Linguistic Deviation and The System of Stylistic Devices in The Poetry of Pam Ayres

Stylistics is one of the branches of linguistics that demonstrates the expressive potential and artistic capabilities of language. Throughout the history of linguistic studies, scholars from different countries have proposed various definitions and approaches to stylistics. Besides enriching speech and enhancing its expressiveness, stylistics plays a crucial role in creating aesthetic and artistic effects in poetic texts through the use of stylistic devices. This article presents the classification of stylistic devices into four major categories and analyzes their application in the poetry of the British poet Pam Ayres. The study reveals that Ayres’s simple, colloquial, and folk-oriented poetic style is remarkably rich in lexical, lexico-syntactic, syntactic, and phonetic stylistic devices. Through illustrative examples selected from her poems, the paper demonstrates how these stylistic devices contribute to the creation of artistic imagery, humorous effects, emotional colouring, and the representation of everyday life within the framework of British linguo-cultural traditions.