14. The style of religion

The main aims of the religious FS - expressing religious belief on public occasions, explaining the existing world, regulating individual/group behaviour.

Elements of the relig. st. may be found in literature; daily colloquial speech in the form of allusions, quotations, set expressions and create humour. Forms of RFS: the texts from the Bible, books of prayers and religious hymns, common prayers, sermons, songs. Falls into at least three substyles:

1) the biblical (Stylistically relevant because of the biblical quotations, metaphorical (figurative) language, diversity of books)

2) the liturgical (reading from the Scriptures)

3) the theological discourse substyle.

Phonological and graphological peculiarities.

The characteristic feature of a prayer spoken in unison is monotony and frequent level tones. Prayers spoken by one person are also characterized by narrowness of pitch range and drop in the pitch at the end. Priests slow down and increase the pace of articulation to distinguish some words of particular importance from the rest of the text.

In writing religious texts can be marked by special typographical techniques (italics, bold type, different colours, small type, etc.) Capitalization draws attention to some important words (e.g. Lord, God, Father, Son, The Holy Spirit, etc.).Paragraphs can be numbered.

Syntax is characterized by: 1. the use of complete, complex and compound sentences; 2. the tendency towards coordination; 3. inverted word order, detachment, parallel constructions (accompanied by lexical and root repetition), anaphora, epiphora, polysyndeton, etc. The use of the archaic pronouns (e.g. thou, thy, etc.) and verb forms (e.g loveth; thou asketh, etc.).

Vocabulary.

• Rich imagery created by similes, metaphors, metonymies, epithets, etc.

• Archaic words.

• The words and combinations are of the formal or elevated layers (e.g. to glorify, to have mercy, sacred, etc.).

• frequent oppositions (e.g. seek – find, ask – receive).

• Theology operates special terms (e.g. prophecy, virtue, sin, vice, sacrifice, etc.)

15. Stylistic function, information, norm

Stylistic information is the knowledge where, in what particular type of communication, the unit is current.

The majority of the words are stylistically neutral. Stylistically coloured words (e.g. bookish, solemn, poetic, official, colloquial, dialectal, vulgar, etc.) have each a kind of ‘label’ on them, showing where the unit was ‘manufactured’ and where it generally belongs. Stylistically neutral words taken separately only denote without connoting. Stylistically coloured words preserve their ‘label’ even in isolation.

Stylistic norm indicates in what collocations and speech variety certain lingual units are proper or improper. Besides, stylistics does not study separate linguistic units as such. It studies their stylistic function, i.e. it is interested in the expressive potential or expressive properties of linguistic units. Peculiarities of a stylistic function:

• ‘chameleon’ quality (a certain device does not necessarily perform the same function, it may vary from context to context)

• its implicit character (connotative meanings of words)

• accumulative character (a certain mood or feeling is usually rendered by a group of various means)

• irradiating character (few or even one lingual unit with an outstanding stylistic function may attach a peculiar sounding)