SYNTACTICAL STYLISTIC WAYS OF CREATING IRONY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
SYNTACTICAL STYLISTIC WAYS OF CREATING IRONY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Angelina Bakhanovich
graduate student, Minsk State Linguistic University,
Belarus, Minsk
The combination of elements of expressive syntax with graphic emphasis, context and appropriate intonation becomes one of the ways of creating a comic effect. Among the multilevel markers of irony, syntactic means are of fundamental importance, since they allow not only to transmit basic information, but also to introduce additional data, thus carrying out an aesthetic suggestion in relation to the recipient of a literary text.
It is important to emphasize that complex sentences are one of the leading forms of expressing comparative semantics at the syntactic level, due to the presence of a two-term structure, as well as the presence of conjunctions and union words used in order to express these relations.
The most dependent syntactic means of irony explication are introductory constructions, subordinate to the lexical content of the utterance. In view of the functional peculiarity of introductory constructions, which consists in the expression of subjective modality, they can be qualified as an inalienable marker of irony. The use of introductory constructions as a way of creating irony allows the speaker, in this case Stephen Fry, in his autobiography, to assess the situation with the help of the introductory structure you might say. This structure indicates the presence of the opposite meaning and that the speaker is not the culprit of the current the situation: I have brought, you might say, gorgeous palaces, noble properties and elegant honest establishments into disrepute [1, p. 71].
Author's ironic comment or remark in brackets as an element of an expressive syntax plays an important role in the structure of a literary text. Despite the graphic isolation from the main context, from an informative point of view, they turn out to be closely related to the content of the utterance, expressing the speaker's subjective attitude to the information presented, adding an emotional coloring and a shade of comic effect.
The humorous effect is achieved due to the contradiction between the neutral (and sometimes sublime) tone of the narrative and the author's sarcastic remark in brackets. The author's comment is necessary in order to emphasize and contrast the word children and their almost forty years of age. Bridget in this example criticizes what she considers faulty and mediocre. She ridicules her parents' attempts to treat adult children as infantile adolescents: Mum, with dazzling bravado, has planned schmaltzy family Christmas with her and Dad pretending the whole of last year never happened ‘for the sake of the children’ (i.e. me and Jamie, who is thirty-seven) [2, p. 149].
A rhetorical question for the creation of irony is characteristic of all the studied works. A rhetorical question is an affirmative sentence, which is only framed in a questioning form, the purpose of which is to draw attention to the statement, giving it richness and expressiveness.
In the example below, the antiphrasis is implemented with the help of the rhetorical question: straw donkey (‘Isn't it super?’). A detailed study of the context allows to establish the presence of irony. It is about Bridget's mother, who is described as an eccentric and fickle lady. And the fact that a woman of advanced years, running away with her lover, takes a straw donkey with her on the road cannot but cause hidden mockery from Bridget: Dad had finished putting all her suitcases, hats, straw donkey (‘Isn't it super?’) and castanets in the trunk of the Sierra and had started the engine [2, p. 142].
The defining of a statement as ironic requires the analysis of both a narrow and a wide context, which is proved by the following example of the use of associative irony, which demands the reader to know the situation. Clumsy Ted Wallis, while in the bathroom, pinched his finger with the zipper of his trousers, slipped, doused himself with water and almost caused a flood in the house. The whole situation is quite comical. With the help of rhetorical questions, Ted expresses his emotional attitude to the situation. Naming places that are clearly remote from home, he emphasizes the absurdity of the question asked and the fact that the hostess is already aware of the mess in her bathroom. Next is a part of the dialogue between Ted and the hostess:
- ‘All this took place in a bathroom?’
- ‘Yes! In a bathroom. What did you expect, a bakery? A hair-dressing salon? [3, p. 241].
Antithesis is a figure of speech, consisting in a sharp opposition of compared concepts, thoughts, images, built on antonymy and syntactic parallelism, serving to create contrast, enhance the expressiveness of speech. In the works under study, the antithesis repeatedly generates an ironic context.
In the example below, the antithesis arises through the use of mutually contradictory concepts: to cheer up and criticize. Criticism always has a negative effect on mood, but not in the following case: Eventually I managed to cheer Mum up by allowing her to go through my wardrobe and criticize all my clothes [2, p. 41].
We should pay attention to another example of antithesis in Stephen Fry's novel. The author uses a productive way of creating an ironic statement - the use of contrasting compositional elements: a large nature and small bank balance. It should be noted that this cognitive alogism is a characteristic feature of dialogical speech, which intonationally intensifies irony. For the main character, as a cynical person, it is typical to exalt material wealth over spiritual:
– Your Uncle Michael, on the other hand, has a large nature…
– But small bank balance [3, p. 186].
Repetitions, which are relevant for a separate piece of text, are characteristic in the group of syntactic means. Repetitions focus the reader's attention on the author's most important thoughts. Highlighting different shades of the meaning of the same subject, re-nomination allows the reader to see and evaluate the depicted in a new way. Repetition in a literary text contributes to the appearance of additional meanings in a linguistic unit, increases its content-richness and expands its functionality.
