Lexical stylistic devices
1. Stylistic Devices
2. PHONO-GRAPHICAL LEVEL• Phonetic means
• Graphical means
3. Phonetic means• Onomatopoeia - the use of words
whose sounds imitate those of
the signified object or action
• e.g “hiss", "bowwow", "murmur",
"bump", "grumble“, “growl”
e.g. He swallowed the hint with a gulp
and a gasp and a grin.
• Assonance -the repetition of similar
e.g. brain drain
5. Craphonintentional violation of the graphical
shape of a word (or word combination)
e.g. "gimme" (give me), "lemme" (let
me), "gonna" (going to), "gotta" (got
to), "coupla" (couple of), "mighta"
(might have), "willya" (will you)
6. Graphical Meanschanges of the type (italics,
capitalization), spacing of graphemes
(hyphenation, multiplication) and of
e.g. "Help. Help. HELP."
7. Lexical Stylistic Devices
Lexical Stylistic Devices
Play on Words.
8. Metaphortransference of names based on the associated
likeness between two objects
e.g. He is a walking dictionary.
• trite, hackneyed, stale ("leg of a table" )
• fresh, original, genuine
• sustained (prolonged) metaphor (through
9. PersonificationQualities of animate objects are
attributed to inanimate objects
e.g. The sun is smiling at us.
e.g. He turned over another page
of his life
10. Metonymy.The whole object is named by its part
e.g. There is no news from Downing
Street, 10 yet.
11. Synecdochetype of metonymy: is based on the
relations between a part and the
e.g. I need more hands down here.
12. Play on Words / Punone word-form is deliberately used in two
e.g. The Importance of Being Ernest
Zeugma - deliberately useof two or more
homogeneous members, which are not
e.g. "He took his hat and his leave”.
13. Ironythe contextual evaluative meaning of a
word is directly opposite to its
e.g. 10 pounds for 10 days!? You are
very generous. (meaning – greedy)
14. Epithetexpresses characteristics of an object, both
existing and imaginary
e.g. It was a nasty day.
• fixed (“true love", "merry christmas”)
• phrase-epithets ("a move-if-you-dare
• inverted epithets (“the giant of a man”)
15. Antonomasiaa proper name is used instead of a
common noun or vice versa
e.g. Dr. Rest, Dr. Diet and Dr. Fresh Air
e.g. Now let me introduce you - that's
Mr. What's-his-name, you remember
him, don't you?
16. Hyperboledeliberate exaggeration
e.g. "I have told it to you a
17. Understatementthe opposite of hyperbole
e.g. My mother is not very well at the
moment. (the woman is at hospital
with a stroke.)
18. Oxymoroncombination of two semantically
e.g. "awfully pretty“
e.g. There were some bookcases of
superbly unreadable books
19. SYNTACTICAL LEVEL• Sentence length and structure
• Syntactical SDs
20. Sentence Length• One-Word Sentences – a very strong
e.g. The neon lights in the heart of the
city flashed on and off. On and off. On.
Off. On. Off. Continuously.
21. Syntactical SDs• rhetorical question
e.g. Who would like to go to the
22. Inversione.g. And
here emerged another
e.g. Ten days and ten nights did
they stay on hunger strike.
23. REPETITION• anaphora: the beginning of two or more
successive sentences (clauses) is repeated - a...,
e.g. Mother was a cook, mother was a teacher,
mother was a referee, mother was a mother.
• epiphora: the end of successive sentences
(clauses) is repeated -...a, ...a, ...a.
e.g. Kate was there, Mick was there, Mrs Harley was
there – and none of them could explain what they
sentence is repeated in the end, thus
forming the "frame" for the nonrepeated part of the sentence
(utterance) - a... a.
e.g. Evil breeds evil.
clause (sentence) is repeated in the beginning
of the following one -...a, a....
• chain repetition presents several successive
anadiploses -...a, a...b, b...c, c
e.g. Human curiosity brought about science.
Science led to progress. Progress is expected to
enhance our wellbeing.
definite place in the sentence and
the repeated unit occurs in
various positions - ...a, ...a..., a..
of closely following each other
reiterated units - ...a, a, a...
e.g. Say it, say it, say it now.
28. Parallel constructionsRepetition of the same grammar
e.g. Mother cooks dinner. Father
watches TV. Children bother mother
and father at the same time.
29. Chiasmus.if the first sentence (clause) has a
direct word order - SPO, the second
one will have it inverted - OPS.
e.g. He loved girls, but girls didn’t love
30. Detachmenta stylistic device based on singling out
a secondary member of the sentence
with the help of punctuation
e.g. She was crazy about you. In the
31. Apokoinu constructionsa blend of the main and the
subordinate clauses so that the
predicative or the object of the first
one is simultaneously used as the
subject of the second one.
• impression of clumsiness of speech
e.g. "He was the man killed that deer."
32. Break (aposiopesis)• imitating spontaneous oral
e.g. "Good intentions, but…“
33. Lexico-Syntactical Stylistic Devices
34. Antithesisthe two parts of an antithesis must be
semantically opposite to each other
e.g. "If we don't know who gains by his
death we do know who loses by it."
e.g. Don't use big words. They mean so
35. Climaxeach next word combination (clause,
sentence) is logically more important
or emotionally stronger
e.g. "No tree, no shrub, no blade of
grass that was not owned."
e.g. "She felt better, immensely better."
36. Anticlimax• Climax which is suddenly interrupted by an
unexpected turn of the thought or ends in
complete semantic reversal of the emphasized
• e.g. Women have a wonderful instinct about
things. They can discover everything except the
• Many paradoxes are based on anticlimax
37. Similean imaginative comparison of two unlike objects
belonging to two different classes (link words "like",
"as", "as though", "as like", "such as", "as...as"
e.g. "His muscles are hard as rock".
• Trite (as strong as a horse)
• not be confused with simple (logical, ordinary)
• Disguised ("to resemble", "to seem", "to recollect",
"to remember", "to look like", "to appear“)
38. Litotesa two-component structure in which
two negations are joined to give a
e.g. "Her face was not unpretty".
e.g. Kirsten said not without dignity:
"Too much talking is unwise."
39. Periphrasisroundabout form of expression instead of a
e.g. The reason of my sleepless night was
standing in the doorway with an innocent look.
e.g. weak sex" (women); "my better half (my
• Euphemistic (the underprivileged)