Stylistic Differentiation of English
Vocabulary
With respect to the functional styles, vocabulary can be subdivided into bookish
(literary), which is typical of formal styles, and colloquial vocabulary which is typical
of the lower style in oral communication; besides there is always present in the language
a stylistically neutral vocabulary which can be used in different kinds of style. Consider
the following examples:
child (neutral) – kid (colloq.) – infant (bookish,
official) – offspring (bookish, scientific);
father (neutral) – daddy (colloq.) – male parent /
ancestor (formal);
leave / go away (neutral) – be off / get out / get away /
get lost (colloq., or familiar-colloq.) – retire / withdraw (bookish);
continue (neutral) – go on / carry on (colloq.) – proceed
(bookish, formal);
begin / start (neutral) – get going /get started / Come on! (colloq.)
– commence (formal).
Stylistically neutral words usually constitute the main member in a group of synonyms,
the so-called synonymic dominant: they can be used in any style, they are not emotionally
coloured and have no additional evaluating elements.
Unlike neutral words which only denote a certain notion and thus have only a
denotational meaning, their stylistic synonyms usually contain some connotations, i.e.
additional components of meaning which express some emotional colouring or evaluation of
the object named; these additional components may also be simply the signs of a particular
functional style of speech.
The style of informal, friendly oral communication is called colloquial. The
vocabulary of colloquial style is usually lower than that of the formal or neutral styles,
it is often emotionally coloured and characterised by connotations (consider the endearing
connotations in the words daddy, kid or the evaluating components in trash).
Colloquial speech is characterised by the frequent use of words with a broad meaning
(something close to polysemy): speakers tend to use a small group of words in quite
different meanings, whereas in a formal style (official, business, scientific) every word
is to be used in a specific and clear meaning. Compare the different uses of the verb get
which frequently replaces in oral speech its more specific synonyms:
I got (= received) a letter today; Where did you get (=
buy) those jeans?; They didn’t get (= there wasn’t) much snow last
winter; I got (= caught) the ‘flu last month; Where has my pen got to (=
disappeared)?; I got (= forced) him to help me with the work; I didn’t get
(= hear) you / what уou said.
There are phrases and constructions typical of colloquial style: What’s up? (=
What has happened?); so-so (= not especially good); Sorry? Pardon? (= Please,
repeat it, I didn’t hear you); See you (= Good-bye); Me too / neither (=
So / neither do I), etc.
In grammar there may be: (a) the use of shortened variants of word-forms, e.g. isn’t;
can’t; I’d say, he’d’ve done (= would have done); Yaa (= Yes);
(b) the use of elliptical (incomplete) sentences; (Where’s he?) – At home; Like it?
(= Do you / Did you like it?) – Not too much (= I don’t like it too
much); (Shall I open it?) – Don’t!; May I? (= May I do this?)
The syntax of colloquial speech is also characterised by the preferable use of simple
sentences or by asyndetic connection (absence of conjunctions) between the parts of
composite sentences; complex constructions with non-finite forms are rarely used.
Besides the standard, literary-colloquial speech, there is also a non-standard, or
substandard, speech style, mostly represented by a special vocabulary. Such is the familiar-colloquial
style used in very free, friendly, informal situations of communication –
between close friends, members of one family, etc. Here we find emotionally coloured
words, low-colloquial vocabulary and slang words. This style admits also of the use of
rude and vulgar vocabulary, including expletives (obscene words / four-letter words /
swear words): rot / trash / stuff (= smth. bad); the cat’s pyjamas (=
just the right / suitable thing); bread-basket (= stomach); tipsy / under
the influence / under the table / has had a drop (= drunk); cute /great! (Am.)
(= very good); wet blanket (= uninteresting person); hot stuff! (=
smth. extremely good); You‘re damn right (= quite right).
The term slang is used in a very broad and vague sense. Besides denoting
low-colloquial words, it is also used to denote special jargons / cants, i.e. words
typically used by particular social groups to show that the speaker belongs to this group,
as different from other people. Originally jargons were used to preserve secrecy within
the social group, to make speech incomprehensible to others – such is the thieves’
jargon / cant. There is also prison slang, army slang, school slang, teenagers slang, etc.
