Stylistic aspect of the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse

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Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University

Stylistic aspect of the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse

Humeniuk N.H.

Abstract

The following work deals with the investigation of the Expressive means and Stylistic devices used by Queen Elizabeth II within Her coronavirus discourse on Sunday, the fifth of April, 2020. It is pointed out that Her Majesty coronavirus discourse, as Queen Elizabeth II special speech, is created with the purpose to support the people at the challenging time of coronavirus, to calm them down, to explain the situation and to direct them to be strong, patient and supportive to each other, to be united as a nation to overcome the problems of the coronavirus disease.

It is stated that Her Majesty coronavirus discourse is an argumentative discourse with the main pragmatic purpose to convince the interlocutor (the inhabitants of the UK and Commonwealth realm) in the correctness of the addressor's view point and actions, in the necessity to act in the way proposed by the addressor of information (Queen Elizabeth II). It is underlined that achievement of the pragmatic purposes of the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse is possible with the help of the Expressive means and Stylistic devices usage.

It is stressed that a certain system of the interrelated Expressive means and Stylistic devices in the form of epithets, parcellation, parallel constructions, detachments, enumerations, climax, anticlimax, repetitions, intensifiers, degrees ofcomparison of Adjectives, inversion is used to provoke addressee's attention to the ideas given in Her Majesty coronavirus discourse by appealing to the feelings and emotions of addressee, by foregrounding of the information important for addressor - Queen Elizabeth II. It is pointed out that the system of the interrelated Expressive means and Stylistic devices used by Queen Elisabeth II forms Her Majesty individual style of their usage. It is underlined that it is perspective to investigate Queen Elisabeth II individual style of the Expressive means and Stylistic devices usage, dealing with a certain number of Her speeches, with a certain number of Her discourses, as well as to make Her Majesty discourse portrait with regard to Her thesaurus, pragmaticon, lexicon.

Key words: Stylistic devices, Expressive means, foregrounding of information, the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse, argumentative discourse.

Гуменюк Н.Г.

Стилістичний аспект дискурсу королеви Єлізавети ІІ з проблем коронавірусу (05.04.2020)

Анотація

stylistic discourse elizabeth

Ця робота присвячена дослідженню виразних засобів і стилістичних прийомів, використаних королевою Єлизаветою II в межах її дискурсу про коронавірус у неділю, п'ятого квітня 2020 року. Вказується, що дискурс Її Величності з проблем коронавірусу як спеціальна промова королеви Єлизавети II створений з метою підтримати людей у складний час, заспокоїти їх, пояснити ситуацію та спрямувати на те, щоб вони були сильними, терплячими та підтримувати один одного, були єдиними як нація для подолання проблем коронавірусної хвороби.

Зазначається, що дискурс Її Величності з проблем коронавірусу - це аргументивний дискурс з основною прагматичною метою переконати співрозмовника (мешканців Великобританії та Співдружності) у правильності точки зору та дій адресанта, у необхідності діяти так, як запропоновано адресантом інформації (королевою Єлизаветою II).

Підкреслюється, що досягнення прагматичних цілей дискурсу Королеви Єлизавети II з проблем коронавірусу можливе за допомогою використання виразних засобів і стилістичних прийомів. Використовується певна система взаємопов'язаних виразних засобів і стилістичних прийомів у вигляді епітетів, парцеляції, паралельних конструкцій, відокремлень, переліків, клімаксу, антиклімаксу, повторень, підсилювачів, ступенів порівняння прикметників, інверсії з метою викликати увагу адресата до ідей, які піднімаються у дискурсі Її Величності з проблем коронавірусу, апелюючи до почуттів та емоцій адресата, висуваючи на перший план інформацію, важливу для адресата. Вказується, що система взаємопов'язаних виразних засобів і стилістичних прийомів, які використовуються королевою Єлизаветою II, формує індивідуальний стиль Її Величності з їхнього використання. Підкреслюється, що перспективою є дослідження індивідуального стилю Її Величності з використанням виразних засобів і стилістичних прийомів з її виступів, а також створення дискурс-портрету Її Величності з огляду на її тезаурус, прагматикон, лексикон.

