3. Stylistic functions of the words having no lexico-stylistic paradigm

To this group we refer terms, nomenclature words, historic words, exotic words and lexical neologisms.

Terms are words and word-combinations expressing scientific notions in which essential properties of the object are reflected.

Nomenclature words are very close to terms. They refer to a definite branch of a human activity, more often professional, e.g. names of materials, minerals, chemical elements, types of cars.

Historic words denote notions referring to the past.

Exotic words denote notions and objects unknown and rarely met in objective reality of the given speaking community.

Lexical neologisms are new (or old) words denoting new notions (hippy, teach-in, push-button war).

All above mentioned words used in speech texts have no stylistic functions – their usage is determined by their nominative function – to define an object. In fiction they may acquire stylistic meaning due to their syntagmatic relations with the words having stylistic colouring.

In such novels as “Say No To Death”, “The Citadel”, “Airport” they are used to create the true to life atmosphere of a laboratory, hospital, etc. When used in direct speech of personages terms become a means of their speech characterization. Sometimes terms may be employed to create a special humouristic effect.

4. Neutral, common literary and common colloquial vocabulary

The majority of the words of the English vocabulary are neutral. Neutral words are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. This generative power of the neutral words in the English language is multiplied by the very nature of language itself.

In the process of development from old English to modern English most of the parts of speech lost their distinguishing suffixes, so many neutral words are monosyllabic. This feature had led to the development of conversion as the most productive means of word-building. Neutral words have no special stylistic colouring. Common literary words are mainly used in writing and in polished speech. There is no any objective criterion to distinguish objective feature for discriminating literary words from colloquial. One of the features is that literary units stand in opposition to colloquial units. The relations between neutral, literary and colloquial words can be illustrated by the synonyms.

C olloquial Neutral Literary

kid child infant

go ahead begin commence

get going start

make a move

The main distinction between synonyms remains stylistic. Stylistic difference may be of various kinds: it may lie in the emotional tension connoted in a word or in the sphere of application or in the degree of the quality denoted. Colloquial words are always more emotionally coloured than literary ones. The neutral words have no degree of emotiveness.

Both literary and colloquial words have their upper and lower ranges. The lower range of literary words approaches the neutral layer and has a tendency to pass into that layer. The upper range of the colloquial layer can pass into the neutral layer. The lines of the demarcation between common colloquial and neutral, on the one hand, and common literary and neutral, on the other, are indistinct.

Common colloquial vocabulary borders both on the neutral vocabulary and on the special colloquial vocabulary. Some of them are close to the non-standard colloquial groups such as jargonisms. They are on the border-line between common colloquial words and the special colloquial or non-standard vocabulary. Other words of the common colloquial group approach the neutral bulk of the English vocabulary.

Thus the words: teenager, hippy, guy are colloquial words passing into the neutral vocabulary. They are gradually losing their non-standard character and becoming widely recognized. However they have not lost their colloquial association and still remain in the colloquial layer of the English vocabulary.

In the spoken language there are many set expressions which are colloquial in character.

E.g.: so-so, to be sick and tired of, what time do you make it, all sorts of things.

Special literary vocabulary