Билет № 4 Stylistic classification of the English Vocabulary.

In accordance with the sphere of their usage English words can be divided into 3 main layers: literary, neutral and colloquial.

the literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words:

1. common literary

2. terms and learned words

3. poetic

4. archaic

5. barbarisms and foreign words (words of foreign origin)

6. literary coinages (Neologisms are usually defined as new words or new meanings for established words)

The colloquial vocabulary falls into:

1. common colloquial

2. slang

3. jargonisms(are usually old words with entirely new meanings, which can be understood only by the people inside the social group (not outside it).

4. professionalisms

5. dialectal

6. vulgar (Vulgar words are expletives(ругательное) and swear words of abusive character.)

7. colloquial coinages (are based on semantic changes in words)

Neutral words, which form the bulk of the English Vocabulary, are used both in literary and colloquial language. They are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. It is the neutral stock of words that is so prolific in the production of new meanings. Unlike literary and colloquial words, neutral words lack special stylistic colouring.

 

6. Expressive means and stylistic devices based on the interaction of emotive and primary meanings

7. Lexical stylistic devices include epithets, oxumoron, interjections. The main feature is that all of them realize to some extent the combination of primary dictionary and subjective emotive evaluating meanings.

8. Logical meaning is the precise meaning of the idea, objest, the name by which we recognize a word.

9. Emotive meaning materializes a concept of the word, but unlike logical meaning it has references not to the things or phenomena, but to feelings and emotions of the speaker towards the thing or to his emotions. Therefore the emotive meaning bears reference to things, phenomena or ideas through their evaluation.

10. Emotive meaning is registered in the dictionary and is embedded in the structure of the word. "Good" has a positive emotive meaning.

11. Emotional meaning is in the language in use only. It can't be registered in a dictionary; each word has either positive or negative meaning.

12. Evaluated meaning can be positive or negative. Very often language evaluated meaning, situational and emotional meanings overlap.

13. Figurative meaning is a concept developed through a kind of impression which has been produced by the concept [a warm man].

14. Interjections are words we use when we express our feelings strongly and which may be said to exist in language as conventional symbols of emotions. They can be divided into primary <devoided of the language meaning and having only emotive meaning> [Ah! Oh!]. We regard them as negative. In the text they have emotive meaning; derivative - partly retained logical meaning, but emotional meaning is stronger [boy, well, fine]. Interjections may be divided into colloquial [gosh, well, why], bookish [alas], neutral [oh, ah].

6. Особый стилистический эффект может быть достигнут соединением слов, которые принадлежат к разным стилистическим пластам словарного состава языка. Так, например, если в одном сочетании соединить слова, которые относятся к поэтизмам, со словами, относящимися к терминам, эффект получится близкий к тому, который мы имели в оксюмороне. Например:

But oh, ambrosial cash! Ah! who would loose thee? When we no more can use, or even abuse thee!

(G. Byron.)

Эпитет ambrosial относится к поэтическому лексикону, т. е. сфера его употребления ограничена поэтическими произведениями. В этом слове очень четко реализуется

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соотнесенность самого понятия, выражаемого этим словом, с другими понятиями этого ряда, а именно, понятиями из области мифологии. В сочетании с коммерческим термином cash наличные деньги, получается эффект неожиданного столкновения двух совершенно разнородных слов.

По существу говоря, это явление можно условно назвать лингвистическим оксюмороном в отличие от логического оксюморона, который мы рассмотрели выше.

В лингвистических оксюморонах слова не теряют своей стилистической окраски. В отличие от логических оксюморонов они не приобретают каких-то дополнительных оттенков значения. Они насильственно соединяются, несмотря на то, что их связи не являются органическими.

В «Записках Пиквикского клуба» имеется следующее место: "The honourable gentleman is a humbug." Возвышенное "honourable gentleman", обычно употребляемое в официальных выступлениях, парламентских речах, официальной переписке и имеющее характер очень вежливого обращения, соединяется с ругательным словомhumbug. Естественно, что такое соединение нарушает обычные нормы употребления слов и производит юмористический эффект.

Интересным примером лингвистического оксюморона служит следующее место, уже приведенное нами выше, из " AChristmas Carol" Диккенса:

But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for.

Возвышенные слова ancestor, simile, unhallowed литературно-книжные по своей стилистической характеристике соединены с такими разговорными словами и формами, как Country's done for.

Функции этого приема весьма разнообразны: в основном это сатирическое изображение пристрастия к возвышенной, оторванной от действительности лексики и фразеологии, свойственной поэтам определенного направления.

Очень ярко эта функция выявляется в нижеследующей строфе байроновского "Don Juan". Восторженный, поэтически настроенный, влюбленный юноша испытывает приступы морской болезни. Его напыщенные риторические обращения к возлюбленной сменяются криками о помощи и бранью.

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"Sooner shall heaven kiss the earth — (here he fell sicker)

Oh, Julia! what is every other woe? —

(For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor;

Pedro, Battista, help me down below)

Julia, my love! — (you rascal, Pedro, quicker) —

Oh, Julia! (this curst vessel pitches so) —

Beloved Julia! hear me still beseeching!"

