Contents

I. Introduction

II. Theoretical Part

II.1 Different classifications of expressive means

II.1.1 Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system

II.1.2 Stylistic theory and classification of expresssive means by G. Leech

II.1.3 I. R.Galperin's classification of expressive means and stylistic devices

II.1.4 Classification of expressive means and stylistic devices by Y.M.Skrebnev

II.2 Homonyms

II.2.1 Sources of Homonyms

II.2.2 Classification of Homonyms

II.2.3 Homonyms in the book

II.3 Lewis Carroll and his book

IV. Practical part

Conclusion

Bibliography

I. Introduction

 

The title of this work is "Homonymy in the book of Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland". I chose this theme because I am going to be a teacher and this book is often used in the process of teaching English - for example, some extracts of it are used in the school text-books as texts for reading and it would be useful for teachers to work on this book detaily.

But this book is not only interesting in the case of teaching English, but also for personal intellectual maturity-the literary work of Lewis Carroll is known all over the world, it has the third place in the list of the most popular sources of quotation on the earth - after Bible and Shakespeare! No one can name himself "an educated person" if he has never read this book. This book is not just a simple funny fairy tale for children but adult people are interested in it, because they have grown up and managed to see things that a child is not able to notice: that Lewis Carroll was an extraordinary thinker. "Alice in Wonderland" surprises an attentive reader with its logic puzzles, new look on the time and existence, quaint play on words, new linguistic discoveries, "new life" of folk-lore in the form of nonsense. This book is an object of searching for representatives of science: for mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, and, of course, for philologists.

My diploma consists of two main parts: theoretical part, where are stated the definition of homonyms, their sources and classification, some facts about Lewis Carroll and his book and here I went into the examples of using homonymy with the purpose of creating humorous effect by the author of the book. The practical part includes questions on the theory and several exercises on homonymy mostly based on the extracts from the text of "Alice in Wonderland".

I would recommend to use this work in the course of lexicology at the lessons on the themes "Homonymy" and "Stylistic devices".

II. Theoretical Part

II.1 Different classifications of expressive means

In spite of the belief that rhetoric is an outmoded discipline it is in rhetoric that we find most of the terms contemporary stylistics generally employs as its metalanguage. Rhetoric is the initial source of information about metaphor, metonymy, epithet, antithesis, chiasmus, anaphora and many more. The classical rhetoric gave us still widely used terms of tropes and figures of speech.

That is why before looking into the new stylistic theories and findings it's good to look back and see what's been there for centuries. The problems of language in antique times became a concern of scholars because of the necessity to comment on literature and poetry. This necessity was caused by the fact that mythology and lyrical poetry was the study material on which the youth was brought up, taught to read and write and generally educated. Analysis of literary texts helped to transfer into the sphere of oratorical art the first philosophical notions and concepts.

The first linguistic theory called sophistry appeared in the fifth century В. С Oration played a paramount role in the social and political life of Greece so the art of rhetoric developed into a school.

Antique tradition ascribes some of the fundamental rhetorical notions to the Greek philosopher Gorgius (483-375 В. С). Together with another scholar named Trasimachus they created the first school of rhetoric whose principles were later developed by Aristotle (384-322 В. С.) in his books «Rhetoric» and «Poetics». Aristotle differentiated literary language and colloquial language. This first theory of style included 3 subdivisions:

• the choice of words;

• word combinations;

• figures.

1. The choice of words included lexical expressive means such as foreign words, archaisms, neologisms, poetic words, nonce words and metaphor.

2. Word combinations involved 3 things:

a) order of words;

b) word-combinations;

c) rhythm and period (in rhetoric, a complete sentence).

3. Figures of speech. This part included only 3 devices used by the antique authors always in the same order.

a) antithesis;

b) assonance of colons;

c) equality of colons.

A colon in rhetoric means one of the sections of a rhythmical period in Greek chorus consisting of a sequence of 2 to 6 feet.

Later contributions by other authors were made into the art of speaking and writing so that the most complete and well developed antique system, that came down to us is called the Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system. It divided all expressive means into 3 large groups: Tropes, Rhythm (Figures of Speech) and Types of Speech.

A condensed description of this system gives one an idea how much we owe the antique tradition in modern stylistic studies.

II.1.1 Hellenistic Roman rhetoric system

Tropes:

1.Metaphor—the application of a word (phrase) to an object (concept) it doesn't literally denote to suggest comparison with another object or concept.

E. g. ............