11. The belles-lettres style (poetry)

The belles-lettres style is a generic term for 3 substyles:

1. The language of poetry, or simply verse.

2. Emotive prose, or the language of fiction.

3. The language of the drama.

All of them perform the common aesthetico-cognitive function.

In spite of the diversity of genres, their common linguistic features are:

- Genuine imagery, achieved by linguistic devices.

-The use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning, greatly influenced by the lexical environment.

- A vocabulary which will reflect the author’s personal evaluation of things or phenomena.

- A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax, a kind of lexical and syntactical idiosyncrasy.

-The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (in plays) or a lesser one (in emotive prose) or a slight degree, if any (in poems).

One of the most distinctive properties of the belles-lettres style is its being individual in essence.

The first differentiating property of poetry is its orderly form, which is mainly based on the rhythm and rhyme. In general, rhythm is an alternation or an interchange of stressed and unstressed elements (syllables).

Classic English verse is called syllabo-tonic as it is based on the number of syllables (syllabo) and the distribution of stresses (tonic). The smallest segment of a verse line is the foot (стихотворная стопа) that consists of 1 stressed syllable and 1 or 2 unstressed ones. The struct-re of the foot determines the metre (размер, метр, ритм) , i.e. the type of poetic rhythm of the line. English metrical patterns are: 1.iambus (U –´), e.g. mistake, prepare, etc. 2.trochee (–´ U), e.g. evening, honey, etc. 3.dactyl (–´UU), e.g. wonderful, beautiful, etc. 4.amphibrach (U –´U), e.g. continue, pretending, etc. 5.anapaest (UU–´), e.g. understand, disagree, etc. The number of feet corresponds to the number of stresses. English verse is predominantly iambic pentameter (пятистопный ямб). Rhymeless verse is called blank verse (белый стих in Russian). The largest unit in verse is the stanza (also called a strophe) (строфа. Stanza patterns: the heroic (эпический) couplet, the Spencerian stanza, the ottava rima, the ballad stanza, the sonnet.

Lexical peculiarities of

• fresh, unexpected imagery which assumes in poetry a very compressed form.

• Images built on metaphor, metonymy and simile.

• great number of emotionally-coloured words.

12. The style of news media (broadcast journalism)

BJ is the field of news and journals which are published via television and the World Wide Web.

Entertaining genres include a bunch of shows, comedies, sitcoms, etc. Educational formats differ according to the intended audience: adults or children viewers. Current news in broadcasting is reported in the news bulletin or newscast presented by one or more anchors or announcers. It traditionally consists of a series of news items and falls into several blocks (e.g. general, politics, business, sport, weather). Sometimes it is expanded by a crawl line. In addition, television and radio news programmes start up and end with headline. It is a news round-up which contains the main news issues read out before the full broadcast and summarized at the end.

Features: