Seminar 1

The subject matter of Stylistics & the Stylistic Classification of the English Vocabulary

Basic Terms

Archaisms – words, which are no longer in use in present day English

Barbarisms – words of foreign origin, not assimilated into the English language

Dialectisms – words, the use of which is confined to a definite locality

Historisms – words denoting historical phenomena which no longer exist

Individual neologisms (nonce words) – spontaneous and elusive coinages

Jargonisms –words with coded meaning, used by definite social groups

Neologisms –words, specially coined according to the productive models of word-building

Norm – the invariant of phonetic, lexical, grammatical patterns, circulating in speech at a given period of time

Poetic words – monosemantic words, which evoke emotive meaning and colour the utterance with a certain loftiness

Professionalisms – words, used in a definite trade, profession by people, connected by common interests

Slang – everything that is below the standard usage of present day English

Stylistics –branch of general linguistics, investigating the inventory of special language means, which secure the desirable effect of the utterance, and certain types of texts, characterized by peculiar choice and arrangement of language means

Stylistic phonetics – embraces all the phenomena of sound arrangement in prose and verse

Stylistic morphology – describes stylistic potentialities of different grammatical categories and classes of words

Stylistic lexicology – studies stylistic functions of words, connotative and contextual meanings, stylistic potentiality of phraseology and word-building patterns

Stylistic syntax – studies expressive potentiality of word order, different types of sentence structures and syntactic ties, investigates syntactic expressive means and specific features of paragraphs and supra-phrasal units

Terms – usually monosemantic words, used in a definite branch of science

Vulgarisms – swear and obscene words and expressions

Items for discussion:

1. The subject matter of Stylistics and its main problems:

1. What does Stylistics investigate (исследует)?

   1. the investigations of the inventory of special language media which secure закрепляют the desirable желаемый effect of the utterance выражение - stylistic devices (SD) стилистический приём and expressive means (EM)

   2. the investigation of certain types of text - functional styles of language (FS)

2. Can Stylistics be considered a “level discipline”?

No, it can’t, because Units of a language of different language are studied by traditional branches ветвь of linguistic. Such as phonetics, grammar, lexicology, syntax. Whose subject matter is more or less clear-cut( ясный). But this is not the case with stylistic. It doesn’t study or describe separate linguistic units. More over stylistics can’t be subdivided разделены into separate linguistic branches, so stylistics is not a level discipline. It describes all the levels of language, and we may speak about:

1. Stylistic phonemic (phoneme of sound arrangement of both prose and verse, i.e. rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, etc)

2. Stylistic morphology (stylistic potentialities of different grammatical categories and parts of speech)

3. Stylistic lexicology ( stylistic functions f words, expressive, emotive, evaluative potentialities of words and their stylistic reference, etc)

4. Stylistic syntax (expressive potentialities of word order different types of senence structures and syntactical ties.

3. What does Stylistic phonetics (Stylistic morphology, Stylistic lexicology, Stylistic syntax) study?

• stylistic phonetics (phenomena of sound arrangement расположение of both prose проза and verse стихотворная форма, i.e. rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, etc);

• stylistic morphology (stylistic potentialities of different grammatical categories and parts of speech);

• stylistic lexicology (stylistic functions of words, expressive, emotive, evaluative potentialities of words and their stylistic reference, etc);

• stylistic syntax (expressive potentialities of word order, different types of sentence structures and syntactical ties, etc).

4. How is style defined?

• The word STYLE (Latin STILUS, Greek STYLOS) meant a short stick sharp at one end and flat at the other used by the Romans for writing on wax tablets.

• It is a set of characteristics distinguishing one author from another.

• Style belongs to the plane of expression and not to the plane of content.

• Style is specificity of sublanguage.

5. What is understood by norm?

The notion of NORM refers to the literary language and implies ( подразумевает) conventionality (общепринятые) accepted characteristics of what is evaluated.

e.g: I haven’t ever done anything.

I ain’t never done nothing less.