Ключові слова: стилістичні засоби, виразні засоби, висування інформації, дискурс королеви Єлизавети II з проблем коронавірусу, аргументивний дискурс.

Problem statement

It is known that Expressive means and Stylistic devices are used in any type of discourse to provoke addressee's attention to the ideas given in it by appealing to the feelings and emotions of addressee, by foregrounding of the information important for addressor [1; 2; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8]. In other words, the usage of the Expressive means and Stylistic devices is connected with the achievement of the pragma-communicative purposes of its creator. In our work we try to unite the investigation of the system of the interrelated Expressive means and Stylistic devices with the pragma-communicative purposes of the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse, 04.05.2020.

Literature review

The given work continues a series of research findings [9; 10; 11] dealing with the usage of the interrelated Expressive means and Stylistic devices within the different types of discourse, within the achievement of the discourse creator pragmatic purposes. The differentiation of the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse as newly coined discourse and necessity of its further investigation makes the given scientific research acute.

The aim of the paper is to investigate Expressive means and Stylistic devices used by Queen Elizabeth II during Her fifth special address to the nation on the coronavirus problems, 04.05.2020, with the purpose to support the people at the challenging time of coronavirus, to calm them down, to explain the situation and to direct them to be strong, patient and supportive to each other, to be united as a nation to overcome the problems of the coronavirus disease. To realize the aim of the given work, method of simple calculation, discourse analysis method, method of immediate constituents, pure sampling and comparative method are used.

The material of the article

In our work we define the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse as Her fifth special speech to the nation [12] devoted to the problems of the coronavirus outbreak, which was recorded at Windsor Castle and broadcasted by radio, TV, internet on Sunday, the fifth of April, 2020, with the purpose to support the people of the UK and the Commonwealth realm at the challenging time of coronavirus, to calm them down, to explain the situation and to direct them to be strong, patient and supportive to each other, to be united as a nation to overcome the problems of the coronavirus disease.

The specific feature of the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse is the fact that it is given in the form of monologue and the usage of the pronoun “you” transforms it into the form of polylogue with the silent addressee. The Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse is not given spontaneously, it is planned and prepared beforehand. The Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse is not Her Majesty ceremonial speech, but special one, which Queen Elizabeth makes only “at key moments in the life of the nation - predominantly at times of crisis and grief” [12].

It is known that the local coronavirus outbreak happened suddenly and later was transformed into global crisis in the form of coronavirus pandemic. The people were not prepared for such situation, they were shocked, because the every-day life was ruined and they were involved in the new unpleasant transformations. So, as the feelings of despair, of unnecessity, of abandonment took possession of people, Queen Elizabeth II as a God agent, as an intermediary between God and people, made Her special address to the nation.

The Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse is an argumentative discourse with the main pragmatic purpose to convince the interlocutor (the inhabitants ofthe UK and Commonwealth realm) in the correctness of the addressor's view point and actions, to convince the interlocutor in the necessity to act in the way proposed by the addressor of information (Queen Elizabeth II) [3]. In other words, creating the argumentative coronavirus discourse Queen Elizabeth II tries to convince the people of the UK and Commonwealth realm to act in the way Her Majesty proposes: to be united, to be patient, to be helpful and supportive, to be strong and resolute.

In order to achieve the purposes of Her Majesty coronavirus discourse - to calm down the UK and Commonwealth realm community in the period of coronavirus pandemic, to direct the people of it to be patient, united and supportive to each other in order to overcome the disease - Queen Elizabeth II uses Expressive means and Stylistic devices to provoke addressee attention to the given ideas, to appeal to the feelings and emotions of addressee, to represent information important for the addressor.

