Thunderous silence

[AUTOMOON]

Thunderous silence

In a paragraph discussing the stylistic device of oxymoron, it gives several examples, including one like" thunderous silence".

The author continues to explain that the use of oxymoron as in "
thunderous silence" expresses the relationship of concession.


What does concession mean?
Why is there concession?

P.S. Oxymoron ------the combining of opposite or contradictory terms


Merci boucoup!!

[Tdol]

I don't see why there is concession here, unless the author is accepting against their will the quality of the silence.

[AUTOMOON]

Silence is usually referred as " not easily felt, or not influential", while you see, the thunderous silence could be referring to a scene that is making great impact towards the people or others.

Then,we will understand that silence is a concession to the actual meaning that the phrase was refering to.

[Tdol]

I'm not convinced that silence is not easily felt- most of the times it is referred to it is because it is making its presence felt.

[AUTOMOON]

That is why we have these phrase, and that is why we call it concession.

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by AUTOMOON

What does concession mean?
Why is there concession?

A "concession", aside from its other, more common meanings, is a term used in the field of Linguistics that means, contrary to expectations, as in the oxymoron thunderous silence.

A concession relation is a relation of unexpectedness between propositions. Some proposition(s) in the relation are expressed as unexpected (the contraexpectation) in light of some other proposition(s) (the concession).

Source: Linguistic Terminology

[AUTOMOON]

Some proposition(s) in the relation are expressed as unexpected (the contraexpectation) in light of some other proposition(s) (the concession).

Thank you very much, Cas. Could you further illuminate the above sentence with several examples, ?

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by AUTOMOON

Some proposition(s) in the relation are expressed as unexpected (the contraexpectation) in light of some other proposition(s) (the concession).

Thank you very much, Cas. Could you further illuminate the above sentence with several examples, ?

jumbo jet (large plane)
shrimp of a guy (small person)

We know that jumbo means large and that shrimp means small, and so when we read or hear jumbo shrimp, we get a meaning that's contrary, or the opposite of what we expect. We expect jumbo shrimp to mean large small, which doesn't make any sense at all to us, at first, but then when we realize it it means large seafood, then we see that our expectation, or what we thought it was supposed to mean was incorrect.

jumbo shrimp
our expectation, or what we think: large small
the reality, or what's contrary to our expectation: large seafood

Let's look at the other example you had:

thunderous silence
thunderous (deafening sound)
silence (no sound)

What we expect it means: deafening sound and no sound
What it really means: the silence is deafening.

[AUTOMOON]

Some proposition(s) in the relation are expressed as unexpected (the contraexpectation) in light of some other proposition(s) (the concession).


Thanks , Cas.
I'd like you to explain what exactly the group of words in bold type in the above sentence refer to, by using examples.

Thanks again.