BOOK REVIEW
Maria-Crina Herțeg The Stylistics and Semantics of the Verb. A Case Study: The Indicative Mood. A Cross-Linguistic Approach, Editura Aeternitas, Alba Iulia, 2021, 179 pp., ISBN 978-606-613-224-4
Reviewed by Gabriela Corina Șanta (Câmpean), 1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia
The book The Stylistics and Semantics of the Verb. A Case Study: The Indicative Mood. A Cross-Linguistic Approach by Maria-Crina Herțeg is an extremely useful research source for linguists, teachers and students who are interested in the stylistic value of English tenses, aspects and moods. The work is divided into nine chapters, followed by a list of abbreviations and acronyms, a glossary and references. Each chapter contains a well-documented and detailed theoretical framework, pertinent arguments for statements, and an abundance of examples in English, Romanian and French. A foreword by Valerica Sporiș introduces the book, which combines theories pertaining to applied linguistics, including corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics and translation studies. Furthermore, the book presents a scholastic approach, as the author cites and refers to various reliable sources to introduce the reader to the vast and fascinating field of linguistic stylistics. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses are presented to provide accurate results, and the academic approach is evident from the beginning of the work.
Chapter 1, Introduction, states the aim of the book and the author’s approach, with a focus on the importance of stylistics in studying verbs and the expressiveness thereof. A brief presentation of stylistics, its typology and its aims serve as a preamble for the author’s intention and approach in the work. According to the author, the book focuses on analyses of the linguistic aspect of stylistics in three languages, Romanian, English and French, and targets the expressiveness of the verb in the indicative mood and related tenses using the comparative method. The corpus, consisting of four self-made corpora in three languages from different genres (two parallel corpora, ECoC corpora, the Romanian version and the translation thereof, and two corpora related to the business genre) is also presented. The author introduces each chapter separately, and provides a clear overview of her work together with explanations regarding the content, objectives and methods used to achieve the general aims of the research.
In Chapter 2, entitled Literature Review, Maria-Crina Herțeg thoroughly investigates stylistics in seven subchapters, followed by conclusions to create a theoretical framework for the research described in the subsequent chapters. The Introduction presents an overview of the scholar’s approach to stylistics, beginning with its origin and its subsequent direction. Charles Bally is acknowledged as being the founder of this novel discipline, delineating style as the object of study in stylistics, establishing its features and stating “its research object, namely spoken language and the expressiveness thereof” (Bally, as cited in Herțeg 2021: 11). Bally’s followers, Marcel Cressot (1949) and Jean Marouzeau (1937), are mentioned regarding their contributions to including the register of the language in the field of stylistics, in contrast to Damaso Alonso (1972). Paul Guiraud (1970), Stephen Ullmann (1964), Ileana Oancea (1988) and Karl Vossler (1904) are also mentioned in terms of their contributions to stylistics; thus, Maria-Crina Herțeg prepares the background for the next subchapter entitled Style and Stylistics: General Considerations. The author lists the linguists who investigated stylistics, and analyses the main definitions and directions that the researcher proposes to clarify the complexity of the topic she approaches. The connection between stylistics and other disciplines, together with the differences between stylistics and style in literature, are also presented. In the subchapter Style in Romanian Stylistics, Maria-Crina Herțeg inventories the main Romanian linguists who contributed to the field of stylistics, as their findings proved that Romanian stylistics was aligned with the European trend. Specifically, Tudor Vianu is mentioned as having supplied “the most consistent and complex research on stylistics” (Herțeg 2021: 16). Regarding the deviation from the norm, significant scholars such as Ion Coteanu, ªtefan Munteanu, Ileana Oancea, Alexandru Andriescu and Paula Diaconescu are mentioned. Furthermore, Lucian Blaga’s (1994) philosophical approach to stylistics regarding metaphors is noted, while Rodica Mihãilã’s (1980) work added a semiotic perspective to style analysis; the subchapter concludes with the notable approach proposed by Lukacs (1910) and his follower, Maté Gavril (1980). The fourth subchapter, entitled Language and Stylistics, addresses theories regarding linguistics and stylistics that were proposed in the first half of the 1900s; Maria-Crina Herțeg first presents de Saussure (1949, 1998) and discusses his role in theoretical linguistics, such as establishing Structuralism, coining new terms for concepts (langue, parole and coercion), and proposing the roles of individuals and communities in speech and language. By contrast, Antoine Meillet (1921), Alexandru Graur and Lucia Wald (1977) discussed the importance of the social element in the evolution of languages, while Charles Bally considered that “language is a social action or a reaction” (Bally, as cited in Herțeg 2021: 22). In addition, the Prague School highlighted the “great importance to the external, political, social and geographical factors that have an effect on the language and modify it” (Herțeg2021:23), and Karl Vossler (1972) related the individual to language changes and rejected the influence of external factors on languages. Eugen Coșeriu (1997) added his contribution to the relationship between language and speech, the functionality of language, and its diachronic and synchronic perspectives. Finally, Jan Mukarovsky (1972) is mentioned due to his study of poetic language. In Stylistics: An Overview of the Literature Review, the author investigates the theories of stylistics and their evolution in a complex and detailed study, restating the importance of Charles Bally (1905, 1921), Leo Spitzer (1970) and Karl Vossler (1972), as well as Damaso Alonso’s (1972) reactions to Charles Bally’s study regarding literary and linguistic stylistics and the role of intuition in research. Maria-Crina Herțeg considered G. W. Turner’s (1973) Stylistics to be a helpful tool in her research because all the layers of language were investigated by approaching them from the stylistic and expressive perspectives; that is, phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic layers. Finally, Peter Verdonk (2002), Michaela Mahlberg (2012) and Anne Herschberg Pierrot (2003) are mentioned to complete the framework for the analysis of literary texts. Similarly, the subchapter Romanian Stylistics: An Overview of the Literature Review focuses on the main Romanian theories in stylistics, and provides a thorough and proficient review of Romanian scholars’ interests. Maria-Crina Herțeg begins by providing a list of the main contributors and a detailed presentation of their roles in the development of Romanian stylistics, particularly emphasising Rodica Zafiu’s (2000) and Iorgu Iordan’s (1975) approaches. Maria-Crina Herțeg states that Iorgu Iordan and Dumitru Irimia supplied the theoretical background for her analysis of verbs, while other scholars are mentioned in relation to their studies in particular directions, such as phonetical stylistics (Sextil Puºcariu, Gheorghe Tohãneanu 1976; Ladislau Galdi 1976), lexical stylistics and morphological stylistics (Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu and Garabet Ibrãileanu 1930), and aesthetic stylistics (Ovid Densusianu and Dumitru Caracostea 2000; Eugen Lovinescu, Lucian Blaga and Sextil Puºcariu) Specifically, linguistic stylistics was founded by Iorgu Iordan, while Tudor Vianu represents literary stylistics, which played a crucial role in Romanian stylistics. Maria-Crina Herțeg also focuses on the contributions of Iorgu Iordan, ªtefan Munteanu, Ion Coteanu, Eugen Câmpeanu, Ladislau Galdi, Dumitru Irimia, Victor Iancu and Gheorghe Ivãnescu, and how they influenced each other to build the foundation of Romanian stylistics. Furthermore, Georgeta Corniþã (1995) is mainly mentioned due to her “overview of the directions that dominated stylistics during the twentieth century” (Herțeg 2021: 62) and the classification of Romanian stylistics; that is, the stylistics of expressiveness and functional stylistics.
Overall, Maria-Crina Herțeg examines a large number of Romanian studies of stylistics in order to demonstrate Romanian scholars’ interest in stylistics, and emphasises that the methodology of Romanian stylistics is related to Tudor Vianu’s methods. Conclusions summarises the diachronicity of stylistics and reviews the major linguists who contributed significantly to the current research methodology, and who established its foundation and its trends. Finally, the latest tools that facilitate stylisticians’ work are mentioned, specifically the quantitative methods that are possible due to computer software.
