4. Lexical level
The word-stock can be divided into neutral words, colloquial and literary.
Neutral words possess no stylistic connotation and suitable for any communicative situation.
Colloquial words are employed in non-official everyday communication. Their usage is associated with the oral form, though there are many examples of colloquialisms in writing (informal letters, diaries, certain passages of memoirs, etc.).
Literary words (also called learned, bookish, high-flown) serve to satisfy communicative demands of official, scientific, poetic messages. They are mainly observed in the written form. Such words are subdivided into the general and special. General literary words (also called learned, bookish, high-flown) and special contribute to the message the tone of solemnity, sophistication, and seriousness. Among special literary words there are terms, archaisms, literary coinage, foreign words and barbarisms.
Terms are words denoting objects, processes, phenomena of science, humanities, technique. Terms are mostly used in special works dealing with the notions of some branch of science. Such words may also appear in newspaper style. When used in the belles-lettres style terms may acquire a stylistic function. They may sound humorous or make speech ‘clever’ and scientific-like’.
Archaisms are words denoting historical phenomena (such as “vassal” – historical words), used in poetry in the 17th-19th cc. (such as “woe” for sorrow – poetic words) and ousted by newer synonymic words (such as “maketh” = makes, methinks=it seems to me, “thou wilt” = you will – archaic words proper).
Archaic words are frequently found in the style of official documents, business letters, in legal language. Such obsolescent elements of the English vocabulary preserved within the style of official documents as: aforesaid, hereby, therewith, hereinafternamed.
Barbarisms are borrowings from other languages. The greater part of barbarisms was borrowed from French and Latin. Barbarisms are assimilated borrowings. Most of them have corresponding English synonyms. The main function of barbarisms is to create a realistic background to the stories about foreign habits, customs, traditions and conditions of life.
Neologisms are newly born words. Most of them are terms: network, e-mail, site, provider.
Colloquial words mark the message as informal, non-official, and conversational. They are vulgarisms, jargonisms/slang, and dialectal words.
Slang is nonstandard vocabulary understood and used by the whole nation. Such words and phrases can be raised to the standard colloquial: pal, chum, crony for “friend”. There are such kinds of slang: cockney, public house, commercial, military, theatrical, parliamentary and others. The most popular images of slang are characters, money, food, people’s appearances. There is general and special slang (limited by the professional or social standing of the speaker).
Close to slang stand jargonisms. They are also expressive and emotive, but unlike slang they are used by limited groups of people, united either professionally or socially. In the first case we deal with professionalisms, in the second we talk about jargonisms proper.
Jargonisms proper are originated from the thieves’ jargon. Their main function was to be secretive. There are jargons of criminals, convicts, gamblers, drug addicts and the like. In the opinion of Eric Partridge people use jargon to be different or original, to display membership of a group, to be humorous.
Vulgarisms are normally avoided in polite conversation. They are coarse words. There are practically no words banned from use by the modern permissive society. Such intensifiers as bloody, damned, cursed, hell of are deleted from literature. But they can be heard in conversations.
Dialectal words carry a strong flavour of the locality where they belong. Dialects differ on the phonemic and lexical levels. Some dialectal words have become units of standard colloquial: lass – a girl (Scottish).
Metaphor is based on the associated likeness between objects or on the principle of identification of two objects: The dust danced.
Personification is attributing human properties (thoughts, actions, emotions) to lifeless objects: coffee imprisoned in a can.Capitalization is a formal device of personification: meet with Triumph and Disaster.
Simile is the comparison of two unlike objects belonging to different classes: she is like a rose. A simile states that A is like B, where as a metaphor suggests that A is actually is B.
The epithet is a direct and straightforward way of showing the author’s attitude towards the things described.
From the point of their structure epithets are simple, compound, phrase and sentence epithets.
There are two-step epithets consisting of adverb and adjective: an unnaturally mild day.
Reversed epithets are based on the illogical relations between the modifier and the modified: the toy of a girl (a toy like girl).
Metonymy is based on the principle of substitution of one object for another on the basis of common existence.
Usually names of tools are used instead of names of actions: Give every man thine ear and a few thy voice.
Consequence instead of cause: the grave for death.
Symbol instead of object symbolized: crown for king/queen, cradle for infancy or place of origin.
Container instead of the thing contained: The hall applauded.
Material instead of the thing made of it: the marble spoke.
Synecdoche is based on the relation between the part and the whole: a hand for a worker, big nose stared, he was followed by a pair of heavy boots.
Antonomasia is using of a proper name as a common noun and vice versa. This device is mainly realized in the written language, because generally capital letters are the only signals to denote the presence of the stylistic device.
Metonymic antonomasia is observed when a personal name stands for something connected with the bearer of that name: He sold his Vandykes.
Oxymoron is a combination of two semantically contradictory notions: loving hate, heavy lightness, cold fire, sick health (from Shakespeare). There are trite colloquial examples of oxymoron: damn nice, awfully pretty, pretty ugly.
Hyperbole is a deliberate exaggeration: I’ve told you a thousand times.
Understatement (meiosis) is opposite in meaning to hyperbole: The guy is a real microbe. It is a deliberate diminution of a certain quality.
Litotes is a two-component structure in which two negations are joined to give a positive evaluation: not impossible. Thus ‘not unkindly’ means ‘kindly’. The function is to weaken the effect of the utterance (has much in common with that of understatement). The uniqueness of litotes lies in its ‘double negative’ structure and its weakening has only the positive evaluation. Litotes makes statement and judgement sound delicate and diplomatic.
To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms: “Being in politics is just like playing golf: you are trapped in one bad lie after another” (two meanings of lie are used: untruth and the position in which something rests).
Zeugma is a SD that has a word that combines words of varying semantic groups: He broke the record and a leg.
Irony is a contextual SD. In a context ironically used words acquire meanings opposite to their primary language meaning: a sweet alligator smile.