O`zbekiston respublikasi oliy vao‘rta maxsus ta’lim vazirligi qarshi davlat universiteti

 
Lecture 4 
Lexico-synatctical stylistic devices 
(Blend of stylistic syntax and stylistic semantics) 
Plan: 
1.
Simile.
2.
Periphrasis. 
3.
Euphemism. 
4.
Antithesis. 
5.
Litotes. 
6.
Climax.
7.
Bathos. 
Preliminary notes 
Syntactical stylistic devices add logical, emotive, expressive information to the 
utterance regardless of lexical meanings of sentence components. There are certain 
structures though, whose emphasis depends not only on the arrangement of sentence 
members but also on the lexico-semantic aspect of the utterance. The blend of two 
linguistic levels i.e. of syntax and semantics create stylistic devices which can be named 
as lexico-syntactical SDs.
 

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32 
 
Simile
comes from Latin word 
similis
which means ‘alike’. It is an imaginative comparison 
of two objects belonging to two different classes. Unlike a metaphor, a simile draws 
resemblance with the help of the words 
‘like, as, as though, as like, such as, as...as’.
Therefore, it is a direct comparison. 
A simile usually consists of these components: 
1.
Tenor – the subject under discussion (the one which is compared). 
2.
Vehicle – what the subject is compared to (the one with which it is compared).
3.
Ground – what the poet believes that the tenor and the vehicle have in common. 
 
She is happy as a lark out of cage. 
Tenor Ground Vehicle 
1.
 
“He remembered the dog whose eyes were as big as saucers”
(Michael Ondaatje)
 
2.
 
“And I could write like the wind – stories and poems, diaries, letters.”
(Jay Parini)
 
3.
 
“But what can one expect from a woman like her, who wastes her days snuffling around 
behind Leo Nikolayevich’s back like a dog, trying to unearth some new bone of discord.”
(Jay Parini)
 
4.
 
“Exile is a great Russian institution. The Russian soul has been tempered, like blue steel, 
in Siberia.”
(Jay Parini)
 
Similes enrich English phraseology: ‘
Like a squirrel in a cage’, ‘to sleep like a dog’, 
‘busy as a bee’, ‘blind as a bat’, ‘bald as an egg’.
These phraseological units are trite 
similes. 
Functions of simile. Using similes attracts the attention and appeals directly to the 
senses of listeners or readers encouraging their imagination to comprehend what is being 
communicated. In addition, it inspires life-like quality in our daily talks and in the 
characters of fiction or poetry. Simile allows readers to relate the feelings of a writer or a 
poet to their personal experiences. Therefore, the use of similes makes it easier for the 
readers to understand the subject matter of a literary text, which may have been otherwise 
too demanding to be comprehended. Like metaphors, similes also offer variety in our ways 
of thinking and offers new perspectives of viewing the world.