A Stylistic Study Of Conversion In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar And The Rape Of Lucrece
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Date
2015-02
Authors
MUGAIR, SARAB KADIR
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Abstract
The present research is an attempt to conduct a stylistic analysis of William
Shakespeare’s selected literary language in Julius Caesar and The Rape of Lucrece.
The focus is on examining the concept of conversion which provides idiosyncrasy to
his writings. Shakespeare is skilful in his use of word conversions which provides
room for innovative expressions that makes his style unparalleled. He treats the
literary stylistic devices of word conversion in a way that makes his style deviant
from the English norms and different from the style of many other authors.
This study examines word conversions at different linguistic levels namely at
the levels of the lexicon, grammar and semantics. At the lexical level, both texts are
examined to present the main types or the main stylistic devices of conversion such
as noun to verb, verb to noun, adjective to noun, adjective to verb and adverb to verb
conversions. At the grammatical level, data is analysed to show how this level
contributes to the potential meaning of the words that have undergone conversion
while at the semantic level, meaning is examined to present the embedded or stylistic
meanings of conversion which go alongside the literal or primary ones.
The main effect that is derived from conversions in the selected texts is
foregrounding. Hence, the researcher employs the literary approach analyses of
Jakobson (1960) and Leech (1970) since both approaches deal with the concept of
foregrounding. These approaches also add objectivity and reliability to the analysis.
The study, through application, concludes that the concept of word conversion is
actually essential in Shakespeare’s literary works since it satisfies the essential
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requirements of literary languageand is marked by certain choices of words that
constitute Shakespeare's style.
The findings at the lexical and grammatical analysis show that conversion from
one class to another follows the regular syntactic and semantic correlations. For
syntactic regularity, conversion from nouns to verbs for instance, besides occupying
the position of a verbal predicate take the syntactic ties of a verb or functional verbal
ties. The findings at lexical and grammatical analysis also showcase the potential
meanings of word conversion which go alongside with the literal meanings. The
findings at the semantic level analysis reveal that words that have undergone the
process of conversion have both a stylistic meaning which goes alongside with the
primary meaning. t. It is noted that most of the conversions as stylistic devices which
have been investigated in this study are, to some extent, foregrounded. Metaphor is
among the most prominent ones that show a semantic oddity, i.e., foregrounding. It
has also been observed from the works of Shakespeare that in foregrounding the
linguistic form, with the help of stylistic devices, gives it an additional meaning
beyond its literal and normal interpretation. The word conversion helps the
mentioned writer to paint a metaphorical picture with word which in turn helps the
writer create ironical or satirical effects. The present study also concludes that
Shakespeare uses conversions in one way or another to make less use of abstract
notions and this helps him to achieve many dramatic effects.
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A Stylistic Study Of Conversion In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar , And The Rape Of Lucrece