Chapter 3, The Expressiveness of the Verb: Levels of Language, consists of a meticulous analysis of Romanian and French literary works to reveal the similarities and differences regarding the expressiveness of verb at the four language levels of the phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic levels in representative authors’ works. The subchapter entitled The Phonetic Level begins with the author’s explanations of her approach, such as the preference for Benveniste’s (1966) classification of the layers of language. Furthermore, Maria-Crina Herțeg highlights the phonetic irregularities in a text, which must be considered because “the peculiarities that make a text stand out are intonation, stress, phonological figures of speech, the use of vowels and consonants, rhyme, metre and rhythm” (Herțeg 2021: 73). The phonological figures of speech based on the omission of sounds are considered first, and repetition and onomatopoeic verbs are also identified as making the text sound lively and intensifying the action. Similarly, while substitution is used for this purpose, it is also used to express irony in French texts, while personifications are features of the analysed excerpts in Romanian. Furthermore, the Romanian future and perfect compus, as used by Ion Creangã and which combine inversion and prosthesis are considered, followed by a presentation of expressiveness that results from the evolution of the language, as seen in Albert Camus’ work. In the subchapter The Lexical Level, Maria-Crina Herțeg continues her investigation using the comparative method to reveal the lexical differences in the expressiveness of tenses in Romanian and in French. The author supplies Romanian and French examples to prove that the Romanian imperfect is used in metaphors, while French texts are characterised by polysemous verbs. Synonymy and word formation are tools for expressiveness in both languages, and collocations, verb phrases and idioms reflecting temporality are conceptualised as being able to express temporality. The Syntactic Level includes analyses of repetition and subject-predicate inversion to emphasise duration and its imperative role, followed by a summary of the entire chapter.
Chapter 4 is entitled Expressive Uses of the Tenses, and focuses on the deviations from the norm supported by a solid theoretical basis that is presented in two subchapters. Firstly, Romanian stylisticians’ studies are reviewed in the Introduction, including Eugen Câmpeanu’s work (1997) regarding nouns and pronouns, and Valerica Sporiș’ (2012) approach to the stylistic values of the verb; her main concern was the tenses of the Romanian indicative and the temporal boundaries that no longer exist in its use. Secondly, Time and Tense is characterised by the same rigorous theoretical basis, but the study extends to international scholars’ approaches to stylistics in linguistics. Zoltán Kövecses (2005) is mentioned due to his contribution to the approach to time as revealed by conceptual metaphors, followed by examples of the representation of time and the philosophical approach of stylistics undertaken by Tudor Vianu (1968) regarding the concept of time. Dumitru Irimia (1999) is mentioned to emphasise the difference between grammatical and linguistic time, followed by drawing parallels regarding time, tense and aspect in English, Romanian and French. The context, polysemy, the structural aspect of tenses and the difference in the number of tenses in Romanian and French compared to English is also considered, together with the contributions of Herschberg Pierrot (2003), G.W. Turner (1973), Dumitru Irimia (1999) and Eugen Câmpeanu (1997). The rigorous investigation proves that tenses have been subject to analyses that “revealed thorough knowledge of the Romanian language and its subtleties” (Herțeg 2021: 91) with academic, scientific and didactic roles. The studies by Corneliu Dimitriu (1999), Dumitru Irimia (1986, 1997) and other linguists are presented regarding the stylistic values of tenses in literary works and their changes throughout history.
Chapter 5, A Corpus-Based Analysis of Verbs, is also divided into two subchapters, each describing a practical approach to how tenses are used in Romanian and in English. Thus, The Use of Tenses in Journalese. A Contrastive Analysis of English and Romanian Headlines presents a comparative study of the Romanian and English tenses in headlines, starting with Jan Chovanec’s (2003) research, which analysed the uses of the present tense in the headlines of the Electronic Telegraph, as this line of investigation represents a starting point for Maria-Crina Herțeg’s analysis in this subchapter. Subsequently, the author performs a contrastive analysis of the Romanian and English corpora to detect how the tenses are used, as well as “to investigate the role of the tenses in headlines” (Herțeg2021: 99). The English corpus is presented, followed by the distribution of the simple present tense, the continuous present tense, the simple past tense and the simple present perfect. The study continues with the values expressed by the simple present tense and the analysis of the influence of duration produced by the continuous present tense, the cause of and effect created by long headlines, and the role of utterance verbs used in the simple present tense to present opinions. Five tables have been designed to display the data and the stylistic devices, such as conversion and the limited number of words, alliteration, assonance and conceptualisation. The author identifies conceptual metaphors of money, business, competition and economy in the English corpus; the concepts of gambling, food, success and progress are also identified, followed by an analysis of verbal idioms and verbed nouns regarding parts of the human body and deictic use. The Romanian corpus and methodology are presented next, showing that Romanian newspapers display a different preference for headlines regarding their length and that tenses in the indicative mood prevail, while the conditional and the Romanian conjunctiv were also found. The data are also presented in five tables, followed by the presentation of tenses: instantaneous, generic, gnomical, iterative present, and present with future meaning, or past simple, and the combinations thereof. The Romanian conceptual metaphors outnumbered the English ones, but contained similar concepts. Nominal contractions and animate characteristics are detected and examined, followed by an investigation of the idioms used in the Romanian headlines, which proved to have the same degree of transparency as the English idioms. The next subchapter, A Corpus-based Analysis of Verbs in ECoC, is an analysis of collocation and verb patterns “to capture similarities and dissimilarities in collocational patterning in Romanian and in English” (Herțeg 2021: 119) as used in two parallel corpora, ECoC. The translations of the collocations and their figurative meanings are also considered using LancsBox to detect the verbal collocations and phrases around the node “culture”. The presentation of the two corpora, their relevance and validity, together with the methodology that was adopted, are presented to support the research, followed by the results regarding the occurrences of the nominal and verbal collocations clustered around the node “culture”. In addition, positive connotations of culture were detected in both corpora, and the data are presented in three tables displaying the nominal and verbal phrases and the figurative verbal phrases. The conceptualisation of the collocations and the concept of culture as the main target domain and the translation techniques are also considered in terms of detecting literal translations, different translations of the target and source domains, and the absence of metaphors in the source texts. Moreover, the nominal collocations were translated using verbal constructions, translations using collocations, translations using figurative meanings, semantic differences, or simplification as a translation strategy.
