English Stylistics for Translators. Стилистика английского языка для переводчиков. Учебное пособие

of the English language may be presented as being divided into three main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer and the colloquial

layer.

∙The literary layer has bookish character that makes the layer more or less stable.

∙The colloquial layer of words has a lively spoken character and is unstable.

∙The neutral layer has a universal character. It can be employed in all styles of language and in all spheres of human activities. This makes the layer the most stable of all.

The further subdivision is:

* The literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words:

1)common literary; 2) terms and learned words; 3) poetic words;

4)archaic words; 5) barbarisms and foreign words; 6) literary coinages including nonce words.

*The colloquial vocabulary falls into the following groups:

1)common colloquial words; 2) slang; 3) jargonisms;

4) professional words; 5) dialectical words; 6) vulgar words;

7) colloquial coinages.

The common literary, neutral and common colloquial words are grouped under the term Standard English Vocabulary.

1. NEUTRAL, COMMON LITERARY AND COMMON

COLLOQUIAL VOCABULARY

Neutral words, which form the bulk of the English vocabulary, are used in both literary and colloquial language. Neutral words are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. Their tendency for assuming new meanings and generating new stylistic variants is often quite amazing. Most neutral English words are of monosyllabic character. This is due to the process of development from Old

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English to Modern English in which most of the parts of speech lost their distinguishing suffixes. This phenomenon has led to the development of conversion as the most productive means of word– building. Word compounding is not so productive as conversion or word derivation. The neutral group of words cannot be considered as having a special stylistic colouring.

Common literary words are chiefly used in writing and in polished speech. Usually literary units stand in opposition to colloquial units. The following synonyms illustrate the relations that exist between the neutral, literary and colloquial words in the English language:

Colloquial / Neutral / Literary or bookish

These synonyms are stylistic ones and it is clear that colloquial words are always more emotionally coloured than literary ones. As to neutral words, they have no degree of emotiveness. The spoken language abounds in set expressions which are colloquial in character, e.g. all sorts of things, just a bit, so-so, so much the

better, to be sick and tired of.

It is interesting to note that anything written assumes a greater degree of significance than what is only spoken. If the spoken takes the place of the written or vice versa, it means that we are faced with a stylistic device.

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In this example from “Fanny’s First Play” (B. Shaw), the difference between the common literary and common colloquial vocabulary is clearly seen.

“Dora: Oh, I’ve let it out Have I? (contemplating Juggins approvingly as he places a chair for her between the table and the sideboard). But he’s the right sort: I can see that

(buttonholing him). You won’t let it out downstairs, old man, will you?

Juggins: The family can rely on my absolute discretion.”

The words in Juggins’ answer are on the border line between common literary and neutral, whereas the words and expressions used by Dora are clearly common colloquial, not bordering on neutral.

2. SPECIAL LITERARY VOCABULARY

a) Terms

“All scientists are linguists to some extent. They are responsible for devising a consistent terminology, a skeleton language to talk about their subject matter. Philologists and philosophers of speech

are in peculiar position of having to evolve a special language to talk about language itself”, wrote Stephen Ullmann.

This quotation makes clear one of the essential characteristics of a term, namely its highly conventional character. Terms are generally associated with a definite branch of science. They always come in clusters which form the nomenclature or system of names. Terms are characterized by a tendency to be monosemantic.

Terms belong to the scientific style. But their use is not confined to this style only. They may as well appear in other styles – in newspaper style, in publicist style, in the belles-lettres style and practically in all other existing styles. But their function in this case changes and they no longer bear an exact reference to a given notion

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or concept. There is an interesting process going on in the development of any language. With the increase of general education and the expansion of technique to satisfy the ever-growing needs and desires of mankind, many words that were once terms have gradually lost their qualities as terms and have passed into the common literary vocabulary. This process may be called “determinization”. Such words as radio, television and the like have long been in common use and their terminological character is no longer evident. A good writer will confine himself to the use of terms that are easily understood from the context and those that he finds absolutely necessary in the development of his theme.

Here is an example of a moderate use of special terminology bordering on common literary vocabulary.

“There was a long conversation – a long wait. His father came back to say it was doubtful whether they could make the loan. Eight per cent, then being secured for money, was a small rate of interest, considering its need. For ten per cent Mr. Kuzel might make a call - loan. Frank went back to his

employer, whose commercial choler rose at the report.”

