Epithet as a Stylistic Device

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Epithet is a stylistic device based on the interaction of the logical and emotive meanings. It shows the purely individual emotional attitude of the writer or the speaker towards the object mentioned. Epithet is expressed by: 1) adjectives; 2) adverbs; Adjectives and adverbs constitute the greatest majority of epithets. 3) participles, both present and past; 4) nouns, especially often in of-phrases; 5) word-combinations; 6) whole phrases. The last two groups of epithets help the writer in a rather concise form to express the emotional attitude of a personage towards an object or phenomenon. In most cases it is a direct quotation of the character’s remark. Such a usage of a quotation for an epithet stresses the subjectivity, individuality of the character’s perception. It renders the emotional attitude of the personage. Phrase-epithet helps not only to reveal the individual view of the author and his characters but at the same time to do it in a rather economical manner. One more structural type of epithet is “monopolized” by the English language. It is based on the illogical syntactical relations between the modifier and the modified. Such constructions enable the writer to use nouns of high emotional coloring, supplying them with additional characteristics without overcrowding the description. Epithets vary not only in structure but in the manner of application too. So, most often we meet one-word, or simple epithet. Rather often epithets are used in pairs. Not seldom three, four, five and even more epithets are joined in chains. From the viewpoint of their expressive power epithets can be regarded as those stressing qualities of the object or phenomenon and as those transferring the quality of one object to its closest neighbour. When the same definition is given to a smile it becomes an individual evaluation of the same, and is classified

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