6

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the interrelation between two types of lexical meaning: dictionary and contextual. The contextual meaning will always depend on the dictionary (logical) meaning to a greater or lesser extent. When the deviation from the acknowledged meaning is carried to a degree that it causes an unexpected turn in the recognized logical meanings, we register a stylistic device. The transferred meaning of a word may be fixed in dictionaries as a result of long and frequent use of the word other than in its primary meaning. In this case we register a derivative meaning of the word. The term 'transferred' points to the process of formation of the derivative meaning. Hence the term 'transferred' should be used, to our mind, as a lexicographical term signifying diachronically the development of the

se-, mantic structure of the word. In this case we do not perceive two meanings. When, however, we perceive two meanings of a word simultaneously, we are confronted with a stylistic device in which the two meanings interact. 2.4 Interaction of primary dictionary and contextually imposed meaning The interact ion or interplay between the primary dictionary meaning (the meaning which is registered in the language code as an easily recognized sign for an abstract notion designating a certain phenomenon or object) and a meaning which is imposed on the word by a micro-context may be maintained along different lines. One line is when the author identifies two objects which have nothing in common, but in which he subjectively sees a function, or a property, or a feature, or a quality

that may make the reader perceive these two objects as identical. Another line is when the author finds it possible to substitute one object for another on the grounds that there is some kind of interdependence or interrelation between the two corresponding objects. A third line is when a certain property or quality of an object is used in an opposite or contradictory sense. The stylistic device based on the principle of identification of two objects is called a metaphor. The SD based on the principle of substitution of one object for another is called metonymy and the SD based on contrary concepts is called irony. Let us now proceed with a detailed analysis of the ontology, structure and functions of these stylistic devices. The relations between different types of lexical

meanings may be, based on various principles: 1) The principle of affinity-metaphor, 2) The principle of contiguity-metonymy 3) The principle of opposition-irony. As it has been stated above the lexical meanings of a word comprise various meanings. But the difference between these meanings not be great and unexpected. In most cases these meanings appear on the principal of affinity existing between the notions and objects surrounding us. The interaction or interplay between the primary dictionary meaning-the meaning which is registered in the language code as an easily recognized sign for an abstract notion designating a certain phenomenon or object-and a meaning which is imposed on the word by a micro-context may be maintained along different lines. One line is when the author

identifies two objects which have nothing is common, but in which he subjectively sees a function, or a property, or a feature, or a quality that may make the reader perceive these two objects as identical. Another line is when the author finds it possible to substitute one object for another on the grounds that there is some kind of interdependence or interrelation between the two corresponding objects. A third line is when a certain property or contradictory sense. The stylistic device based on the principle of identification of two objects is called a metaphor. The SD based on the principle of substitution of one object for another is called metonymy and the SD based on contrary concepts is called irony. Metaphor. The term “metaphor”, as the etymology of the word reveal

means transference of some quality from one object to another. From the times of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric, the term has been known to denote the transference of meaning from one word to another. It is still widely used to designate the process in which a word acquires a derivative meaning. Quintilian remarks: It is due to the metaphor that each thing seems to have its name in language. “Language as a whole has been figuratively defined as a dictionary of faded metaphors. Thus by transference of meaning the words grasp, get and see come to have the derivative meaning of understand. When these words are used with that meaning we can only register the derivative meaning existing in the semantic structures of the words. Though the derivative meaning is metaphorical in