Consider the examples of American campus slang: dode (= an appealing / stupid
person, idiot); harsh (= very bad, mean); nerd / nurd (= a person who
studies a lot or is socially outdated); thrash (= perform well on a
skateboard); throg (= drink any alcoholic drink); of American teenagers
slang: flake (= a stupid erratic person); scarf (= eat or drink;
consume); scope out (= look at, examine, check out); chill out (=
relax, calm oneself); babe magnet (= a person or thing that attracts members
of the opposite sex).
But often words from a particular jargon spread outside its social group and become
general slang. See examples of general British slang: crackers (= crazy
people); the year dot (= long ago); get the hump (= get angry); mac
(= Scotsman); ratted (= drunk); snout (= tobacco); of general
American slang: buck (= dollar); cabbage (= money); John (=
lavatory); give smb. wings (= teach to use drugs); top dog (= boss);
stag party (= a party without a woman).
There are also professional words which represent a kind of jargon / slang used by
people in their professional activity. See some professional jargon words for a blow in
boxing: an outer (a knock-out blow); a righthander; an uppercut; a clinch (position
of fighting close, body pressed to body).
Within the English formal language the following styles are distinguished: the style of
official documents, the scientific prose style, the publicistic style, the newspaper
style, the belle-lettres style. Most of these styles belong exclusively to writing,
insomuch as only in this particular form of human intercourse can communications of any
length be completely unambiguous. Each style is characterised by a number of individual
features which can be classified as leading or subordinate, constant or changing,
obligatory or optional, essential or transitory. Each style can be subdivided into a
number of substyles. The latter present varieties of the root style and have much in
common with it. The root styles fall into the following substyles:
The style of official documents: business documents, diplomatic
documents, legal documents, military documents.
The scientific prose style: the humanities, the exact sciences.
The publicistic style: speeches (oratory), essays, articles.
The newspaper style: newspaper headlines, brief news items,
advertisements.
The belle-lettres style: poetry proper, emotive prose, drama.
Any comparison of the texts belonging to different stylistic varieties listed above
will show that the first two of them – official documents and scientific style varieties
– are almost entirely devoid of emotive colouring being characterised by the neutrality
of style, whereas the last three are usually rich in stylistic devices.
Each functional style requires the choice of a special kind of grammatical forms and
structures and most of all of vocabulary. Words or word groups which are specifically
employed by a particular branch of science, technology, trade, or the arts to convey a
concept peculiar to this particular activity are identified as terms. Terms
are generally associated with a certain branch of science and therefore with a series of
other terms belonging to that particular branch of science. They always come in clusters,
either in a text or on the subject to which they belong, or in special dictionaries which
unlike general dictionaries make a careful selection of terms. Taken together, these
clusters of terms form a system of names for the objects of study of any particular branch
of science.
Terms are coined to nominate new concepts that appear in the process of and as a result
of technical progress and the development of science. “All scientists are linguists to
some extent. They are responsible for devising a constituent terminology, a skeleton
language to talk about their subject-matter” (Ullmann S., 1951). This quotation makes
clear one of the essential characteristics of a term – its highly conventional
character. A term is generally very easily coined and easily accepted; and new coinages as
easily replace out-dated ones. Terms therefore are rather transitory by nature, though
they may remain in the language as relics of a former stage in the development of a
particular branch of science. Terms are characterised by a tendency to be monosemantic and
therefore easily call forth the required concept.
Terms are predominantly used in special works dealing with the notions of some branch
of science. Therefore it may be said that they belong to the scientific style. But their
use is not confined to this style. They may as well appear in other styles: in newspaper
style, in publicistic style, in the belle-lettres style, and practically in all other
existing styles. But their function in this case changes. They no longer perform their
basic function, that of bearing an exact reference to a given notion or a concept. The
function of terms, if encountered in other styles, is either to indicate the technical
peculiarities of the subject dealt with, or to make some reference to the occupation of a
character whose language naturally contains special words and expressions.
With the increase of general education and the expansion of technique to meet ever
growing needs and desires of mankind, many words that were once terms have gradually lost
their qualities as terms and have passed into the common literary vocabulary. This process
is called “determinisation”. Such words as television, computer, mobile phone,
e-mail and the like have long been in common use and their terminological character is
no longer evident.
