Stylistic classification of the English Vocabulary

LECTURES

STYLISTICS

Contents

Lecture 1

1. What is Stylistics?

2. Issues of Stylistics

3. Objects of stylistics

a) Functional Styles (FS)

b) Stylistic Devices (SD) & Expressive Means (EM)

4. Branches of Stylistics

a) Comparative Stylistics

b) Decoding Stylistics

c) Functional Stylistics

5. Stylistic classification of the English Vocabulary

a) Galperin’s classification

b) Skrebnev’s classification.

 

The functions of the language- communicative (primary) and cognitive (secondary).

 

I. I.Galperin distinguishes 5 styles in English:

1. belles-lettres (Fr.): poetry, emotive prose, drama;

2. publicist style: oratory(art of making speech), essays, articles, etc.

3. newspaper style: brief news items, headlines, advertisements;

4. scientific prose style;

5. official document style

II. I.Arnold singles out 4 styles for the English language:

1. poetic style;

2. scientific style;

3. newspaper style;

4. colloquial style.

III. Y.Skrebnev suggests the most unconventional viewpoint on the number of styles (the number of styles is infinite).

Stylistics is the branch of linguistics which studies the principles and effect of choice and usage of different language elements in rendering thought and emotions under different conditions of communication.

The issues of stylistics:

1. the aesthetic function of the language;

2. expressive means in the language;

3. synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea;

4. emotional colouring in the language;

5. a system of special devices called stylistic devices;

6. splitting of the literary language into separate systems called style;

7. the interrelation between language & thought;

8. individual manner of an author in making use of the language.

 

Objects of Stylistics

Functional Stylistics (FS)

Stylistic Lexicology

Stylistic Phonetics

Stylistic Grammar

a) stylistic morphology

b) stylistic syntax

Stylistic Devices (SD) and Expressive Means (EM).

Branches of Stylistics

a). Comparative Stylistics

b). Decoding Stylistics (L.Shcherba, B.Larin, R.Jackobson, I.Arnold)

Stylistic classification of the English Vocabulary

a) Galperin’s classification

three layers:

Literary; neutral; colloquial

The aspect of the literary layer is its bookish character, the aspect of the colloquial layer is its lively spoken character and the aspect of the neutral layer is its universal character.

Literary layer: common literary words – e.g. He is always in extremes; perpetually in the superlative degree.

 terms and learned words – e.g. “…don’t you go to him for anything more serious than a pendectomy of the left ear or a strabismus of the cardiograph.

 poetic words

  archaic words - e.g. …The Lord giveth and He taketh away, Ridges thought solemly.

  barbarisms and foreign words (e.g. ad hoc (Lat.)= for this object

  neologisms – e.g. Oh, it was the killingest thing you ever saw.

Colloquial layer: common colloquial words

 slang – e.g. I’ve often thought you’d make a corking good actress.

 jargonisms – The arrangement was to keep in touch by runners and by walkie-talkie.

 dialectal words – e.g. “We’ll show Levenford what my clever lass can do. I’m looking ahead, and I can see it. When we’ve made ye the head scholar of the Academy, then you’ll see what your father means to do wi’ you. But ye must stick in to your lessons, stick in hard.”

vulgar words – e.g. “What the hell made you take on a job like that?”

“A regrettable necessity for cash. I can assure you it doesn’t suit my temperament.”

 colloquial coinages

Some examples of slang:

kick / kick back (A.E.);

lobster / green thumb (Am.E);

breakfast of champions (Am.E.);

  chewed (Am.E);

forks (Am.E.)

grabbers (Am.E.);

five-finger (Am.E.);

shake a leg (B.E.);

 sugar daddy (B.E);

X.Y.Z.;

BYOB.

 

 

Lecture 2

Stylistic Devices (SD)

a) Lexical

b) Lexical-Syntactical

c) Syntactical

d) Graphical and Expressive Means

  Galperin singles out the following groups of SD:

1. Lexical stylistic devices:

Metaphor is transference of meaning on the basis of similarity of objects belonging to different classes:

1. Physical similarity

a) appearance and form

nut= голова

arm= ветви

b ) temperature

a boiling pot= вспыльчивый

c ) position

the foot of the mountain

d) colour

lilac- сирень, сиреневый,

pink= гвоздика, розовый

e) function

hand= рука/ стрелка часов,

branch= ветка дерева/ рукав реки/ род войск/ филиал банка/ линия родства

f) movement

caterpillar= гусеница

caterpillar tractor= гусеничный трактор

g) the names of animals used to denote human qualities

top dog= a person/ country considered to be the most powerful, influential or superior

to monkey= обезъянничать

to rat= дезертировать

h) idiomatic phrases containing the names of animals

to have butterflies in one’s stomach;

to take the bull by the horns;

to rain/ pour cats and dogs;

dog ears;

dog tired;

every dog has his/its day;

a cock-and-bull story;

Sarcasm

Zeugma and Pun

Zeugma depends on a certain structure while Pun is more independent.

