Lecture 1.2 Modern English from the Viewpoint of Syntagmatic Stylistics

The modern literary English language is a part of a larger unity named the national language, which in its turn comprises local dialects (or territorial vernaculars) and social dialects (or jargons). The named dialects stay beyond the literary language but interact with it constantly. The literary English language is a historically developed form of the national language serving the state, administrative and cultural needs of the nation; thus it is used in science, press, broadcasting, television. But what is more important, the literary language also serves the needs of everyday communication. The notions of the literary language and dialects mainly belong to the sphere of social linguistics, but they are also used in stylistics, functional stylistics first and foremost.

Modern literary English exists in two permanently interacting functional variants – bookish and colloquial. Though it is commonly thought that the bookish language is met in a written form only while colloquial is expressed orally, it is not always true. Novels and stories may contain examples of colloquial speech as their fragments, plays simply consist of spoken language. On the other hand, a scientist’s report as well as scientist’s everyday speech has every characteristic of the bookish language.

The bookish language is basically that of books, newspapers, decrees, reports, court proceedings, sometimes advertisements, etc. It is chiefly a written language. It is mostly prepared beforehand and delivered in the form of a monologue. Its vocabulary is characterised by a large number of abstract nouns, international words, specialised terminology. It presupposes a usage of many complex syntactical constructions, impersonal sentences dominating among them. From the lexical viewpoint, is noted for the use of special words and combinations like furthermore, likewise, hereinafter, in connection with, on the contrary, etc.

Colloquial literary English mainly serves the needs of everyday communication. It is maintained mostly in the form of a dialogue and is a spoken language. That is why it amply involves those means, which cannot be conveyed in writing: intonation, facial expressions, gestures, the common life experience of the interlocutors who have to permanently show mutual understanding. Hence we may say that the spoken language differs from the written one phoneticly, morphologically, lexically and syntactically.

Ellipses as a speech characteristics came to the language in each form of its manifestation from unprepared colloquial speech, the same as contracted morphological forms like he’d, she’s, we’ve, etc. It has some specific phonetic peculiarities like occasional dropping of the initial h. Another feature is deeper emotionality – colloquial language uses much wider the emphatic forms and units rich in connotations.

Both the bookish and the colloquial English language have much in common as regards their vocabulary, morphology and syntax. They are used and understood by all educated English speakers, but what is more important they both make the single literary English language which gradually and rather slowly changes due to the operation of certain linguistic laws and interactions between the literary and non-literary forms. Traced may be some periods in the language development when the influence of the form upon another becomes stronger. This is in many cases connected with social, political, ideological changes in the life of the speaking community. Thus the processes of democratization bring many colloquial forms into the bookish language. On the other hand, totalitarian tendencies in the society show a trend towards standardizing the spoken language and giving it the form of the written one.

As stylistics treats language phenomena from the point of view of their expressive function it inevitably deals with some specific notions, which are indifferent to a purely linguistic treatment of language categories. The mentioned notions are expressive means and stylistic devices.

Expressive means are phonetic means, morphological forms, means of word-building, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms, which function in the language for emotional or logical intensification of the utterance.

Therefore expressive means are not connected with the figurative, or transferred, meaning(s) of the word, but are used to enhance the expressive potentialities of speech and make it more emotional. To the expressive means belong different types of repetition, parallelism, antithesis, the use of archaisms and neologisms, etc.

Stylistics is not only concerned with the nature of expressive means, but also with their ability (or disability) to become a stylistic device, that is a metaphor, a metonymy, an oxymoron, etc.

So a stylistic device, unlike an expressive means, is a conscious and intentional literary use of some language phenomena, expressive means included. If some language fact (or phenomenon) is widely used in the same function, it is generalised in this function and is turns with the passage of time into a stylistic device. Most stylistic devices are aimed at further intensification of the emotional and logical emphasis contained in the corresponding expressive means. But an expressive means has a greater degree of predictability than a stylistic device, while the latter usually carries a greater amount of information. Stylistics deals with both, scrutinizing their nature and functions, possible classifications and possible interpretation.

Lecture 1.3 The English Vocabulary from the Viewpoint of Stylistics

Stylistics is dividing all the words comprising the vocabulary system of the modern English language into three principle groups:

• neutral words;

• literary words;

• colloquial words.

