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The peculiarities of hyperbole and simile in stylistics
Shukhrat MULADJANOV
1
Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received February 2025
Received in revised form
28 February 2025
Accepted 20 March 2025
Available online
15 April 2025
This article is dedicated to studying the peculiarities of
hyperbole and simile in stylistics, as well as their role in
intensifying meaning. It explores the significance of hyperbole
and simile as lexical stylistic devices in literary texts. The paper
examines the different types of intensification of common
features in utterances and discusses the notion of "norm" in
evaluating the meaning of lexical expressive means and stylistic
devices. Finally, it highlights the general features and
peculiarities of intensified word combinations.
2181-
1415/©
2025 in Science LLC.
https://doi.org/10.47689/2181-1415-vol6-iss3/S-pp
This is an open access article under the Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.ru)
Keywords:
hyperbole,
simile,
exaggeration,
norms,
evaluative meaning,
lexical patterns,
word combinations,
stylistic meaning.`
Uslubshunoslikda mubolag‘a va o‘xshatishlarning o‘ziga
xos xususiyatlari
ANNOTATSIYA
Kalit so‘zlar
:
mubolag‘a,
o‘xshatishlar,
bo‘rttirish,
me’yor,
kuchaytirma ma’no,
leksik birlik,
so‘z birikmalari,
uslubiy ma’no
.
Ushbu maqola mubolag‘a va o‘xshatishning stilistikadagi
o‘ziga
xos
xususiyatlarini
hamda
ularning
ma’noni
kuchaytirishdagi rolini o‘rganishga bag‘ishlangan.
Badiiy
matnlarda leksik-
stilistik vositalar turiga kiruvchi mubolag‘a va
o‘xshatishlarning ahamiyat
i. Gaplar tarkibidagi umumiy
xususiyatlarni kuchayishtirishning turlari. Leksik tasviriy
vositalar va stilistik birliklar ma’nosini baholashda me’yor
tushunchasi. Intensivlashgan so‘z birikmalarining umumiy va
o‘ziga xos xususiyatlari.
1
Teacher, Department of Translation Theory and Practice, Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages.
E-mail: shuxratmuladjanov@gmail.com
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Особенности гиперболы и сравнения в стилистике
АННОТАЦИЯ
Ключевые слова:
гипербола,
сравнение,
преувеличение,
нормы,
выразительное значение,
лексическое свойство,
словосочетание,
стилистические значение
.
Данная статья посвящена изучению особенностей
гиперболы и сравнения в стилистике, а также их роли в
усилении
смысла
высказывания.
Рассматривается
значение
гиперболы
и
сравнения
как
лексико
-
стилистических приёмов в художественных текстах.
Анализируются различные типы усиления общих черт
в высказываниях. Освещается понятие нормы при
оценке значимости лексических выразительных средств и
стилистических приёмов. Выделяются общие черты и
особенности выразительных словосочетаний.
To understand the linguistic nature of the stylistic devices of this group, it is
necessary to clear up some problems, so far untouched of definition as a philosophical
category. Any definition can point out only one or two properties of a phenomenon.
Therefore, in building up a definition, the definer tries to single out the most essential
features of the object. These are pinned down by the definer through a long period of
observation of the object, its functioning, its growth, and its changes. However, no
definition can comprise all the inner qualities of the object and new combinations of it
with other objects as well; a deeper penetration into the ontology of the object will
always reveal some hitherto unknown qualities and features. In the third group of
stylistic devices, which we now come to, we find that one of the qualities of the object in
question is made to sound essential. This is an entirely different principle from that on
which the second group is based, that of interaction between two lexical meanings
simultaneously materialized in the context. In this third group, the quality picked out
may be seemingly unimportant, and it is frequently transitory, but for a special reason, it
is elevated to the greatest importance and made into a telling feature [1, 27].
The notion of norm is believed to be connected with a recognized or received
standard of language regarded as a pattern to be followed; at the same time, it is thought
to be a deviation from the received standard, which is sometimes called fluctuation.
Fluctuations ensure some variability of norms, among which there exist stylistic norms
that split into language variations for written and oral forms. Likewise, the norm of
emotive prose is believed to differ from the norm of scientific prose, on the one hand, and
from poetry and drama, on the other. But still, regular deviations from the norm that
have been repeated for some time establish themselves as variants of the norm. Thus, we
may conclude that the norm presupposes the oneness of the multivariate type. The norm
may be defined as the invariant of the phonemic, morphological, and syntactical patterns
circulating as language-in-action at a given period among language users, it is common to
all of them [4, 22].
Sometimes, for a special reason, one of the features of the thing is made the most
essential; it is elevated to greatest importance. Such stylistic devices as simile and
hyperbole are included in this group.
The intensification of some features of the concept in question is realized in a
device called a simile. The simile is a stylistic device expressing a likeness between
different objects. The formal elements of the simile are the following conjunctions and
adverbs: as, like, as like, such as, as if, seem, etc. The simile is based on the comparison of
objects belonging to different spheres. For example:
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Mr. Dombey took it (the hand) as if it were a fish.
We must not confuse ordinary comparison and simile as a stylistic device, which
represents two diverse processes. Comparison implies the estimation of two objects that
belong to one class of objects to establish the sameness or difference. Comparison takes
into consideration all the properties of the two objects. For example, “
The boy seems to be
as clever as his mother
” is an ordinary comparison. “
Boy
” and “
mother
” belong to the same
class of objects
–
human beings. The nature of a simile is to compare two (or several)
objects that belong to different classes of objects. A simile finds one or several features
that are common to the objects compared.
