Chapter 4 Lexical- and__ Syntactic-level Stylistic analysis

”

refers

to

“

least

”

while

“

dolefulest

”

means

“

most doleful

”

.

2.2 Syntactic deviation

2.2.1 Wang Shouyuan

’

s discussion on syntactic deviations

Syntactic

deviation

refers

to

departures

from

normal

surface

grammar,

which

include

a

number

of

features

such

as

deviant

phrase

structures,

marked

clause

themes,

deviant

use

of

grammatical rules, and deviant sentence length.

2.2.1.1 Deviant phrase structure

In order to achieve certain communicative effects, literary writers may use phrases that are

structurally deviant. For example,

Do not go

gentle

into that good night. (

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

)

O What a noble mind is here o

’

erthrown!

The

courtier

’

s, soldier

’

s, scholar

’

s, eye, tongue, sword

. (W. Shakespeare,

Hamlet

)

2.2.1.2 Marked clause theme

The initial unit of a clause may be called its theme. The theme may be characterized as the

communicative departure for the rest of the clause. In literary writing, the writer may place any

element of a clause in the thematic position in order to achieve certain literary effect. The theme

thus produced is unusual and is therefore called a

“

marked theme

”

. (Wang Shouyuan, 2000: 39-40)

For instance,

The

red-haired

woman,

smiling,

waving

to

the

disappearing

shore.

She

left

the

maharajah;

she

left

innumerable other lights o

’

passing love in towns and cities and theatres and railway stations all over the world.

But

Melchior

she did not leave. (A. Carter,

Wise Children

)

2.2.1.3 Deviant use of grammatical rules

In

literary

writing,

the

writer

may

choose

to

violate

grammatical

rules

for

some

specific

rhetorical or stylistic effects. Below are three types of such deliberate violations of grammatical

rules.

1) The misuse of tense forms

you pays

your money and

you doesn

’

t

take your choice. (e. e. cummings,

why must itself up every of a park

)

It is the poet

’

s daring violation of grammatical rule, signaling here that

“

you cannot get what

3

you like by paying money

”

: The strange phenomenon is signaled by the deviant language used to

describe it, which is a case of

iconicity

, where the ungrammatical use signals the abnormal social

phenomenon.

2) The omission of articles

There head falls forward, fatigued at evening,

And dreams of home,

Waving from window, spread of welcome,

Kissing of wife under single sheet;

But waking sees

Bird-flocks nameless to him, through doorway voices

Of new men making another love. (W. H. Auden,

The Wanderer

)

The

elliptical

use

of

articles

here

cues

the

homeless

vagabonding

life

of

the

vagabond,

implying that nothing is fixed for vagabonds.

3) The use of non- conventional sentence structures

The

red-haired

woman,

smiling,

waving

to

the

disappearing

shore

.

She

left

the

maharajah;

she

left

innumerable other lights o

’

passing love in towns and cities and theatres and railway stations all over the world.

But Melchior she did not leave. (A. Carter,

Wise Children

)

Sentences normally consist of a subject and a predicate, and the predicate normally contains a

verb phrase. However, the first sentence here contains no main finite verb, and therefore should

not occur as an independent unit, but looks as though it should be linked to another clause. Yet

here it does occur on its own.

2.2.1.4 Deviant sentence length

In literary writing, the writer may choose to exploit super-long or super-short sentences for

different

stylistic

purposes

and

effects,

for

example,

the

former

for

the

expression

of

complex

content while the latter for quick pace, which are cases of

quantity iconicity

. For the former case,

consider the following three examples:

(1)

Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and

the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain

make a mockery of what human life should be. (Bertrand Russell,

What I Have Lived for

)

Of the 34 words in this sentence, the subject consists of 25, forming an unbalanced structure

according

to

English

diction

in

terms

of

a

sentence,

hence

a

sentence

with

too

long

and

big

a

subject, or simply a marked subject or theme according to the functional perspective of sentence

of functional grammar. As a matter of fact the deliberate choice of so long a subject is for the sake

of

producing

a

heavy

feeling

on

the

part

of

the

reader

in

terms

of

the

high

degree

of

human

anguish or agony.