Chapter 6, The Stylistic Use of the Indicative Mood, considers the indicative tenses separately, with a particular tense in all three languages being analysed in each subchapter. The Stylistic Uses of the Present begins with an outline of scholars’ interest in the topic and their findings, particularly scholars such as Tudor Vianu (1977), Mihaela Mancaș (1991), Herschberg Pierrot (2003) and Dumitru Irimia (1999). Subsequently, Maria-Crina Herțeg presents a theoretical background for her analysis of the values expressed by the present tense in Romanian, English and French. Twelve values of the present tense are identified and analysed in different styles of writing in the three languages, while examples and commentaries support the analysis and a similar approach is adopted in the following subchapter, The Stylistic Uses of the Future Tense. The author emphasises that the stylistic values are limited and that the “expressiveness of the future lies in the use of dialectal and inverted forms” (Herțeg 2021: 133). Finally, a comparison of the expressiveness of the future tense in Romanian, French and English is presented, concluding that there are more ways of expressing the future tense in English than there are in Romanian, while French displays a wide range of modal values. In the third subchapter, The Stylistic Uses of the Imperfect, the author identifies the similarities and differences in the imperfect, preceded by the theoretical approach provided by Dumitru Irimia, Valerica Sporiș and Tudor Vianu. The works of Herschberg Pierrot (2003), Robert Binnick (2005), and Mihaela Mancaș (1991) are also presented, as the rigorous study of the specialist literature is a preamble for Maria-Crina Herțeg to present the values of the imperfect in an analysis of examples retrieved from Romanian and French literary works. The author also presents the narrative imperfect detected in French sports commentaries, the imperfect with a present meaning and a future meaning in literary and non-literary Romanian works, the role of politeness and the imperfect with a hypocoristic value, the imperfect with a conditional meaning, and the imperfect with an iterative meaning. Maria-Crina Herțeg concludes with the aspectual implications of the imperfect, the durative meaning of the imperfect, and the imperfect with a perfective value supported by examples from Romanian and French literary texts. The Stylistic Uses of the Perfect Compus is based on literary and non-literary texts to underline the narrative value of the perfect compus, as well as its present and future meanings. The author also presents the values of the passé composé in narratives, as analysed by Herschberg Pierrot (2003), and a comparison to the Romanian perfect compus. A similar approach is presented in The Stylistic Uses of the Perfect Simplu, in which Maria-Crina presents the works of Dumitru Irimia (1999) and Valerica Sporiș (2012) regarding the stylistic values of the perfect simplu in literature. Finally, in The Stylistic Uses of the Mai Mult ca Perfect, the author presents Valerica Sporiș’ (2012) and Tudor Vianu’s (1977) views concerning the stylistic values of the mai mult ca perfect. The author concludes that the importance of the tense lies in the fact that it focuses on chronology and anteriority in all three languages under discussion.
