5. Words of literary stylistic layer. Special literary words

The lexical level of English includes: literary words, neutral words, colloquial words. Neutral words comprise the overwhelming majority of lexis and have universal character: they are unrestricted in use and can be employed in all styles of language and in all spheres of human activity. This layer is the most stable of all. Neutral words have no local or dialectal character. They are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. Neutral words are able to produce new meanings and to generate new stylistic variants. As distinct from all other groups, the neutral group of words has no specific colouring, whereas both literary and non-literary (Colloquial) words have a definite stylistic connotation.

Literary stylistic layer

Literary words - serve to satisfy communicative demands of official, scientific, high poetry and poetic messages, authorial speech of creative prose; they are mainly observed in the written form and contribute to the message the tone of solemnity, sophistication, seriousness, gravity, learnedness. E.g. I must decline to pursue this painful discussion, It is not pleasant to my feelings; it is repugnant to my feelings. (Ch.Dickens)

Within the literary stylistic layer we can distinguish several groups or special literary words such as terms and archaisms.

l) Terms denote objects, processes, phenomena of science, humanities, technique. They are subdivided into popular terms known to be public at large (e.g. pneumonia) and specific terms used exclusively within a profession (e.g. aperture, phoneme)

2)Archaisms such special literary words as

a) historical words - denoting historical phenomena which are no more in use e.g. “yeoman” (йомен – крестьянин в Англии 14-18century), "vassal" (вассал, раб, зависимое лицо), "falconet" (фальконет - старинная мелкокалиберная пушка, стрелявшая свинцовыми снарядами)

b) poetic words and highly literary words - used in poetry in the 17 - 19 c."steed" - horse", "quoth" - said, "woe" - sorrow, "eftsoons" - again, soon after, "rondure" - roundness

c) archaic words proper - in the course of language history replaced by newer synonymous words or forms; "to deem" = to think, “repast" = meal, "steed” -for "horse", "quoth" for "said", "woe" for "sorrow"; "maketh" = makes, “thou wilt" = you will, "brethren" = brothers

3) Foreign words and barbarisms

Barbarisms are considered to be the part of the vocabulary of the given language, its peripheral layer, they are usually registered in dictionaries. Sometimes they trend to migrate from periphery to the core of the word-stock (e.g. data, versus, etc.). Foreign words are as a rule not found in dictionaries of the given language (e.g. perestroika, dacha, etc.)

6. Words of non-literary stylistic layer. Colloquial and special colloquial words.

Non-literary stylistic layer

Colloquial words are employed in non-official everyday communication and mark the message as informal, non-official, and conversational. Their use is associated with the oral form of communication “dad", "kid", "crony", "fan", "shut up", “ awfully sorry”, “granny”, “folks” (домочадцы)

Colloquial words include special colloquial words such as slang, jargonisms , vulgarisms , dialectical words.

Slang- slang such special colloquial words which are used by most speakers in very and highly informal, substandard communication. They are highly emotive and expressive and as such lose their originality rather fast and are replaced by newer formations, unstable, fluctuating.

E.g. Belt u - keep silen, big head - a boaster, go crackers or go nuts - go mad; cop; john; off the hook - Out of trouble; out of an awkward or embarrassing situation e.g.Thelma found she had made two dates for the same night; she asked Sally to get her off the hook by going out with one of the boys.

It should also be noted that the substandard status of slangisms through universal usage, can be raised to the standard colloquial, e.g. pal, chum, crony for a friend; booze for "liquor”. When used in a work of emotive prose, slang serves as an indication of the informal character of communication, makes the narration more vivid and expressive.

jargonisms such special colloquial words which - stand close to slang , also being substandard, expressive and emotive, but, unlike slang - are used by limited groups of people, united either professionally (professional jargonisms or professionalisms ) or socially (jargonisms proper ) - cover a narrow semantic field, function and sphere of application. They exist in almost any language and whose aim is to preserve secrecy within one social group. Many of them originated from the thieves’ jargon and served to conceal the actual significance of the answer from the uninitiated. Thus the words grease means money, loaf - head, tiger hunter - gambler, lexer - a student preparing for a law course. Since jargon is a secret code, it is not understandable to the common reader and needs to be translated. Slang, contrary to jargon, needs no translation. Jargonisms sometimes become common and enter the standard vocabulary. Such words as kid, fun, bluff, humbug – жульничать, formerly slang words and jargonisms, are now considered common colloquial. Used in a prose work, jargonisms create an atmosphere of informality, secrecy, belonging to a certain social group.

professionalisms - such jargonisms which are connected with the technical side of some profession "driller”, "borer, digger”,” tin fish” – торпеда, block-buster – кассовый фильм; bull - one who buys shares at the stock-exchange; - bull day market; bear - one who sells shares; bear day

vulgarisms - coarse special colloquial words with a strong emotive meaning, mostly derogatory derogatory remark) normally avoided in polite conversation. They are used mostly in the speech of the uncultured and uneducated: a son of a bitch, bastard, (a bad person); missus – wife; the shit has hit the fan – (запахло жареным) E.g. There is so much bad shit between the two gangs that I bet there will be more killings this year. You, big shit; Shit – черт!

dialectical words - such special colloquial words which - are normative and devoid of any stylistic meaning in regional dialects, but used outside of them, carry a strong flavour of the locality where they belong; - markedly differ on the phonemic level: one and the same phoneme is differently pronounced in each of them; -differ also on the lexical level, having their own names for locally existing phenomena and also supplying locally circulating synonyms for the words, accepted by the language in general.