Реферат: Н. І. Панасенко Кандидат філологічних наук

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Рецензенти : доктор філологічних наук

Н. І. Панасенко Кандидат філологічних наук

/. М. Підгайська

кандидат філологічних наук

О. В. Жарікова


Єфімов Л. П., Ясінецька О. А.

Є 91 Стилістика англійської мови і дискурсивний аналіз. Учбово-методичний посібник. - Вінниця: НОВА КНИГА, 2004. - 240 с

ISBN 966-7890-65-1

Посібник складається з декількох частин та додатків. У ньому представленні основні питання стилістики як науки, зокрема, теорія стилістичних прийомів, яка включає їх визначення, класифікацію, опис стилістичних функцій тощо. Англомовне викладення теоретичних понять супроводжується великою кількістю прикладів як з англійської, так і з української художньої літератури, шо істотно сприяє розумінню способів вираження навіть окремих нюансів стилістично забарвлених понять у специфічно англо- чи україномовному функціонуванні. Практична частина являє собою систему завдань для семінарських занять і самостійної роботи, спрямованих на закріплення теоретичного матеріалу та формування навичок стилістичного аналізу тексту.

Розрахований на студентів факультетів та інститутів іноземних мов, викладачів англійської мови, перекладачів.

ББК 81.432.1-7

ISBN 966-7890-65-1 © Видавництво «Нова Книга», 2004

О Єфімов Л. П., Ясінецька О. А., 2004

Contents

INTRODUCTION 4

Chapter 1. Generalities of Sty listics 5

Chapter 2. Functional Styles 17

Chapter 3. Stylistic Lexicology 23

Chapter 4. Morphological Stylistics 30

Chapter 5. Phonetic and Graphic Expressive Mean sand Stylistic

Devices 34

Chapter 6. Stylistic Semasiology. Lexico-semantic Stylistic Devices.

Figures of Substitution 46

Chapter 7. Stylistic Semasiology. Figures of Combination 63

Chapter 8. Stylistic Syntax. Syntactic Stylistic Devices 73

Plans of Seminars 85

Practical Assignments for Seminars 90

Practical Assignments for Independent Work 143

Approximate Scheme of Overall Stylistic Analysis of a Fiction Text 174

Excerpts for Overall Stylistic Analysis 176

Fiction Extracts for a Comparative Analysis of English and Ukrainian
Means of Stylistic Expression in Belles-lettres 194

Final tests 209

^ EXAMINATION QUESTIONS 215

BASIC LITERATURE 217

SUPPLEMENTARY LITERATURE 217

QUOTED LITERATURE 227

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INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1


"Practical Stylistics of English" is an attempt to supply the student of English stylistics with a practical appendix to the lecture and seminar course of stylistic studies. The purpose of this book is to aid the teaching process by which a student becomes aware of the richness and variety of English stylis­tic means of communication. The book is intended to acquaint students with the concepts of functional styles, stylistic semasiology, phonetic, lexical, mor­phological and syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices. We hope that students will find practical help towards success at the end of the exam­ination course and will be able to stylistically identify, classify and describe the elements of language used in speech.

Taking into account the particularities of teaching intended teachers and translators, we have provided illustrations to theoretical statements in three languages: English, Ukrainian and Russian. Some sections of exercises offer training in comparative practical work which aims at establishing stylistic par­allels between English and Ukrainian.

The book is in 8 parts. It includes 8 theoretical chapters, plans of semi­nars and independent work, practical assignments for seminars, practical as­signments for independent work, excerpts for overall stylistic analysis, fiction extracts for a comparative analysis of English and Ukrainian means of stylis­tic expression in belles-lettres, final tests in two variants, and examination questions. Practical assignments, fiction extracts for a comparative analysis and final tests were prepared by E. A. Yasinetskaya. The rest of the book was written by L. P. Yefimof.

This book does not try to cover everything. The authors lay stress on the practical aspect of stylistic studies. If the students, guided carefully by their teacher, can grasp the concepts and approaches outlined in these pages, they will establish for themselves the strong foundations upon which further courses of advanced study can be built.

The principle of amalgamation of stylistic devices into great classes, such as "figures of substitution" or "figures of combination", introduced in the the­oretical chapters was borrowed from the book Мороховский А. Н., Воро­бьева О. П., Лихошерст Н. И., Тимошенко 3. В. Стилистика английского языка. - Киев: Высшая школа, 1991. Some of our state­ments were expanded by insertions borrowed from the book English Lan­guage 2.0: An Introduction to Basics. — Manchester: Clifton Press, 1999-2002. These insertions are marked in the text by the symbol ^

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Generalities Of Stylistics

The notion of stylistics. Stylistics is a branch of linguistics which deals with expressive resources and functional styles of a language.

^ Types of stylistics. linguo-stylistics is a science of functional styles and expressive potential of a language. Communicative (decoding) stylistics de­scribes expressive peculiarities of certain messages (texts). Coding stylistics (literary stylistics) deals with individual styles of authors. Contrastive stylis­tics investigates stylistic systems of two or more languages in comparison.

Connection of stylistics with other branches of linguistics. Stylistics and phonetics: Phonetics studies sounds, articulation, rhythmics and intona­tion. Stylistics concentrates on expressive sound combinations, intonational and rhythmic patterns. Stylistics and lexicology: Lexicology describes words, their origin, development, semantic and structural features. Stylistics also deals with words, but only those which are expressive in language or in speech. Stylistics and grammar: Grammar describes regularities of building words, word-combinations, sentences and texts. Stylistics restricts itself to those gram­mar regularities, which make language units expressive.

This connection gave birth to such interdisciplinary sciences as sh-listic semasiology (the science of stylistic devises or tropes), stylistic lexicology (the science of expressive layers of vocabulary, such as vulgarisms, jargon-isms, archaisms, neologisms etc. ), stylistic phonetics (the science of ex­pressive sound organization patterns), grammatical stylistics (the science of expressive morphological and syntactic language units).

The notion of functional style. One and the same thought may be worded in more than one way. This diversity is predetermined by coexist­ence of separate language subsystems, elements of which stand in relations of interstyle synonymy. Compare: / am afraid lest John should have lost his way in the forest (bookish) = 1 fear John's got lost in the wood (conversational). Such language subsystems are called "functional styles". Functional style units are capable of transmitting some additional informa­tion about the speaker and the objective reality in which communication takes place, namely the cultural and educational level of the speaker, his inner state of mind, intentions, emotions and feelings, etc. The most tradi­tionally accepted functional styles are the style of official and business com-

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munication, the style of scientific prose, the newspaper style, the publicistic style, the belletristic style, the conversational style.

The style a writer or speaker adopts depends partly on his own person­ality but very largely on what he has to say and what his purposes are. It| follows that style and subject matter should match each other appropriately. For example, a scientific report will obviously be much more formal and ob­jective in style than a poem which is trying to convey an intensely personal and moving experience. Just how important it is to choose an appropriate style can be seen by examining the following three sentences, which all say the same thing but in different ways:

^ John's dear parent is going to his heavenly home (bookish).

John's father is dying (literary colloquial).

John's old fella's on his way out (informal colloquial).

Though these sentences say the same thing, the style is very different in each. The first sentence is unduly sentimental and rather pompous. It has a falsely religious ring to it because, in striving to be dignified, it is overstated. The second one is plain and simple because it is formed of simple neutral words and does not try to disguise the unpleasant fact of death by using a gentler expression like passing away. Its simplicity gives it a sincerity and a dignity which are lacking in the first sentence, and, according to how it was said, it would be capable of conveying immeasurable grief in a way which is not possible with the other two. The third sentence is ludicrously insensitive, the use of slang suggesting the speaker's lack of respect or concern for John's father.

> style

One very important feature of good style is that it must be entirely appro­priate for the task it is performing.

This means that the author must take into account [even if unconscious­ly !] audience, form, and function.

Style might be good, yet hardly noticeable - because it is concentrated on effective communication. This is sometimes known as 'transparent' good style.

The following extract is from The Highway Code.

When approaching a roundabout, watch out for traffic already on it. Take special care to look out for cyclists or motorcyclists

ahead or to the side. Give way to traffic on your right unless road markings indicate otherwise; but keep moving if the way is clear.

This is writing which makes its points as simply and as clearly as possi­ble. The vocabulary is that of everyday life, and in manner it is speaking to a general reader without trying to make an impression or draw atten­tion to itself in any way.

This writing is entirely free of literary effects or decoration.

In most writing however, 'good style' is normally associated with verbal inventiveness and clever manipulation of the elements of literary lan­guage.

The extract from Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel Lolita illustrates this point:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Та.

This is writing which is deliberately setting out to be impressive. It relies very heavily on decoration and ornament.

In this extract Nabokov uses lots of alliteration - the repetition of the M' and 4' sounds, metaphor- 'light' and 'fire' -andonomatopoeia- "trip', 'tap' - as well as such fancy wordplay as the orthographic and semantic parallels between 'life' and 'fire'.

Good style in speech and writing - like that in clothes or other matters involving taste - can go in and out of fashion.

Style in context. Style, in any kind of speech or writing, is extremely important to the overall function of communication. In most cases, a consistency of features produces what we understand as a pleasing style. That is, the style is appropriate to the context in which it occurs.

A discordant style is produced by the inclusion of some feature which does not fit with the stylistic context of the piece. In other words, the feature is out of place.

An example of this might be found in a personal letter which is signed 'Yours faithfully' or an aristocratic character in a novel speaking street slang for no good stylistic reason.

The notion of norm. Norm may be defined as a set of language rules which are considered to be most standard and correct in a certain epoch and in a certain society. It is next to impossible to work out universal language norms because each functional style has its own regularities. The sentence


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••/ ain't got no news from nobody" should be treated as non-grammatical from the point of view of literary grammar though it is in full accordance with special colloquial English grammar rules.

The notion of form. Form is a term which refers to the recognizable shape of a text or a speech act. This shape may be either physical or ab­stract. It is physical in writing and abstract in spoken communication. Written forms are novels, stories, articles, poems, letters, posters, menus, etc. Spoken forms are conversations, TV and radio commentaries, announcements, ser­mons, jokes and anecdotes, etc. The term "form" is used in linguistics and in literary criticism as a technical term. It is used when considering the shape the construction, or the type of speech or writing. An awareness of form can help to produce more efficient communication.

The notion of text. Text literally means "a piece of writing". Charles Dickens' novel "Bleak House" is a text. A letter from a friend is a text. A caption to a picture is a text. A painting by Picasso can also be conditionally called a text. The term "text" is most used in linguistics and literary studies, where it was originally used as a synonym for "book", but it could just as easily be a poem, a letter, or a diary. This term is now in general use in other branches of the humanities such as cultural studies and film studies, where its meaning becomes "the thing being studied". In these other fields it could also be a video film, an advertisement, a painting, or a music score. Even a bus ticket may be called "a text". The term "text" is used so as to concen­trate attention on the object being studied, rather than its author.

The notion of context. Types of context. A linguistic context is the encirclement of a language unit by other language units in speech. Such encir­clement makes the meaning of the unit clear and unambiguous. It is especially important in case with polysemantic words. Microcontext is the context of a single utterance (sentence). Macrocontext is the context of a paragraph in a text. Megacontext is the context of a book chapter, a story or the whole book.

An extralingual (situational) context is formed by extralingual con­ditions in which communication takes place. Besides making the meaning of words well-defined, a situational context allows the speaker to economize on speech efforts and to avoid situationally redundant language signs. The com­mands of a surgeon in an operating room, such as "scalpel", "pincers" or "tampon", are understood by his assistants correctly and without any addi­tional explanations about what kind of tampon is needed.

