[英语]Lecture3lexicology3.ppt

* Four or more items in a series highlight certain quality or a significant situation and produce a vivid imagery in the mind of the reader and often create a(n) emphatic or humorous or ironical effect. * E.g. Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute– I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. (hyperbole, ironical, humorous) I love you. You are my sun, my moon, my stars, my planets, my constellation, my nebula, my black hole, my outer-space, my cosmos. * This guy owed me four dollars. I’ve been having trouble collecting… If I don’t catch’em at home, I get pretty mad. That means I gotta come back and come back and come back and come back until I catch’em. (emphasizing that he has to go many many times before he catches the man at home.) E.g. [2.17] and [2.18] on P22 * 3.2.3 Word Implications 1. Words with emotive coloring Apart from their referential meanings, words carry with them emotive meanings and can be used to express people’s feelings, likes and dislikes, affection and attitude, etc. * Broadly speaking, the emotive meanings of words fall into three kinds: -- neutral meaning with no emotion involved; -- complimentary meaning with positive emotion, and -- derogatory meaning with negative emotion. * These emotional colorings are built into words and even removed from context, many words are inherently charged with emotive and attitudinal meanings. E.g. Table, chair, true, false –neutral feeling pretty, lovely, tasty –positive feeling ugly, cowardice, murder –negative feeling. * Compare slim--- thin--- skinny plump --- fleshy---fat/obese hound --- dog --- cur (a) The sky was a dying violet and the houses stood out darkly against it, bulbous liver-colored monstrosities of a uniform ugliness though no two were alike. (b) The sky was a glowing violet, and the red-brick houses stood against it with gleaming brilliance. * In order to avoid usin