Stylistic devices and expressive means in ted talks lectures on architecture and construction

Abstract

We analyze the specific genre of public lectures in English – the TED Talks. Being very popular nowadays these science lectures contain a lot of professionally oriented lexis and are a useful tool to enrich the vocabulary bank and improve listening skills. The characteristic traits of these lectures are briefness, appropriateness, convincingness, clear and rigid structure, careful preparatory work, high extent of the orientation to the audience. The language of TED talks lectures on architecture is characterized by the abundance of professional terms, collocations, expressive means and stylistic devices, such as simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbola etc. Interrogative and imperative forms and personal pronouns are widely used. They help speakers establish the contact with the audience, create the expressive and emotional speech, emphasize the main idea or make listeners think about the important points of the information. The idioms, coarse lexis and lexical repetitions create vivid and meaningful performance. Also we noted the upbeat mood and high emotionality of this genre of public speech.