This group of semasiological SD is characterized by the combination in context of two or more words or word-groups with opposite meanings. Their relations are either objectively opposite or are interpreted as such by the speaker. Here we refer antithesis and oxymoron.
Antithesis (Greek - opposition) is a stylistic device which presents two contrasting ideas in close proximity in order to stress the contrast. There are several variants of antithesis based on different relations of the ideas expressed:
1) opposition of features possessed by the same referent, e.g. Some people have much to live on, and little to live for (O.Wilde);
2) opposition of two or more different referents having contrasting features, e.g. Their pre-money wives did not go together with their post-money daughters /E.Hemingway/;
3) opposition of referents having not only contrasting feature but embracing a wider range of features, e.g. New England had a native literature, while Virginia had none; numerous industries, while Virginia was all agricultural /Th.Dreiser/.
Antithesis often goes along with other stylistic features: anaphoric repetition, parallelism, chiasmus, in particular. It is widely used in all kinds of speech: fiction, publicistic, scientific, and colloquial English. It performs various stylistic functions: stressing the contrast and rhythmically organizing the utterance. Due to the last quality antithesis is widely used in poetry in combination with anaphora, epiphora, and alliteration.
Oxymoron – (Greek: oxymoron – witty – foolish) is also a combination of opposite meanings which exclude each other. But in this case, the two semantically contrasting ideas are expressed by syntactically interdependent words (in predicative, attributive or adverbial phrases), e.g. He was certain the whites could easily detect his adoring hatred to them /R.Wright/.
Oxymoron reveals the contradictory sides of one and the same phenomenon. One of its elements discloses some objectively existing feature while the other serves to convey the author’s personal attitude towards this quality (pleasantly ugly, crowded loneliness, unanswerable reply). Such semantic incompatibility does not only create unexpected combinations of words, violating the existing norms of compatibility, but reveals some unexpected qualities of the denotate as well.
As soon as an oxymoron gets into circulation, it loses its stylistic value, becoming trite: pretty bad, awfully nice, terribly good.
Original oxymorons are created by the authors to make the utterance emotionally charged, vivid, and fresh, e.g. Oh brawling love! Oh loving hate! Oh heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! /W. Shakespeare/.