Extralingual context can be physical or abstract and can significantly affect the communication. A conversation between lovers can be affected by

surroundings in terms of music, location, and the presence of others. Such surroundings form a physical context. A dialogue between colleagues can be affected by the nature of their relationship. That is, one may be of higher status than the other. Such nature forms an abstract context. Historical accounts are more easily understood when evoked in the context of their own time. Such context is called temporal or chronological. There would be a psychologi­cally advantageous context within which to tell one's spouse about that dent­ed bumper on the new car. Such context may be called psychological.

No linguistic unit exists in a vacuum and this is why dictionaries have only a limited function in conveying meaning devoid of context. Words do not have an absolute meaning. Shades of meaning emerge with variation in context. For example, if we say that "Peter the First was a great mon­arch", we are using great as an adjective to imply stately qualities and a large-scale impression of a historical figure. On the other hand, if we say "We had a great time at the party last night", the word great takes on a different meaning. The implication is that we enjoyed ourselves, and we wish to convey this in a rather exaggerated way. We are confident that our listener will understand. If we express our feelings to a sexual partner using the word love, that word means something quite different to the love we express to a two-year-old child. The context is different, and it affects the meaning of the word love.

In a detailed linguistic sense, a unit of meaning which we refer to as a morpheme can only be seen as such in context. For example, within the context of the word elephant, the fragment ant cannot be classed as a morpheme. This is because it is an integral part of that larger morpheme, elephant. However, considered on its own as a word, ant (the insect) is a morpheme. Here it is in a different context: Ants are industrious. Similarly, used as a prefix in a word such as antacid, it is a bound morpheme mean­ing against or opposite.

> context

• In poetry we find that context is crucial to meaning and its effect. If we take Robert Browining's use of disyllabic rhyme as used in 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin', we find the following sequence:

You hope because you're old and obese

To find in the furry civic robe ease.


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In this context the word 'obese' promotes a humorous and lighthearted effect. However, if our doctor warned us that we were overweight 1 obese j and stood a great risk of heart attack, it would not be such a laughingl matter.

If it is at all helpful, the idea of context can be illustrated by use of an analogy with colour. |

A flash of crimson on a white background looks very vivid, and it can] even make the white look slightly pink.

However, crimson on a black background loses its radiance and almost disappears.

The notion of speech. Speech and writing are two different systems. They are closely related, but not the same. Speech is normally a continuous! stream of sound. It is not broken up into separate parts like writing. People do not speak in sentences or paragraphs, they make up the content of what they are saying quite spontaneously, without any planning or long deliberation.! Conversations are often accompanied by other sign systems which aid un­derstanding. These might be physical gestures, facial expressions, even bodi­ly posture. Meaning in speech is also commonly conveyed by tone and other non-verbal means such as irony. Speech quite commonly includes false starts,] repetition, hesitation, "fillers" with no lexical or grammatical meaning, such as "um" and "er", and even nonsense words which replace terms which can not be recalled, such as "mingy" and "doodah".

Speech may often be quite inexplicit - because the participants in a con­versation can rely on the context for understanding. Speech can not be revised or edited in the same way as writing. Most people unconsciously or deliberately employ a wide range of speech varieties or functional styles in their everyday conversation. Linguists regard speech as primary and writing as secondary. Language changes take place far more rapidly in speech than in writing.

^ The notion of writing. Writing is the use of visual symbols which act as a code for communication between individuals or groups. Writing is a lan­guage variety and should be regarded as entirely separate from speech. The code of written language consists of letter-forms (the alphabet) used to form a visual approximation of spoken words. The spelling of most words in En­glish is now fixed. The relationship between spelling and pronunciation is consistent in Russian and Ukrainian but not consistent in English. Words are formed in accordance with the conventions of spelling, then combined ac­cording to the rules of syntax to form meaningful statements.

Mistakes in spelling and grammar might be tolerated in casual writing, uch as personal correspondence, but they are generally frowned on in all tvpes0f public and formal writing. Writing cannot include any non-verbal Jestures or the communication features which accompany spoken language _ such as facial expression, physical gestures, or tone of voice. The written word has to rely on choice of vocabulary, punctuation and printed emphasis (italics, capital letters) to produce such effects.

^ The notion of expressive means. Expressive means of a language are those phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic units and forms which make speech emphatic. Expressive means introduce connotational (stylistic, non-denotative) meanings into utterances. Phonetic expressive means in­clude pitch, melody, stresses, pauses, whispering, singing, and other ways of using human voice. Morphological expressive means are emotionally co­loured suffixes of diminutive nature: -y (-ie), -let (sonny, auntie., girlie_, streamlet). The range of emotional suffixes is much wider in synthetic lan­guages than in English. Compare the following:



Suffix

Ukrainian language words

^ Russian language words

- OK

дубок, деньок

дубок, денек

- UK

коник

домик

- иця, - ица

водиця

водица

- ичка

- ечка

- очка

водичка пічечка сіточка

водичка печечка сеточка

- инка

сніжинка

снелсинка

- очок
-ечка

- ечко

дубочок

книжечка

словечко

дубочок

книжечка

словечко

То lexical expressive means belong words, possessing connotations, such as epithets, poetic and archaic words, slangy words, vulgarisms, and interjections. A chain of expressive synonymic words always contains at least one neutral synonym. For example, the neutral word money has the following stylistically coloured equivalents: ackers (slang), cly (jargon), cole (jar-8on), gelt (jargon), moo (amer. slang), moolah (amer. slang), mopus (slang), oof (slang), pelf (bookish), rhino (conversat. ), spondulicks (amer. slang), cash (conversat. ), boot (slang), brads (conversat. ), chuck (amer. slang), lettuce (slang), lolly (slang), ante (slang), bread (slang), dumps Conversat. ), beens (slang), blunt (slang), crap (slang), dough (conver-


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sat.), etc. A chain of expressive synonyms used in a single utterance creates the effect of climax (gradation): "Знову дзвеніли, бриніли, сурмили комарі, допікали, дошкулювали, діймали, жерли, гризли" (Ю. Яновський).