Chapter 7, Time and Tense in Literary Works, focuses on time and temporality in Romanian, English and French literary works as investigated by scholars to reveal similarities and differences regarding the stylistic use of tenses in narratives. Firstly, Maria-Crina Herțeg investigates Monika Fludernik’s (2003) study, which focused on the opposition between the story and the discourse, followed by the term ‘epic preterite’ coined by Hamburger (1954/1997) and further investigated by Stanzel (1959) in relation to first- and third-person narratives. Fludernik also discussed the dichotomy between teller- and reflector-mode narratives, as well as the present tense in narratives, and supported his research with an example from Michael Ondaatje’s (1992) The English Patient Maria-Crina Herțeg also mentions the contributions of Peter Verdonk (2002), John Spencer and Michal Gregory (1964), followed by an analysis of Romanian, English and French excerpts. The author clearly states the factors that influence the expressiveness throughout a text, namely the determiners, the choice of a particular tense, and the combinations and substitutions of tenses. Maria-Crina Herțeg continues the subchapter with a practical analysis of French, Romanian and English literary excerpts to support her statements. Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is discussed first, followed by a comparison to Camil Petrescu’s Patul lui Procust. Camus’s La Peste and L’étranger are mentioned regarding the stylistic effects obtained by alternating the imparfait, passé simple, and passé composé, voice and adverbials. The author detects a similar approach in Caragiale’s work (1981, 1984), but also in Defoe’s Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe. Further stylistic means detected in Madame Bovary are also discussed, including inversion, free indirect speech and the use of introductory verbs in the pre-position, followed by an analysis of the expressiveness of the uses of the imparfait and its alternation with other tenses. A similar preference for the use of the imparfait is identified in Flaubert’s L’éducation sentimentale and its valencies are listed and exemplified. Moreover, the passé composé in collocation with utterance verbs, the motion verbs in the passé simple, and the use of metaphors and personifications are considered. The Romanian analysis considers the use of free indirect speech, the present, perfect compus, and imperfect, which are discussed to enable the reader to perform a comparison and have a clear understanding of the stylistic uses of tenses in all three languages. The author concludes her study by comparing and contrasting the results regarding temporality as expressed by “the chronology of events, lack of chronology, (non)linear sequence of events, acceleration or deceleration of time, the analepsis” (Herțeg 2021:157).
In Chapter 8, Tenses in Translation. A Case Study, Maria-Crina Herțeg compares and contrasts how tenses are translated into Romanian and English from French in L’étranger by Albert Camus (1957), thus shifting her research focus from linguistics to the field of translation studies to complete her comprehensive study of the expressiveness of the tenses. The author presents the methodology and the main similarities and differences in translation, followed by a practical investigation of representative excerpts in French as the source language and Romanian and English as the target languages. Further stylistic differences between the French and English texts regarding upholding the imperfective versus the perfective, the infinitive constructions expressing purpose and the use of particular collocations are discussed regarding the similarities and differences in the source and target languages.
The last chapter, Conclusions, briefly summarises the information contained in the book, as the author has already formulated conclusions to the chapters throughout her investigation. Hence, the topic of each chapter is presented concisely with the results obtained in the study, starting with the main principle that guided the stylistic research and continuing with the importance of deviations from the norm. The main dissimilarities in how the tenses in the indicative mood are structured and used in Romanian, French and English and how this influences the degree of expressiveness are also emphasised, concluding with a restatement of the importance of the research, specifically the author’s contribution, which has “extended the comparative analysis of verb tenses to three languages, namely English, Romanian and French” (Herțeg 2021:167) in contrast to researchers who only considered the indicative mood. The book concludes with three lists, namely a list of abbreviations and acronyms, a glossary and a reference list, the first two are extremely useful tools for understanding the information in the book, while the last is evidence of the tremendous amount of work that the author performed in her research, as this list contains 184 entries.
Overall, the author provides significant and precise results to enable the reader to observe and understand the similarities and differences in the expressiveness of the tenses in Romanian, English and French accurately. Moreover, the practical analyses complete the knowledge and prove the precise and meticulous work regarding the theoretical background via which the author supports her research. The combination of linguistic stylistics, corpus linguistics and translation studies demonstrates the author’s ability to bring a novel perspective to the expressiveness of tenses in Romanian, English and French.
References
Herțeg, M.-C. (2021). The stylistics and semantics of the verb. A case study: The indicative mood. A cross-linguistic approach. Alba-Iulia: Editura Aeternitas.
How to cite this review: Șanta (Câmpean), G. C. (2022). Review of The Stylistics and Semantics of the Verb by Maria-Crina Herțeg. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 15(1), 169–176. https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2022.15.1.11
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