The analysis of the Queen Elizabeth II coronavirus discourse shows that a great number of epithets are used to make Her Majesty speech more expressive, vital and vivid with the main purpose of the speaker to attract the attention of the addressee to the given problems of the speech - the problems of the coronavirus overcoming: enormous, challenging, day-to-day, essential, normal, selflessly, vulnerable, sparing, united, resolute.

With the same purpose to attract the attention of the addressee to the given problems of the coronavirus, to stress some ideas, Her Majesty uses intensifiers and degrees of comparison of Adjectives. So, within the word combination “increasingly challenging time” the intensifier “increasingly' is used to stress the idea of the coronavirus pandemic as an extremely difficult time, as a time with challenges of the highest rank. The usage of the comparative degrees of Adjectives not only makes Her Majesty speech vivid and expressive, but shows the increase of quality in the described phenomena.

So, within the sentence “and every hour of your hard work brings us closer to a return to more normal times” the comparative degree of the Adjectives “close” and “normal” is used not only to stress the idea of people returning back to the previous norms of their life before the coronavirus, to the usual ways of their living, but to show the increasing tendency of this returning, which is very important at the period of people's despair, at the period of their feelings of unnecessity and abandonment during the coronavirus pandemic, to calm them down.

The usage of the comparison “Britons of this generation were as strong as any” is used by Her Majesty to identify the essential role of the people, living during the challenging coronavirus period, in the history of their nation, to show their activity during the pandemic as a part of the nation heroic past, as a part of the nation heroic destiny, to show their strength in overcoming the coronavirus disease, which is very important to uplift their spirit at the challenging time of coronavirus:

And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any” [13]. Her Majesty uses a lot of repetition to stress the ideas given to the repeated words, to pay addressee's attention for them as key, essential ideas of the speech: nation (national), challenge (challenging), time (times), return. It is known that usage of the enumeration makes it possible to present something in details, by adding the new details of the described phenomenon to the previous information about it, by enriching the information about the described phenomenon with the help of enumerated features of it.

So, Her Majesty uses enumerations to achieve the pragmatic purposes of Her coronavirus discourse:

That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country [13].

The enumerated features of British nation such as self-discipline, quiet good-humoured resolve and fellow-feeling are mentioned and stressed by Queen Elisabeth II as very important features to overcome the coronavirus disease, as nation potential to return back to the norms of the everyday life. We also can state that Queen Elisabeth II uses a very interesting Stylistic Device, which is a combination of climax and anticlimax within the limited space of the given sentence:

A time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all [13]. It is known that climax is used to show the increase of quality / quantity within the described phenomenon, while anticlimax is used to demonstrate the decrease of quality / quantity within the described phenomenon.

Thus, the anticlimax in the example given above is represented by the combination of three elements: grief, financial difficulties, enormous changes, where the word griefhas the strongest meaning, while the word combination enormous changes is the weakest element of the given anticlimax. Within the given example we can observe the usage of climax, which is represented by the combination of three elements: some, many, us all, where some is the weakest element and us all is the strongest element of it.

In this case, the usage of anticlimax is very important to show the decrease of disruption in the life of the country during the challenging time of coronavirus pandemic in order to calm the people down, to uplift their mood, their spirit, to support them at the challenging time and to make them believe in disease overcoming, in returning back to the conventional norms of daily life.

The usage of climax makes it possible to show the quantity increase of the number of the people involved into the process of coronavirus pandemic. The usage of climax and anticlimax within the limited space of the given sentence makes it possible to demonstrate that the problem of coronavirus involves more and more people, but its consequences have the tendency to decrease. Such presentation of the coronavirus challenge is very important to calm the people down, to explain situation, to support them by stating the idea, that quantity increase of people involved in the coronavirus is not dangerous, because this disease has the decrease ratio in the quality of its consequences.

Her Majesty uses parallel constructions to achieve the pragmatic purposes of Her coronavirus discourse:

I want to thank everyone on the NHS front line, as well as care workers and those carrying out essential roles, who selflessly continue their day-today duties outside the home in support of us all [13].

I also want to thank those of you who are staying at home, thereby helping to protect the vulnerable and sparing many families the pain already felt by those who have lost loved ones [the same].