Zeugma is the realization of two meanings of a word: usually a verb which is aimed at referring to objects and adverbial modifier belonging to different classes of things.

e.g. - Mr. Stiggins… took his hat and his leave.

Pun

Ex. – What’s the difference between a schoolmaster and engine-driver?

- One trains the mind and the other minds the train.

- - Gentlemen! Order, please!

- - Beer, please.

Oxymoron

e.g. a low skyscraper;

a pleasantly ugly face;

deafening silence;

a foolishly intelligent face.

Hyperbole

e.g. Doctor X. drank his tea in oceans.

Understatement –

e.g. The little woman, for she was of pocket size, crossed her hands solemnly on her middle.

Epithet

1. simple epithet – “ mildly ”;

2. two-step epithet – adverb+ adjective –“ awfully beautiful ”;

3. syntactical epithet – (a modifier and a thing modified) – “ a book of joy ”;

She opened the megaphone of her mouth.

4. compound epithet – (compound words) – a heart-burning sigh;

5. phrase epithet – She gave me a quickly-kiss-me -look;

There was a man with a don’t-say-anything-to-me face.

6. sentence - My love! I adore you!

Antonomasia

a) a proper name is used instead of a common noun (metaphorical antonomasia):

e.g. He’s a Napoleon of crime.

b) a common noun is used instead of proper name:

e.g. Mrs. Blue Eyes, don’t make eyes on me!

c) a descriptive word combination is used instead of a proper name:

e.g. Mr. Something-Somebody is waiting for you.

I recommend you three doctors: Dr. Rest, Dr. Diet and Dr. Fresh Air.

2. Lexical-syntactical SD

Simile

”like”, “as…as”, “as…if” to compare objects.

e.g. …the sense of the beach which on March nights gleamed like powdered light.

Antithesis

Ex. To err is human; to forgive – divine;

Why should I dress up? When I’m at home everyone recognizes me; and when I’m in town, nobody recognizes me.

Climax

e.g. clever- talented – genius (ascending)

chaos – waste- cries (descending);

Ex. A city life is environmentally unhealthy, chronically dangerous and morally corrupting.

A sudden reversal of expectations which are caused by climax is called Anticlimax

(sequence of ideas that abruptly diminish in dignity or importance at the end of the sentence or passage, generally for satirical effect):

Ex. Among the great achievements of Benito Mussolini’s regime were the revival of strong national consciousness, the expansion of the Italian Empire and the running of the trains on time.

Ex. One needs a perfect memory to forget everything.

Periphrasis

e.g. the fair sex

the cap and gown – студенты

Euphemism

 e.g. the use of “lavatory” or “restroom” for “toilet”; “pass away” for “die”.

Litotes

e.g. It’s a good film= It’s not a bad film.

He’s not without a sense of humour.

It was not unwise to follow the advice.

3. Syntactical SD

1. Anaphora - e.g. Supposing he was killed, supposing he was run over, supposing he had been drowned.

2. Epiphora- e.g. I woke up alone, I walked alone, and returned home alone.

3. Framing - e.g. He ran away from the battle, he hated the war, he didn’t want to kill and be killed, so he ran away from the battle.

4. Anadiplosis- eg. With bewick on my knee I was then happy; happy at last in my own way.

5. Chain repetition - the structure: a...b, b...c, c…d, d…

Parallel construction ( parallelism)

 e.g. There were real silver spoons to stir the tea with; there were crystal glasses to drink out; there were real china plates to take the sandwiches from.

Partial parallelism

e.g. You know, I’m grateful to him, don’t you? You know I feel respect for him, don’t you?

Stylistic inversion

e.g. They slid down| off he went; down they slid| he went off.

Detachment (detached construction)

 e.g. He came into the room, happy.

He felt miserable standing before mother – a true worm.

Chiasmus –

e.g. The curtain went up, down went the lights.

