Coupling is another technique that helps in decoding the message implied in a literary work. While convergence and defeated expectancy both focus the reader's attention on the particularly significant parts of the text coupling deals with the arrangement of textual elements that provide the unity and cohesion of the whole structure. The notion of coupling was introduced by S. Levin in his work "Linguistic Structures in Poetry" in 1962 (40).
Coupling is more than many other devices connected with the level of the text. This method of text analysis helps us to decode ideas, their interaction, inner semantic and structural links and ensures compositional integrity.
Coupling is based on the affinity of elements that occupy similar positions throughout the text. Coupling provides cohesion, consistency and unity of the text form and content.
Like defeated expectancy it can be found on any level of the language, so the affinity may be different in nature; it may be phonetic, structural or semantic. Particularly prominent types of affinity are provided by the phonetic expressive means. They are
obviously cases of alliteration, assonance, paranomasia, as well as such prosodic features as rhyme, rhythm and meter.
Syntactical affinity is achieved by all kinds of parallelism and syntactical repetition - anadiplosis, anaphora, framing, chiasmus, epiphora to name but a few.
Semantic coupling is demonstrated by the use of synonyms and antonyms, both direct and contextual, root repetition, paraphrase, sustained metaphor, semantic fields, recurrence of images, connotations or symbols.
The latter can be easily detected in the works of some poets who create their own system of recurrent esthetic symbols for certain ideas, notions and beliefs.
Some of the well-known symbols are seasons (cf. the symbolic meaning of winter in Robert Frost's poetry), trees (the symbolic meaning of a birch tree, a maple in Sergei Yesenin's poetic work, the meaning of a moutain-ash tree for Marina Tsvetaeva), animals (the leopard, hyena, bulls, fish in Ernest Hemingway's works) and so on. These symbols do not only recur in a separate work by these authors but also generally represent the typical imagery of the author's poetic vision.
An illustration of the coupling technique is given below in the passage from John O'Hara's novel Ten North Frederick. The main organizing principle here is contrast.
Lloyd Williams lived in Collieryville, a mining town three or four miles from 10 North Frederick, but separated from the Chapins' home and their life by the accepted differences of money and prestige; the miners' poolroom, and the Gibbsville Club; sickening poverty, and four live-in
servants for a family of four; The Second Thursdays, and the chicken-and-waffle suppers of the English Lutheran Church. Joe Chapin Lloyd Williams were courthouse-corridor friends and fellow Republucans but Joe was a Company man and Lloyd Williams was a Union man who was a Republican because to be anything else in Lantenengo County was futile and foolish. (O'Hara)
The central idea of the passage is to underline the difference between two men who actually represent the class differences between the rich upper class and the lower working class. So the social contrast shown through the details of personal life of the two characters is the message with a generalizing power. This passage shows how coupling can be an effective tool to decode this message.
There is a pronounced affinity of the syntactical structure in both sentences. The first contains a chain of parallel detached clauses connected by and (which is an adversative conjunction here). They contain a number of antitheses. The contrast is enhanced by the use of contextual antonyms that occupy identical positions in the clauses: the miners' poolroom and the Gibbseville Club; sickening poverty and four servants for a family of four, The Second Thursdays and the Church suppers. The same device is used in the second sentence: Joe was a Company man and Lloyd Williams was a Union man. There are a few instances of phonetic affinity, alliteration: four servants for a family of four; courthouse-corridor, friends and fellow Republicans; futile and foolish.
The passage presents an interesting case of semantic coupling through symbols. The details of personal and class difference chosen by the author are all charged with symbolic value. There is a definite connection between them all however diverse they may appear at first sight. They are all grouped so that they symbolize either money and prestige or poverty and social deprivation.
The first group creates the semantic field of wealth and power: money, social prestige, the Gibbsville Club (symbol of wealth, high social standing, belonging to the select society), four live-in servants for a family of four (that only rich people can afford), The Second Thursdays (traditional reception days for people of a certain circle, formal dinner parties for people of high standing), a Company man (a member of a financially and socially influential group, political elite). The second semantic field comprises words denoting and symbolizing poverty and social inferiority: miners' poolroom (a working class kind of leisure), sickening poverty, chicken-and-waffle suppers of, the English Lutheran Church (implying informal gatherings where people cook together and share food), a Union man (a representative of the working class).
The similarity of these elements' positions in this text makes the contrast all the more striking.
A minor case of coupling in the passage above is the use of zeugma in the first sentence when the word separated is simultaneously linked to two different objects home and life in two different meanings - direct and figurative.
5.2. 4. Semantic field
Semantic field is a method of decoding stylistics closely connected with coupling. It identifies lexical elements in text segments and the whole work that provide its thematic and compositional cohesion. To reveal this sort of cohesion decoding must carefully observe not only lexical and synonymous repetition but semantic affinity which finds expression in cases of lexico-semantic variants, connotations and associations aroused by a specific use or distribution of lexical units, thematic pertinence of seemingly unrelated words.
This type of analysis shows how cohesion is achieved on a less explicit level sometimes called the vertical context. Lexical elements of this sort are charged with implications and adherent meanings that establish invisible links throughout the text and create a kind of semantic background so that the work is laced with certain kind of imagery.
Lexical ties relevant to this kind of analysis will include synonymous and antonymous relations, morphological derivation, relations of inclusion (various types of hyponymy and entailment), common semes in the denotative or connotative meanings of different words.
If a word manifests semantic links with one or more other words in the text it shows thematic relevance and several links of this sort may be considered a semantic field, an illustration of which was offered in the previous example on coupling. Semantic ties in that example (mostly implicit) are based on the adherent and symbolic connotations (Church meals, Club member, live-in servants, Union man, etc) and create a semantic field specific to the theme and message of this work: the contrast between wealth and poverty, upper class and working class.
In the next example we observe the semantic field of a less complicated nature created by more explicit means.
Joe kept saying he did not want a fortieth birthday party. He said he did not like parties - a palpable untruth - and particularly and especially a large party in honor of his reaching forty...
At first there were going to be forty guests but the invitation list grew larger and the party plans more elaborate, until Arthur said that with so many people they ought to hire an orchestra, and with an orchestra
there would be dancing, and with dancing there ought to be a good-size orchestra. The original small dinner became a dinner dance at the Lantenengo Country Club. Invitations were sent to more than three hundred persons... (O'Hara)
The thematic word of the passage is party. It recurs four times in these four sentences. It is obviously related to such words used as its substitutes as dinner and dinner dance which become contextual synonyms within the frame of the central stylistic device of this piece - the climax.
Semantic relations of inclusion by entailment and hyponymy are represented by such words as birthday (party), (party) in honor, (party) plans, invitation (list), guests, people, persons, orchestra, dancing.
The subtheme of the major theme is the scale of the celebration connected with the importance of the date - the main character reached the age of forty considered an important milestone in a man's life and career. So there is a semantic field around the figure forty - its lexical repetition and morphological derivation (forty - forty-fortieth) and the word large amplified throughout by contextual synonyms, morphological derivatives and relations of entailment (large - larger - more - many - good-size - more-three hundred).
Another type of semantic relationship that contributes to the semantic field analysis is the use of antonyms and contrastive elements associated with the themes in question: large - small, forty - three hundred, small dinner - dinner dance, orchestra - good-sized orchestra, did not like - untruth. The magnitude and importance of the event are further enhanced by the use of synonymous intensifiers particularly and especially.
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