Linguistic deviation and the rhetoric figures in Shakespeare’s selected plays

Abstract

This research is the study of linguistic deviation is one of linguistic analysis in literary studies. The purpose was to uncover the linguistic deviation found in Shakespeare’s plays. It should be considered important and helpful for foreign readers (non-native speakers of English) to have a better understanding of the stylistics used in Shakespeare’s plays. The analysis applied was language-based. As a great author who lived in the transitional period from Old to Modern English, Shakespeare has been credited with encouraging the birth of new English, and his contribution has been recorded in the history of the English Language. His rhetoric remains topical and has continued to captivate readers through several centuries. His plays are still learned in many parts of the world. The objectives of the study are 1) to inventory a number of linguistic deviations contained in Shakespeare’s works, 2) to find out the types of rhetorical style in Shakespeare’s linguistic deviation, and 3) to determine to what the extent of respondents (non-native English) failed to understand the linguistic deviation in Shakespeare’s works. However, the language that Shakespeare used in his plays, besides sustaining the beauty of the style, it also contains a number of linguistic deviations. His specific deviations and the stylistics concerned were the topics of this qualitative research. The results of this research show that linguistic deviations found in Shakespeare’s works are stylistically varied, and may be misconstrued by foreign readers. This kind of deviation, in turn, may give rise to misinterpretation and misunderstanding for foreign English readers.