In rushed the messenger, the editor stood up.

Puns are sometimes based on chiasmus:

e.g. Soldiers face powder, girls powder faces.

A handsome man kisses Misses, an ugly one misses kisses.

Ellipses or elliptical sentences

 e.g. Oh, with my friends! When?

e.g. The girls were in white and tears, the gentlemen – in high top hats and high spirits.

Question-in-the –narrative

  e.g. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course, he did. How could be otherwise?

Rhetorical question

  e.g. Did you help me when I needed help? Did you do anything to lessen my load?

Asyndeton

  e.g. James turned away;[because] he had an utter disinclination for talk, like one standing before an open grave watching a coffin slowly lowered.

Polysyndeton –

e.g. The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast the advantage over him in only one respect.

4. Graphical Expressive Means

Alliteration

 e.g. “ N ow or n ever”; “ As g ood as g old”; ” L ast but not the l east”; “The F lavour’s F resher than ever…” (Colgate toothpaste)

onomatopoeia or sound imitation – “cuckoo”, “buzz”.

 

 

 

  Lecture 3

Functional Styles of Speech

Morphological features

Use of regular morphological features, with interception of evaluative suffixes e.g. deary, doggie, duckie

Syntactical features

Use of simple sentences with a number of participial and infinitive constructions and numerous parentheses.

Syntactically correct utterances compliant with the literary norm.

Use of various types of syntactical compression, simplicity of syntactical connection.

Prevalence of active and finite verb forms.

Use of grammar forms for emphatic purposes, e.g. progressive verb forms to express emotions of irritation, anger etc.

Decomposition and ellipsis of sentences in a dialogue (easily reconstructed from the context).

Use of special colloquial phrases, e.g. that friend of yours.

Lexical features

  Wide range of vocabulary strata in accordance with the register of communication and participants roles: formal and informal, neutral and bookish, terms and foreign words.

Basic stock of communicative vocabulary- stylistically neutral.

Use of socially accepted contracted forms and abbreviations, e.g. fridge for refrigerator, ice for ice- cream, TV for television, CD for compact- disk, etc.

Use of etiquette language and conversational formulas, such as nice to see you, my pleasure, on behalf of, etc.

Extensive use of intensifiers and gap- fillers, e.g. absolutely, definitely, awfully, kind of, so to speak, I mean, if I may say so.

Use of interjections and exclamations, e.g. Dear me, My God, Goodness, well, why, now, oh.

Extensive use of phrasal verbs let sb down, put up with, stand sb up.

Use of words of indefinite meaning like thing, stuff.

Avoidance of slang, vulgarisms, dialect words, jargon.

Use of phraseological expressions, idioms and figures of speech.

Compositional features

Can be used in written and spoken varieties: dialogue, monologue, personal letters, diaries, essays, articles, etc.

Prepared types of texts may have thought out and logical composition, to a certain extent determined by conventional forms (letters, presentations, articles, interviews).

Spontaneous types have a loose structure, relative coherence and uniformity of form and content.

Phonetic features

- casual and often careless pronunciation, use of deviant forms, e.g. gonna instead of going to, dunno instead of don't know.

-use of reduced and contracted forms, e.g. you're, they've, I'd.

omission of unaccented elements due to quick tempo, e.g. you hear me?

- emphasis of intonation as a powerful semantic and stylistic instrument capable to render subtle nuances of thought and feeling.

-use of onomatopoeic words, e.g. whoosh, hush, yum, yak.

Morphological features

-use of evaluative suffixes, nonce words formed on morphological and phonetic analogy with other nominal words: e.g. baldish, mawkish, moody, hanky- panky, helter- skelter.

-extensive use of collocations and phrasal verbs instead of neutral and literary equivalents: e.g. to turn in instead of to go to bed.

Syntactical features

-use of simple short sentences.

-dialogues are usually of the question- answer type.

-use of echo questions, parallel structures, repetitions of various kinds.

-in complex sentences asyndetic coordination is the norm.

-coordination is used more often than subordination, repeated use of conjunction and is a sign of spontaneity rather than an expressive device.

-extensive use of ellipsis, including the subject of the sentence e.g. Can't say anything.

-extensive use of syntactic tautology, e.g. That girl, she was something else!

-abundance of gap-fillers and parenthetical elements such as sure, indeed, to be more exact, okay, well.

Lexical features

Combination of neutral, familiar and low colloquial vocabulary, including slang, vulgar and taboo words.

