Types of Parallelism

Types of Parallelism
Presented to: Ms. Atyah Rahman
Presented by:
Rashida Kausar Bhatti (3021)
4th Semester, M.Phil Linguistics
Lahore Leads University, Lahore
December 1,2013 3
 Rashida Kausar Bhatti

December 1,2013
Introduction 4
 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, ap
position and other forms.
December 1,2013 5
 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).

December 1,2013 6
 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.

December 1,2013 7
 “A Tale of “It was the best of times, it
Two Cities” was the worst of times, it
by Charles was the age of wisdom, it
Dickens
was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it
Repetition of
Parallel was the epoch of incredulity,
structures it was the season of Light, it
•Phonological was the season of
•Lexical Darkness, it was the spring
•Structural of hope, it was the winter of
despair.”

December 1,2013 8
 Example
- - -

-
- -

December 1,2013 9
Types of Parallelism
Phonological Parallelism

Morphological Parallelism

Syntactic Parallelism

Semantic/Lexical Parallelism

December 1,2013 10
 Types of Parallelism
Phonological parallelism
Morphological parallelism
Grammatical / Syntactical
parallelism
Lexical / Semantic parallelism
Extended parallelism

December 1,2013 11
 Phonological Parallelism
Repetition of similar sounds
Includes
assonance, alliteration, consonance,
and rhyme

December 1,2013 12
 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

December 1,2013 13
 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.

December 1,2013 14
 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."

December 1,2013 15
 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”.

December 1,2013 16
 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”

December 1,2013 17
 Nazish Ashfaq

December 1,2013 18
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.”

December 1,2013 19
 „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.)

December 1,2013 20
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)

December 1,2013 21
Levels of Syntactic Parallelism

Sub-Clause
Sentence Main Clause

Phrase Word

December 1,2013 22
 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

December 1,2013 23
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.

December 1,2013 24
 Examples
Mary likes hiking, swimming, and to ride
a bicycle.
Mary likes hiking, swimming, and riding
a bicycle.

December 1,2013 25
 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.
December 1,2013 26
 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.”

December 1,2013 27
 Synonymous is a kind of Parallelism
in which theme of first line repeats
itself in second line.
-
- -
-

December 1,2013 28
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

December 1,2013 29
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?!!‟
December 1,2013 30
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

December 1,2013 31
December 1,2013 32
December 1,2013 33