The usage of the parallel constructions with the repeated initial part of it “I want to thank”, known as anaphoric parallel constructions, and the usage of the parallel constructions with the repeated final part of it “who”, known as epiphoric parallel constructions, makes the given utterances within the Queen Elisabeth II coronavirus discourse more emotionally stressed and informationally tensed, as final and initial positions are known as strong positions in the process of perceiving information.

In such way, by using anaphoric and epiphoric parallel constructions, Her Majesty tries to stress two main ideas. The first one is that Queen Elisabeth II wants to thank people living and struggling under the challenging time of coronavirus pandemic. The second one is that staying at home and fulfilling day-to-day duties of NHS are equally important to return back to normal life.

Inversion is used within the Queen Elisabeth II coronavirus discourse to stress some ideas, to pay addressee's attention to them:

Together we are tackling this disease, and I want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it [13].

It is known that English sentences have fixed word order. Inversion as a deviation of this word order norm has the main purpose to strike addressee of information by its unusual position. So, within the sentence given above the Adverb of manner “together” is used in its unusual position at the beginning of the given sentence, making the idea of nation being together, of “being united and resolute”, the main source of nation overcoming the coronavirus disease.

Detachments are widely used within the Queen Elisabeth II coronavirus discourse:

Across the Commonwealth and around the world, we have seen heart-warming stories of people coming together to help others, be it through delivering food parcels and medicines, checking on neighbours, or converting businesses to help the relief effort [13].

And though self-isolating may at times be hard, many people of allfaiths, and of none, are discovering that it presents an opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect, in prayer or meditation [the same].

But now, as then, we know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do [the same].

But f for now, I send my thanks and warmest good wishes to you all [the same].

Some ofthe detachments are used to give the additional information, the details of the described events. So do the detachments “Across the Commonwealth and around the world”, “and of none”, “in prayer or meditation”, “as then” within the given sentences. Some of them are used to express the user's opinion to the described events. So does the detachment “deep down” expressing Queen Elisabeth II attitude to the events of 1940, when children had been evacuated from their homes and sent away for their own safety.

Some of the detachments are used to fulfil the text forming function, uniting the structures ofthe text into a unity. So does the detachment “Butfor now”, uniting the previous informative block of the given message about the Queen Elisabeth II prediction of the happy end of the challenge under the title “coronavirus” with the final part of Queen Elisabeth II message in the form of the Her Majesty thanks and wishes to the inhabitants of the UK and Commonwealth realm.

Segmentation of the utterances into several intonationally isolated parts (known as parcellation) is used within the Queen Elisabeth II coronavirus discourse:

And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any. That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country [13].

So, within the given above example sentence “That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country” is intonationally isolated from its main clause “And those who come after us will say” and also isolated from the other subordinate clause “the Britons of this generation were as strong as any”. Such segmentation of complex sentence into independently isolated parts makes it possible to transform the subordinate sentence into independent one, makes it possible to make it more valuable and stressed as it is pronounced after some pause.

Conclusions

Summing up the material, we can state that a system of the interrelated Expressive means and Stylistic devices are used within the Queen Elisabeth II coronavirus discourse: epithets, parcellation, parallel constructions, detachments, enumerations, climax, anticlimax, repetitions, intensifiers, degrees of comparison of Adjectives, inversion. The usage of Expressive means and Stylistic devices makes it possible to achieve Her Majesty purposes to calm the people down, to explain situation, to convince the people to be united and patient, supportive and helpful to each other during the period of coronavirus to return back to the conventional norms of the everyday life.

The system of the interrelated Expressive means and Stylistic devices forms Her Majesty individual style of their usage. In this case, it is perspective to investigate Queen Elisabeth II individual style of the Expressive means and Stylistic devices usage, dealing with a certain number of Her speeches, with a certain number of Her discourses, as well as to make Her Majesty discourse portrait with regard to Her thesaurus, pragmaticon, lexicon.

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