Assignments on Stylistic Lexicology

Exercise 1. State the type and the functions of super-neutral words in the following examples:

1. He kept looking at the fantastic green of the jungle and then at the orange-brown earth, febrile and pulsing as though the rain were cutting wounds into it. Ridges flinched before the power of it. The Lord giveth and He taketh away, Ridges thought solemnly (Mailer).

2. Yates remained serious. «We have time, Herr Zippmann, to try your schnapps. Are there any German troops in Neustadt?».

«No, Herr Offizier, that's just what I've to tell you. This morning, four gentlemen in all, we went out of Neustadt to meet the Herren Amerikaner» (Heym).

3. «Oh, I believed,» Fabermacher shrugged away the phrase. «To me neutrons were symbols, n with a mass of т „= 1.008. But until now I never saw them» (Wilson).

4. Anthony... clapped him affectionately on the back. «You're a real knight-errant, Jimmy», he said (Christie).

5. A young lady home back from school was explaining. «Take an egg», she said, «and make a perforation in the base and a corresponding one in the apex. Then apply the lips to the aperture, and by forcibly inhaling the breath the shell is entirely discharged of its contents». An old lady who was listening exclaimed: «It beats all how folks do things nowadays. When I was a gal they made a hole in each end and sucked» (Jespersen).

Exercise 2. State the type of sub-neutral words in the following examples:

1. I've often thought you'd make a corking good actress (Dreiser).

2. They graduated from Ohio State together, himself with an engineering degree (Jones).

3. «Poor son of a bitch», he said. «I feel for him, and I'm sorry I was bastardly» (Jones).

4. I'm here quite often - taking patients to hospitals for majors, and so on (Lewis).

5. Can we have some money to go to the show this aft, Daddy?

(Hemingway).

Exercise 3. Determine the functions performed by colloquialisms in the following examples:

1. With all your bitching you've never finished a tour of duty even once (Heller).

2. I was feeling about as cheerio as was possible under the circs when a muffled voice hailed me from the north-east... (Wodehouse).

3. Brenner had two more plays on Broadway in later years, both disastrous flops. One of them was produced by Craig (I.Shaw).

4. She let the program drop to the floor. «Did you cast an eye on the stuff I sent over?» (I.Shaw).

5. I had a little operation on my dome and the doc left a couple of fox-holes in my skull to remember him by (I.Shaw).

6. Since when have you been so palsy with Ed Brenner? (I.Shaw).

Exercise 4. Determine the functions performed by slang words in the following examples:

1. You right, old buddy. Let's make it (Baldwin).

2. «Now, listen», he said, «I ain't the kind of joker going to give you a hard time running around after other chicks and shit like

that» (Baldwin).

3. «If you don't mind, Belinder», he said, «I'm going to try to nap a little. I am absolutely bushed» (I.Shaw).

4. She really didn't have any idea who this nut could be, or what he was after (Baldwin).

5. And you carry that message to the Holy Ghost and if he don't like it you tell Him I said he's a faggot and He better not come nowhere near me (Baldwin).

Exercise 5. Determine the functions performed by jargon words in the following examples:

1. They put me in this little cell with about four or five other cats (Baldwin).

2. -I try to write interviews in depth for magazines. You're making face. Why?

- «In depth», he said.

- You are right, she said. Deadly jargon. You fall into it. It shall never pass my lips again (I.Shaw).

3. -1 think we've got a floater on our hands, Chief.

- A floater? What in Christ's name is a floater?

It was a word Hendricks had picked up from his night reading. «A drowning», he said embarrassed (Benchley).

4. «I just don't see myself in the Army», Matthew said stubbornly. «Get sent to some damn base in the Deep South - you know I ain't for that. I ain't about to take no crap off them red-necks...»
(Baldwin).

Exercise 6. Determine the functions performed by vulgarisms in the following examples:

And that's a crime, in this fucking free country (Baldwin). - 2. He said, «That's a hell of a note» (Baldwin).

3. You can tell by the way he's taken all this shit that he's a man (Baldwin).

4. «Man», he said to Joseph, «you know I don't want my boy's life in the hands of these white, ball-less motherfuckers» (Baldwin).

5. It's just that the bastards in the front offices won't hire me (I.Shaw).

Exercise 7. Analyze the vocabulary of the following; indicate the type and function of stylistically coloured units:

1. «You are arguing outside of my faculties of sense and rhetoric», says Bill. «What I wanted you to do is to go to Washington and dig out this appointment for me. I haven't no ideas of cultivation and intrigue. I'm a plain citizen and I need the job. I've killed seven men», says Bill; «I've got nine children; I've been a good Republican ever since the first of May; I can't read nor write, and I see no reason why I ain't illegible for the office. And I think your partner, Mr. Tucker», goes on Bill, «is also a man of sufficient ingratiation and connected system of mental delinquency to assist you in securing the appointment. I will give you preliminary», says Bill, «$1,000 for drinks, bribes and carfare in Washington. If you land the job I will pay you $1,000 more, cash down, and guarantee you impunity in boot-legging whiskey for twelve months. Are you patriotic to the West enough to help me put this thing through the White-washed Wigwam of the Great Father of the most eastern flag station of the Pennsylvania Railroad?» says Bill (O'Henry).

 

Exercise 8. Observe the dialectal peculiarities in the following example:

«That's so, my Lord. I remember having tae du much the same thing, mony years since, in an inquest upon a sailing-vessel ran aground in the estuary and got broken up by bumping herself to bits in a gale. The insurance folk thocht that the accident wasna a'togither straightforwards. We tuk itupon oorselz tae demonstrate that wi' the wind and tide setti' as they did, the boat should ha' been well-away fra' the shore if they started at the hour they claimed tae ha' done. We lost the case, but I've never altered my opeenion» (Sayers).

Exercise 9. Consider the lexical peculiarities of the following abstracts paying special attention to interaction of different types of vocabulary:

1. We were down South, in Alabama - Bill Driscoll and myself - when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, «during a moment of temporary mental apparition»; but we didn't find that out till later (O'Henry).

2. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore, and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things (O'Henry).

Exercise 10. Analyze the vocabulary of the following abstract; determine the type and the functions of stylistically coloured lexical units:

...«I got a nice little Indian girl down in Torreon», began the other man. «Say, it's a crime. Why, she don't even care if I marry her or not! I-»

«That's the way with 'em», broke in the other. «Loose! That's what they are. I've been in the country seven years».

«And do you know», the other man shook his finger severely at me. «You can tell all that to a Mexican Greaser and he'll just laugh at you! That's the kind of dirty skunks they are!» «They've got no pride», said Mac, gloomily. «Imagine», began the first compatriot. «Imagine what would happen if you said that to an American!»

Mac banged his fist on the table. «The American Woman, God bless her!» he said. «If any man dared to dirty the fair name of the American Woman to me, I think I'd kill him». He glared around the table, and as none of us besmirched the reputation of the Femininity of the Great Republic, he proceeded. «She is a Pure Ideal, and we've got to keep her so. I'd like to hear anybody talk rotten about a woman in my hearing!»

We drank our Tom-and-Jerries with the solemn righteousness of a Convention of Galahads.

«Say, Mac», said the' second man abruptly. «Do you remember them two little girls you and I had in Kansas City that winter?»

«Do I?» glowed Mac. «And remember the awful fix you thought you were in?»

«Will I ever forget it!»

The first man spoke. «Well», he said, «you can crack up your pretty senoritas all you want to. But for me, give me a clean little American girl!»... (J.Reed. Mac-American).