Parallelism: A Semiotic Feature of Belle Lettres

Abstract

Parallelism as an expressive feature embellishes graces and endears the well-formedness of sentences elucidating writings and speeches. This paper therefore reintroduces a fundamental feature making utterances rhythmical, rhetorical and elocutionary, qualities severally being misused, overlooked and misinterpreted by many learners, many teachers, and many writers (journalists). It is with regard to the near-neglect of this veritable writing technique that this paper expatiates the concepts of parallelism, the interface between belle lettres (beautiful letters or writings) and belle-lettres (literary writings or studies), and parallelism as a semiotic element of syntactics. It as well juxtaposes well-formed parallel structures and ill-formed ones as exemplary indications of dos and don’ts of making speeches or composing essays. The paper unequivocally underlines the sine qua non of parallelism before effective and enduring speeches and writings can be accomplished.