(2) < /p>

在昨天

、

今天和明天之间，在父与子与孙 之间，在山村二郎神担过的巨石与十七层的部长楼之间，

在海云的在天之灵与拴福大嫂新 买的瓷碗之间，在李谷一的“洁白羽毛”和民国十八年咸菜汤之间，在肮

4

脏、混乱而又辛苦经营的交通食堂和外商承印的飞行时刻表 之间，在秋文的目光、冬冬的执拗、四九年的

腰鼓，七六年的旅行，在小石头、张指导员 、张书记、老张头和张副部长之间

，分明有一种联系，有一座

充 满光荣和陷阱的桥。

（王蒙《蝴蝶》

）

This

is

a

sentence

composed

of

two

parts:

a

long

adverbial

consisting

of

seven

parallel

phrases

and

two

parallel

“verb

+

subject”

structures.

According

to

Li

and

Thompson

(1981),

Chinese

is

a

topic-

prominent

language,

in

contrast

with

English

that

is

a

subject-prominent

language. And in the light of Cao Fengfu (1995: 50), adverbial can act as topic. Based on such a

theory, the abnormally long adverbial serves as the topic, the FIGURE, in this sentence. In other

words, the semantic focus is placed on the long adverbial. Wang Yichuan (1997: 395) holds that

such an excessively long topic, which is deliberately chosen and arranged by the author to take on

the

rich

and

complex

main

idea,

helps

to

connect

the

past

to

the

present

and

to

delineate

the

complex feelings of the characters portrayed.

(3) As the Tonnerres had increased, their settlement had been added to, until the clearing at the foot of the

town hill was a chaos of

lean-tos, wooden packing cases, warped lumber, discarded car tyres, ramshackle chicken

coops, tangled stands of barbed wire and rusty tin cans

. (Margaret Laurence,

The Loons

)

As for the expression of quick pace via short sentences, consider the following example:

Move. Walk. Run. Hide. Steal and move on. (Toni Morrison,

Beloved

)

(

挪。走。跑。躲 。偷。然后不停地前进。

（潘岳

雷格译《宠儿》

）

)

2.2.2 Wang Zuoliang & Ding Wangdao

’

s discussion on syntactic deviations and literary writing

2.2.2.1 Frequently used syntactic deviations

What follows are six types of frequently used syntactic deviation:

a. Use of different auxiliary verbs for expressing different concepts of time:

He done gone

. (=He has recently gone.)

He bin gone. (=He has been gone a long time.)

b. Omission of link verbs:

She hungry. (=She

’

s hungry.)

I leaving. (=I

’

m leaving.)

That where he is. (=That

’

s where he is.)

c. Use of

ain

’

t

and

hain

’

t

for a negative meaning:

You ain

’

t answered my question.

We ain

’

t askin

’

you to go out alone.

d. Inconsistency of person and number in the present tense:

5

Has I talk wild?

It don

’

t make no difference.

That

’

s what I wants to know.

e. Use of double- or even multi-negative to express the negative meaning:

I don

’

t know nothing.

Nobody never did nothing.

I hain

’

t seen no fog.

f. Use of statement to express question, or the use of question in the subordinate clause:

He left?

Where the white cat is?

I want to know where did he go?

2.2.2.2 Syntactic deviation and literary writing

Syntactic deviation has at least the following stylistic functions in literary writing:

1) Deviations used for demonstrating the social attributes of characters

One

’

s

social

status,

living

place,

and

self-cultivation

have

to

do

with

his

or

her

choice

of

language.

Conversely,

one

’

s

language

reflects

his

or

her

social

status,

living

place

and

self-cultivation. Since the 19th century, the literary writer has started to imitate the various deviant

phenomena in real language so as to make the characters more lifelike, more credible, such as the

use of deviation by Charles Dickens in his novel

Bleak House

.

2) Deviations used for depicting character

The

literary

writer

tends

to

make

use

of

language

styles

for

depicting

the

characters

’

personality such as the use of deviation by D. H. Lawrence in his novel

Sons and Lovers

.

3) Degrees of deviation corresponding to different social status

The different degrees of deviation can be used by the literary writer to reveal the characters

’

different social status, as is illustrated in Mark Twain

’

s

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

.

4) Other functions of syntactic deviation

Syntactic deviation is also used in literary writing for sarcasm, satire, emphasis as well as for

arriving at a comic effect.

3. Syntactic overregularity

This part is mainly based on Wang Shouyuan (2000: 131-144).

3.1 Repetition

The term repetition is restricted to mean the case of exact copying of a certain previous unit

in a text, such as a word, phrase or even a sentence (Leech, 2001/1969).

Repetition

is

divided

into

the

following

two

types:

immediate

repetition

and

intermittent

repetition. Consider the following examples:

“

Would you

please please please please please please please

stop talking.

”

(Ernest Hemingway,

Hills Like

White Elephants

)

6