Correlated to terms are professionalisms, the words used in a certain trade,
profession by people connected by common interests both at work and at home. They commonly
designate some working process or implement of labour. Professional words name anew
already existing concepts and have the typical properties of a special code, but they do
not aim at secrecy. They perform a socially useful function in communication, facilitating
a quick and adequate grasp of the message. The main feature of a professionalism is its
technicality. Professionalisms are special words in the non-literary layer of the English
vocabulary, whereas terms are a specialised group belonging to the literary layer of
words. Terms, if they are connected with a field or branch of science or technique
well-known to ordinary people, are easily decoded and enter the neutral stratum of the
vocabulary. Professionalisms generally remain in circulation within a certain community,
as they are linked to a common occupation and social interests.
The semantic structure of the term is usually transparent and is therefore easily
understood. The semantic structure of a professionalism is often dimmed by the image on
which the meaning of the professionalism is based, particularly when the features of the
object in question reflect the process of work, metaphorically or metonymically. Like
terms, professionalisms do not allow any polysemy, they are monosemantic. Here are some
professionalisms used in different spheres of activity: tin-fish (submarine), piper
(a specialist who decorates pastry with the use of a cream-pipe); outer (a
knock out blow).
A good illustration of professionalisms as used by a man-of-letters can be found in
Dreiser’s “Financier”:
“Frank soon picked up all the technicalities of the situation. A ‘bull’, he
learned, was who bought in anticipation of a higher price to come; and if he was
‘loaded’ up with ‘line’ of stocks he was said to be ‘long’. He sold to
‘realise’ his profit, or if his margins were exhausted he was ‘wiped out’. A
‘bear’ was one who sold stocks which most frequently he did not have, in anticipation
of a lower price at which he could buy and satisfy his previous sales.”
In the extract above, each financial professionalism is explained by the author and the
words themselves are in inverted commas to stress their peculiar idiomatic sense and also
to indicate that the words do not belong to the standard English vocabulary in the meaning
they are used.
ACTIVITIES
Questions:
1. Identify stylistics in terms of the general theory of information.
2. Give a definition of a functional style. What type of information do
functional styles express?
3. What does the choice of functional style depend on?
4. What classes is the vocabulary of language subdivided into with
respect to functional styles? What are the properties of stylistically neutral words?
5. Describe the structural and semantic features of the colloquial
style.
6. What functional style does slang belong to? Give examples of general
British and American slang; of American campus and teenagers’ slang.
7. List the styles distinguished within the formal English language.
What are their characteristic features?
8. How are terms coined? What are their essential properties?
9. What linguistic phenomenon is called “de-terminisation”?
10. State the difference between a term and a professionalism.
Exercises:
1. Point out stylistic differences within the groups of synonyms.
face – visage – mug – deadpan;
nose – snout – beak – nasal cavity;
I think – I gather – I presume – I take it – I guess it – me thinks;
boy – youth – lad – young male person – youngster – teenager;
lass – girl – maiden – wench – young female person;
nonsense – absurdity – rot – trash;
legs – pins – lower extremities;
Silence, please! – Stop talking! – Shut your trap!
friend – comrade – pal – buddy – acquaintance;
Hurry up! – Move on! – Hasten your step!
2. Replace the colloquial expressions by more neutral ones.
(a) What do you think of her? – She’s jolly! – Really? – Oh, yah! She’s fun,
to be sure! A bit too fat for my taste, though. – Oh, come on, you’re being too
choosy. She’s just right. – Doesn’t look like it to me, anyway.
(b) I take it, he screwed his life himself, the jerk. Took to drinking, and things. He
sure did. But then, again, come to think of it, who wouldn’t with that stupid ass of a
woman around all the time? He just couldn’t make it.
3. Read an interview that John Kerry, a candidate for the US presidency, gave to
the reporters of “Time” in the course of the 2004 election campaign. Analyze the
vocabulary and structures used from the standpoint of style.
“I’m All For Strength, When Appropriate”
Time, March 15, 2004
TIME: What would you have done about Iraq had you been the President?
KERRY: If I had been the President, I might have gone to war but not the
President did. It might have been only because we had exhausted the remedies of
inspections, only because we had to – because it was the only way to enforce the
disarmament.
TIME: But it turns out there was nothing to disarm.
