21. Formal English Vocabulary and its Stylistic Functions.

The literary layer of words consists of groups accepted as legitimate members of the English vocabulary. They have no local or dialectal character.

The literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words:

1. terms and learned words; 2. poetic words; 3. archaic words; 4 barbarisms and foreign words; 5. literary coinages including nonce-words, 6. Bookish words

1) Poetic words form a rather insignificant layer of literary vocabulary. Their main function is to sustain the special elevated atmosphere of poetry.

e.g. Whilomen ( at some past time ) in Albion’s isle ( the oldest name of Britain ) there dwell a youth, …

Poetic tradition has kept alive such archaic words as quath ( p. t. ) to speak; eftsoon – again, soon after – which are used even by modern ballad-mongers. Poetic words in an ordinary environment may have a satirical effect.

2) Archaic words are rarely used highly literary words which are aimed at producing an elevated effect. Lexical archaisms ( archaisms proper ) are obsolete words replaced by new ones ( e.g. anon – at once; haply – perhaps; befall – happen etc; historical words / material archaisms – they have gone out of use with the disappearance of concepts and phenomena ( e.g. hauberk – кольчуга, yeoman – иомен, свободный крестьянин, falconet – фальконет (лёгкая пушка), knight, etc. ); morphological archaisms – thou, thee, ye etc.

The function of archaisms is to recreate the atmosphere of antiquity; if used in an inappropriate surrounding archaisms cause a humorous effect.

Archaisation of the text is achieved by insertion of separate words and not by the use of the language of some past epoch.

Archaisms may have other functions found in other styles. They are frequently found in the style of official documents; and in all kinds of legal documents one can find obsolescent ( obsolete ) words which would long have become obsolete if it were not for that special use.

e.g. aforesaid, hereby, therewith, hereinafternamed.

The function of archaisms in official documents is terminological in character.

3) Terms are mostly used in special works dealing with the notions of some branch of science. But they may as well appear in other styles; when used in fiction, they may acquire a stylistic function – either to indicate stylistic peculiarities of the subject dealt with, or to make some reference to the occupation of the character whose speech would naturally contain special words and expressions.

4) Foreign words and Barbarisms. Barbarisms are words originally borrowed from a foreign language and usually assimilated into the native vocabulary, so as not to differ from its units in appearance or in sound. Most of them have corresponding English synonyms: chic – stylish; bon mot – a clever witty saying; en passant – in passing.

We should distinguish between barbarisms and foreign words for purely stylistic purposes. Foreign words do not belong to the English vocabulary, they are not registered in English dictionaries. Barbarisms are.

Both barbarisms and foreign words are widely used in various styles with various aims. One of these functions is to supply local colour.

‘The little boy, too, we observed had a famous appetite, and consumed schinken ( окорок ), and braten ( жаркое ), and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam … with a gallantry that did honour to his nation’.

Foreign words may also have the function of conveying the idea of the foreign origin or cultural and educational status of the personage.

5) Literary coinages . The coining of new words is dictated by the need to indicate new concepts as a result of the development of science. It may also be the result of a search for a more economical, brief form of utterance for expressiveness.

The first type of newly coined words may be named terminological coinages. The second i.e. words coined for expressiveness, may be named stylistic coinages.

New words are usually coined according to productive models for word-building. But new words of literary bookish type may be formed with the help of non-productive affixes and they will be immediately recognized because of their unexpectedness.

e.g. –ize moisturize, pedestrianize, villigize etc.

-ee interrodatee, enrollee, amputee etc.

-ship showmanship, supermanship

-ese translatese, Johnsonese

There is still another means of word-building in English - blending of two words into one.

e.g. avigation ( aviation + navigation )

brunch ( breakfast +lunch )

Usually newly coined words are heavily stylistically loaded, their major stylistic function being the creation of the effect of laconism, terseness and implication of witty humour and satire.

6) Bookishwords –the words thus called are used as their name shows, in cultivated spheres of speech: in books or in such types of oral communication as public speeches, official negotiations, and so on. Bookish words are either formal synonyms of ordinary neutral words.