Official Writing (The Style of Official Documents)

It performs regulative function as the main one, i.e. the establishment of norms and rules in the sphere of public relations (e.g. the relations of individuals, group – individual relations, the relations of social groups and institutions, etc.). Substyles and genres: the style of law documents (laws, legislative acts, codes, instructions, orders), the style official documents (applications, references, protocols, ques­tionnaires, profiles, autobiographies, agreements, contracts), the style of diplomatic documents (agreements, pacts, communiqués, note, me­moranda, declarations). Official writing presents conside­rable in­ner differentiation, i.e. considerable genre-stylistic distinctions depending on the functional purpose of the text, themes, sphere of use, character of the institution issuing a publication.

Stylistic features: standard, imperative and prescriptive nature, ascer­taining as leading method of presentation, precision which does not admit misinterpretation, non-personal character. Specific features of the official style characteristic of all its varieties and genres: pattern text composition, speech standard and stereotyped ways of expression and arrangement of the language means (clichés, standard vocabulary).

Language means of the style of official documents are the following.

Graphic means: change of the print, italics, the use of graphic delimitation means – various graphic symbols (asterisks, lines, patterns, etc.) which clearly demonstrate text limitation (columns, division into parts, sections, elements, paragraphs), means of graphic design which reveal the representational form of the pattern.

Lexical means: bureaucratic clichés (words or word-combinations), the use of special terminology to express precision, repetitions, the use of constructions with archaic elements, wide spread of vocabulary units, expressing obligation, absence of subjective emotional appraisal.

Grammatical means: nominal character (predominance of nouns, a great number of nominal prepositions and conjunctions), wide use of the genitive case, different forms of expressing imperative (verbs with the meaning of obligation, verbs of instruction, prescription, future tense forms, the imperative mood, infinitive and infinitive construc­tions), absence of the first and second person presentation and cor­related pronouns, the use of collective nouns for the expression of im­per­sonality, different patterns of statement and ascertaining, speci­fic use of aspect and tense forms (future in conditional sentences, wide use of conditional sentences in connection with the necessity of de­tailed exposition and proviso, rare use of complex sentences, espe­cially with subordinate sentences of cause because of the absence of the necessity to explicate logical operations of analysis and reasoning).

Compositional devices: the patterned structure of texts of all the genres and substyles, declarative, ascertaining nature, neglect of nar­ration and discussion.

Everyday Writing (Colloquial Style)

The main function is communication, realization of practical activity of a person. It is used in everyday life. Extra-linguistic features: informality, spontaneous character of speech, interpersonal contact and direct involvement in the process of communication. Stylistic features: familiarity, ellipsis, concrete character of speech, inter­ruption and logical inconsistency of the speech, emotiveness, and efficacy. Secondary stylistic features: idiomatic and pattern character, “personal” type of speech presentation. There are oral and written (epistolary) varieties. Two forms of speech: dialogue (simple dialogue and polylogue) and monologue. Inner differentiation, i.e. genre and style distinctions, is caused by the communicative status, mood, aims, relations between those who communicate, situation and theme of the conversation. Substyles and genres: literary conver­sational style (talks, conversations, interviews), familiar-conver­satio­nal style (communication between family members, friends, intimate communication, children's talk), low colloquial (quarrels, abuse, scandal, squabble, insult). Language peculiarities: high activity of non-bookish means of the language with stylistic conversational and familiarity coloring, the use of non-bookish low colloquial elements on all language levels, incomplete constructions at phonetic, syntactical and partially morphological levels, the use of language units of concrete meaning at all the levels, non-characteristic use of means with abstract and generalized meaning, weak syntactic connections between the parts of a syntactic structure, active use of means of verbal imagery, means of expressing subjective appraisal, emotional and expressive means at all the levels, patterned speech, specific phraseology, personal forms, nonce-words.

Language means of the colloquial style are the following.

Graphic means: graphic signs as the reflection of phonetic processes of sound modification in fluent speech, graphic signals of the change of communicative roles.

Phonetic means: intensive modification of sounds in fluent speech, positional phonemic interchange (combinatorial – accommodation, assimilation, dissimilation and positional changes, connected with the position of a sound in a word – at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the word, stressed or unstressed position, etc.). Positional changes: reduction (weakening of vowels in unstressed syllables) and partial devoicing of consonants at the end of the word before a pause. Complete reduction: apokopa (the drop of the final consonant or final part of the word), synkopa (the drop of a vowel or several sounds in other positions). Partial reduction as a qualitative change of vowels. Partial and complete devoicing of consonants at the end of a word. Stylistic and communicative effects of modification. Wealth and variety of intonation patterns (rhythm, tempo, timbre, melody peculiarities).

Vocabulary means: conversational (everyday life) vocabulary, prio­rity of neutral widely-used words with concrete, denotative, referen­tial meanings, wide use of non-literary vocabulary, expressive-emo­tio­nal vocabulary, means of verbal imagery, well-developed syno­ny­my and polysemy, the use of stylistic devices, including pun, decom­position of phraseological units; in word-formation: emotive suffixes and prefixes, wide use of word-formation, expressive tautology.

Grammatical means: in morphology – frequent use of pronouns and particles, specific devises (wide use of pronouns in substitute and co-referential functions, wealth and variety of aspect and tense form of a verb (Present Continuous, Present Indefinite, Present Perfect), wide use of interjections, stop-, interruption-, break- and pause-words; in syntax: ellipsis, variety in the use of communicative types of the sentence, priority of short sentences, wide use of expressive construc­tions, exclamatory sentences, specific conversational constructions, distorted and “broken” syntax, predominance of co-ordination over subordination.

Compositional peculiarities: different types of discourse strategies, dialogue “entities” and “moves” as elementary units of discourse (question – answer, exclamation – reply, etc.), frames and scenarios of dialogue discourse, complicated communicative strategies of con­ver­sational style ("white lies", flattery, irony, deceit, lies, mockery, sarcasm, as aggressive and non-aggressive, individual and group communicational strategies, peculiar composition develop­ment in a quarrel, scandal, abuse, insult, squabble); compositional patterns of epistolary texts (business letters, personal, friendly, intimate letters, notes, postcards).

Contents and Authors