stylistics文体学

201213010114 Joy庞君颖英语一班

ONEAt the Phonological Level

1 Alliteration

“slipped to a stop” use the repetition of “s” in initial sound. It is alliteration that wrote powerful pronunciation and beautiful rhythm in this sentence. The pattern usually close to accurate expression and antithetical phrase. Also “testing and treating” use the same figure, both alliteration and off-rhyme.

2 Onomatopoeia

“popped at the very sight of a traveler” “grinned at me” “screeched to a halt” “heaved a long almost musical sigh”“murmured the company”etc. contain sounds similar noises, which is onomatopoeia. These words imitate phonating sounds, achieving vivid, exciting and interesting effects. That why the special journey has a variety of busy sounds.

TWO At the Graphological Level

3 Punctuation (Dash)

Unexpectedly, a dash lead to oysters, not atomic explosion, though Hiroshima is known widely by it. The answer enable to feel surprised and shocked, attracting us to go on reading and analyzing it. For example:

“a town known throughout the world for its--- oysters”

THREE At the Lexical Level

4 Dynamic Verbs and Vulgar Verbs

“bobbed up and down”, is a momentary act, belongs to dynamic verbs. It is vulgar to reflect that Japanese is used to bowing repeating as a ritual to show gratitude. He writes this news report in entertaining ways. For instance:

“Serious looking men spoke to one another as if they were oblivious of the crowds about them, and bobbed up and down re-heatedly in little bows, as they exchanged the ritual formula of gratitude and respect:”

5 Standard, Latinate, Descriptive, Concrete Words

Another lexical level is the use of standard, latinate, concrete words which, on the one hand, is easy to understand, on the other hand, can give me a concrete picture of what is being described. What a lively sentence! For example:

“The tall buildings of the martyred city flashed by as we lurched from side to side in response to the driver's sharp twists of the wheel.”

“The rather arresting spectacle of little old Japan adrift amid beige concrete skyscrapers is the very symbol of the incessant struggle between the kimono and the miniskirt.”

6 Compounding Words

Compounding words use two different words construct a new adjective. Usually a adjective add a past principal. It can improve the height of literature. For instance: “porcelain-faced woman” “low-ceilinged rooms” “sad-eyed”

FOUR At the Syntactic Level

7 Inversion Sentence

“Hanging over the patient was a big ball made of bits of brightly colored paper, folded into the shape of tiny birds.”

Past principle (hanging folded) as attribute, use inversion, modify “a big ball” and “paper”, underline the process of discovering by author himself

8 Imperative Sentence

“The others died as a result of their injuries, or else committed suicide”

“or else” is equal to “or if not”. Simple words, with forceful and powerful complain, indicate that the majority of people die of committed suicide because of atomic bombardment. This is the effect of short imperative.

9 Rhetorical Question

“Was I not at the scene of the crime?” is rhetorical question. The sentence in not need to answering because the final result is expected and anticipated between readers and reporter. The figure aim at highlighting “Really I was at the scene of the crime”,

which makes its damage even more impressive. It benefits to directly present readers

a strong impression of the truth of the reporting.

10 Exclamatory Sentence

“Hiroshima! Everybody off!” It is the first sentence in the essay that is exclamatory. It can present excited and risky words when he begin to step in the earth. Truly, it is a passionate andcontagious voice.

11 Complex Sentences and Simple Sentence

There are a number of complex sentences. The longest sentence that contains 58 words in the sample program report is:“Quite unexpectedly, the strange emotion which had overwhelmed me at the station returned, and I was again crushed by the thought that I now stood on the site of the first atomic bombardment, where thousands upon thousands of people had been slain one second, where thousands upon thousands of others had lingered on to die in slow agony.” This is because long sentence can convey complicated ideas, and contain as much as information as possible. This is a sharp contrast to the shortest sentence “Everybody off” The l ongest sentence conclude a appositional clause, 2 attribute clause. The reason to use relatively sentences in the fact that journalists have to squeeze as much information as possible into limited space in a short time.

12 The Nominative Absolute Structure

“This done” is a unique nominative absolute structure in the essay.

13 Conversion Deviation

“Like any other, the hospital smelled of formaldehyde and there.”

