8. The style of official documents. The scientific style. Classifications of terminology

1) Language of business letters;

2) Language of legal documents;

3) Language of diplomacy;

4) Language of military documents

The aim: to reach agreement between two contracting parties; to state the conditions binding two parties in an understanding.

Functions: informative, urging.

Each of substyles of official documents makes use of special terms. Legal documents: military documents, diplomatic documents. The documents use set expressions inherited from early Victorian period (kinsman, hereof, thereto, thereby, ilk). This vocabulary is conservative. Legal documents contain a large proportion of formal and archaic words used in their dictionary meaning. In diplomatic and legal documents many words have Latin and French origin(status quo, persona non grata). There are a lot of abbreviations and conventional symbols( MP, Ltd.).

The most noticeable feature of grammar is the compositional pattern. Use of future tense (to intense politeness). Every document has its own stereotyped form. The form itself is informative and tells you with what kind of letter we deal with.

Syntactical features of business letters are - the predominance of extended simple and complex sentences, wide use of participial constructions, homogeneous members. Very long sentences with several types of coordination and subordination. Use of passive and participial constructions, numerous connectives. Extensive use of detached constructions and parenthesis. Information texts are based on standard normative syntax reasonably simplified.

The syntactical pattern of the style is as significant as the vocabulary though not perhaps so immediately apparent. Perhaps the most noticeable of all syntactical features are the compositional patterns of the variants of this style. Thus, business letters have a definite compositional pattern, namely, the heading giving the address of the writer and the date, the name of the addressee and his address (heading, addressing, salutation, the opening, the body, the closing, complimentary clause, the signature). An official document usually consists of a preamble, main text body and a finalizing (concluding) part.

Morphological peculiarities are passive constructions, they make the letters impersonal. There is a tendency to avoid pronoun reference. Its typical feature is to frame equally important factors and to divide them by members in order to avoid ambiguity of the wrong interpretation.

Official documents are written in a formal, “cold” or matter-of-fact style of speech. Like other styles of language, this style has a definite communicative aim and accordingly has its own system of interrelated language and stylistic means. The most general function of official documents predetermines the peculiarities of the style. The most striking, though not the most essential feature, is a special system of clichés, terms and set expressions by which each sub-style can easily be recognized, for example: I beg to inform you; Dear sir. In fact, each of the subdivisions of this style has its own peculiar terms, phrases and expressions which differ from the corresponding terms, phrases and expressions of other variants of this style. There are so many abbreviations and acronyms in official documents that there are special addenda in dictionaries to decode them. These abbreviations are particularly abundant in military documents. Ex. ATAS (Air Transport Auxiliary Service). As in all other functional styles, the distinctive properties appear as a system. It is impossible to single out a style by its vocabulary only, recognizable though it always is.

I wish to thank you for this tribute.- Я хочу поблагодарить Вас за эту награду.

It is a pleasure to enclose a signed copy of your marketer’s agreement.- Нам чрезвычайно приятно, что мы можем приложить к данному письму подписанную копию Вашего соглашения о закупке.

Too often, outstanding performance by employees goes unnoticed.- Слишком часто отличное исполнение обязанностей работниками остается незамеченным.

Availability is planned for (date). – Ожидается, что он появится (дата).

I will be in charge of the arrangements and will be assisted by (name).- Я отвечаю за организацию данной встречи и моим помощником будет (имя).

9. Classification of tropes.

A trope = figurative use of voc-ry. Many CLSF. Arnold doesn’t CLSFy them at all, gives just a list: metaphor, epithet, metonymy (+ synecdoche), irony, personification, allegory, antonomasia, periphrasis, hyperbole, understatement (meiosis litotes). As for simile, oxymoron, pun, zeugma – some distinguish them as tropes, some not. Galperin (a semantic CLSF): I Interaction of diff-t types of lex. m-g: a) primary dict. m-g & contextually imposed m-gs (metaphor, metonymy, irony): gold (as an element & “a heart of gold”): b) of primary & derivative logical m-gs (polysemantic effect, zeugma, pun): некоторые сдают экзамены – некоторые пустые бутылки; c) of logical & emotive m-gs (epithet, oxymoron): горячий снег (oxymoronic epithet), deafening silence; d) of logical & nominal m-gs (antonomasia). II Intensification of a certain feature (simile, periphrasis, (euphemism, as a kind of periphrasis), hyperbole). He doesn’t take into consideration understatement. Kuznetz, Screbnev (functional CLSF, lexical & syntactical devices): 1) Likening 2 or more objects (simile, metaphor, epithet, personification); 2) Establishing actually existing connections btw objects (metonymy, synecdoche); 3) Combination of the 2 mentioned above (allegory, antonomasia); 4) Establishing identity btw objects (synonyms, euphemisms, periphrasis); 5) Establishing contrasts (antithesis, oxymoron, irony); 6) Establishing inner quality (hyperbole, litotes, gradation). Screbnev: Figures of replacement (Tropes): Figures of Quantity (hyperbole, meiosis) & Figures of Quality (metonymy – transfer by contiguity; metaphor – similarity; irony - contrast). Every trope can be of 2 kinds: trite (lan-ge metaphor) & genuine. Trite tropes are facts of lan-ge. A dead metaphor can become so trite that we become unaware of its metaphorical cha-r (legs of a table, neck of a bottle, flowerbed, head teacher, forerunner, to run for office, to lose face, to lend a hand, to broadcast, a computer mouse, fishing for compliments, seeds of doubt, world wide web, blood money, brow of the hill). Genuine (textual) – has been created for this particular occasion. A genuine trope, if it becomes a by-word, can become trite with time. Sometimes a trite trope can turn into a genuine one if it converges with at least 1 other device, which refreshes it (e.g. мы как птицы садимся на разные ветки и засыпаем в метро: “птицы” gives new life to the trite metahor “ветка метро”). The structure of a trope: 1) tenor (обозначаемое); 2) vehicle (обозначающее); 3) ground (основание – the quality, which makes it possible to use the trope); 4) mechanism (способ передачи образа). E.g.: the girl (tenor) is as treacherous (ground) as a rat (vehicle). Mechanism – as…as. In a simile all these components are given explicitly, but the ground can be removed: she was like a rat. We can reduce it even to: she was a rat. In some cases even the tenor is implied (I couldn’t but marvel at this floor inlaid with bright gold). Conclusion: the vehicle is the only indispensable part of a trope, always given explicitly.