Why and how do writers of English Literary and playful texts "break the rules of" English?

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Why and how do writers of English Literary and playful texts "break the rules of" English?

        After having defined the terms “playful and literary”, I will then look briefly at foregrounding and the classification of the English Language. Then rhyme, rhythm and repletion would be examined followed by how writers break syntactic rules to show thought process. This will be followed by literary usage of the metaphor, collocation and iconicity. Then I will examine playful text in relation to graffiti, newspapers and advertising.

Literary and playful usage of language is different from that of everyday language in that it draws attention to the language itself. Writers achieve this by being creative, original and imaginative. Moreover, by “skilfully manipulating language to create patterns and usage” to express ideas, which draws the readers giving them an original insight into the world of the writer. (Maybin and Mercer, 1996, p. 198)

        Writers of literary and playful text use language to draw attention to it by way of surprising the reader into an original perception of the language and the subject matter.  This according to the Russian formalists is foregrounding (Maybin and Mercer, 1996, p. 163).  Foregrounding is achieved, by breaking the rules of language, that is sound, grammar and meaning to place the reader in the text. Thus, the reader is surprised into seeing the image, hearing the sounds and feeling the emotions.

        The English Language is classified according to the way words are arranged in sequence and it is referred to as a subject verb object or SVO language. This is because the subject always comes before the verb and the object that is being referred to follows the verb. (Graddol etal., 1994, p.5)

         Looking first at rhyme, rhythm and repetition in literary usage, writers especially poets use this as a form of foregrounding. They use rhyme, rhythm and repetition in to make original observations. As in William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”, one can see that there is an end rhyme with the first line rhyming with the second, and the third with the fourth in an aabb pattern. This is not something is common in normal speech or text. Therefore, Blake, whilst following the tradition of writing poetry in end rhymes is breaking the rules of English. Blake does this because he is not only foregrounding the symmetrical pattern of the verse in its aabb rhymes pattern, but he is also highlighting the eye symmetry of the text. This is done in the first and last stanza where both stanzas are symmetrical apart from one word. Thus, there is a sense of closure and we understand that we have arrived at an end, but because of the aabb pattern, there is also continuity and the idea of the circle of life.

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  Blake also uses rhythm, with each line consisting of four alternating stressed and unstressed words, is used to emphasis the beat of not only the tread of the Tyger but also the rhythmical beating of the hammer on the anvil. The creator of the Tyger and the creator of the poem also use repetition and alliteration to foreground the symmetry of the design. (Maybin and Mercer, 1996, p.165)

Authors also use rule breaking to foreground their characters thought processes. William Faulkner In his novel “The Sound and the Fury” manipulates the language and surprises the readers into the thought ...

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