In the example from the novel «Bridget Jones's Diary», the irony is based on a syntactic anaphora: the same syntactic construction (Eighteen years of) was used four times, intensified by a quantitative hyperbole (Millions of cheesecakes ..., tens of millions) and ends with a rhetorical question. Bridget is trying to answer the question, "if for 18 years she has not met a man, then why this endless struggle with kilograms?" The cycle of self-flagellation ends with a figurative comparison (I feel like a scientist who discovers that his life's work has been a total mistake): Eighteen years – wasted. Eighteen years of calorie- and fat-unit-based arithmetic. Eighteen years of buying long shirts and sweaters and leaving the room backwards in intimate situations to hide my bottom. Millions of cheesecakes and tiramisus, tens of millions of Emmenthal slices left uneaten. Eighteen years of struggle, sacrifice and endeavor – for what? Eighteen years and the result is 'tired and flat.' I feel like a scientist who discovers that his life's work has been a total mistake [2, p. 58].
Syntactic parallelism, characterized by a similar structure of several sentences or separate segments of speech, within one sentence. Lexical filling in this case will play a secondary role. The expressiveness of such a statement is enhanced with each repetitive parallel construction, in this case, with homogeneous predicates. The author emphasizes the hero's excessive concern with his appearance, especially before entering the locker room and changing clothes, which creates alogism, the purpose of which is to create a comic effect: Adrian checked the orchid at the buttonhole, inspected the spats at his feet, gave lavender gloves a twitch, smoothed down his waistcoat, swallowed twice and pushed wide the changing-room door [4, p. 7].
Climax (ascending gradation), or the gradual, deliberate intensification of comic effect, is also one of the means of creating irony. This technique represents a syntactic construction with a specific set of words, arranged in a specific order. The function consists in placing the correct emphasis in the statement and creating the effect of increasing of the produced impression.
Bridget Jones enumerates the types of men you shouldn't fall in love with. She considered alcoholics on this list the least dangerous, while perverts occupy the last line of the, that means that they are the least desirable candidates for her hand. Gradation consists in the sequential forcing of images of artistic speech: I WILL NOT Fall for any of following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomaniacs, chauvinists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders, perverts [2, p. 14].
Ted Wallis, like Bridget, described the vices of actors and TV presenters, arranging expressions related to their disadvantages in order of the increasing emotional significance of the members of the series (emotional build-up): ‘What a perfect marriage they had, and what ideal parents they were. A golden couple.’ I could there be describing actors, TV show presenters or producers with total accuracy, leaving out only their serial polygamies, chronic domestic abuse, violent orgiastic fetishes and breathtaking assaults on the bottle, the powders and the pills [3, p. 145].
Let's pay attention to examples of chaotic enumeration. In the novel “Bridget Jones's diary”, based on the following examples, the reader reconstructs the image of Bridget's mother as an unbalanced, illogical and completely unpredictable woman. She can end up in a hairdressing salon just as easily as in Portugal:
– Where's your mother now?'
– 'I don't know. Portugal? Rio de Janeiro? Having her hair done?' [2, p. 139].
Asyndeton is a stylistic technique in which conjunctions, which connect words and sentences in a phrase, are omitted. As a result, speech acquires rhythm, conciseness, compactness, the impression of a swiftness and a quick change of the picture. Stephen Fry shows this by the example of a teenage love letters, with a significant number of repetitions, lack of conjunctions, thus creating an ironic, naïve image: I love your big dark eyes. I love your mess of hair, your very red lips. They are very red in fact; I bet you did not know that. Very few people have lips really red in the way poets write about red. Yours are the reddest red [5, p. 6].
Parcelling is the arrangement of intonation in a narrative by dividing a certain text in semantically relevant segments. In the presence of a certain context, it also contributes to giving ironical coloring to the statement. Parcelling sets the pace and rhythm of speech, helps to highlight exactly what the hero, the writer pays attention to.
In the novel “The Stars' Tennis Balls”, parceling emphasizes the hero's ironic attitude to the behavior of the other characters. Highlighting of the adverb solemnly in a punctuationally and intonationally independent segment sharpens the reader's attention on what is happening, particularly on the conversation between the father and his rebellious daughter. The discrepancy between the positive semantics of the accent adverb and the situation is emphasized: Pete, of course, after going as red as Lenin, swallowed his rage and his baffled pride and began to talk to me. Solemnly [5, p. 6].
The peculiarity of the use of syntactic and stylistic devices for creating irony is the fact that they do not generate an ironic statement by themselves, but only convey meaning with increased intensity, the result of which is emotional or logical strengthening, giving the utterance more imagery. Introductory constructions and author's comments in brackets in the studied texts are most widespread. Irony in this case is created due to the contradiction between the expressed opinion and the author's sharp comment, which can be presented in the form of detailing the information of the main sentence, unfolding an unexpected assessment of the narrator. The rhetorical question is also widely used by writers, since contextual conditioning, as well as a combination with one of the types of irony (self-irony or associative irony) give a rhetorical question a touch of irony.
References:
- Fry, S. More fool me / S. Fry. – London : Penguin Books, 2015. – 388 p.
- Fielding, H. Bridget Jones's diary / H. Fielding. – London : Picador, 1996. –307 p.
- Fry, S. The Hippopotamus / S. Fry. – London : Cornerstone, 2017. – 416 p.
- Fry, S. The liar / S. Fry. – London : Arrow Books, 2011. – 388 p.
- Fry, S. The stars' tennis balls / S. Fry. – London : Arrow Books, 2011. – 436 p.