6. The language of fiction (the belles-lettres style)

One of the dubious points discussed by the Russian linguists of different periods is the existence of the special style of fiction literature. Many linguists such as I. Arnold, Y. Stepanov, Y. Skrebnev argued the possibility of speaking about the style of fiction. Others, R. Budagov, I. Galperin, M. Kozhina among them, insisted on the necessity of distinguishing this style. 

Such authors as I. Galperin and R. Budagov thought that its main features were the following:

1. genuine imagery, achieved by linguistic devices;

2. the use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning;

3. a vocabulary which will reflect to a greater or smaller degree the author`s personal evaluation of things and phenomena;

4. a peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax;

5. the introduction of the typical features of colloquial language 

I. Galperin defined imagery as «a use of language media which will create a sensory perception of an abstract notion by arousing certain associations (sometimes vey remote) between the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete , the conventional and the factual».

The belles-lettres style is individual. It is the individual choice of language means of all kinds, including stylistic devices, that testifies to the author`s talent and makes a concrete work of literature easily recognizable. According to the basic (ancient) genres, the belles-lettres style is traditionally subdivided into the language of poetry, the language of emotive prose and the language of drama. All of them have common features that justify their belonging to the same functional style, but, on the other hand, each of them has its own properties.  

7. The language of poetry, emotive prose, drama.

The language of poetry

This sublanguage has a unique form which differentiates it from any other style or sub-style. It is the form of verse and is based on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of utterances. 

• Syntax as well as semantics agrees with the restrictions imposed by the rhythmic organization and the result is compactness, expressiveness and unexpected imagery.

• The laconism is shown in elliptical and fragmentary sentences, in detached constructions, inversion, asyndeton and other stylistic peculiarities.

• Rhythm and rhyme are immediately distinguishable properties of the poetic sub-style and can be called its external differentiating features

• Studying the sub-style of poetry, we study meter and line, stanza, free verse and accented verse

• We also speak about imagery and the way it is created in the text.

Emotive prose

• The imagery of prose is not as rich as in poetry and there are not so many words with contextual meaning as in poetry.

• It can be defined as a combination of the spoken and written varieties of the language.

• Emotive prose uses elements from other styles of the language, but under the influence of emotive prose they undergo a kind of transformation

• A piece of emotive prose normally has a narrator as well as characters.

• The writer is expected to stick to the literary norm of the period, but the speech of the narrator (it depends on the type of narration) and the characters can be highly colloquial and is chosen to characterize them.

English emotive prose as a separate form of imaginative literature appeared in translations of the Bible from Latin. Earlier Anglo-Saxon literature was mostly poetic. Middle English prose was also represented by translations from Latin and imitations of French variants. In the fifteenth century romances describing lives of kings and knights began to appear.  In the sixteenth century such outstanding writers as Ph. Sydney and John Lyly began to write emotive prose.

The important figure was W. Shakespeare, who developed the belles-lettres style and put it on a higher level. It changed the situation and brought a new approach to literature in general. 

The seventeenth century brought great development in emotive prose. Both lexical and syntactical innovations were introduced. The most influential figure was J. Milton, who connected knowledge of the Bible and ancient classics. Another person was John Bunyan, who developed a new trend of emotive prose in his «Pilgrims Progress». He proclaimed simplicity in choice of words and syntax to be the main feature of prose. John Dryden was the first to introduce writing common words and colloquialisms.

After the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 emotive prose became a weapon of satire. It continued in the works by D. Defoe and J. Swift at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 

The writers of the eighteenth century did much to establish emotive prose as an independent form of literary art. Another stylistic feature of the emotive prose of that time is a manner of conveying the impression that the event narrated actually occurred.

L. Sterne was really the first writer who tried to give speech characteristics to the personages and to depict the characters` inner world.

Another famous writer was H. Fielding. His novels were well-organized and full of humor. 

The eighteenth century also gave English literature S. Richardson with his long epistolary novels (extremely popular in those times) and masters of the Gothic genre, such best-selling authors as M. Lewis and A. Radcliffe. 

The emotive prose of the nineteenth century is often called a complete sub-style of the belles-lettres style. The general tendency of that time was to depict the life of all social circles. At that time the greatest writers of England worked: J. Austen, the Bronte sisters, Ch. Dickens, Th. Hardy etc. 

The late nineteenth early twentieth century became a new period in the development of the style of emotive prose. The stream-of-consciousness technique, applied by such writers as V. Woolf and J. Joyce changed the very idea of narrative in emotive prose texts.

The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century broke up many traditions of the previous periods as well as retrieved some of the lost ones. J. Fowls, I. Murdoch, J. Barnes, D. Lessing, P. Ackroyd wrote works in different genres and manners combining the past and the present. 

On the whole we can say that emotive prose, in particular, and the belles-lettres style, in general, are results of the individuality of the author.

The language of drama

• The language of plays is almost entirely dialogue.

• The author`s speech is restricted to the remarks and stage directions

• the language of the characters is not the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language.

• Its most characteristic feature is redundancy of information caused by the necessity to amplify the utterance. (It is done for the sake of the public).