What is a dislocation?
To discover
Digital event of the literary Figaro: "How to get published?"
In the secret of publishing houses ”
Passionate about word games?
Discover the Figaro games app
Instead of saying
"My daughter always has good grades"
, your sister-in-law used either of these two sentences:
"My daughter, she always has good grades"
or
"She always has
good grades. notes, my daughter ”
.
In both cases, she uttered a
dislocation
, a construction which consists in repeating an element of the sentence by a personal or demonstrative pronoun.
Read alsoStylish figures: what is epenthesis?
An acceptable figure of speech if voluntary
As with many others, this twist is only acceptable if it is voluntary.
Simple observation: it is a syntax error;
desire to emphasize a subject (the fact that your son is threatened with repetition, in the case of your sister-in-law): it is a process of emphasis.
Anyone who wants to emphasize a topic or convince their audience uses it.
The street vendors:
"It is beautiful, my corkscrew!"
"
;
“My corkscrew, it's cheap!
”
Or politicians:
“ France is this, that… ”
;
“She is this, that… France”
often use it.
Read alsoAre you expert on figures of speech?
This figure has a peculiarity that makes political journalists happy.
Why ?
You notice in my examples that the pronoun can be found before or after the clause.
If it is before, we speak of dislocation on the left, after that we speak of dislocation on the right.
So, do like many commentators, have fun dissecting the speeches of our leaders to determine whether they are on the right or on the left!
Extract from
Literary walk among figures of speech
.
Find the entire book on our Figaro Store.