То syntactic expressive means belong emphatic syntactic constructions. Such constructions stand in opposition to their neutral equivalents. The neu­tral sentence "John went away " may be replaced by the following expres­sive variants: "Away went John" (stylistic inversion), "John did go away" (use of the emphatic verb "to do"), "John went away, he did" (emphatic confirmation pattern), "It was John who went away" ("It is he who does it" pattern). Compare: «Это знают все» (neutral) = «Все это знают!» (exclamatory) = «Кто лее этого не знает?» (rhetorical). A number of Russian and Ukrainian expressive syntactic structures have no identical equiv­alents in English. It concerns impersonal sentences, denoting natural phe­nomena and physical conditions of living beings (Темнеет. Вечереет. Петру не спится. Что-то гнетет), infinitival sentences (Быть беде! Не быть тебе моим мужем! К кому обратиться за помощью?), generalized-personal statements (Что посеешь, то и пожнешь. С кем поведешься, от того и наберешься).

The notion of stylistic devices. Stylistic devices (tropes, figures of speech) unlike expressive means are not language phenomena. They are formed in speech and most of them do not exist out of context. According to principles of their formation, stylistic devices are grouped into phonetic, lexico-semantic and syntactic types. Basically, all stylistic devices are the result of revaluation of neutral words, word-combinations and syntactic structures. Revaluation makes language units obtain connotations and stylistic value. A stylistic de­vice is the subject matter of stylistic semasiology.

> figures of speech

Figures of speech or rhetorical devices are present in all cultures. It seems that it is in the very nature of linguistic discourse for speakers to act creatively. Indeed, it is that creativity in language use which ultimate­ly divides language use in humans and animals.

A child begins to be creative by using various figures of speech at the very beginning of the acquisition process. Words such as 'bang', 'smack', 'moo', and 'baa' are all onomatopoeic figures of speech common to a child's early vocabulary.




It is useful to contemplate a continuum of which the two opposites are literal and non-literal in terms of linguistic expression. We could envisage a statement of fact towards one extreme and a metaphor towards the other.

The statement of fact might be This is a wooden door.

An example of a metaphor might be The sunshine of your smile.

These two utterances comprise five words each, yet the metaphor says much more than the factual statement. Not only does it say more but it speaks of vast and abstract elements such as love, the sun, gesture, happiness, human warmth, pleasure and possibly more.

Figures of speech are often used to express abstract emotional or philo­sophical concepts. The figure of speech attaches the abstract concept to a material object and thus is instrumental in creating powerful and dy­namic communication.

Original figures of speech are valued in both speech and in writing. We respect the ability to generate these. Politicians for instance often use figures of speech, and are variously successful with this practice.

Churchill's image of 'the iron curtain' has stayed with us for over fifty years, although the phenomenon it described no longer exists.'The cold war' superseded it, during which it was the threat of someone 'pressing the button' which was on everyone's mind.

The 'rhetorical question' is a figure of speech favoured by politician and lay person alike. It is a powerful device because, although it has the appearance of being a question, it often acts as a form of persua­sion or criticism.

'Is our country in danger of becoming a hot-bed of sleaze?' we might hear a politician ask.'Are we going to stand by and let these atrocities continue?' Listening to our car radio we might mentally frame an answer to this kind of question — or at least we might be drawn into contemplat­ing the issue.

At a more domestic level we might be asked 'What time do you call this?' or 'How many times have I told you ...?' These are questions which actively discourage any answer. They are a form of rebuke which is an established ritual. As competent language users, we know them and participate in the ritual — by not answering, or responding to the 'real' (unstated) criticism.

Another figure of speech which spans the social spectrum is the cliche. These are often derided, and the word itself has become a pejorative term. However, the cliche is very much 'alive and kicking', especially in


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the context of football.'Over the moon' about a result and 'gutted' to hear the news, are just two such figures of speech heard almost daily over the popular media.

The cliche proves its function by its prolific use. Perhaps it is its over­use, or its application in inappropriate contexts which may cause distaste.

Figures of speech are also known as images. This indicates their func­tion well. The outcome of using them is that the listener or the reader receives a multi-dimensional communication. Lewis Carroll coined the term 'portmanteau' for words which are packed with layers of meaning. Although Carroll's usage is slightly different from that of figures of speech, it does illustrate that we have a strong drive as language users to convey meaning colourfully and economically.

The notion of image. Image is a certain picture of the objective world, a verbal subjective description of this or another person, event, occurrence, sight made by the speaker with the help of the whole set of expressive means and stylistic devices. Images are created to produce an immediate impression1 to human sight, hearing, sense of touch or taste.

When you look in a mirror, you see an image. You see a likeness of yourself. When you use a camera and take a picture of your girlfriend Masha in a flowered hat, the photograph you develop is an image of Masha. If you look at this photograph twenty years later, you will see an image of what Masha used to be like. You might ask a renowned painter to paint your por-i trait in oils. The picture he paints is an image of you. It may not be exactly like you. He may paint your nose bent round a bit the wrong way, or he may not capture the attractiveness and mystery of your green eyes. He may give you a figure of a kolobok, though you have always thought of yourself as slim and lithe. He has painted you as he sees you. He has put on to canvas his image of you. Perhaps he has tried to convey in his picture not only your physical likeness but also something of your inner character: how greedy or scandal­ous you are, for example. The same with words. Instead of painting you in oils, someone may prefer to paint you in words. If you really are greedy, untidy and have no table manners at all, you may one day find, at your table in the exclusive restaurant where you often dine, written on a small white card, the terse message: ^ YOU'RE A PIG. It will be your image, created by a met-| aphor. You are not a pig, of course, even though your table manners arel dreadful. What the writer means is that you eat like a pig. You are like a pig in| this one respect. And your verbal image created on the card will possibly help you to understand it.

Image is the matter of stylistic analysis.

> stylistic analysis

ф Stylistic analysis is a normal part of literary studies. It is practised as a

part of understanding the possible meanings in a text. ф it is also generally assumed that the process of analysis will reveal the

good qualities of the writing.