-extensive use of words of general meaning, specified in meaning by the situation guy, job, get, do, fix, affair.

-limited vocabulary resources, use of the same word in different meanings it may not possess, e.g. ''some'' meaning good: some guy! some game! ''nice'' meaning impressive, fascinating, high quality: nice music.

Abundance of specific colloquial interjections: boy, wow, hey, there, ahoy.

Use of hyperbole, epithets, evaluative vocabulary, trite metaphors and simile, e.g. if you say it once more I' ll kill you, as old as the hills, horrid, awesome, etc.

-tautological substitution of personal pronouns and names by other nouns, e.g. you-baby, Johnny- boy.

Mixture of curse words and euphemisms, e.g. damn, dash, darned, shoot.

Compositional features

-use of deviant language on all levels.

- strong emotional colouring.

- loose syntactical organisation of an utterance.

-frequently little coherence or adherence to the topic.

-no special compositional patterns.

III Publicist (media) style

Morphological features

Frequent use of non-finite verb forms, such as gerund, participle, infinitive.

Use of non- perfect verb forms.

Omission of articles, link verbs, auxiliaries, pronouns especially in headlines and news items.

Syntactical features

Frequent use of rhetorical questions and i nterrogatives in oratory speech.

In headlines: use of impersonal sentences, elliptical constructions, interrogative sentences, infinitive complexes and attributive groups.

In news items and articles: news items comprise one or two, rarely three, sentences.

Absence of complex coordination with chain of subordinate clauses and a number of conjunctions.

Prepositional phrases are used much more than synonymous gerundial phrases.

Absence of exclamatory sentences, break-in-the narrative, other expressively charged constructions.

Articles demonstrate more syntactical organisation and logical arrangement of sentences.

  Lexical features

Newspaper cliches and set phrases.

Terminological variety: scientific, sports, political, technical, etc.

Abbreviations and acronyms.

Numerous proper names, names of enterprises, institutions, international words, dates and figures.

Abstract notion words, elevated and bookish words.

In headlines: frequent use of pun, violated phraseology, vivid stylistic devices.

In oratory speech: words of elevated and bookish character, colloquial words and phrases, frequent use of such stylistic devices as metaphor, alliteration, allusion, irony, etc.

Use of conventional forms of address and trite phrases.

Compositional features

Text arrangement is marked by precision, logic and expressive power.

Carefully selected vocabulary.

Variety of topics.

Wide use of quotations, direct speech and represented speech.

Use of parallel constructions throughout the text.

In oratory: simplicity of structural expression, clarity of message, argumentative power.

In headlines: use of devices to arrest attention: rhyme, pun, puzzle, high degree of compression, graphical means.

In news items and articles: strict arrangement of titles and subtitles, emphasis on the headline.

Careful subdivision into paragraphs, clearly defined position of the sections of an article: the most important information is carried in the opening paragraph; often in the first sentence.

Morphological features

Adherence to the norm, sometimes outdated or even archaic, e.g. in legal documents.

Syntactical features

Use of long complex sentences with several types of coordination and subordination (up to 70% of the text).

Use of passive and participial constructions, numerous connectives.

Use of objects, attributes and all sorts of modifiers in the identifying and explanatory function.

Extensive use of detached constructions and parenthesis.

Use of participle I and participle II as openers in the initial expository statement.

A general syntactical mode of combining several pronouncements into one sentence.

Information texts are based on standard normative syntax reasonably simplified.

Lexical features

Prevalence of stylistically neutral and bookish vocabulary.

Use of terminology, e.g. legal: acquittal, testimony, aggravated larceny; commercial: advance payment, insurance, wholesale, etc.

Use of proper names (names of enterprises, companies, etc.) and titles.

Abstractions of persons, e.g. use of party instead of the name.

Officialese vocabulary: cliches, opening and conclusive phrases.

Conventional and archaic forms and words: kinsman, hereof, thereto, thereby, ilk.

Foreign words, especially Latin and French: status quo, force majeure, persona non grata.

Abbreviations, contractions, conventional symbols: M.P. (member of Parliament), Ltd (limited), $, etc.

Use of words in their primary denotative meaning.

Absence of tropes, no evaluative and emotive colouring of the vocabulary.

Seldom use of substitute words: it, one, that.

Compositional features

Special compositional design: coded graphical layout, clear-cut subdivision of texts into units of information; logical arrangement of these units, order-of-priority organisation of content and information.

