Diagnóstico

Repetition has far-reaching, varied and dynamic dimensions; lexical repetition is a type of repetition frequently used in literary texts, and it contributes to lexical cohesion. Lexical cohesion, as the most obvious type of cohesion, with the recurrent uses of the same word or of related words, conveys a sense of the integratedness of a text. Cohesion refers to “the linguistic means by which sentences are woven together to make texts … all the linguistic ways in which the words of a passage, across sentences, cross-refer or link up” (Toolan, 1998: 23), and repeated words weave a lexical net of cohesion. “Such patterns of lexical association are important since they help us to interpret a text rapidly; they contribute to our sense of the text as coherent” (Toolan, 1998: 30).

160 Repetition as a method of cohesion is researched by Toolan (2009), updating the research of repetition with efficient corpus tools such as WordSmith. For instance, using the corpus linguistic software WordSmith, he swiftly finds some repetitively used words in Dubliners. He finds six uses of gallant in various word-classes in different stories of the collection

Dubliners; in his opinion, they are “a simple kind of intertextuality, binding the stories of the

collection together” (Toolan, 2009: 32). “Gallant” is an archaic word, referring to men who “affect a gentlemanly or considerate if patronising manner towards women” (Toolan, 2009: 33), and it was even rarely used in Joyce’s age; yet Joyce uses it in many stories to “hint at the narrator’s irony or the character’s insincerity, or both” (Toolan, 2009: 33). Toolan also finds that in the “Two Gallants” – a story in the Dubliner – the character’s name Corley has 46 occurrences while the other main character Lenehan only appears 29 times; he explains that “Lenehan, the focaliser and often the focalised, is extensively denoted by personal pronouns rather than name” (Toolan, 2009: 33).

“Near repetitions” or “complex repetitions” are considered an indirect yet important way of acquiring lexical cohesion. According to Toolan (2009), “near repetition” can be said to operate where, for example, hot is linked by “complex repetition” to cold (cold is not a direct repetition of hot, but in being its familiar opposite it is strongly related, in culture and in many of our discourses, with hot).

Repetition and “near repetition”, also known as lexical cohesion and collocation, are widespread and perform many functions in literary texts, according to varied contexts. For instance, lexical repetitions in Hemingway’s works perform functions such as deflation and monotony. One of the most striking features of Hemingway’s style is repetition. It is

161 commonly accepted that traditional “good writing” requires elegant variation instead of repetition, but Hemingway rejects variation. Hemingway’s work is researched as a sample of repetition by Carter (1982):

In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colours of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. The rain dripped from the palm trees. (Hemingway, “Cat in the Rain”, 1927)

A detailed analysis of repetition is undertaken from the functions of the: the exophoric function (“if it has not been mentioned previously in the text, it refers outwards to information or knowledge which listeners or readers can be presumed to share” (Carter, 2008: 105)), the homophoric function (“similarly outward-pointing, but the referent is in such cases singular and unique” (Carter, 2008: 105)), and the anaphoric function (“it points backwards to information which has already preceded” (Carter, 2008: 105)). The occurs anaphorically (the

rain, and the palm trees) and as a result of lexical repetition (rain, palms, and artists); some

items have already been established by exophoric reference (the hotels, the sea, and the

gardens) (Carter, 2008: 105).

These cohesive effects operate to reinforce expectations on the one hand, and on the other hand deflate the expectations. The same familiarity is reinforced by repetition, which works to make it all seem somehow extremely too familiar. Where references to the hotels, the square,

the palm trees, and the war monument recur, the readers expect that they are further modified

162 pronouns, synonyms, or hyponyms. But nothing changes and the discourse does not actually go anywhere. This paragraph is hence “deflationary” (Carter, 2008: 106).

Also analysing Hemingway’s work, Abdula (2001) does precise research on repetition as monotony. He argues that repetition in Hemingway’s work contributes to the expression of the characters’ tedious lives.

In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more. It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The deer hung stiff and heavy and empty and small birds blew in the wind and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came down from the mountains. (Hemingway, “In Another Country”, 1927; quoted in Abdula, 2001: 292)

There are a bundle of repetitive grammatical words such as the, of, in, and and, besides the repetition of lexical words such as fall, cold, dark, wind, and blew. This paragraph is from the short story “In Another Country” about the victims of World War I and their sufferings. Abdula shows how the characters’ routines and their slowly worsening situations are reflected by lexical repetition. As he puts it: “The monotony of their lives expresses itself in the monotony of reiteration” (Abdula, 2001: 292).

Another function of lexical repetition is to intensify emotions. Repetition is expressive in that it gives “emphasis or emotive heightening to the repeated meaning” (Short and Leech, 1988:

163 247). In his A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, Leech (1969: 78) argues that repetition is “a fundamental if primitive device of intensification”:

Although repetition sometimes indicates poverty of linguistic resource, it can, as we see, have its own kind of eloquence. By underlining rather than elaborating the message, it presents a simple emotion with a force. It may further suggest a suppressed intensity of feeling – an imprisoned feeling, as it were, for which there is no outlet but a repeated hammering at the confining walls of language. In a way, saying the same thing over and over is a reflection on the inadequacy of language to express what you have to express “in one go”. (Leech, 1969: 79)

Leech cites Shylock’s outburst over the elopement of his daughter Jessica; actually she has eloped but has taken some of his money with her (hence Shylock’s “divided” concern at the loss of both the daughter and the ducats):

My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!

Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats! (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, II.viii)

Here, as Leech points out, the intensification appears to be inevitable because he is grimly and unintentionally commercial, and partly because of grief. The tragicomic – exactly speaking, more comic than tragic – effect is realized by this repetition.

Another emotion he looks at is excitement, e.g. in the Song of Deborah and Barak, a piece of Old Testament lyricism:

164 At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell; where he bowed, there

he fell down dead. (Judges: Chapter 5)

Leech comments: “The fierce exultation conveyed by this verse is almost entirely due to its repetitiveness” (Leech, 1969: 79).