“smell” is usually used as link verbs or noun phrase. In this sentence, the meaning of “smelled of” is “give out a smell of”. Writer use conversion deviation in word-formation. We can define that is his personal writing style.

14Simple Past Tense

The simple past tense is used in the body text of the report, since most news reports convey information of the events that just happened.

FIVE At the Semantic Level

15 Irony and Pun

The tittle “Hiroshima, the most "liveliest" City in Japan” use the figure of Irony and Pun. There are double meaning in the headline. Firstly, the reporter put “liveliest” with quotation mark and the superlative degree, stressing it’s a dramatic city. In fact, after atomic cataclysm, it is not a lively city as previously, though it is much the same as in other Japanese city on surface, shattering reports belief that Hiroshima still feel the impact of overwhelming disaster. The deepest pain is not willing to talk and remind again would rather to forget it, though it is hard to do and still try their best to do it. So the wonderful tittle satirize terrible and unrecoverable mistake by war. Also, the tittle use Pun. It is not only satirize the hurt of history but also comparing the change of nowadays. In a world, special beginning make me feel fresh and fancy.

. “This way I look at them and congratulate myself of the good fortune that my illness has brought me”

“good fortune” is also irony. Compared with other victims, maybe he is lucky, in fact all of them is unlucky and the hurt remain forever

16 Metaphor

“And secondly, because I had a lump in my throat and a lot of sad thoughts on my mind that had little to do with anything a Nippon railways official might say.”

“a lump in my throat” is metaphor. Author descript his complicated feeling visually specially and precisely, which is full of depressed and dismay atmosphere.

For example:

“At last this intermezzo came to an end, and I found myself in front of the…”

“and I was again crushed by the thought thatI now stood on the site of the first …”“when the meaning of these last words sank in, jolting me out of my sad reverie.”

17 Synecdoche and Metonymy

“The rather arresting spectacle of little old Japan adrift amid beige concrete skyscrapers is the very symbol of the incessant struggle between the kimono and the

miniskirt.”

The sentence is synecdoche. Firstly, “small” old Japanese houses” is replaced by “little Japanese”. Usually, synecdoche substitute one expression with another word. Such as “the part replace the whole”. Secondly, “the kimono” take the place of traditional culture and “the mini skirt” stand for modern civilization, beca use it is typical. The figure is metonymy that enrich article and add color by concrete nouns. There are having some common between synecdoche and metonymy.

18 Euphemism

“Those are my lucky birds. Each day that I escape death, each day of suffering that helps to free me from earthly cares”

Euphemism is defined to speak with good words. “early care” is pointed to pain and tribulation that they suffer from in present world. Implicit expression maybe can reduce tragic and unfortunate atmosphere when we are reading. We will feel more comfortable instead of positive words.

19 Parallelism

“Quite unexpectedly, the strange emotion which had overwhelmed me at the station returned, and I was again crushed by the thought that I now stood on the site of the first atomic bombardment, where thousands upon thousands of people had been slain one second, where thousands upon thousands of others had lingered on to die in slow agony.”

The sentence is so complex and include appositive clause and appositive clause. The two “where” use parallelism, which balance structures and present different meanings

That makes it clear and rhythmic by similar phase and clause.

20Climax

“No one talks about it any more, and no one wants to, especially, the people who were born here or who lived through it.

It is a stronger and stronger tone according to the intensity of word. It can express his opinions profoundly and deeply one by one, gradually indicating the face “no one will

not talk it”. Also, it is resonate.

21 Hyperbole

“The tall buildings of the martyred city flashed by as we lurched from side to side in response to the driver's sharp twists of the wheel.”

The description is hyperbole. Through taxi driver, we can initially understand what is Hiroshima’s style and Japanese’s attitude in nor mal life.”

SIX At theTextual Level

The coherence and cohesion is appropriate. Whatever it is noun, phrase, or clause.Any text is a set of linguistic choices that inevitably reflect the author’s implicit intentions and values influenced by their cultural or social context. I have analyzed the report at a systematical way at 5 linguistic levels as far as stylistic description and explanation is concerned. Totally, I have known how to analyze a text by different level. I spend ample time in assigning my mid-term test and enjoy the process of efforts