In developing speech solving translation problems, writing scientific and literary works and editing them is of great importance using functional styles of stylistics. The study of not only hyperbole, but also other stylistic means on this basis allows us to reveal the original styles of authors and the meaning of written works. Scientific works and analyses on hyperbole have been done for a long time; among them, A. Potebnya, I. Arnold, A. Vinogradov, I. Galperin, I. Kurakhtanova, L. Krysin, L. Syrovatkina, S. Tikhomirov and others give various interpretations in their scientific works and candidate dissertations.
One of the main stylistic figures is hyperbole. Hyperbole is one of the most important and widely used stylistic devices. It is often found in literary texts and in everyday conversations. Hyperbole is an exaggeration, which describes the described event or character in a more vivid way.
It is a stylistic figure that expresses figurative exaggeration. Hyperbole serves to express an infinite (exaggerated) increase in the power, volume, size, and importance of a phenomenon or thing in speech.
Hyperbole introduces artistry and deep meaning into the text. Sentences expressed with hyperbole can be expressed not only in one form, but also in several ways. So the emphasized idea or phenomenon can be explained with several hyperboles. When we express the necessity and importance of the emphasized thing with several hyperboles, those hyperboles can be divided into levels from low to high.
Art is the main thing in speech and writing, the artistry of speech has been studied since ancient times. Although the study of hyperbole began with Aristotle in the 4th century BC, in recent decades, linguists have been interested in the study of hyperbole, which is explained by the high frequency of its occurrence, its expressiveness and ability to give originality to the text. Moreover, this phenomenon is studied not only by linguists, but also by philosophers and psychologists. This technique accurately reflects a person's use of it in speech, his assessment of various situations, and his attitude to the object of speech.
The in-depth study of the formation of hyperbole from word formations and its function in the text is one of the most important tasks in the study of stylistics.
The main function of hyperbole is exaggeration. That is, if a sentence contains false information, it is intended to show the importance of something. For example: “I told you to clean your room a hundred times”, as we see in the example, the fact that he said to clean the room hundred times is false information, but by saying this he emphasizes the importance and necessity of the cleanliness of the room.
In written and in spoken language superlatives can be formed using several word groups. These are mainly nouns, adjectives, and numerals.
In everyday life, when we read a book or watch an interesting movie we can use several words or phrases to express our opinion about it to the people around us in English for example: “It’s a very interesting book” But if we like that thing even more the question arises: how can we express it? In such cases, the first thing that comes to our mind is to use the superlative degree of these adjectives: “It’s the most interesting book I’ve ever read” But in such cases there is another way to express our opinion more clearly and effectively: replacing adjectives to their strong forms (strong adjectives).
In English, adjectives can be divided into two groups: simple and strong. These strong adjectives are called sometimes “extreme adjectives” in English. Strong adjectives are used to emphasize the extreme nature of the thing being described. Strong adjectives as it’s done with hyperboles are used to give a sense of urgency and intensity to a sentence to impress the reader and listener.
In English, strong adjectives are simply exaggerated forms of ordinary adjectives. From this perspective, it can be argued that hyperboles can also be formed from adjectives.
Strong adjectives are used to express the extremeness of a state, action, or thing. Unlike simple adjectives, most of them do not accept the degree of comparison that they are often not combined with words such as very, a bit, rather, pretty, quite because these expressions are meaningfully expressed in the composition of strong adjectives. For example in English the word “very” is not used with the word fantastic, but instead words such as absolutely, extremely, completely are used which increase the meaning of strong adjectives.
There are many examples of strong adjectives in English, let's look at two of them: if we use the word very (very) before the adjective small, it may slightly enhance its effect, but in literary language and writing if we use the word “tiny” instead of these two words in order to impress the reader and listener, in that case then our idea will be more appropriate. Here it becomes clear that the adjective small can be exaggerated by using another word.
Or: when we describe a person, if we want to emphasize his thinness we can use the word “skinny” instead of “thin” to make our word more effective.
Examples of how simple adjectives in English become strong adjectives through hyperbole.
|
Adjectives |
Strong adjectives |
|
small |
tiny |
|
big |
huge, tremendous, gigantic |
|
angry |
furious |
|
funny |
ridiculous |
|
scared |
terrified |
|
hungry |
starving |
|
hot |
boiling |
|
cold |
freezing |
|
bad |
awful, terrible, dreadful |
|
good |
wonderful |
|
unusual |
extraordinary |
|
cheerful |
hilarious |
|
upset |
devastated |
|
sad |
miserable |
|
thin |
skinny |
|
tired |
exhausted |
Hyperbolized adjectives are also widely used by famous writers in literature. Let's look at English literature examples, which are the object of our scientific topic: the works of Charles Dickens, Richard Aldington, William Makepeace Thackeray and other writers are written masterfully with exaggerated adjectives.
The work of one of the greats of English literature Charles Dickens, “Hard Times” was written using such adjectives. The following sentence is found in the work: “That was a great mistake of yours” observed Louisa. (“It was a big mistake,” Louise replied.) As we can see, the author uses the expression “great mistake” instead of “big mistake” to express the greater extent of the mistake, which gives the sentence a unique meaning. [2, p. 60]
Let's look at another part of the same work: “Walking through this extraordinary black town…” [2, p. 128]. We can also see the effect of hyperbolizing the adjective “extraordinary ” in describing the city.
In William Makepeace Thackeray's work “Vanity fair” we can come across such a sentence: “She made her preparations for departure with great equanimity and accepted all the kind little Amelia’s presents, just after the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance” [3, p. 89].
In these lines of W. Thackeray, the adjective great is skillfully used, the level of coolness is magnified and this description in the work is more clearly shown.
Another example can be seen in R. Oldington’s work “Death of a hero”: “That is Sirius, a gigantic sun, many millions of miles distant from us” In fact as it is known scientifically, the Sun is a very large star but here the author uses the adjective “gigantic” instead of the word “very big” in order to make the sentence more effective. [4, p. 101].
In the same work we can also come across sentences written with such skillful hyperbole of strong adjectives: “It is dreadful to have outlived your life, to have shirked your fate, to have overspent your welcome” [4, p. 220].
According to studies such examples are widely used not only in English literature, but also in literary works Turkmen, Russian, German, and other languages, which prove the high content value that hyperboles give to the text.
References:
- Noura Aljaadan. Understanding Hyperbole. Arab World English Journal. ISSN 2229–9327. Online Magazine, 2018. https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/th.212
- Charles Dickens. Hard Times. F. L. P. H. Moscow, 1952.
- William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair. F. L. P. H. Moscow, 1951.
- Richard Oldington. Death of a hero. F. L. P. H. Moscow, 1958.
