Seminar 4
Seminar 4
Seminar 4
Practical assignment
1. Find and analyze cases of detachment, suspense and inversion. Comment on the
structure and functions of each:
1. She narrowed her eyes a trifle at me and said I looked exactly like Celia Briganza’s boy.
Around the mouth. (S.)
2. He observes it all with a keen quick glance, not unkindly, and full rather of amusement
than of censure. (V.W.)
3. She was crazy about you. In the beginning. (R.W.)
4. How many pictures of new journeys over pleasant country, of resting places under the
free broad sky, of rambles in the fields and woods, and paths not often trodden – how
many tones of that one well-remembered voice, how many glimpses of the form, the
fluttering dress, the hair that waved so gaily in the wind-how many visions of what had
been and what he hoped was yet to be – rose up before him in the old, dull, silent church!
(D.)
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2. Discuss different types of stylistic devices dealing with the completeness of the sentence:
1. In manner, close and dry. In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind. (D.)
2. Malay Camp. A row of streets crossing another row of streets. Mostly narrow streets.
Mostly dirty streets. Mostly dark streets. (P.A.)
3. (4) A solemn silence: Mr. Pickwick humorous, the old lady serious, the fat gentleman
cautious and Mr. Miller timorous. (D.)
4. (9) I’m a horse doctor, animal man. Do some farming, too. Near Tulip, Texas. (T.C.)
5. (14) “People liked to be with her. And - ” She paused again. “ – and she was crazy about
you.” (R.W.)
3. Comment on the syntactical distribution of the following cases of aposiopesis and on the
cases which necessitated them. Suggest the implied meaning of trite aposiopesis.
1. (4) “Shuttleworth, I – I want to speak to you in – in strictest confidence – to ask your
advice: Yet – yet it is upon such a serious matter that I hesitate – fearing –“
2. (10) “But, John, you know I’m not going to a doctor. I’ve told you.”
“You’re going – or else.”
3. (11) …shouting out that he’d come back that his mother had better have the money ready
for him. Or else! That is what he said: “Or else!”
It was a threat.
4. (12) “I still don’t quite like the face, it’s just a trifle too full, but – ” I swung myself on
the stool.
5. (13) “So you want come at all?!
“I don’t yet know. It all depends.
4. From the following examples you will get a better idea of the functions of various types
of repetitions, and also of parallelism and chiasmus:
1) I wake up and I’m alone and I walk round Warley and I’m alone; and I talk with people
and I’m alone and I look at his face when I’m home and it’s dead.
2) (5) I might as well face facts: good-bye, Susan, good-bye a big car, good-bye a big house,
good-bye power, good-bye the silly handsome dreams.
3) (6) I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love.
But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal.
4) (7) I wanted to knock over the table and hit him until my arm had no more strength in it,
then give him the boot, give him the boot, give him the boot – I drew a deep breath.
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5) (8) On her father’s being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure.
6) (9) Now he understood. He understood many things. One can be a person first. A man
first and then a black man or a white man.
7) (11) Obviously – this is a streptococcal infection. Obviously.
7. Comment on the length, the structure, the communicative type and punctuation of the
sentences, indicating connotation created by them:
1. (13) What courage can withstand the ever-enduring and all-besetting terrors of a woman’s
tongue? (W.I.)
2. (16) And what are wars but politics
Transformed from chronic to acute and bloody? (R. Fr.)
3. Father, was that you calling me? What is you, the voiceless and the dead? Was it you, thus
buffeted as you lie here in a heap? What it you thus baptized unto Death? (D)