15. Neutral, common literary and common colloquial vocabulary.

Neutral words

• Neutral words form the bulk of the English vocabulary and are used in literary as well as colloquial language. 

• They are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. 

• Most neutral words are monosyllabic, because in the process of the development from Old English to Modern English the parts of speech lost their distinguishing affixes.

• Unlike all other groups, the neutral group of words  is not considered as having a special stylistic coloring.

Common literary words

• Common literary words are mostly used in writing and in polished speech.

• The literary layer has certain objective features.

• Colloquial words are normally more emotional than literary ones.  (E.g. to get out (coll.) - to go away (neutr) – to retire (lit). Synonyms from the three layers have different shades of meaning and emotional connotations.)

• The lower range of literary words approaches the neutral layer and has a tendency to pass into it.

• The same happens with the upper range of the colloquial layer, which passes into the neutral layer.

• The boundary between the common literary and the neutral layer and the common colloquial and the neutral layer is blurred.

• The neutral vocabulary may be viewed as the invariant of the standard English vocabulary.

Common colloquial vocabulary

• Common colloquial vocabulary borders both on the neutral vocabulary and on the special colloquial vocabulary.

• Some of the words are close to the non-standard colloquial groups such as jargonisms, professionalisms and so on. 

• Other words approach the neutral bulk of the English vocabulary. (E.g. the word teenager appeared in the colloquial layer and then passed into the neutral one.)

• Galperin supposes that the stylistic function of the different strata of the vocabulary depends not so much on the inner qualities of each of the groups, as on their interaction when they are opposed to one another. 

• If the spoken takes the place of the written or vice versa, it means that we deal with a stylistic device.

16. Special literary vocabulary

Terms are words used in a particular science, discipline of art and etc. and associated with a certain nomenclature. Terms are directly connected with the concept they denote. They direct the mind to the essential quality of the thing as seen by the scientist in the light of his own conceptualization.

The function of terms in an imaginative literature text is usually to make some reference to the occupation of a character. E.g. pneumonia is a medical term. 

If too many terms are used in a literary text, it can make it difficult to understand this text for a non-professional reader. Besides, an abundance of terms shows that the writer is aiming at showing his erudition or special knowledge in the sphere. Sometimes it is criticized as «being clever». E.g. Arch. Cronin, who was a doctor by profession used many medical and biological terms in his novels.

There is a process called determinization, which means that many terms lose their scientific meaning and begin to be used in everyday speech.

Poeticisms or poetic words are words used in poetry and the like. They form quite a small layer of the special literary vocabulary. (Many of them are archaic or obsolete. The function of these words is to sustain the special elevated atmosphere. E.g. The welkin means  the sky; a steed means a horse etc. Poetic words do not easily yield to polysemy. Today poeticisms are rarely used and are mostly found in old works or works representing historic events and so on.).

Galperin distinguishes three stages in the aging process of words.

1. obsolescent words, which are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use. Here, in his opinion, belong morphological forms, which were used in the earlier periods of the development of the language: 

• a) such pronouns as thou-thee, thy, thine; 

• b) the verbal endings: est, eth (he maketh); 

• c) the verb-forms: art. (To this category of words belong many French borrowings.)

2. obsolete words, which have already dropped out of use but are still recognized by native speakers: nay – no. 

2. archaic words proper are words no more recognizable in modern English: troth means faith.

All the above groups are used mostly in the creation of a realistic historical background to historical novels.

There is another class of words, which is called historical. They should not be confused with archaic. Here not the words, but the phenomena themselves have disappeared from today's life and are remembered only as connected with a certain historic period. E.g. yeomen, manor.  Historical words have no synonyms, but archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms.

On the whole the characters of historical novels speak the language of the period the writer lives in, and his task is to embellish the language with archaic forms, which will be interlaced with the texture of the modern sense.

Within the belles-lettres style archaic words are used in poetry (many poetic words are archaic) and for satirical purposes as well as in the publicist and newspaper style.

Foreign words are absolutely alien to the language and are not registered in dictionaries. In literature foreign words are used for certain stylistic purposes, e.g. to give local color or to show the character`s foreign origin. E.g. maitre d`hotel. Foreign words are usually made conspicuous (italicized) to indicate their foreign nature. Barbarisms are not made conspicuous in the text.

Both foreign words and barbarisms are used in various styles with various aims. The most typical situations, in which these units can be found are: 

1. to supply «local color», in order to depict local conditions of life, concrete facts or events, customs and habits.

2. to build up the stylistic device of represented speech. The use of a word in the reported speech of a local inhabitant helps to reproduce his actual words and manner of speech. Very often such words are first introduced in the charactеr`s direct speech and then appear in the author's narrative as an element of reported speech.

3. In the publicist style the use of barbarisms is confined to coloring the passage with a touch of authority. The effect consists in the fact that a person who uses so many foreign words must be an educated person and should be trusted.