Lexical stylistic means of creating characters’ speech portraits in J. Steinbeck’s novel «Of Mice and Men»

Background. The concept of speech portrait is not new to the linguistic science and has already been firmly established in linguistics due to the emergence of a separate field of research – linguistic personology which studies individual and typological features of a linguistic personality. Speech portraits of a modern journalist, a politician and a teacher have been described. However, there are few works devoted to the problem of character’s speech representation in fiction as there is no a unified interpretation of the concept of speech portrait as well as its systematic description which determines the relevance of this study. 

The purpose of the paper consists in studying lexical stylistic means involved in the creation of characters’ speech portraits in the novel by J. Steinbeck’s «Of Mice and Men».

Materials and methods. The research is based on J. Steinbeck’s novel «Of Mice and Men». The method of continuous sampling and the method of linguostylistic analysis of the text are used in the process of work.

Results. The concept of «speech portrait» and a number of related concepts are considered in the study. The stylistic means that are involved in creating of speech portrait in a work of fiction are studied. The authors determine lexical stylistic means of creating characters’ speech portraits in the novel by J. Steinbeck “Of Mice and Men”. The analysis revealed that speech characterization in the novel involves stylistically marked vocabulary which includes slang, vulgarisms and idiomatic expressions, as well as the usage of such lexical stylistic devices as metaphors, metonymies, similes and epithets. The usage of stylistic means helps the author not only to convey the characters’ emotions, but also to indicate their social status and the level of education. J. Steinbeck in his novel “Of Mice and Men” describes the lifestyle of ranchers, whose main qualities are rationality and commitment to work. They live for the purpose of earning money, without having the opportunity to get an education. The author resorts to colloquial speech in order to make his characters more believable as well as to convey their personalities and outlook.