The sun was as red as ripe new blood.
Different features may be compared in simile: the state, actions, and manners.
My heart is like a singing bird/ The div was tensed as a strong leaf of spring
[3, 113].
А simile consists of three components:
1) What is compared (the subject of a simile);
2) With what the comparison is made (the object of the simile);
3) The basis of comparison.
Similes enrich English phraseology: like a squirrel in a cage, to sleep like a log, busy
as a bee, blind as a bat. These phraseological units are trite similes and have become
clichés. The simile must not be confused with a metaphor, though they are both based on
a likeness between objects:
1.
My verses flow like streams.
2.
My verses flow in streams.
The linguistic nature of these two stylistic devices is different. The metaphor is
based on the interaction between the logical and the contextual logical meanings of a
word, whereas the simile employs a word in its direct meaning. For this reason, they
belong to different groups of lexical stylistic devices, though they serve practically the
same stylistic purpose, that of proacting the desired effect on the reader:
“Della’s beautiful hair fell about her ripping and shining like a cas
cade of brown
water...”
In a metaphor, an idea is expressed by a word used in a figurative meaning: “Down
rippled the brown cascade of her hair”. In the first sentence, the word “cascade” has
retained its direct meaning (waterfall); in the second example, it is used in a figurative
meaning as a metaphor (wave-like fall of the hair). Besides the original similes created by
writers, there are a great number of so-called traditional similes in the language, which
must be regarded as phraseological units. The image suggested by such similes is usually
trite. In these traditional similes, the names of animals, plants, and natural phenomena
are frequently used [3, 114].
Strong like a lion, hard as a rock, to twinkle like a star, busy as a bee, to work like a
horse, to fly like a bird, stubborn as a mule, thirsty as a camel, slow as a tortoise.
These combinations have ceased to be genuine similes and have become clichés in
which the second component has become merely an intensifier. Traditional similes are
often employed by writers in the direct speech of characters, thus individualizing their
speech, and are seldom represented in the author’s narrative [3, 115].
In some respects, the simile is close to a metaphor. Both simile and metaphor are
based on comparison. A metaphor is often defined as a compressed simile that differs
from proper simile only structurally, as it states the comparison directly without using
formal markers. However, the difference between simile and metaphor lies not just in the
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presence or absence of a formal marker. In general, a simile refers to only one
characteristic that two things have in common, while a metaphor is not limited to the
number of resemblances it may indicate [5, 116].
Another SD that also has the function of intensifying one certain property of the
object described is hyperbole. It can be helmed as a deliberate overstatement or
exaggeration of a feature essential (unlike periphrasis) to the object or phenomenon. In
its extreme form, this exaggeration is carried to an illogical degree, sometimes ad
absurdum. For example:
“He was so tall that I was not sure he had a face”.
(O. Henry).
The
earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give
them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave them promise of
fair weather; winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their
orbits to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the center.
(Dickens) To depict the
width of the river Dnieper, Gogol uses the following hyperbole:
“It's a rare bird that can
fly to the middle of the Dnieper”.
Like many stylistic devices, hyperbole may lose its
quality as a stylistic device through frequent repetition and become a unit of the
language-as-a-system, reproduced in speech in its unaltered form. Here are some
examples of language hyperbole: “
A thousand pardons
”; “
scared to death
”, “
immensely
obliged
”; “
I’d give the world to see him
”. Byron says:
“When people say 'I’ve told you fifty times”
They mean to scol
d, and very often do”.
Hyperbole differs from mere exaggeration in that it is intended to be understood as
an exaggeration. In this connection, the following quotations deserve a passing note:
“Hyperbole is the result of a kind of intoxication by emotion, which prevents a person
from seeing things in their true dimensions... If the reader (listener) is not carried away
by the emotion of the writer (speaker), hyperbole becomes a mere lie”. V. V. Vinogradov
developing Gorki’s statement that “genuine art enjoys the right to exaggerate” states that
hyperbole is the law of art which brings the existing phenomena of life, diffused as they
are, to the point of maximum clarity and conciseness. Hyperbole is a device that sharpens
the reader's ability to make a logical assessment of the utterance. This is achieved, as is
the case with other devices, by awakening the dichotomy of thought and feeling where
thought takes the upper hand, though not to the detriment of feeling [2, 162].
CONCLUSION
In language studies, there are two very clearly marked tendencies that the student
should never lose sight of, particularly when dealing with the problem of word
combination. They are 1) the analytical tendency, which seeks to dissever one component
from another, and 2) the synthetic tendency, which seeks to integrate the parts of the
combination into a stable unit. These two tendencies are treated in different ways in
lexicology and stylistics. In lexicology, the parts of a stable lexical unit may be separated
to make a scientific investigation of the character of the combination and to analyze the
components. In stylistics, we analyze the parts to get at some communicative effect
sought by the writer. It is this communicative effect and the means employed to achieve it
that lie within the domain of stylistics. The integrating tendency is also closely studied in
the realm of lexicology, especially when linguistic scholars seek to fix what seems to be a
stable word combination and ascertain the degree of its stability, its variants, and so on.
The integrating tendency is also within the domain of stylistics, particularly when the
word-combination has not yet formed itself as a lexical unit but is in the process of being
so formed.
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