KERRY: Well, if we had kept on inspecting properly and gone through the process
appropriately, we might have avoided almost a $200 billion expenditure, the loss of lives
and the scorn of the world and the breaking of so many relations.
TIME: Would you say your position on Iraq is (a) it was a mistaken war; (b) it
was a necessary war fought in a bad way; or (c) fill in the blank’?
KERRY: I think George Bush rushed to war without exhausting the remedies
available to him, without exhausting the diplomacy necessary to put the U.S. in the
strongest position possible, without pulling the logistics and the plan to shore up Iraq
immediately and effectively.
TIME: And you as a Commander in Chief would not have made these mistakes but
would have gone to war?
KERRY: I didn’t say that.
TIME: I’m asking.
KERRY: I can’t tell you.
TIME: Might the war have been avoided?
KERRY: Yes.
TIME: Through inspections?
KERRY: It’s possible. It’s not a certainty, but it’s possible. I’m not
going to tell you hypothetically when you have reached the point of exhaustion that you
have to use force and your intelligence is good enough that it tells you you’ve reached
that moment. But I can tell you this: I would have asked a lot of questions they didn’t.
I would have tried to do a lot of diplomacy they didn’t.
TIME: You would have asked more questions about the quality of intelligence?
KERRY: Yes. If I had known that (Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chala-bei was
somebody they were relying on, I would have had serious doubts. And the fact that we learn
after the fact that that is one of their sources disturbs me enormously.
TIME: As a Senator, could you not have asked that question?
KERRY: We asked. They said: Well, we can’t tell you who the sources are. They
give you this gobbledygook. I went over to Pentagon. I saw the photographs. They told us
specifically what was happening in certain buildings. It wasn’t.
TIME: You were misled?
KERRY: Certainly by somebody. The intelligence clearly was wrong, fundamentally
flawed. Look, the British were able to do a two-month of what happened to their
intelligence. This Administration wants to put it off to 2005. It’s a national security
issue to know what happened to our intelligence. We ought to know now.
TIME: Obviously it’s good that Saddam is out of power. Was bringing him down
worth the cost?
KERRY: If there are no weapons of mass destruction – and we may yet find some
– then it is a war that was fought on false pretences, because that was the
justification to the American people, to the Congress, to the world, and that was clearly
the frame of my vote of consent. I suggested that all the evils of Saddam Hussein alone
were not a cause to go to war.
TIME: So, if we don’t find WMD, the war wasn’t worth the cost? That’s a
yes?
KERRY: No, I think you can still wait – no. You can’t – that’s not a
fair question, and I’ll tell you why. You can wind up successful in transforming Iraq
and changing the dynamics, and that may take it worth it, but that doesn’t mean that
transforming Iraq was the cause that provided the legitimacy to go. You have to have that
distinction.
TIME: You’ve said the foreign policy of triumphalism fuels the fire of
jihadists. Is it possible the U.S. show the force in Iraq tempers the fire of jihadists?
KERRY: I’m all for strength when appropriate, and, you bet, there are a lot of
countries in the Middle East that understand strength, and it’s a very important
message. But in my judgment, the way it was applied this time, it has encouraged
street-level anger, and I have been told by people it encourages the recruitment of
terrorists. I mean, look, even Rumsfeld’s own memo underscores that they haven’t
discovered how to stem the tide of recruitment.
TIME: Why would internationalizing the Iraq be a more effective strategy for
stabilizing the country?
KERRY: The legitimacy of the governing process that emerges from an essentially
American process is always subject to greater questioning than one that is developed with
broader, global consent.
TIME: How do you bring in others?
KERRY: I spent the time to go to the U.N. and sit with the Security Council
before the vote, because I wanted to ascertain what their real state of mind was and
whether or not they would be prepared to enforce the resolution, provide troops, whether
or not they took it seriously, whether or not they would share costs and burden, and I
came away convinced after a two-hour conversation, a lot of questions, that they would.
TIME: You’ve criticised the pre-emptive nature of the Bush doctrine.
KERRY: Let me emphasise: I’ll pre-empt where necessary. We are always entitled
to do that under the Charter of the U.N., which gives the right of self-defence of a
nation. We’ve always had a doctrine of pre-emption contained in first strike throughout
the cold war. So I understand that. It is the extension of it by the Bush Administration
to remove a person they don’t like that contravenes that.
to be continued
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