• Take for example the opening lines of Shakespeare's Richard III:

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

• A stylistic analysis might reveal the following points:

the play is written in poetic blank verse

that is — unrhymed, iambic pentameters

the stresses fall as follows

Now is the winter of our discontent

[notice that the stress falls on vowel sounds]

the first line is built on a metaphor

the condition of England is described in terms of the season 'winter'

the term 'our' is a form of the royal 'we'

the seasonal metaphor is extended into the second line ...

... where better conditions become 'summer'

the metaphor is extended even further by the term 'sun'

it is the sun which appears, 'causing' the summer

but 'sun' is here also a pun - on the term 'son'...

... which refers to the son of the King

'York' is a metonymic reference to the Duke of York




In a complete analysis, the significance of these stylistic details would be related to the events of the play itself, and to Shakespeare's presentation of them.

In some forms of stylistic analysis, the numerical recurrence of certain stylistic features is used to make judgements about the nature and the quality of the writing.

However, it is important to recognise that the concept of style is much broader than just the 'good style' of literary prose.

For instance, even casual communication such as a manner of speaking or a personal letter might have an individual style.


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However, to give a detailed account of this style requires the same de­gree of linguistic analysis as literary texts.

Stylistic analysis of a non-literary text for instance means studying in detail the features of a passage from such genres as:



Instruction




notes for programming your video-recorder

Information




a history text book

Persuasion




an advertisement or a holiday brochure

The method of analysis can be seen as looking at the text in great detail, observing what the parts are, and saying what function they perform in the context of the passage.

It is rather like taking a car-engine to pieces, looking at each component in detail, then observing its function as the whole engine starts working.

These are features which are likely to occur in a text whose function is to instruct:



imperative or command

'remove the outer covering'

direct address

'check voltage system before you install the unit'

numbered points

[because sequencing is important in carrying out a procedure]

technical terms or jargon

'piston', 'carburettor', 'spark plug'

diagram with call-out labels

[an extra level of communication to aid understanding]

• Features are dealt with in three stages, as follows:

identify — describe — explain

The features chosen from any text will be those which characterise the piece as to its function. They will be used by the analyst to prove the initial statement which is made about the linguistic nature of the text as a whole.

This method purports to be fairly scientific. A hypothesis is stated and then proved. It is a useful discipline which encourages logical thought and can be transferred to many other areas of academic study.

This is one reason why the discipline of stylistic analysis is so useful: it can be applied to a variety of subjects.

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CHAPTER 2

Functional Styles

Functional styles are classified into bookish and colloquial. The group of bookish styles embraces the style of official documents, the style of scientific prose, the newspaper style, the publicistic style and the belletristic style. The croup of colloquial styles includes the literary colloquial style, the informal colloquial style and substandard speech style.

The speaker resorts to a certain functional style due to such extralingual factors: the character of the situation in which communication takes place (official, ceremonial, informal, private or other); the relations between the communicants (formal, official, friendly, hostile, spontaneous); the aim of communication (transference of specific information, emotional attitudes, establishment of business contacts, etc. ); oral or written communication. The style of official documents. This style aims at establishing, devel­oping and controlling business relations between individuals and organiza­tions. Being devoid of expressiveness, it is fully impersonal, rational and prag­matic. Its special language forms are rather peculiar. The graphical level of this style is distinguished by specific rules of making inscriptions, using capital letters and abbreviations. The lexical level is characterized by domination of bookish, borrowed, archaic and obsolescent words, professional terms and cliches, such as "aviso" (авизо), "interest-free" (беспроцентный), "fidejussor" (поручитель), "flagrante delicto" (на месте преступления), "status quo" (существующее положение), "квартиросъемщик", "подрядчик", "повестка дня", "довожу до вашего сведения ...", "справка выдана для предъявления ...", "прошу предоставить мне...", "выписка верна". The morphological features of the style are such: the usage of obsolescent mood forms (Subjunctive I and the Suppositional), wide use of non-finite forms of the verb, impersonal, antic­ipatory and indefinite pronouns. The syntactic level is distinguished by long and super-long sentences of all structural types, always two-member and non-elliptical, complicated by complexes of secondary predication, detach-ments, parenthetic insertions and passive constructions.

The style of scientific prose. This style serves as an instrument for Promoting scientific ideas and exchanging scientific information among peo-pe- It is as bookish and formal as the style of official documents, that is why

17

both styles have much in common. To graphical peculiarities of the style of scientific prose belong number- or letter-indexed paragraphing, a developed system of headlines, titles and subtitles, footnotes, pictures, tables, schemes and formulae. Л great part of the vocabulary is constituted by special terms of international origin. The sphere of computer technologies alone enlarges the word-stock of different language vocabularies by thousands of new terms, such as "modem", "monitor", "interface", "hard disk", "floppy disk", "scanner", "CD-ют drive", "driver", "fragmentation", "formatting", "software", "hardware", etc. Most of such terms are borrowed from En­glish into other languages with preservation of their original form and sound- 1 ing (модем, монитор, интерфейс, сканнер, драйвер, фрагментация, форматирование). The rest are translated by way of loan-translation (жесткий диск, гибкий диск) and in other ways (software -компьютерные программы, hardware - компоненты ЭВМ). Adopted foreign terms submit to the grammar rules of the Russian and Ukrainian lan­guages while forming their derivatives and compounds (модемный, сканирование, переформатирование). The scientific vocabulary also abounds in set-phrases and cliches which introduce specific flavour of book-ishness and scientific character into the text (We proceed from assumption that ... , One can observe that... , As a matter of fact, ... , As is generally

accepted, ... ,).

