14. The style of religion

The religious style is not uniform - it falls into at least three substyles: (I) the biblical substyle, (2) the liturgical substyle and (3) the theological discourse substyle.Theforms of realization of the religious style include, of course, the texts of the Scriptures, as well as formal reading from the Scriptures, common biblical prayers, sermons (which have more in common with other oratory pieces) and theological discourse. There also exist books of prayers and religious hymns; prayers and sermons are regularly televised and broadcast over the radio.

The Scriptures are available in many variants, or editions. "The authorized" version of The Bible is the so-called King James' version, characterized by archaic lexis and syntax. Widespread nowadays are other versions of The Bible, written in easily understood modern day English.

Graphical features include capitalization (e.g. God, Lord), italics(e.g. it is mine, shewed you my kindness), archaic spelling in some editions (e.g. Iesus), numbering _paragraphs.

Noticeable are archaic pronouns (e.g.ye, thee, thou, thy, thine), archaic forms of verbs (e.g. beholdest, considerest, asketh, receiveth, seekest, findeth),and, of course, religious terms (e.g.Lord, Father which is in heaven, evil, devils, false prophets).

Syntactical stylistic devices may include parallelism, inversion (e.g. wide is the gate, and great was the fall of it), anaphora (e.g. or ... or ...), epiphora, polysyndeton.

When reading the same fragment from Matthew in Today's English Version (Text 2 below) one can see that the language is noticeably modernised, but the simplification deals mainly with the lexical stock. Most archaic words and forms are replaced by their up-to-date equivalents (e.g. ye — you, beholdest — look, consider est "not — pay no attention, cast out — take out, mote — speck, asketh - asks, serpent -snake, etc.)

But, surprisingly, the "newest" version of The Bible makes more prominent some of the devices which are still there, like lexical repetition and root repetition (e.g. judge - judge, the same — the same), very effective oppositions (e.g. ask -receive, seek - find, knock — open, bread — stone, fish — snake, bad — good). The modern text also preserves most of the syntactical stylistic devices.

15. Stylistic function, stylistic information, stylistic norm

The word function – the role played by words in different constructions. Stylistic function – the expressive potential, added to the primary potential of the language means (e.g. cold wind – cold smile). Stylistic function is realized in context, it belongs to language in action. Opposite to stylistic function is stylistic coloring. It belongs to language as a system. There are many words that are colored: jargon, slang, professional vocabulary, vulgarisms, etc. Emotionally colored words express the attitude of the speaker (fragrance-reek-odor; рус. старик-старичок-старикан-старикашка; лошадь-кляча)

Stylistic norm can be loosely defined as a set of rules that govern the selection and arrangement of language items in different types of communicative situations. (Compare with the way we choose clothes).

Stylistic information.

-King Charles was publicly beheaded.

-King Charles was publicly decapitated.

-They chopped off King Charles’s head in the sight of anyone who cared to see it done.

-The type of communicative situation (formal, informal, neutral);

-The participants of the communicative situation (who);

-The attitude of the speaker.