(Theodore Dreiser, “The Financier”)

Such terms as ‘loan’, ‘rate of interest’ and the phrase ‘to secure for money’ are widely known financial terms which to the majority of the English and American reading public need no explanation. The terms used here do not bear any special meaning. Moreover, if they are not understood they may to some extent be neglected. It will suffice if the reader has a general idea, vague though it may be, of the actual meaning of the terms used. The main task of the writer here is not to explain the process of business negotiations, but to create the environment of a business atmosphere. Thus, a term has a stylistic function when it is used to create an atmosphere or to characterize a person through his calling and his consequent mode of expression.

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b) Poetic and Highly Literary Words

Poetic words are aristocrats in the language and do not allow any mingling with the words of lower ranks. Poetic words and expressions, primarily used in poetry, are called upon to sustain the special elevated atmosphere of poetry. Poetic words in the English language do not present a homogeneous group. They may include archaic words, such as whilome, ne, leman, and many other, as in the second stanza of Byron’s Child Harold’s Pilgrimage:

“ Whilome in Albion’s Isles there dwelt a youth, Who ne in virtue’s ways did take delight,

But spent his days in riot most uncouth,

And vex’d with mirth the drousy ear of Night. Ah me! In sooth he was a shameless wight Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;

Few earthly things found favour in his sight Save concubines and carnal companies,

And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.”

Poetical terms evoke emotive meanings. They colour the utterance with a certain air of lofteness but fail to produce a genuine feeling of delight; they are too hackneyed for the purpose, too stale. Poetical words and set expressions make the utterance clear only to a limited number of readers. The literary trends known as classicism and romanticism were particularly rich in fresh poetic terms.

c) Archaic Words

The word stock of a language is an interesting state of change. Words change their meaning and sometimes drop out of the language altogether. New words spring up and replace the old ones. Some words stay in the language a very long time and do not lose their

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faculty of gaining new meanings and becoming richer and richer polysemantically. Other words live but a short time and are like bubbles on the surface of water – they disappear leaving no trace of their existence.

In every period in the development of a literary language one can find words which will show more of less apparent changes in their meaning or usage, from full vigour to death and complete disappearance.

Three stages in the aging process of words are distinguished. The beginning of the aging process is when the words become

rarely used. Such words are called obsolescent, i. e. they are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use. To this category first of all belong morphological forms belonging to the early stages in the development of the language. In the English language these are the pronouns thou and its forms thee, thy, and thine; the corresponding verbal ending as thou makest and verb-forms thou wilt; the ending – eth in maketh and the pronoun ye . Many French borrowings belong to this category of obsolescent words as a means of preserving the

The second group of archaic words include those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by the English speaking community: e. g. methinks (=’it seems to me’); nay (=’no’). These words are called obsolete.

The third group, which may be called archaic proper, are words which are no longer recognizable in modern English, words that were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have become unrecognizable, e. g. troth (=faith’); a lose (=’a lazy fellow’).

The border lines between the groups are not distinct. In fact they can interpenetrate. There is still another class of words which is erroneously classed as historical words. The periods in the life of

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any society are marked by historical events, customs, material objects which are no longer in use, for example: goblet, balderic, mace. Words of this type never disappear from the language. They are historical terms and refer to definite stages in the development of the society. Historical words have no synonyms, whereas archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms.

Archaic words are usually used in the creation of a realistic background to historical novels. As a matter of fact the heroes of historical novels speak the language of the period the writer and the reader live in. And the skill of the writer is required to colour the language with such obsolete or obsolescent elements which most naturally interweave with the texture of the modern literary language. The words must be recognizable to the native reader and not hinder his understanding of the communication.

Walter Scott is considered to be one of the best masters in the creation of an historical atmosphere. He used the stylistic means that create the atmosphere with such skill that the reader is scarcely aware that the heroes of the novels speak his language and not that of their own epoch. Sometimes archaic words, word-forms and word combinations are used to create an elevated effect.

Archaic words and phrases can be found in other styles - in official documents, in business letters, in legal language, in diplomatic documents. For example, among the obsolescent elements of the English vocabulary in the style of official documents the following may be mentioned: hereby, therewith, hereinafternamed.

d) Barbarisms and Foreign Words

In the vocabulary of the English language there is considerable layer of words called barbarisms. These are words of foreign origin which have not entirely been assimilated into the English language and are felt as something alien to the native tongue. Most of the words have corresponding English synonyms; e. g. chic=’stylish; bon

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mot (=’a clever witty saying’); en passant (=’in passing’); ad infinitum (=’to infinity’) and many other words and phrases.