Conventional composition of treaties, agreements, protocols, etc.: division into two parts, a preamble and a main part.

Use of stereotyped, official phraseology.

Accurate use of punctuation.

Generally objective, concrete, unemotional and impersonal style of narration.

Morphological features

Terminological word building and word- derivation: neologism formation by affixation and conversation.

Restricted use of finite verb forms.

Use of ''the author's we'' instead of I.

Frequent use of impersonal constructions.

Syntactical features

 Complete and standard syntactical mode of expression.

Syntactical precision to ensure the logical sequence of thought and argumentation.

Direct word order.

Use of lengthy sentences with subordinate clauses.

Extensive use of participial, gerundial and infinitive complexes.

Extensive use of adverbial and prepositional phrases.

Frequent use of parenthesis introduced by a dash.

Abundance of attributive groups with a descriptive function.

Preferential use of prepositional attributive groups instead of the descriptive of phrase.

Avoidance of ellipsis, even usually omitted conjunctions like ''that'' and ''which''.

Prevalence of nominal constructions over the verbal ones to avoid time reference for the sake of generalisation.

Frequent use of passive and non-finite verb forms to achieve objectivity and impersonality.

Use of impersonal forms and sentences such as mention should be made, it can be inferred, assuming that, etc.

Lexical features

Extensive use of bookish words e.g. presume, infer, preconception, cognitive.

Abundance of scientific terminology and phraseology.

Use of words in their primary dictionary meaning, restricted use of connotative contextual meanings.

Use of numerous neologisms.

Texts (history, philosophy): descriptive narration, supplied with argumentation and interpretation.

Logical and consistent narration, sequential presentation of material and facts.

Extensive use of citation, references and foot- notes.

Restricted use of expressive means and stylistic devices.

 Extensive use of conventional set phrases at certain points to emphasize the logical character of the narration, e.g. as we have seen, in conclusion, finally, as mentioned above.

Use of digressions to debate or support a certain point.

Definite structural arrangement in a hierarchical order: introduction, chapters, paragraphs, conclusion.

Special set of connective phrases and words to sustain coherence and logic, such as consequently, on the contrary, likewise.

Extensive use of double conjunctions like as... as, either... or, both... and, etc.

Compositionally arranged sentence patterns: postulatory (at the beginning), argumentative (in the central part), formulative (in the conclusion).

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LECTURES

STYLISTICS

Contents

Lecture 1

1. What is Stylistics?

2. Issues of Stylistics

3. Objects of stylistics

a) Functional Styles (FS)

b) Stylistic Devices (SD) & Expressive Means (EM)

4. Branches of Stylistics

a) Comparative Stylistics

b) Decoding Stylistics

c) Functional Stylistics

5. Stylistic classification of the English Vocabulary

a) Galperin’s classification

b) Skrebnev’s classification.

 

The functions of the language- communicative (primary) and cognitive (secondary).

 

I. I.Galperin distinguishes 5 styles in English:

1. belles-lettres (Fr.): poetry, emotive prose, drama;

2. publicist style: oratory(art of making speech), essays, articles, etc.

3. newspaper style: brief news items, headlines, advertisements;

4. scientific prose style;

5. official document style

II. I.Arnold singles out 4 styles for the English language:

1. poetic style;

2. scientific style;

3. newspaper style;

4. colloquial style.

III. Y.Skrebnev suggests the most unconventional viewpoint on the number of styles (the number of styles is infinite).

Stylistics is the branch of linguistics which studies the principles and effect of choice and usage of different language elements in rendering thought and emotions under different conditions of communication.

The issues of stylistics:

1. the aesthetic function of the language;

2. expressive means in the language;

3. synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea;

4. emotional colouring in the language;

5. a system of special devices called stylistic devices;

6. splitting of the literary language into separate systems called style;

7. the interrelation between language & thought;

8. individual manner of an author in making use of the language.

 

Objects of Stylistics

Functional Stylistics (FS)

Stylistic Lexicology

Stylistic Phonetics

Stylistic Grammar

a) stylistic morphology

b) stylistic syntax

Stylistic Devices (SD) and Expressive Means (EM).

Branches of Stylistics

a). Comparative Stylistics

b). Decoding Stylistics (L.Shcherba, B.Larin, R.Jackobson, I.Arnold)

Stylistic classification of the English Vocabulary

a) Galperin’s classification

three layers: