Functional styles (FS) are the subsystems of language, each subsystem having its own peculiar features in what concern vocabulary means, syntactical constructions, and even phonetics. The appearance and existence of FS is connected with the specific conditions of communication in different spheres of human life. FS differ not only by the possibility or impossibility of using some elements but also due to the frequency of their usage. For example, some terms can appear in the colloquial style but the possibility of its appearance is quite different form the possibility to meet it in an example of scientific style.

The classification of FS is a very complicated problem, that is why we will consider ideas of I.V.Arnold and I.R. Galperin, bearing in mind that Galperin treats functional styles as patterns of the written variety of language thus excluding colloquial FS.  Both scholars agree that each FS can be recognized by one or more leading features.  But Galperin pays more attention to the coordination of language means and stylistic devices whereas Arnold connects the specific features of each FS with its peculiarities in the sphere of communication.

Alliteration and assonance

Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this device lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words:

" The possessive instinct never stands still (J. Galsworthy) or,

"Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before" (E. A. Poe).

1. "Whatever defects the tale possessed—and they were not a few—

it had, as delivered by her, the one merit of seeming like truth."

2. "He was not without taste..."

3. "It troubled him not a little..."

4. "He found that this was no easy task."

As you can see by their definitions, all 3 or your phrases are very like one another. But some differences do exist.

REFRAIN: A phrase, verse, or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem, especially at the end of each stanza. Music for the refrain of a poem, a song or melody.
A repeated utterance or theme.

Pun

A pun is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. A pun can rely on the assumed equivalency of multiple similar words (homonymy), of different shades of meaning of one word (polysemy), or of a literal meaning with a metaphor. Bad puns are often considered to be cheesy.

A HYPERBOLE is an exaggeration. It is when a writer or speaker wishes to make a point by deliberately exaggerating something.

EXAMPLE

If something is really funny, you might say, “I nearly died laughing.”

This is an exaggeration – you did not “nearly die”.

A metaphor is the expression of an understanding of one concept in terms of another concept, where there is some similarity or correlation between the two. For example, we use the phrase "a blanket of snow" to describe a snowfall that covers the ground evenly, as if the snow were a fabric.

Metaphor is used for substitution, while metonymy is used for association.

Metaphor can mean condensation and metonymy can mean displacement.

Homework

Life is like a box of crayons.

Life is a tenor word, like is a link word and A box of crayons is a vehicle.

Our feelings can be seen as a great palette. I think every personality paints his life whatever colour he wants. If he lives in harmony with the world his feeling are also bright and warm. Sometimes we feel both joy and sadness. But everybody is also multi-coloured himself.

Life is like a roller-coaster.

Life is a tenor word, like is a link word and A roller-coaster is a vehicle.

That means that we cannot be a success every moment of our lives. Sometimes we are on the top, sometimes we face the despair. I’ve heard once about mystery country where there were no grief and despair. But there were also no happiness.

Stylistics is traditionally regarded as a field of study where the methods of
selecting and implementing linguistic, extra-linguistic or artistic expressive means and
devices in the process of communication are studied (e.g. Mistrík, 1985). In general,
we distinguish linguistic stylistics and literary (poetic) stylistics. The division between
the two is by no means easy or clear. In his book Exploring the Language of Poems,
Plays and Prose Mick Short comments on this problem like this:

“... stylistics can sometimes look like either linguistics or literary criticism,
depending upon where you are standing when looking at it. So, some of my
literary critical colleagues sometimes accuse me of being an unfeeling linguist,
saying that my analyses of poems, say, are too analytical, being too full of
linguistic jargon and leaving unsufficient room for personal preference on the
part of the reader. My linguist colleagues, on the other hand, sometimes say that
I‘m no linguist at all, but a critic in disguise, who cannot make his descriptions
of language precise enough to count as real linguistics. They think that I leave
too much to intuition and that I am not analytical enough. I think I‘ve got the
mix just right, of course!”
(Short, 1996, p. 1)