(Here he grew inarticulate with retching)

Лингвистические оксюмороны могут строиться на соединении следующих групп слов: терминологические ряды и поэтизмы; литературно-книжные слова и бытовые разговорные слова; поэтизмы, литературные возвышенные слова, иностранные слова и жаргонизмы. Наиболее часто этот прием встречается в сочетании живых бытовых разговорных элементов словаря с высоко книжными литературными словами и выражениями. Именно такие сопоставления дают наибольший стилистический эффект.

7. Syntactical expressive means. Their classification

 

Different syntactical phenomena may serve as an expressive stylistic means. Its expressive effect may be based on the absence of logically required components of speech - parts of the sentence, formal words or on the other hand on a superabundance of components of speech; they may be founded on an unusual order of components of speech, the change of meaning of syntactical constructions and other phenomena. All syntactical devices can be classified based on the following aspects: Compositional patterns of syntactical arrangement Particular ways of combining parts of the utterance Particular use of colloquial constructions The structural syntactical aspect is sometimes regarded as the crucial issue in stylistic analysis, although the peculiarities of syntactical arrangement are not so conspicuous as the lexical and phraseological properties of the utterance.

 

8.. Phonetic expressive means

Onomatopoeia is the reproduction of the sounds existing in nature and surrounding world (wind, thunder, laughter). There are two types of it:

· direct, which is imitation of sounds produced by animate objects or animals

· indirect, which is a combination of sounds, aimed at making the sound of the utterance an echo of its sense. [And the silken, sad, uncertain/Rustling of each purple curtain...] - the repetition of "s" produces the effect of rustling.

Alliteration is aimed at imparting a melodic effect of the utterance, which goes from the repitition of similiar sounds (consonant sounds)particulary at the begining of words. It also aims at giving a logical stress to the main concept (it doesn't bear any lexical or other meaning). Allusion is deeply rooted in the traditions of English folklore [the fair breeze blew/the white foam flew/the furrow followed free; Sense and Sensibility; to rob Peter to pay Paul].

Rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations in words. In verse rhyming words are usually placed at the end of lines, but the similarity of sound combinations can be different.

· complete or fall rhyme is represented by the identical vowel sound and the following consonant in a stressed syllable [might - write, good - stood].

· incomplete rhyme can be vowel [flesh - fresh - press] and consonant [laugh - prof, have - grave, dear - bear]; it can be percieved only in written form.

· compound is the combination of words is made to sound one word [forget-me-not].

According to the way rhymes are arranged in the context: couplets [ai-ai], triple [a-a-a], cross [a-b-a-b], framing [a-b-b-a]. Internal rhyme are the rhyming words, which are placed within the line [I bring fresh showers for the thirsty flowers]

Rhythm is a frequently or periodicity of contrasting segments of speech of long/short, stressed/unstressed, high/low alterations of similar units. It is the main factor that brings melody into the utterance. Rhythm in verse as a stylistic device is a combination of the ideal metrical scheme and its variations. It is determined by the character of syllables the verse contains.

9. Publicistic style (including newspapers).

The publicistic style is used in public speeches and printed public works which are addressed to a broad audience and devoted to important social or political events, public problems of cultural or moral character. The general aim of the publicist style is to exert influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech, essay or article not merely by logical argumentation, but by emotional appeal as well. This brain-washing function is most effective in oratory, for here the most powerful instrument of persuasion is brought into play: the human voice. Due to its characteristic combination of logical argumentation and emotional appeal, the publicistic style has features in common with the style of scientific prose or official documents, on the one hand, and that of emotive prose, on the other. Its coherent and logical syntactic structure, with an expanded system of connectives and its careful paragraphing, makes it similar to scientific prose. Its emotional appeal is generally achieved by the use of words with emotive meaning, the use of imagery and other stylistic devices as in emotive prose. The publicistic style also has some elements of emotionally coloured colloquial style as the author has no need to make their speech impersonal (as in scientific or official style), but, on the contrary, he or she tries to approximate the text to lively communication, as though they were talking to people in direct contact.

 

10. Graphical expressive means

Graphical expressive means include the use of punctuation, graphical arrangement of phrases, violation of type and spelling.

Basic notions of graphic expressive means are punctuation, orthogra­phy or spelling, text segmentation, and type. Punctuation is used in writing to show the stress, rhythm and tone of the spoken word. It also aims at clarifying the meaning of sentences. There are such common marks of punctuation: the full stop [. ], the comma [, ], the colon [: ], the semicolon [; ], brackets [()], dash [ - ], hyphen [ – ], the exclamation mark [! ], the oblique stroke [ / ], the iterrogative (question) mark [? ], inverted commas (quotation marks) [" "], suspension marks [...], the apostrophe [ ‘ ].

Miscellaneous remarks on punctuation.

 

• Many aspects of punctuation are ultimately a matter of personal prefer­ence and literary style.

• The general tendency in most public writing today is to minimise the amount of punctuation used.

• There are also minor differences in practice between the UK and the USA.

• The suggestions made above are based generally on conventions in the UK.

• Double punctuation ["What's the matter!?"] is rarely used, except in very informal writing such as personal letters or diaries.

• The combination of colon-plus-dash [: — ] is never necessary. Some people use this [it's called 'the pointer'] to indicate that a list will follow, but the colon alone should be sufficient.

• The importance of punctuation can be illustrated by comparing the two following letters. In both cases, the text is the same. It's the punctuation which makes all the difference!