It is very important for purely stylistic purposes to distinguish between barbarisms and foreign words proper. Barbarisms are words which have already become facts of the English language. Foreign words, though used for certain stylistic purposes, do not belong to the English vocabulary. They are not registered by English dictionaries, except in a kind of addenda which gives the meanings of the foreign words most frequently used in literary English. Barbarisms are generally given in the dictionary. In printed works foreign words and phrases are generally italicized to indicate their alien nature or their stylistic value.

Barbarisms are a historical category. Many foreign words and phrases, which lost their foreign peculiarities, gradually entered the class of words named barbarisms and become naturalized in the native English stock of words. Both foreign words and barbarisms are widely used in various styles of language with various aims. In publicist style the use of barbarisms and foreign words is mainly confined to colouring the passage on the problem in question with a touch of authority. A person who uses so many foreign words and phrases is obviously a very educated person, the reader thinks, and therefore a ‘man who knows’. Here are some examples of the use of barbarisms in the publicist style:

“Yet en passant I would like to ask here (and answer) what did Rockefeller think of Labour…” (Th. Dreiser “Essays and Articles”)

“Civilization” as they knew it – still depended upon making profits ad infinitum.” (Th. Dreiser “Essays and Articles”)

It should be said in passing that Dreiser was particularly fond of using barbarisms not only in his essays and articles but in his novels and stories as well.

One of the functions of barbarisms and foreign words is to supply local colour in the description - local conditions of life, facts and events, customs and traditions, habits. In “Vanity fair” W.

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Thackeray takes the reader to a small German town where a boy with a remarkable appetite is made the focus of attention. By introducing several German words into the narrative, the author gives an indirect description of the peculiarities of the German menu and the environment in general.

“The little boy, too, we observed, had a famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten, and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam …with a gallantry that did honour to his nation.” The German words are italicized to show their alien nature and

at the same time their stylistic function. These words have not become facts of the English language and need special decoding to be understood by the rank-and-file English-speaking reader.

Nevertheless very often foreign words are not intended to be understood exactly. All that is required of the reader is that he should be aware that the words used are foreign and mean something, in the above case connected with food. The idea of food is maintained throughout by the use of the words ‘appetite’, ‘consumed’ and the English ‘cranberry jam’. The context, therefore, leads the reader to understand that schrinken, braten and kartoffeln are words denoting some kind of food, but exactly what kind he will learn when he travels in Germany.

e) Literary Coinages (including Nonce Words)

There is a term neologism which is by its very nature is ambiguous. In dictionaries it is generally defined as ‘a new word or a new meaning for an established word’. Every period in the development of a language produces an enormous number of new words or new meanings of established words. Most of them do not live long. They are not meant to live long. They were coined for use at the moment of speech, and therefore possess a peculiar property – that of temporariness. The given word or meaning holds only in the given context and is meant only to “serve the occasion”.

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However, such is the power of the written language, that a word once fixed in writing, may be included into general vocabulary irrespective of the quality of the word. The introduction of new words by men-of-letters has unforeseen consequences: their new coinages may replace old words and become established in the language as synonyms and later as substitutes for the old words.

The process of coining of new words generally arises first of all with the need to designate new words reflecting new concepts. The coining of new words may be the result of a search for more economical, brief and compact form of utterances which proves to be a more expressive means of communicating the idea. The first type of newly coined words may be named terminological coinages or terminological neologisms. The second type of coined words may be named stylistic coinages or stylistic neologisms.

The fate of literary coinages, unlike colloquial ones, mainly depends on the number of rival synonyms already existing in the vocabulary of the language. It also depends on the shade of meaning the new coinages may convey to the mind of the reader. Most of the literary bookish coinages are built by means of affixation, wordcompounding, conversion, derivation and change of meaning. For example, the word admire, which as in Latin first meant ‘to feel or express surprise or astonishment’, has lost its primary meaning and now has acquired a new one which, however, still contains a shade of the old, ‘to regard with wonder and approval, esteem or affection, to delight in’.

Another way of creation of new words is blending of two words into one by curtailing the end of the first component or the beginning of the second. Examples are numerous: musicomedy (musuc + comedy), cinemactress (cinema + actress), avigation (aviation + navigation), smog (smoke + fog).

In modern English new words are also coined by contracting and abbreviating, for example LASER (= L -ight A -mplification by

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