General Notes on functional styles of language

We have defined the object,of linguo-stylistics as the study of the nature, functions and structure^ SDs and EMs, on the one hand, and the study of the functional styles, on the other. In section 2 of this In­troduction (p. 25) we have outlined the general principles on which the notions of EMs and SDs rest.

It is now time to outline the general principles on which functional styles rest. A functional style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A func­tional style is thus to be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of a language.

The literary standard of the English language, like that of any other developed language, is not so homogeneous as it may seem. In fact the standard English literary language in the course of its development has fallen into several subsystems each of which has acquired its own peculiarities which are typical of the given functional style. The members of the language community, especially those who are sufficiently trained and responsive to language variations, recognize these styles as indepen­dent wholes. The peculiar choice of language means is primarily predeter­mined by the aim of the communication with the result that a more or less closed system is built up. One set of language media stands in op­position to other sets.of language media with other aims, and these other sets have other choices and arrangements of language means.

What we here call functional styles are also called registers or d i s с о u r s e s.

In the English literary standard we distinguish the following major functional styles (hence FS):

1) The language of belles-lettres.

2) The language of publicistic literature.

3) The language of newspapers.

4) The language of scientific prose.

5) The language of official documents.

As has already been mentioned, functional styles are the product of the development of the written variety of language. l Each FS may be characterized by a number of distinctive features, leading or subordi­nate, constant or changing, obligatory or optional. Most of the FSs, however, are perceived as independent wholes due to a peculiar combi­nation and interrelation of features common to all (especially when taking into account syntactical arrangement) with the leading ones of each FS.

Each FS is subdivided into a number of substyles. These represent varieties of the abstract invariant. Each variety has basic features com­mon to all the varieties of the given FS and peculiar features typical of this variety alone. Still a substyle can, in some cases, deviate so far from the invariant that in its extreme it may even break away.

We clearly perceive the following substyles of the five FSs given above.

The belles-lettres FS has the following substyles:

япя ha?“ 5?s not mean, however, that the spoken communications lack individuality al stvle ' stinct stYles of their own. Folklore, for example, is undoubtedly a function-therefore plasmucl:1.as it has a definite aim in communicating its facts and ideas, and is our attention^ r*Zec* ^У а deliberately chosen language means. Here we shall confine dard. Those t *° s^udy of the functional styles bred within the literary written stan-" of mouth suh eS °^ literature which began life purely as speech, were passed on by word lore. ' ec*Uently perpetuated in writing, are left to the care of specialists in folk-

a) the language style of poetry; b) the language style of emotive prose; c) the language style of drama.

The publicistic F S comprises the following substyles: a) the language style of oratory; b) the language style of essays;

c) the language style of feature articles in newspapers and journals.*

The newspaper FS falls into a) the language style of brief news items and communiques; b) the language style of newspaper head­ings and c) the language style of notices and advertisements.

The scientific prose FS also has three divisions: a) the language style of humanitarian sciences; b) the language style of "exact" | sciences; c) the language style of popular scientific prose. J

The official document FS can be divided into four varieties: a) the language style of diplomatic documents; b) the language \ style of business documents; c) the language style of legal.documents; ]

d) the language style of military documents. ]

The classification presented here is by no means arbitrary. It is the result of long and minute observations of factual material in which not • only peculiarities of language usage were taken into account but also extralinguistic data, in particular the purport of the communication. However, we admit that this classification is not proof against criticism. Other schemes may possibly be elaborated and highlighted by different approaches to the problem of functional styles. The classification of FSs Jj is not a simple matter and any discussion of it is bound to reflect more li than one angle.of vision. Thus, for example, some stylicists consider that newspaper articles (including feature articles) should be classed M under the functional style of newspaper language, not under the language м of publicistic literature. Others insist on including the language of every- ' day-life discourse into the system of functional styles. Prof. Budagov singles out only two main functional styles: the language of science and that of emotive literature.1

It is inevitable, of course, that any classification should lead to some kind of simplification of the ^acts classified, because items areconsid-ered in isolation. Moreover, substyles assume, as it were, the aspect of closed systems. But no classification, useful though it may be from the theoretical point of view, should be allowed to blind us as to the conventionality of classification in general. When analysing concrete texts, we discover that the boundaries between them sometimes become less and less discernibk^Thus, for instance, the signs of difference are sometimes almost imperceptible between poetry and emotive prose; between newspaper FS and publicistic FS; between a popular scientific article and a scientific treatise; between an essay and a scientific article. But the extremes are apparent from the ways language units are used both structurally and semantically. Language serves a variety of needs and these needs have given birth to the principles on which our classifi­cation is based and which in their turn presuppose the choice and com­bination of language means.

We presume that the reader has noticed the insistent use of the ex-cTion 'language style' or “style of language' in the above classification. This is done in order to emphasize the idea that in this work the word 'style' is applied purely to linguistic data.

The classification given above to our mind adequately represents the facts of the standard English language. For detailed analyses of FSs ее chapter VI of this book (p. 249), where in addition to arguments for placing this or that FS in a given group, illustrations with commentary will be found.

 

 

VARIETIES OF LANGUAGE

The functioning of the literary language in various spheres of human activity and with different aims of communication has resulted in its differentiation. This differentiation is predetermined by two distinct factors, namely, the actual situation in within the language is being used amLthe aim of the communication.

The actual situation of the communication has evolved two varie­ties of language—t he s p о k e n a^d ^/1Д_оу r / ft en. The varying aims of the communication have caused the literary language to fall into a number of self-sufficient systems (functional styles of language).

Of the two varieties of language, diachronically the spoken is pri­mary and the written is secondary. Each of these varieties has developed its own features md_4uaHties which in many ways may be regarded as opposed to each other.

The situation in which the spoken variety of language is used and in which it develops, can be described concisely as the presence of an inter­locutor. The written variety, on the contrary, presupposes the absence of an interlocutor. The spoken language is maintained in the form of a dialogue, the written in the form of a monologue. The spoken language, has a considerable advantage over the written, in that the human voice, comes into play. This is a powerful means of modulating the utterance, as are all kinds of gestures, which, together with the intonation, give additional information.

The written language has to seek means to compensate for what it lacks. Therefore the written utterance will inevitably be more diffuse, more explanatory. In other words, it has to produce an enlarged repre­sentation of the communication in order to be explicit enough.

The forms of the written language replace those of the spoken language when dissemination of ideas is the purpose in view. It is the written variety of language with its careful organization and deliberate, choice of words and mistruHior^ and educa­tional influence on a wMe and scattered public.

Jn fRe r6rig"process^TTI^uncfioning, the written language has ac­quired its own characteristic features emanating from the need to am-P"ty the utterance, which, is an essential point in the written language.