One of the most noticeable morphological features of the scientific
prose style is the use of the personal pronoun "we" in the meaning of '7".
The scientific "we" is called "the plural of modesty". Syntax does not
differ much from that of the style of official documents. ,

The newspaper style. The basic communicative function of this style is to inform people about all kinds of events and occurrences which may be of some interest to them. Newspaper materials may be classified into three groups: brief news reviews, informational articles and advertisements. The vocabulary of the newspaper style consists mostly of neutral common liter­ary words, though it also contains many political, social and economic terms (gross output, per capita production, gross revenue, apartheid, single European currency, political summit, commodity exchange, tactical nu-\ clear missile, nuclear nonproliferation treaty). There are lots of abbrevia­tions (GDP - gross domestic product, EU - European Union, WTO -\ World Trade Organization, UN - United Nations Organization, NATO -North Atlantic Treaty Organization, HIV - human immunodeficiency vi­rus, AIDS - acquired immune deficiency syndrome, IMF - International

^ Monetary Fund, W. W. W. - World Wide Web). The newspaper vocabular­ies of the Russian and Ukrainian languages are overloaded with borrowings and international words (інтерв'ю, кореспонденція, інформація, репортаж, ідеалізація, ідеологія, соціал-демократ, монополіст, ініціатор), that is why the abundance of foreign suffixes (-ция, -ация, -изация, -изм, etc. ) is a conspicuous morphological fpaturp of the Russian and Ukrainian newspaper style. One of unattractive features of the newspa­per style is the overabundance of cliches. A cliche is a hackneyed phrase or expression. The phrase may once have been fresh or striking, but it has be­come tired through overuse. Cliches usually suggest mental laziness or the lack of original thought.

> Traditional examples of cliches are expressions such as it takes the biscuit, back to square one and a taste of his own medicine.

Current favourites (in the UK) include the bottom line is ..., a whole different ball game, living in the real world, a level playing field, and moving the goalposts.

Cliches present a temptation, because they often seem to be just what is required to make an effect. They do the trick. They hit the nail on the head. They are just what the doctor ordered. [See what I mean?]

Here is a stunning compilation, taken from a provincial newspaper. The example is genuine, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent. [That's a deliberate example!]

By their very nature cabarets tend to be a bit of a hit and miss affair. And Manchester's own 'Downtown Cabaret' is ample proof of that. When it was good it was very good, and when it was bad it was awful. Holding this curate's egg together was John Beswick acting as compere and keeping the hotchpotch of sketches and songs running along smoothly. And his professionalism shone through as he kept his hand on the tiller and steered the shown through a difficult audi­ence with his own brand of witticism. Local playwright Alan Olivers had previously worked like a Trojan and managed to marshal the talents of a bevy of Manchester's rising stars.

Syntax of the newspaper style as well as syntax of any other bookish svle is a diversity of all structural types of sentences (simple, complex, com-


18

19

pound and mixed) with a developed system of clauses connected with each other by all types of syntactic connections. The coating of bookishness is creat­ed by multicomponent attributive noun groups, participial, infinitive and gerundi-al word-combinations and syntactic constructions of secondary predication.

Advertising newspaper materials (ads) may be classified and non-clas­sified. Classified ads are arranged topicwise in certain rubrics: "Births", "Deaths", "Marriages", "Sale", "Purchase", "Здоровье", "Меняю", "Сниму", "Услуги", "Знакомства", etc. Non-classified ads integrate all top­ics. Ads are arranged according to stereotyped rules of economizing on space. Due to this all non-informative speech segments are omitted intentionally, e. g.: Births. On November 1, at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, to Barbara and John Culhane ~ a son. Здоровье. Антицеллулитный массаж. Пр. Ильича. 7а. Т. 345-44-65.

Graphically, the newspaper style is notable for the system of head­lines. The headlines have formed themselves into a specific genre. They com­bine three functions: gripping readers' attention, providing information and evaluating the contents of the article. To perform these functions newspaper headlines must be sensational, expressive and informative. Sentences in head­lines tend to be short, one-member or elliptical, affirmative, negative, inter­rogative and exclamatory.

The publicistic style. This style falls into the following variants: the ora­tory style (speeches, lectures and reports), the style of radio and TV pro­grams, the style of essays and journalistic articles. The most essential feature of the oratory style is the direct contact of the speaker with the audience. To establish and maintain this contact, the speaker continuously resorts to vari­ous language means of address: ladies and gentlemen, honourable guests, dear colleagues, dear friends, etc. Public speeches, radio and TV com­mentaries are crammed with syntactic stylistic devises of repetitions (direct, synonymic, anaphoric, epiphoric, framing, linking), polysyndeton, and parallel­isms. These devices aim at making information persuasive. Journalistic arti­cles and essays deal with political, social, economic, moral, ethical, philosoph­ical, religious, educational, cultural and popular-scientific problems. The choice of language means depends on the subject described. Scientific articles and essays contain more neutral words and constructions and less expressive means than articles and essays on humanitarian problems.

^ The belletristic style. This style attracts linguists most of all because th< authors of books use the whole gamma of expressive means and stylist! devises while creating their images. The function of this style is cognitive

esthetic. The belletristic style embraces prose, drama and poetry. ^ The lan-ua%e of emotive prose is extremely diverse. Most of the books contain the authors' speech and the speech of protagonists. The authors' speech embod-es all stylistic embellishments which the system of language tolerates. The speech of protagonists is just the reflection of people's natural communica­tion which they carry out by means of the colloquial style. The language of drama is also a stylization of the colloquial style when colloquial speech is not only an instrument for rendering information but an effective tool for the description of personages. The most distinctive feature of the language of poetry is its elevation. The imagery of poems and verses is profound, implicit and very touching. It is created by elevated words (highly literary, poetic, barbaric, obsolete or obsolescent), fresh and original tropes, inversions, repe­titions and parallel constructions. The pragmatic effect of poetic works may be enhanced by perfected rhymes, metres, rhymes and stanzas.

The colloquial styles. These styles comply with the regularities and norms of oral communication. The vocabulary of the literary colloquial style comprises neutral, bookish and literary words, though exotic words and colloquialisms are no exception. It is devoid of vulgar, slangy and dialectal lexical units. Reduction of grammatical forms makes the style morphological­ly distinguished, putting it in line with other colloquial styles. Sentences of literary colloquial conversation tend to be short and elliptical, with clauses connected asyndetically.

The vocabulary of the informal colloquial style is unofficial. Besides neutral words, it contains lots of words with connotative meanings. Expres­siveness of informal communication is also enhanced by extensive use of stylistic devises. The speaker chooses between the literary or informal collo­quial style taking into account the following situational conditions: aim of com­munication, place of communication, presence or absence of strangers, per­sonal relations, age factor, sex factor, etc.

