Types of Parallelism

Types of Parallelism
Presented to: Ms.
Atyah Rahman
Presented by:
Rashida Kausar
Bhatti (3021)
4th Semester, M.Phil
Linguistics
December 1,2013

Rashida Kausar
Bhatti

Introduction
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Parallelism
Linguistic phenomenon
Explains the relationship that may
be understood between units of
linguistic structures
In parallelism, there is always a
relationship in the structures and
ideas so just apposed generally in
the form of synonymy, repetition,
antithesis, apposition and other
forms.

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Definition
Sameness relationship between two
sections of a text.Example: Out of
sight-out of mind. (Fabb,1997)
Parallelism is the most useful and
flexible aspect of poetic
language.(Leech 1969).

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Common Examples of
Parallelism

Like father, like son.

The escaped prisoner was wanted
dead or alive.
Easy come, easy go.
Whether in class, at work or at home,
Shasta was always busy.
Flying is fast, comfortable, and safe.
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A Tale of
Two Cities
by Charles
Dickens
Repetition of
Parallel
structures
Phonological
Lexical
Structural

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It was the best of times, it

was the worst of times, it
was the age of wisdom, it
was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it
was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it
was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring
of hope, it was the winter of
despair.
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Example

- - -

) : (

( -
):

- -
-

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Types of Parallelism

Phonological Parallelism

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Types of Parallelism
Phonological parallelism
Morphological parallelism
Grammatical / Syntactical
parallelism
Lexical / Semantic parallelism
Extended parallelism

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Phonological Parallelism
Repetition of similar sounds
Includes assonance, alliteration,
consonance, and rhyme

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Assonance: Repetition of vowel

sounds
Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem "The
Raven" is: "the silken sad uncertain
rustling of each purple curtain.
Repetition of ur sound

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Alliteration: Repetition of consonant

sounds at the beginning of the words.
J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter
series uses this lot with names. For
example, "Severus Snape," "Luna
Love good," "Rowena Raven claw,"
etc.

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Consonance: Repetition of the same

consonant several times in a row, but
this time the consonants can appear
anywhere in the words. For example,
Humpty Dumpty."

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Rhyme: Repetition of similar

sounding words. There are a lot of
different types of rhyme, but usually
they are things like "tap" and "map";
Best and worst.

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Morphological Parallelism
Repetition of Morphemes
Less used than Syntactic parallelism
I kissed thee ere I killed thee.
Shakespear,Othello.Act III:Sc.III:pg 358

Repetition in tensed morpheme ed

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Nazish Ashfaq
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Syntactic Parallelism
Focuses more "grammatical
Short (1985) quotes the following line
from Shakespeare's Othello as the
"best example ever" of parallelism:
Example:1
I kissed thee ere I killed thee.

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The tragedy of Julius Ceasar.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend
me your ears;
I come to bury Ceaser, not to praise
him.
(William Shakespear.The tragedy of Julius Ceaser.)

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Examples from Novel To the

light house by Virginia Woolf
1. Sentence parallelism: ...that was what she was thinking, this
was what she was doing(113)
2. Main-clause parallelism: she would never for a single second
regret her decision, evade difficulties, or slur over duties. (11)
3. Sub-clause parallelism: As summer neared, as the evenings
lengthened, there cameto (179)
4. Phrase parallelism: Once in the middle of the night with a roar,
with a rupture, as after a centuries (177)
5. Word parallelism: able only to go on watching, asking,
wondering. (198)

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Levels of Syntactic Parallelism

Sentence
Phrase
Sub-Clause
Main Clause

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Public Speech by Martin Luther

King, Jr
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out
the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal.'
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the
sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners
will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood...
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character."
Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream "speech

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Lexical / Semantic Parallelism

Repetition of lexical items
Lexical equivalents need not have the
same syntactic function or parts of speech
in the two sentences in which they occur
May identical in form and in meaning, or
they may be related by lexico-semantic
relationship, such as synonymy, hyponymy,
and antonymy.

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Examples
Mary likes hiking, swimming, and to ride
a bicycle.
Mary likes hiking, swimming, and riding
a bicycle.

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Examples
He is talented, intelligent and has charm.
He is talented, intelligent and charming.
The production manager was asked to
write his report quickly, accurately, and in
a detailed manner.
The production manager was asked to
write his report quickly, accurately, and
thoroughly.
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Effects of parallelism
Antithesis: opposite ideas are put
together
Alexander Pope in his An Essay on
Criticism uses antithetic parallel
structure:
To err is human; to forgive divine.

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Synonymous is a kind of Parallelism

in which theme of first line repeats
itself
line.
in second

-

):(
- -
) : (

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The repetitive structures

It was the best of times, it was the
worst of times.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Poem The Tyger by William Blake

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Extended Parallelism
Usually found in Jokes, novels and funny stories where
Parallelism go on longer
Example: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore die and go to meet God.
Al goes first.
God asks him: Who are you?
Al replies: I am the Vice-President of the United States of America!
God says: Very well, come and sit on my left-hand side.
Bill goes next.
God asks him: Who are you?
Bill replies: I am the President of the United States of America!
God says: Very well, come and sit on my right-hand side.
Hillary goes last.
God asks her: And who are you?
Hillary replies: I am Hillary Clinton, and what are you doing sitting in my
place?!!
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References
MINGZHU Z(2012) The Art of Balance: A Corpus-assisted Stylistic Analysis
of Woolfian Parallelism in To the Lighthouse. Minzu University of China.
IJES http://revistas.um.es/ijes Retrieved on November 20,2013
Leech, G. (1969) A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. Longman
Leech, G. and Short, M. (2007) Style in Fiction (2nd ed.) Pearson
Education Ltd.
Jakobson, Roman. 1987. "The Poetry of Grammar and the Grammar of
Poetry." In Language in Literature. K. Pomorska and S. Rudy, eds. Pp.
121-144. Cambridge, MA: The Belnap Press of Harvard University

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