Lexical Stylistic Devices and Expressive Means

DIFFERENT TYPES OF WORD AND MEANING

• There are:• Content words: refer to the word and our

linguistics relationship with it. They serve to name things express relations, perceptions, states, and actions

• Functional words: work within language and how they operate in relationship with other words to order the utterance in speech or discourse.

Classification

There are 3 main groups:1. Interaction of word meanings2. Intensification of a feature or

phenomenon3. Special use of set expressions

Types of meaning

Primary: main meaning in dictionariesDerivatives: secondary or acquired

meanings in dictionaries.Contextual: a meaning a word is given

or acquires when used. It depends on the communicative situation and/or the variety of language where it is used.

Types of meaning (examples)

Primary: main meaning in dictionariesDerivatives: secondary or acquired

meanings in dictionaries.Contextual: a meaning a word is given

or acquires when used. It depends on the communicative situation and/or the variety of language where it is used.

Types of context

• Context of culture: the social, economical or cultural conventions or history or the discourse or text

• Context of utterance: situation within which discourse is conducted, for example, physical surrounding or space or setting; the people participating, the channel or means used, aural, visual, electronic, written; the time,

• Context of Reference: the topic (fields of domain) or subject or theme.

Interaction of meanings

There are four subdivisions depending on the interactions of:

1. Primary and Contextual meanings2. Primary and Derivative meanings3. Logical and Emotive meanings4. Logical and Nominal meanings

Primary and Contextual

To this group belong:• Metaphor: identification between two

entities that have or seem to have nothing in common.

• Metonymy (synecdoche): substitution or reference o own thing by mentioning another associated or partially related to it logically.

• Irony: when you call something one way but mean the opposite. It´s like been a little hypocritical. It is used to make fun or degrade someone or something.

Primary and Derivative

Zeugma: when a word determines or operatives grammatically onto two other words phrases; one of them has a literal meaning and the other has a figurative or metaphorical one. Ex: at gun point they made Johnny pick up the piece of chicken from the muddy ground. Then, at the order of the gunner, he ate the dirty chicken wing and his heart out/ he swallowed the dirty chicken wings and his pride. (swallow the chicken wing-literal meaning/ swallow one’s pride-figurative meaning)

• Pun: we activate or play with two meaning of a word or words simultaneously. We based this on emphasizing the different meanings of a word (polysemy) or on the same spelling and pronunciation of two words or the same sound of two different words (homonymy)

Logical and Emotive

• Interjections: words that express our emotional reactions towards something. They can be primary ( sounds/words with no logical meaning) or derivative (words that mean something, but are used to expressed our emotions. The emotional charge or meaning is predominant.

• Epithet: attributive word (mainly adjectives) that are used to determine or describe something that by nature or logic belong to other category

Logical and emotive

• Oxymoron: two words of opposing meaning combine grammatically

Logical and Nominal

• Antonomasia: using a proper noun as common or vice versa.

Intensification of a Feature

• Simile: comparing two things that belong to different nature or domain.

• Hyperbole: an exaggeration made deliberately• Periphrasis: using more words than needed to

express something. Don’t confuse with paraphrasing or using different words to express the same ideas.

• Euphemism: using more word than needed to deliberately avoid using an offensive, vulgar, word or expression.

Special use of set expressions(idiomatic expressions or sayings etc.)

• Among these we have:• Proverbs or sayings: expressions or brief statement

summarizing a common or generalizing didactic experience. It is used in contexts where a situation is similar to other and the meanings, causes or consequences of the saying can be transferred and is applicable to the context where it is used (context of reference or utterance).

• Epigrams: ingenious witty statements created by a known person or author that, as proverbs, express a knowledge or experience applicable to similar situations. They make reference to a teaching or didactic

• Quotation: is based on the repetition of another person's written or speech words, in order to illustrate, sustain or prove what you say. It relies on the expertise or knowledgeable reputation of the persons quoted or cited. It is usually brief as epigrams or proverbs, but different from them in that a quotation can make use of charts or other kinds of reproduceable materials.

• Allusion: when a reference is made to a historical, person, fact, place or situation.

Deconstruction of set expressions happens when we revive or emphasize the meanings of individual words that are part of an idiomatic expression, proverbs or saying. The expression has both its meaning as a set or expression and as individual words.