One of the variants of the informal colloquial style is the dialect. Dia­lects are regional varieties of speech which relate to a geographical area. The term dialect used to refer to deviations from Standard English which were used by groups of speakers. Political awareness has now given linguists toe current concept of a dialect as any developed speech system. Standard English itself is therefore now considered to be a dialect of English - equal in status with regional dialects such as Scottish or social dialects, or Black En-8Hsh. The concept of dialect embraces all aspects of a language from gram-^зі" to vocabulary. Nowadays linguists take a descriptive view of all lan-

21

;uage phenomena. They do not promote the notion of the superiority of Stan-lard English. This is not to say that Standard English and Received Pronunci-ition are considered equal to dialectal forms, but certainly attitudes are be-

:oming more liberal.

Writers have for centuries attempted to represent dialectal utterances in their work. Shakespeare often gave his yokels such items. Snout the tinker in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" says "Bv> lakin, a parlous fear". The novelist D. H. Lawrence represented the Nottinghamshire dialect in many of his novels by interspersing Standard English with utterances such as "Come into th'ut" spoken by Mellors in "Lady Chatterley's Lover". Some contempo­rary regional dialect forms are ones which have remained as such after being eliminated from what is now Standard English. An example of this is the Scottish kirtle which was replaced in Standard English during the Old English

period by skirt.

The lowest level in the hierarchy of colloquial styles is occupied by sub­standard or special colloquial English. At the first glance, substandard English is a chaotic mixture of non-grammatical or contaminated speech pat­terns and vulgar words which should be criticized without regret. However, a detailed analysis of these irregularities shows that they are elements of a system, which is not deprived of rationality. For example, the universal gram­matical form ain't is a simplified substitute for am (is, are) not, was (were) not, have (has, had) not, shall (will) not. there is (are, was, were) not: "І ain't sharin' no time. 1 ain't takin' nobody with me, neither"

(J. Steinbeck).

"It ain't got no regular name" (E. Caldwell).

"All 1 say ain't no buildings like that on no Florida Keys" і

(E. Hemingway). Economical means of substandard English coexist with redundant or ple^

onastic forms and contaminated syntactic structures: "Then let's us have us a drink" (T. Capote). "1 think it more better if you go to her, sir" (S. Maugham). "1 wants my wife. I needs her at home" (W. Faulkner). "Dey was two white mens 1 heerd about" (W. Styron). "Young folks and womens, they aint cluttered" (W. Faulkner). "1 want you guys should listen to Doc, here" (J. Steinbeck). "I used to could play the fiddle" (T. Capote). Substandard English speech abounds in obscene words marked in dictic naries by the symbol "taboo", vulgarisms (bloody buggering hell, danme

home-wrecking dancing devil), slangy words (busthead = inferior or cheap whisky, liquor, or wine which results in hangover; cabbage = money, ban­knotes, paper money; frog-eater = a Frenchman; a pin-up girl = a sexually attractive young woman, usually a movie celebrity, a model or the like) and specific cliches (dead and gone, good and well, lord and master, far and away, this here ...).

Substandard English is used by millions of people in English speaking countries. It is a conspicuous indicator of low language culture and educa­tional level. Being introduced into books, it becomes a picturesque means of protagonists' characterization. Russian and Ukrainian substandard languages have the same features. Compare: гренки, феномен, беспрецендентный. более моложе, мы хочем, я поняла, мы живем на 245 квартале, белые розы: что с ними сделал снег и морозы, библиотека для детей централизованной системы, подъезжая к станции, с меня слетела шляпа. It is not an easy thing for a translator to provide sufficient equiva­lence of translation in case with substandard languages. He must be a great expert on both the source and target language substandard resources.

The binary division of functional styles into bookish and colloquial is gener­ally accepted in the soviet and post-soviet stylistic school. In British stylistic theories we also meet two general terms which cover the whole set of partic­ular functional styles: Standard English and Substandard English. Standard En­glish embraces all bookish substyles and the literary colloquial style. Substan­dard English includes the informal colloquial style and special colloquial English. The term Standard English, as viewed by the British scholars, refers to a dialect which has acquired the status of representing the English language.

CHAPTER 3 Stylistic Lexicology

Stylistic lexicology deals with words which make up people's lexicon, vocabulary or lexis is usefully distinguished from grammar in textual analysis, •ne grammar of any utterance is the underlying structure. The vocabulary is {пе immediate content or subject-matter of a statement. The passage which Allows contains a normal mixture of grammatical items and vocabulary items:

23

bananas are cheap and plentiful and can be used in many interesting ■vays, either as desserts or in main meals. With the grammatical items removed, the sentence still makes some sense: Bananas cheap plentiful used many interesting ways either desserts main meals. Without the lexi­cal items however, the grammar words mean nothing as a sequence: are and

can be in as or in.

Vocabulary is one level of stylistic analysis, along with phonology, gra­phology, grammar and semantics. In analyzing the vocabulary of a text or a speech, patterns of usage would be the subject of comment. For instance, the frequent occurrence of technical terms in car repair manual, or of emotive words in a tabloid newspaper article.

The majority of English words are neutral. Neutral words do not have stylistic connotations. Their meanings are purely denotative. They are such words as table, man, day, weather, to go, good, first, something, enough. Besides neutral vocabulary, there are two great stylistically marked layers of words in English word-stock: literary vocabulary and colloquial vocabulary. Literary vocabulary includes bookish words, terms, poetic and archaic words, barbarisms and neologisms. Colloquial vocabulary embraces conversational lexis, jargonisms, professionalisms, dialectal, slangy and vulgar words.

^ Neutral words form the lexical backbone of all functional styles. They are understood and accepted by all English-speaking people. Being the main source! of synonymy and polysemy, neutral words easily produce new meanings and| stylistic variants. Compare: mouse = 1) a small furry animal with a long tail; 2} mouse = a small device that you move in order to do things on a computer! screen; 3) mouse = someone who is quiet and prefers not to be noticed.

Bookish words are mainly used in writing and in polished speech. They form stylistic opposition to their colloquial synonyms. Compare: infant (ЬооЫ ish) = child (neutral) = fad (colloquial); parent (bookish) = father (neutral) =\

daddy (colloquial).

Terms belong to particular sciences. Consequently, the domain of their!

usage is the scientific functional style. The denotative meanings of terms are

clearly defined. A classical term is monosemantic and has no synonyms. Terms

of general nature are interdisciplinary (approbation, anomaly. ШегргеЩ

tion, definition, monograph, etc. ). Semantically narrow terms belong to I

definite branch of science (math.: differential, vector, hypotenuse, leg (oj

a triangle), equation, logarithm). When used in other styles, terms produce

different stylistic effects. They may sound humoristically or make speed|

"clever" and "scientific-like". Academic study has its own terms too. Terrn^

such as palatalization or velarization (phonetics), discourse analysis (sty-listics), hegemony (political philosophy) and objective correlative (literary studies) would not be recognizable by an everyday reader, though they might be understood by someone studying the same subject.

Terms should be used with precision, accuracy, and above all restraint. Eric Partridge quotes the following example to illustrate the difference be­tween a statement in technical and non-technical form: Chlorophyll makes food by photosynthesis = Green leaves build up food with the aid of tight. When terms are used to show off or impress readers or listeners, they are likely to create the opposite effect. There is not much virtue in using terms such as aerated beverages instead of fizzy drinks. These simply cause disruptions in tone and create a weak style. Here is an even more pretentious example of such weakness: Enjoy your free sample of our moisturizing cleansing bar (in other words - our soap).

The stylistic function of poetic words is to create poetic images and make speech elevated. Their nature is archaic. Many of poetic words have lost their original charm and become hackneyed conventional symbols due to their constant repetition in poetry (очи, дева, мурава, упование, стан (девичий), десница (правая рука), воинство, горнило, вещать, влачить, гласить, зардеть, отчий, златокудрый, дивный, поныне, воистину, во славу).

It is a well-known fact that the word-stock of any language is constantly changing and renewing. Old words die and new words appear. Before disap­pearing, a word undergoes the stages of being obsolescent, obsolete and ar­chaic. The beginning of the aging process of a word is marked by decrease in its usage. Rarely used words are called obsolescent. To English obsolescent words belong the pronoun though and its forms thee, thy and thine, the verbs with the ending -est {though makest) and the ending -th {he maketh), and other historical survivals. Obsolete words have gone completely out of usage though they are still recognized by the native speakers (methinks = it seems to me; nay = no). Archaic words belong to Old English and are not ^cognized nowadays. The main function of old words is to create a realistic background to historical works of literature.

Barbarisms and foreignisms have the same origin. They are bor­rowings from other languages. The greater part of barbarisms was borrowed Into English from French and Latin {parvenu - выскочка; protege -пРотеже; a propos - кстати; beau monde - высший свет; de novo — сь*знова; alter ego - другое «я»; datum - сведения, информация). Ваг-

25

larisms are assimilated borrowings. Being part of the English word-stock, hey are fixed in dictionaries. Foreignisms are non-assimilated borrowings >ccasionally used in speech for stylistic reasons. They do not belong to the Bnglish vocabulary and are not registered by lexicographers. The main fund ;ion of barbarisms and foreignisms is to create a realistic background to the stories about foreign habits, customs, traditions and conditions of life.

Neologisms are newly born words. Most of them are terms. The layer of terminological neologisms has been rapidly growing since the start of the technological revolution. The sphere of the Internet alone gave birth to thou­sands of new terms which have become international (network, server, brows­er, e-mail, provider, site, Internet Message Access Protocol, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, Microsoft Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, etc). The Internet is an immense virtual world with its own language and its people, good or bad. Hacker means "someone who uses a computer to connect to other people's computers secretly and often illegally in order to find or change information". Spammer means "someone who sends emails to large numbers of people on the Internet, especially when these are not wanted". Recent discoveries in biochemistry, genetic engineer­ing, plasma physics, microelectronics, oceanography, cosmonautics and other sciences demanded new words to name new concepts and ideas. The vocab­ulary of our everyday usage is also being enlarged by neologisms. Bancomatj, means "a European system of automatic cash-ejecting machines". Bank card means "a small plastic card that you use for making payments or for getting,

money from the bank".

^ Common colloquial vocabulary is part of Standard English word-stock. It borders both on neutral vocabulary and on special colloquial vocabulary! Colloquialisms are familiar words and idioms used in informal speech and^ writing, but unacceptable in polite conversation or business correspondence»] Compare standard speech sentence "Sir, you speak clearly and to the\ point" and its colloquial equivalent "Friend, you talk plain and hit the пащ

right on the head".

There are some specific ways of forming colloquial words and gramj matical fusions. The most typical of them are contraction (demo - demon] stration, comp = comprehensive school, disco = discotheque, pub ~ publiA house, ad - advertisement), amalgamation of two words in a single on< (s'long = so long, c'mon = come on, gimme - give me, wanna = want to, gonna = going to, don't = do not, he's — he has/is), affixation (missy = miss, girlie ~ girl, Scotty ~ Scotchman), compounding, composing and blend

. (legman = reporter, hanky-panky = children's tricks, yellow-belly -coward, motel = a hotel for people who are travelling by car).

The most productive way of building colloquial words in Russian and Ukrainian is derivation. Lots of suffixes and prefixes convert neutral words into conversational: мама = мамочка, мамуля, мамуся, мамка, мамаша, иаман, мамища; книга - книжка, книжица, книжонка, книжища. Many of colloquial words are extremely emotional and image-bearing. For example, the interjections oops, oh, gee, wow, alas are capable of ren­dering dozens of contextual subjective modal meanings, such as gladness, rapture, disappointment, resentment, admiration, etc. Not less expressive are Russian and Ukrainian colloquial words. Compare: пустомеля, скупердяй,