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STYLISTICS
SEMINAR 1
Basic Notions of Stylistics.
Phonostylistics. Graphical Stylistic Devices.
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1. Subject of stylistics. The aim and tasks of stylistics. Stylistics and its correlation with other sciences. Scientific basis of Stylistics. The general approach in Stylistics. Different branches of Stylistics. The notion of style. Individual style. Style as choice. Style as deviation. -
2. The problem of sound-meaning relationship. Sound instrumenting. Alliteration. Assonance. Onomatopoeia. Sound contrast. Rhythm in poetry and in prose. Graphical stylistic devices.
Definition:
Stylistics is a branch of linguistics which studies the system of styles of a language, describes norms and ways of using literary language in different situations of communication, in various types and genres of written speech, in different spheres of life.
Subject and object:
The subject of stylistics is a language (as the wide notion) which includes both written and oral variations. The object of stylistics is the information which is often vague (unclear) for an ordinary reader, so called between-lines information. That is why stylistics is a science which studies connotations.
The aim and tasks:
The aim of stylistics is to help the reader to get more information from the language means used in speech, to receive aesthetic pleasure while reading. Another aim of this science is to describe certain areas of sub-languages (phonemic, morphological, etc.). Stylistics describes unusual usage of the language elements, specific features which distinguish this sub-language from the others.
Stylistics and other sciences:
Stylistics does not describe a definite level of a language. It penetrates into all levels. Thus, stylistics is divided into:
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stylistic phonology, -
stylistic morphology, -
stylistic lexicology, -
stylistic phraseology, -
stylistic syntax.
1)General phonetics studies the whole pronunciation system of a language. Stylistic phonetics studies only phonetic features of sub-language, which form the style, for example, variations of pronunciation in different types of speech.
2)General morphology studies morphemes and grammatical meanings, which are expressed in a language in general without taking into consideration their stylistic value. Stylistic morphology studies grammatical forms and grammatical meanings which characterize definite sub-languages.
3)General lexicology is closely connected with stylistic lexicology. General lexicology often gives stylistic classification of vocabulary and this is a field of stylistic lexicology.
4)Etymological analysis (especially the problem of borrowings) is stylistically important if the borrowed words are stylistically loaded.
5)General syntax studies a sentence from the point of view of its structure and building of correct utterances in this particular language. Stylistic syntax studies specific constructions which characterize different types of speech.
The general approach in stylistic.
A Stylistics approach teaches students how to look for and interpret stylistic dimensions of a text. Students are made to learn how, what, is said and how meanings are made.
From the multitude of linguistic approaches to style, two linguistic schools of the twentieth century have exerted the most decisive influence on the development, terminology, and the state of the art of stylistics: the Prague School and British Contextualism.
Different branches of stylistics:
Literary and linguistic stylistics, comparative stylistics, decoding stylistics and functional stylistics.
Literary and linguistic stylistics. According to the type of stylistic research we can distinguish literary stylistics and lingua-stylistics. They have some meeting points or links in that they have common objects of research.
Consequently they have certain areas of cross-reference. Both study the common ground of:
1. the literary language from the point of view of its variability;
2. the idiolect (individual speech) of a writer;
3. poetic speech that has its own specific laws.
The points of difference proceed from the different points of analysis. While lingua-stylistics studies:
- Functional styles (in their development and current state).
- The linguistic nature of the expressive means of the language, their systematic character and their functions. Literary stylistics is focused on
1 The composition of a work of art.
2 Various literary genres.
3 The writer’s outlook.
Comparative stylistics deals with the contrastive study of more than one language. It analyses the stylistic resources not inherent in a separate language but at the crossroads of two languages, or two literatures and is linked to the theory of translation.
Decoding stylistics. A comparatively new branch of stylistics is the decoding stylistics, which can be traced back to the works of L.V. Shcherba, B.A. Larin, M. Riffaterre, R. Jackobson and other scholars of the Prague linguistic circle. A serious contribution into this branch of stylistic study was also made by Prof. I.V.Arnold.
Each act of speech has the performer, or sender of speech and the recipient. The former does the act of encoding and the latter the act of decoding the information.
If we analyze the text from the author’s (encoding) point of view we should consider the epoch, the historical situation, and personal, political, social and aesthetic views of the author.
But if we try to treat the same text from the reader’s angle of view, we shall have to disregard this background knowledge and get the maximum information from the text itself (its vocabulary, composition, sentence arrangement, etc.). The first approach manifests the prevalence of the literary analysis. The second is based almost exclusively on the linguistic analysis. Decoding stylistics is an attempt to harmoniously combine the two methods of stylistic research and enable the scholar to interpret a work of art with a minimum loss of its purport and message.
Functional stylistics. Functional stylistics is a branch of lingua–stylistics that investigates functional styles, that is special sublanguages or varieties of the national language such as scientific, colloquial, business, publicist and so on.
The notion of style
Stylistics deals with styles. Different scholars have defined style differently at different times. Out of this variety we shall quote the most representative ones that scan the period from the 50-es to the 90-es of the 20th century. In 1955 the Academician V. V. Vinogradov defined style as «socially recognized and functionally conditioned internally united totality of the ways of using, selecting and combining the means of lingual intercourse in the sphere of one national language or another...» (2, p. 7). In 1971 Prof. I. R. Galperin offered his definition of style «as a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication» (2, p. 7). According to Prof. Y. M. Skrebnev «style is what differentiates a group of homogeneous texts (an individual text) from all other groups (other texts)... Style can be roughly defined as the peculiarity, the set of specific features of a text type or of a specific text» (2, p.7).
Individual style
1) a unique combination of language units,
2) deals with problems, concerning the choice of the most appropriate language means and their organisation into a message, from the viewpoint of the addresser (V.A.K.:10);
Style as choice
While examining the concept stylistics, it is equally essential to give attention to the notion of choice. Choice is a very vital instrument of stylistics since it deals with the variations and the options that are available to an author. Since language provides its users with more than one choice in a given situation, there are different choices available to the writer in a given text. This then depends on the situation and genre the writer chooses in expressing thoughts and opinions. Traugott and Pratt (1980: 29 – 30) clarify the connection between language and choice as the characteristic choices exhibited in a text.
With the writer’s choice, there is a reflection of his ego and the social condition of his environment. In determining the appropriate choice of linguistic elements, two important choice planes are open to the writer: the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic. The paradigmatic axis is also referred to as the vertical or choice axis while the syntagmatic is the horizontal axis. The vertical axis gives a variety of choices between one item and other items; the writer then chooses the most appropriate word. Thus, the paradigmatic axis is able to account for the given fillers that occupy a particular slot while still maintaining the structure of the sentence. At the paradigmatic level, for example, a writer or speaker can choose between “start” and “commence”, “go” and “proceed.”
Style as deviation
When an idea is presented in a way that is different from the expected way, then we say such a manner of carrying it out has deviated from the norm. The concept of style as deviation is based on the notion that there are rules, conventions and regulations that guide the different activities that must be executed. Thus, when these conventions are not complied with, there is deviation. Deviation in stylistics is concerned with the use of different styles from the expected norm of language use in a given genre of writing. It is a departure from what is taken as the common practice. Language deviation refers to an intentional selection or choice of language use outside of the range of normal language. Language is a system organized in an organic structure by rules and it provides all the rules for its use such as phonetic, grammatical, lexical, etc. Thus, any piece of writing or material that has intentionally jettisoned the rules of language in some way is said to have deviated. Stylistics helps to identify how and why a text has deviated.
Deviation may occur at any level of language description e.g. phonological, graphological, syntactic, lexico-semantic, etc. At the graphological level, for example, we may see capital letters where they are not supposed to be. At the syntactic level, subject and verb may not agree in number. Or the normal order of the clause elements may not be observed e.g. Adjunct may come before the subject. At the lexico-semantic level, words that should not go together may be deliberately brought together. e.g. “dangerous safety,” “open secret.”
The problem os sound meaning relationship and sound instrumenting
Dealing with various cases of phonemic and graphemic foregrounding we should not forget the unilateral nature of a phoneme: this language unit helps to differentiate meaningful lexemes but has no meaning of its own. Still, devoid of denotational or connotational meaning, a phoneme, according to recent studies, has a strong associative and sound-instrumenting power.
Alliteration
Alliteration is repetition of consonants in several neighbour words (usually, at the beginning). Ex.: (last but not least; now or never; forgive and forget)
Assonance
Assonance is repetition of vowels in stressed syllables in several neighbour words.
"...Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden, I shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore — Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?" (E. Poe)
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech sounds which aims at imitating sounds produced in nature(wind, sea, thunder, etc.), by people (sighing, laughter, etc.) and by animals. Combinations of speechsounds of this type will inevitably be associated with whatever produces the natural sound. There are two varieties of onomatopoeia: direct and indirect. Direct onomatopoeia is limited to a word that imitates the sounds produced naturally:
Mr. Beasley, while shaving on the day after his fiftieth birthday, eyed his reflection, and admitted his remarkable resemblance to a mouse. “Cheep, cheep!” he said to himself with a shrug. (J. Collier).
Indirect onomatopoeia aims at producing the general effect of imitation by carefully choosing the words to create that impression:
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain…
The repetition of the sound [s] actually produces the sound of the rustling of the curtain.
Sound contrast
Two or more sounds in a language contrast if they appear in the same position, in the same frame. These sounds are said to be in contrasted distribution. Phonemic contrast refers to a minimal phonetic difference, that is, small differences in speech sounds, that makes a difference in how the sound is perceived by listeners, and can therefore lead to different mental lexical entries for words. Pit-pot
Rhythm
Rhythm is a natural quality of human life, and that, perhaps, explains the craving to make our speech rhythmic too. Rhythm is a constant feature of poetry based on regular recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. In prose rhythm is easily discernible too but it is based on the structural arrangement of sentences.
The choice of words similar in their structure if not in meaning:
There was nothing remarkable about him, except what happened to him, which was certainly remarkable, not to say regrettable. (Chesterton)
Repetition, parallelism, gradation, all these and other syntactical patterns contribute to making the text rhythmic:
His life was in her hands. She could save him, she alone could save him, but the enemy was cunning, and she must be cunning too.
(Rhythm, by any definition, is essential to poetry; prose may be said to exhibit rhythm but in a much less highly organized sense. The presence of rhythmic patterns heightens emotional response and often affords the reader a sense of balance.)
Graphical stylistic devices
Graphical stylistic devices include the use of punctuation, graphical arrangement of phrases,
violation of type and spelling. Marks of punctuation: hyphen (дефис), dash (тире), comma (зпятая), full-stop, colon (двоеточие), semicolon (точка с запятой), exclamation (восклицание), interrogation (вопрос), series of dots. They are used not only for the division of speech into its logical parts, but also for emphatic purposes which suggest a definite semantic interpretation of the utterance.
Another group of graphical means is based on the violation (нарушение) of type: italics (курсив), bold type (жирный шрифт), and capitalization (большие буквы). Not only words but separate syllables, morphemes may be emphasized by italics.
Graphical expressive means include the use of punctuation, graphical arrangement of phrases, violation of type and spelling.
Graphon: the intentional violation of the generally accepted spelling used to reflect peculiarities
of pronunciation or emotional state of the speaker. Types of graphon: multiplication (умножение), hyphenation (перенос слов), capitalization (прописные буквы), apostrophe. Functions: to give the reader an idea about smth, to attract attention, to make smb memorize it, to show smth, explain.
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. 1. Indicate phonetic SDs, speak on the effects produced by them:
(a) “Oh my children, me poor children!
Listen to the words of wisdom,
Listen to the words of warning,
From the lips of the Great Spirit,
From the Master of Life, who made you!
“I have given you lands to hunt in,
I have given you streams to fish in,
I have given you bear and bison,
I have given you roe and reindeer,
I have given you brant and beaver
Filled the marshes full of wild-fowl,
Filled the rivers full of fishes;
Why then are you not contented?
Why then will you hunt each other?
Henry W. Longfellow.
Repetition: help to emphasize a point and make a speech easier to follow; to create a strong emotional feeling. Alliteration: to express a definite feeling, to contribute smth to the general effect of the message.
(b) The German machine-guns were tat-tattatting at them.
“Zwiing, crash, claang!” – four heavy shells screamed towards them and denotated with awful force within a hundred yards.”
Over came another little bunch of whizz – bangs, in corroboration – crash, crash, crash, crash.
“Ping!” went a sniper’s rifle.
“Zwiing, crash!” to the right; “Zwiing, crash!” to the left; Zwiing, crash!” to the right; “Zwiing, crash!” to the left. He sat there alone for thirty-five minutes – thirty-five Zwiing, crash.
(Aldington)
Direct onomatopoeia to bring the action in mind, to imagine the action, situation properly
(c) Then, with one final, furious burst of speed, they would triumphantly reach the top, where they would stand up straight, flap their flippers in delight, and flop down on to their tummies for a ten-minute rest.
(G. Durrell)
Alliteration: creates musical effect, mood and notion; help to imagine the ball, indirect onomatopoeia also helps in it.
(d) Мазурка раздалась. Бывало,
Когда гремел мазурки гром,
В огромном зале все дрожало,
Паркет трещал под каблуком,
Тряслися, дребезжали рамы;
Теперь нетто, и мы, как дамы,
Скользим по лаковым доскам.
(А.С. Пушкин)
Indirect onomatopoeia helps to imagine the ball, the action, dancing: it makes the reader to feel the atmosphere
(e)
Eulalie.
I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride –
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.
Ah, less – less bright
The stars of night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
And never a flake
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl
Can vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl,
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl.
(E.A. Poe)
Repetition: to emphasize a point; Assonance: to enhance the imagery, to create a vivid impression of a poetic picture.
(f) Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky.
Rhyme: pleasant to read and hear, helps to memorize better; indirect onomatopoeia: helps the reader to imagine the sparkle of the star.
(g) Here the rain did not fall. It was stopped high above by that roof of green shingles. From there it dripped down slowly, leaf to leaf, or ran down the stems and branches. Despite the heaviness of the downpour which now purred loudly in their ears from just outside, here there was only a low rustle of slow occasional dripping.
Onomatopoeia: for a better imagination; Assonance: to enhance the imagery, to create a vivid impression of a poetic picture.
(h) "Luscious, languid and lustful, isn't she?" "Those are not the correct epithets. She is - or rather was - surly, lustrous and sadistic."
Alliteration: to emphasize a negative mood and attitude.
2. State the type and functions of graphical SDs:
1. “The Count”, explained the German officer, “expegs you chentlemen at eight-dirty.”
2. We’ll teach the children to look at things. Don’t let the world pass you by, I shall tell them. For the sun, I shall say, open your eyes for the laaaaarge sun.
3. “ALL your troubles are over, old girl”, he said. “We can put a bit of now for a rainy day.
4. Said Kipps one day, "As'e - I should say, ah, has'e... Ye know, I got a lot of difficulty with them two words, which is which." "Well, "as" is a conjunction, and "has" is a verb." "I know," said Kipps, "but when is "has" a conjunction, and when is "as" a verb?"
5. Wilson was a little hurt. "Listen, boy," he told him. "Ah may not be able to read eve'thin' so good, but they ain't a thing Ah can't do if Ah set mah mind to it."
6. "I allus remember me man sayin' to me when I passed me scholarship - "You break one o'my winders an' I'll skin ye alive."
7. He spoke with the flat ugly "a" and withered "r" of Boston Irish, and Levi looked up at him and mimicked "All right, I'll give the caaads a break and staaat playing."
8. "Whereja get all these pictures?" he said. "Meetcha at the corner. Wuddaya think she's doing out there?"
9. "Look at him go. D'javer see him walk home from school? You're French Canadian, aintcha?"
10. Usually she was implacable in defence of her beloved fragment of the coast and if the summer weekenders grew brazen, -getoutofitsillyoldmoo, itsthesoddingbeach, - she would turn the garden hose remorselessly upon them.
3. State the function of graphon in captions, posters, advertisements, etc. repeatedly used in press, TV, roadside advertising
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The special features: bold, capitalization, shaped (visual) text, italics, increasing-decreasing. All these graphons serve to pay people’s attention.
STYLISTICS
SEMINAR 2
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Stylistic function, its main properties. -
Stylistic context. Difference between lexical and grammatical context, on the one hand, and stylistic context, on the other hand. M. Riffaterre’s interpretation of context. Micro- and macro-context. -
Foregrounding: definition, functions, means. Convergence of SDs. Defeated expectancy. Coupling. Strong positions of the text.
1) Like other linguistic disciplines stylistics deals with the lexical, grammatical, phonetic and phraseological data of the language. However, there is a distinctive difference between stylistics and the
other linguistic subjects. Stylistics does not study or describe separate linguistic units like phonemes or words or clauses as such. It studies their stylistic function. Stylistics is interested in the expressive potential of these units and their interaction in a text.
Stylistics focuses on the expressive properties of linguistic units, their functioning and interaction in conveying ideas and emotions in a certain text or communicative context.
Stylistics interprets the opposition or clash between the contextual meaning of a word and its denotative meaning.
Accordingly, stylistics is first and foremost engaged in the study of connotative meanings. In brief the semantic structure (or the meaning) of a word roughly consists of its grammatical meaning (noun, verb, adjective) and its lexical meaning. Lexical meaning can further on be subdivided into denotative (linked to the logical or nominative meaning) and connotative meanings. Connotative meaning is only connected with extra-linguistic circumstances such as the situation of communication and the participants of communication. Connotative meaning consists of four components:
1) emotive;
2) evaluative;
3) expressive;
4) stylistic.
A word is always characterised by its denotative meaning but not necessarily by connotation. The four components may be all presentat once, or in different combinations or they may not be found in the word at all.
1. Emotive connotations express various feelings or emotions. Emotions differ from feelings. Emotions like joy, disappointment, pleasure, anger, worry, surprise are more short-lived. Feelings imply a more stable state, or attitude, such as love, hatred, respect, pride, dignity,
etc. The emotive component of meaning may be occasional or usual (i.e. inherent and adherent).
It is important to distinguish words with emotive connotations from words, describing or naming emotions and feelings like anger or fear, because the latter are a special vocabulary subgroup whose denotative meanings are emotions. They do not connote the speaker's state of mind or his emotional attitude to the subject of speech.
Thus if a psychiatrist were to say You should be able to control feelings of anger, impatience and disappointment dealing with a child as a piece of advice to young parents the sentence would have no emotive power. It may be considered stylistically neutral.
On the other hand an apparently neutral word like big will become charged with emotive connotation in a mother's proud description of her baby: He is a BIG boy already!
2. The evaluative component charges the word with negative, positive, ironic or other types of connotation conveying the speaker's attitude in relation to the object of speech. Very often this component is a part of the denotative meaning, which comes to the fore in a specific context.
The verb to sneak means "to move silently and secretly, usu. for a bad purpose" (8). This dictionary definition makes the evaluative component bad quite explicit. Two derivatives a sneak and sneaky have both preserved a derogatory evaluative connotation. But the negative component disappears though in still another derivative sneakers (shoes with a soft sole). It shows that even words of the same root may either have or lack an evaluative component in their inner form.
3. Expressive connotation either increases or decreases the expressiveness of the message. Many scholars hold that emotive and expressive components cannot be distinguished but Prof. I. A. Arnold maintains that emotive connotation always entails expressiveness but not vice versa. To prove her point she comments on the example by A. Hornby and R. Fowler with the word "thing" applied to a girl (4, p. 113).
When the word is used with an emotive adjective like "sweet" it becomes emotive itself: "She was a sweet little thing". But in other sentences like "She was a small thin delicate thing with spectacles", she argues, this is not true and the word "thing" is definitely expressive but not emotive.
Another group of words that help create this expressive effect are the so-called "intensifiers", words like "absolutely, frightfully, really, quite", etc.
4. Finally there is stylistic connotation. A word possesses stylistic connotation if it belongs to a certain functional style or a specific layer of vocabulary (such as archaisms, barbarisms, slang, jargon, etc). stylistic connotation is usually immediately recognizable.
Yonder, slumber, thence immediately connote poetic or elevated writing.
Words like price index or negotiate assets are indicative of business language.
This detailed and systematic description of the connotative meaning of a word is suggested by the Leningrad school in the works of Prof. I. V. Arnold, Z. Y. Turayeva, and others.
Gaiperin operates three types of lexical meaning that are stylistically relevant - logical, emotive and nominal. He describes the stylistic colouring of words in terms of the interaction of these types of lexical meaning. Skrebnev maintains that connotations only show to what part of the national language a word belongs - one of the sub-languages (functional styles) or the neutral bulk. He only speaks about the stylistic component of the connotative meaning.
2) In the most general sense the word “context” means а set of circumstances that surround a particular event or situation. There are 2 scientific concepts of a context. Gr.Kolshansky claims that we must distinguish between an introlinguistic context. In Kolshansky's view an introlinguistic context is a purely linguistic embodiment of the contexts of communication phonetically, lexically and grammatically. The extra linguistic context is a broader concept, which includes factors accompanying verbal communication such as the situation of discourse, the relative position of communicators; all these factors may be important for stylistic choice. Actually or traditionally we should define linguistic context as a combination of an element with its indicator that is syntactically connected with it. (Amosova) Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.
If a linguistic context indicates only one meaning of polysemantic word, a stylistic context aims at manifestation of as many meanings and connotations as the word can possibly achieve in this communication act.
Stylistic or poetic context usually reveals the maximum contextual links between the words. M/ Raffaterre defines stylistic context as a pattern broken by an unpredictable element. He thinks that contrast is a basic feature of stylistic context. I.V. Arnold looks upon stylistic context as a unity of stylistic element and its surroundings, a systematic structure of interrelated elements.Every stylistically relevant element is not isolated but is coordinated with the other elements of the context.
Lexical context determines lexically bound meaning; collocations with the polysemantic words are of primary importance, e.g. a dramatic change / increase / fall / improvement; dramatic events / scenery; dramatic society; a dramatic gesture.In lexical contexts of primary importance are the groups of lexical items combined with the polysemantic word under consideration. This can be illustrated by analysing different lexical contexts in which polysemantic words are used. The adjective heavy, e.g., in isolation is understood as meaning ‘of great weight, weighty’ (heavy load, heavy table, etc.). When combined with the lexical group of words denoting natural phenomena such as wind, storm, snow, etc., it means ’striking, falling with force, abundant’ as can be seen from the contexts, e.g. heavy rain, wind, snow, storm, etc. In combination with the words industry, arms, artillery and the like, heavy has the meaning ‘the larger kind of something’ as in heavy industry, heavy artillery, etc.
In grammatical context the grammatical (syntactic) structure of the context serves to determine the meanings of a polysemantic word, e.g. 1) She will make a good teacher. 2) She will make some tea. 3) She will make him obey.In grammatical contexts it is the grammatical (mainly the syntactic) structure of the context that serves to determine various individual meanings of a polysemantic word. One of the meanings of the verb make, e.g. ‘to force, to enduce’, is found only in the grammatical context possessing the structure to make somebody do something or in other terms this particular meaning occurs only if the verb make is followed by a noun and the infinitive of some other verb (to make smb. laugh, go, work, etc.). Another meaning of this verb ‘to become’, ‘to turn out to be’ is observed in the contexts of a different structure, i.e. make followed by an adjective and a noun (to make a good wife, a good teacher, etc.).
Such meanings are sometimes described as grammatically (or structurally) bound meanings. Cases of the type she will make a good teacher may be referred to as syntactically bound meanings, because the syntactic function of the verb make in this particular context (a link verb, part of the predicate) is indicative of its meaning ‘to become, to turn out to be’. A different syntactic function of the verb, e.g. that of the predicate (to make machines, tables, etc.) excludes the possibility of the meaning ‘to become, turn out to be’.
The context, by definition inseparable from the SD, (I) is automatically relevant (which is not necessarily true of the norm); (2) is immediately accessible because it is encoded, so that we need not rely on an elusive and subjective Sprachgefuhl; (3) is variable and constitutes a series of contrasts to the successive SDs. Only this variability can explain why a linguistic unit acquires, changes, or loses it stylistic effect according to position, why every departure from the norm is not necessarily a fact of style, and why style effects occur without abnormality
Microcontext is the context of a single utterance (sentence). Macrocontext is the context of a paragraph in a text.
The microcontext consists of the other constituents which remain unmarked; contrast is created in opposition to these constituents (the reader perceives the degree of unpredictability in relation to them).B The group as a whole (context+contrast) forms the SO. The essential characteristics of the microcontext are: (l) it has a structural function as a pole of a binary opposition, and conse- quently: (2) it has no effect without the other pole; (3) it is spatially limited by its relationship to that pole (in other words, it does not encompass elements irrelevant to the opposition and may be limited to one linguistic unit). Its constituents can be multiple, discontinuous (e.g., the disjunct group in a disjunction), or simultaneous (e.g., the unchanged part of a renewed cliche, the blended words in a pQrtmanteau word).