- •The problem of style and stylistics
- •I. Galperin thinks that stylistics deals with two independent tasks:
- •2. Types of stylistic research and branches of stylistics
- •3. The key notions of stylistics of the English language
- •Varieties of language.
- •4. The general problems of the functional style study
- •Unprepared speech of everyday communication;
- •The style of public speech.
- •5. The history of the functional style study
- •6. The language of fiction (the belles-lettres style)
- •7. The language of poetry, emotive prose, drama.
- •8. The publicist style.
- •9. The newspaper style
- •10. The style of scientific prose
- •11. The composition of a scientific text.
- •In addition to what has been mentioned we should distinguish the following typical features of the style at the language levels:
- •12. The style of popular scientific prose.
- •13. The style of official documents has four varieties:
- •14. The principles of classification of the vocabulary of a language.
- •15. Neutral, common literary and common colloquial vocabulary.
- •16. Special literary vocabulary
- •17. Special colloquial vocabulary
- •Vulgarisms
- •18. The idea of expressive means and stylistic devices
- •20. Lexical and lexical-syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices (allegory, metaphor, personification, zeugma).
- •22. Lexical and lexical-syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices (epithet, oxymoron, simile).
- •24. Lexical and lexical-syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices (cliches, proverbs and sayings, quotation, allusion).
- •26. Syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices (repetition (all kinds), enumeration, climax, anticlimax).
- •27. Syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices (suspense, antithesis, asyndeton, polysyndeton, gap-sentence link).
- •28. Syntactic expressive means and stylistic devices (ellipsis, aposiopesis, question-in-the narrative, represented speech).
- •29. Transposition ( the noun, the article)
- •30. Transposition (the pronoun, the adjective).
5. The history of the functional style study
One of the important aspects of functional style study is distinguishing their special features as well as comparing them. Different functional styles have been compared for a long time. According to N. Razinkina, there have been three main periods, during which this or that tendency in work prevailed.
The 1st period continued from the 50 to the beginning of the 60s of the 20th centuries. At that time the styles of scientific and emotive prose were confronted. The opposition of the two styles aimed at revealing the contrast between their language systems. The stress was laid on the fact that these two styles pursue absolutely different aims. The typical features of literary prose are emotiveness and imagery, while those of scientific prose are logical organization and coherence. The language of emotive prose was considered to be the only one having aesthetic value. terms were compared with words with transferred meaning in literature. In general, scientific prose was thought to be a deficient style from the point of view of aesthetic value.
The 2nd period came 10 years later (60s - 70s) and let the linguists see not only the differences but the common features of various styles. The opinion that scientific texts may be at least partly emotive and expressive was spread. Another opposition was formed: emotive prose was contrasted not to scientific prose, but the style of official documents.The researchers came to the conclusion that any logically organized text can have its aesthetic value, no matter if it is emotive, scientific or of some other kind. It was during this period, when they began speaking about the interaction of languages in different styles.
The last period which is now still in progress began in the 1970s. It is characterized by a new approach to the problem. It becomes obvious that many features of scientific prose in reality are typical of any style. The original opposition: emotive prose - scientific prose is studied from another angle in connection with such genres: essay, scientists` journals, documentary stories, historical novels and so on.
Speaking about styles, N. Razinkina distinguishes four main principles of organization of functional styles:
the principle of identity of the parts and the whole. (It means that parts are united on the basis of some similar or even identical features and their structure is the same. E.g. the communicative intention of all genres of scientific prose will be connected with this or that branch of science and its task will be to give information in a logical and short manner).
the principle of subordination. (It helps to unite the parts taking into consideration their different features. In functional styles this principle can be observed in distinguishing the central and the marginal genres. E.g., a monograph and an article are central genres, while technical advertisements in scientific journals represent a marginal genre).
the principle of balance (It helps to coordinate opposite features. E.g., the written and the oral varieties within one genre of the scientific style, e.g., a lecture, a report etc).
the principle of unity (It helps to bring harmony into the whole by coordinating the aims and means.)