The first group is the largest because here belong the words without any additional information such as, for example, book, man, speak, walk, etc.

Meanwhile literary and colloquial words besides signifying the corresponding phenomena always bear in their semantic structure some additional information concerning the quality, manner, evaluation, emotional attitude to the object named. Such words being introduced into speech may easily change the whole colouring of the utterance which is originally neutral. The majority of literary and colloquial words have corresponding synonyms in the neutral layer of the vocabulary: child, infant, kid; to go away, to retire, to get out.

Literary words in their turn can be divided into:

1. general literary lexicon;

2. special literary lexicon.

The usage of the general literary words is not limited by stylistic factors in both sphere of usage or shades of meaning. Special literary words are distinctly limited in both these ways. Thus special literary words are represented by:

• terms;

• archaisms;

• neologisms;

• barbarisms.

Terms are or rather should be deprived of any emotional colouring. They are supposed to be used as monosemantic units. They usually do not perform any stylistic function unless they are used in colloquial speech or metaphorically.

Archaisms can be further subdivided into:

• obsolete words;

• historical words;

• archaisms proper.

Obsolete words are rarely used units which cannot be understood without additional explanation. For example, haply (perhaps), anon (at once). Archaisms proper are words which were in use in the 19^th century. They can be understood now but carry with themselves a strong stylistic effect of the units out of use currently so they mark the speech which may be regarded as deliberately constructed to convey some poetic or historical or elevated connotation. Examples are thee, thou, hither (here), thither (there), etc. Historical words denote objects out of use now. Their stylistic function is to create a special atmosphere by describing a certain epoch which belongs to the past.

Neologisms are words and expressions used to denote new phenomena, objects, processes. To neologisms we also refer nonce words or words coined to suit one particular occasion. As a rule the process of building neologisms is based upon commonly accepted rules and patterns of word formation.

Barbarisms are foreign words which enter the English vocabulary and are reflected in oral and written speech without adaptation to the spelling or phonetic system of the English language. In the majority of cases barbarisms have appropriate synonyms in English but are used to give the text or the utterance a foreign non-English flavour: ciao, adieu.

Within the special literary vocabulary we may also mention poetical words or highly literary words. This name of the lexical layer suggests that they are predominately used in poetry. Poetical words in modern English do not represent a homogeneous group. They include archaic words, sometimes obsolete lexicon, etc. On the other hand, not all of poetry consist of poetisms which quite natural because the latter must stay in contrast with the rest part of the literary work that is neutral, colloquial and common literary words. If we take into consideration the latest tendencies in modern poetry which means an ample inclusion of non-poetic words such as terminology, highly literary words, jargon and even vulgarisms, then the above said contrast will be perceived even better. This contrast creates a specific stylistic effect and makes the text of poetry a unique phenomenon significantly different from both colloquial speech and general bookish language.

Colloquial, or Non-literary Words

It is important that the language medium should offer as little as possible to the thought current which is attained only when the symbols of language are ones that convey precisely the same meaning to all who use the language. This thought first expressed in the book Usage and Abusage by Eric Partridge reflects rather an ideal situation because the same words used by different society strata and by different individuals convey not the same but slightly different meanings. So the language cannot be standardized entirely. It is constantly developing so it needs permanent re-enforcement on the part of colloquial speech which is characterised by the greatest degree of linguistic freedom. So the colloquial realm of the vocabulary comprises slang, jargon, professional words, vulgarisms and dialectal words.

Slang (or slangy, or slangish) words and expressions gradually penetrate from the lower to the upper layers of the language system and at last turn into the literary norm.

Jargonisms are words which stay close to slang. They may be further subdivided into:

• social jargons;

• professional jargons.

Social jargons are used by particular social strata to conceal the meaning from the “aliens” or to separate themselves from the people who do not enter their own social group. This is a special secret code which may be made up of either ordinary words invested with special or specialised meaning or of distorted words. Professional jargons are used by professional groups to give new vivid names to tools, machines and processes connected with the occupation of those people. For example, a sewing machine which denotes a machine-gun comes from the military jargon.

Vulgarisms are rough, coarse, swear-words and oaths.

Dialectal words should also be viewed as a dynamic vocabulary layer because many lexical units of the commonly used language are former dialectisms. For example, lad (a young man, neutral) came from the Scottish dialect.