Chiasmus versus Repetition： Incongruity or Deflection？

Abstract：Chiasmus and repetition are both recognized as figures of speech， yet chiasmus is a kind of deviation from the norms while repetition is considered as deflection. This passage illustrates that chiasmus and repetition especially epanodos share more common grounds and chiasmus in essence is a kind of repetition. Therefore， whether chiasmus shows incongruity or deflection remains a question. This passage will first illustrate chiasmus and repetition and give examples， then compare these two concepts before drawing a conclusion.

Key；words：chiasmus；；repetition；；incongruity；；deflection.

I .Chiasmus and Repetition

Chiasmus comes from the Greek word Khiasmos meaning the inverted form and is defined as a figure of speech by which the order of the words in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second in The Oxford Companion to English Literature. There are many examples of chiasmus in both English and Chinese：

（1）Her feet were naked，Naked were her feet.

（2）天下分久必合，合久必分。

From the examples above， we can see that chiasmus works through the pattern of “A is B； B is A”. The order of one statement in the first part is reversed in the second part.

Similarly， repetition is a figure of speech that use words or clauses more than once to express the authors feelings， divided into two categories： perfect repetition and partial repetition. “O my luve is like a red， red rose” from Robert Burns is an example of perfect repetition. Moreover， partial repetition can be further categorized into anaphora， epistrophe， symploce， medial repetition and epanodos by the position of the repeated part in the text. To illustrate more about epanodos， it is a process that repeat the first or medial part of the clause but reverse the order when reiterating. Here are some exapmles：

（3）美言不信，信言不美。

The examples show that epanodos， though grouped into repetition， also share the pattern of “A is B； B is A”.

II. Similarities and Differences

Chiasmus and epanodos have at least three things in common. Firstly， both of them share the pattern of “A is B； B is A”. Secondly， both processes focus on introducing new information. Take example 3 for instance. Similarly， the repetition of “美” and “信” does not aim to emphasis the two characters but to introduce two paralleled concepts. Lastly， both can contribute to the stylistic effects that contrast the paralleled statements and distinguish them from each other by repeating and reversing.

As for differences， in the book The function and stylistics of language it is believed that chiasmus is a kind of grammatical deviation from the norms because it violates the syntax rules which govern the word pattern in sentences.

However， we can see that chiasmus and epanodos are more similar than different. Despite of some small grammatical differences in some cases， chiasmus in essence is a special kind of repetition in that it works through similar pattern and for similar stylistic effect.

III.Incongruity or Deflection？

Incongruity refers to the language use deviated from the norms while deflection is a kind of over-regularity. Chiasmus is regarded as incongruity and repetition is taken as deflection. As mentioned above， the two concepts in fact share more similarities so the author believes that chiasmus and epanodos should not be treated differently. The mentioned book takes chiasmus as incongruity for three reasons which can not fully explain itself.

First， the book argues that chiasmus deviates from the the use of antithesis which is already a kind of deflection. For example， parallelism is also a process showing deflection and it can also involve the use of allusion or repetition of words apart from grammatical constituents only. Likewise， we can not group parallelism into incongruity for an additional deflection. Secondly， it is claimed that the logic structure of chiasmus clauses is irregularly mapped on its meaning. But the latter part of the clause actually can be linked logically with the former part. In example 2， the latter part “合久必分” serves as a additive clause to introduce new information that this world can go to the opposite condition as well. Thirdly， the syntactic structure of chiasmus used is believed to be of low frequency and I am dubious about it because the structure can be frequently seen in English slang. Whats more， epanodos is characterized with similar features and it would be self-contradictory to deem epanodos whose syntactic structure is claimed to be irregular as deflection.

To conclude， chiasmus and epanodos share many common places in the register of stylistics of language and chiasmus should not be regarded as incongruity when repetition is still taken as deflection. The author believes that chiasmus is a kind of repetition and should be grouped into deflection despite of small syntactic irregularity.

參考文献：

[1]胡壮麟等.系统功能语言学概论[M].北京大学出版社，2017.

[2]张德禄.语言的功能及文体[M].高等教育出版社，2005.

作者简介：邱超群（1995.03—），女，汉族，江西上饶人，硕士研究生，研究方向：商务英语研究?