§ 2 Informal vocabulary used on ordinate occasions lies in the basis of colloquial speech.

2.1. The colloquial English is presented in three types – high(literary) – familiar and low ( illiterate). If to compare literay colloquial and familiar colloquial, the first reflects cultivated spoken English and is used by educated people in the course of communication or in writing letters to intimate friends. A good sample may be found in works by a number of authors such as J.Galsworthy, S. Maugham, J. Priestly and others. For a modern eader it represents speech of the older generation. The familiar colloquial is presented by the works of younger generations as M.Drabble, I.Murdoch, Y.Woe,etc.It is more emotional and much more free. But both are characterized by a great number of jocular and ironical expressions and nonce words, i.e. words coined for a particular occasion and not accepted into general usage.

2.2. Low colloquial is a term used to denote illiterate popular speech. Iis very difficult to find a rigid boundary between low colloquial and dialect because in actual communication the two are often used together. Among those of low colloquial we may register the following:

• emotionally coloured words as oh, ah, alas, Good Great, God forbid, damn it I never…;

• set expressions with the connotative meanings dominating:don’t say so; did he really; what a nuisance; terribly good; Anthony ( from St. Anthony – the patron of swineherds) - sucking-pig, puny creature;

• bunny – waitress in Playboy club ;

• crammer – a private teacher, coach;

• oldie – old nurse;

• tenner – ten monetary units;

• clippie – conductor;

• back-bencher – deputy to the parliament often missing

• compound words - beetlemania; backroomboy 0- a boy in secret; clipjoint – an expensive restraint; blow-pipe or jambo jet – jet plane; be-in – session of hippies; sit-in – student’s strike; teach-in – dispute, seminar;

• blending ( telescopy) motel, to dunch, a brunch;

• Contamination of word combinations – s’long – so long; c’mon – come on; gimme, coupla; kinda, dee-jay – disk-jockey or video-jockey;

• Abbreviation+ affixation – strap hanger – a passenger in a city transport);

The chief peculiarities of a low colloquial speech concern grammar and pronunciation; as to the vocabulary, it is different from familiar cvolloquial in that it contains more vulgar words and, sometimes, also the elements of a dialect.

2.3. Slang, according to O.E.D. is ‘language of a highly colloquial type consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense. In Webster’s dictionary ‘this is a currently used language consisting of new meanings attributed to existing words, or of wholly new words, generally accepted as lying outside standard polite usage’. As a rule, slang words are the result of some semantic shifts in their meaning structure.

Slang stands below colloquialisms but above cant; it excludes dialect and it is, as E.Partridge thinks, improperly implied to solecisms. Illiteracies, pidgin English and all jargons. Except in formal and dignified writing and in professional speaking, a vivid and extensive slang is perhaps preferable to jejune and meager vocabulary of Standard English.

The line of demarcation between slang and jargon is rather slight, stylistic differences are minimal.

2.4. If slangy and colloquial usages have no rigid line of demarcation and a slang word may pass to class of familiar colloquial speech, ‘cant’ occupies to some degree distant position and rarely appears to be a source of new vocabulary for familiar and literate colloquial speech.

Cant is often called as the thieves or underworld slang. It is true that the underworld employs a great deal of general or Cockney or provincial slang, but it wishes also to converse in a manner incomprehensible to more respectable citizens, so they use their misleading secret languages. Here are some examples:

• booze ( boozer) – to drink (drunkard);

• duds – clothes;

• moll – a woman;

• tanner - a sixpence;

• bob – a shilling;

• tip – to give;

• yokel – a man from the country ( especially old);

• hobo – a tramp;

• stool pigeon – informer;

• yegg - a burglar, esp. a safe breaker.

2.5. Dialect is essentially local, used by a group of people with the certain peculiarities in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, characteristic of a given district.These peculiarities, if they are picturesque , are being constantky incorporated into general colloquial speech and slang.The processes of incorporation are most characteristic on special occasions of social nature – war conflicts, denigration, political and sport events when the population is migled, numerous dia,ectal terms become part of the common stock and some of them even pass into formal speech and language of literature. As an illustration to this statement is R.Burne’s ‘croon’, formerly a dialect form, “immediately taken up by the poets in the meaning ‘to sing in a low voice with a loy of feeling. In the 1930z-40s in America this word acquired the meaning ‘ to sing with a microphone of the lips in a breathy style.”( E.Partridge). In different countries with developed langyages the dialect in the whole and dialec words in particular attract scrupu;ous attention of scholars as samples of vivid popular speech. As E.Partridge put in his known dictionary ‘ it is to be hoped that dialect speakers will not be shamed out of their words, phrases,and pronunciations by ‘cultured’ visitors, by near-visional teachers, by BBC ‘experts’. (p.96).

Topics for comprehension check and class discussion

12. Basic vocabulary;

13. Formal/informal language;

14. Stylistically charged vocabulary and its properties;

15. Stylistically neutral vocabulary and its properties;

16. Colloquial speech: the types;

17. High colloquial;

18. Familiar colloquial;

19. Low colloquial;

20. Slang and slang words;

21. The place of cant in English language;

22. Dialect and dialect words’

N.B. To each question you are to pick up authentic examples!

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