Shannon, a creator of the theory of information, suggested a scheme for transmitting information. In his opinion every act of communication consists of six parts: 1) encoding of the message,

2) its transmission, 3) its realization as a signal through (4) a channel, 5) its reception, 6) its decoding. So a writer or a speaker reconstructs reality in his images and puts them in such a structure that they acquire the ability to influence a reader through a certain form (novels, stories, verses). A reader should restore the whole picture while decoding the text. The scheme can be presented in a shorter way:

Sender / encoder --- message --- receiver / decoder

(speaker or writer) --- (work of literature) --- (reader)

I.V. Arnold among the directions of stylistic research differentiates lexical, grammatical, phonetic stylistics according to the corresponding language levels.

Lexical stylistics is concerned with stylistic functions of vocabulary and studies interrelations of direct and derived, or transferred, meanings, components of contextual meanings of words, their expressive, evaluative potential and reference to a particular style. It can also deal with the expressive qualities of some word – building patterns or models of word – composition.

Grammatical stylistics can be split into morphological and syntactic. Morphological stylistics investigates stylistic potential of different grammatical categories proper to a certain part of speech: category of number of nouns, oppositions in the system of pronouns, relations between artistic and grammatical tenses, etc. Syntactic stylistics reveals the expressive properties of word order, types of sentences, types of syntactic connections. Here also belongs the study of a structure and characteristics of a paragraph and other units bigger than a sentence. Great attention is paid to different ways of conveying narration and presenting speech of characters (dialogues, indirect speech, a flow of consciousness) and other problems common to stylistics and the theory of text.

Phonetic stylistics, or phonostylistics, covers all phenomena of sound organization of poetry and prose (rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc.) which are connected with the problem of meaning of a sound form. It also investigates a non-standard pronunciation of characters: whether it is used to create a comic, humorous, satirical effect or to point to social differences or to give local colouring.

4. General notes on functional styles

Classification of functional styles is one of the most disputable questions of linguostylistics. Theoretically the number of styles may be equal to the number of the spheres of communication, but it is difficult to single out the spheres themselves. I.R. A Galperin states that the functional styles is a phenomenon belonging to the language code, to language as a system. He offers a two-level hierarchy of styles and substyles. He defines a functional style of language as a system of interrelated language means that serves a definite aim of communication. A functional style should be understood as the product of a concrete task set by the sender of the message. Different functional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of a language. They can be considered the product of the development of the written variety of a language and the following major functional styles may be distinguished:

1. the Belles – Lettres Style with the substyles of a) poetry, b)emotive prose, c) drama;

2. the Publicistic style comprising the language of a) oratory, b)essays,

c) feature articles in newspapers and journals;

3. the Newspaper Style embracing the language style of a)brief news items and communiqués, b)newspaper headings, c)notices and advertisements;

4. the Scientific Prose Style with three divisions: the language style of:

1. humanitarian sciences, b)’exact’ sciences, c) popular scientific prose;

5. the Style of Official Documents divided into four varieties:

a) diplomatic documents, b)business documents, c)legal documents, and d)military documents.