- •The theory of parts of speech and their interaction
- •The English noun and its grammatical categories
- •The English verbs. Subclasses of verbs in English.
- •The grammatical category of tense, aspect and time correlation
- •The simple sentence and its essential features
- •The structural-semantic aspect of the sentence
- •Coordination instead of subordination changes the tone of the utterance.
- •Represented speech / Non-personal Direct speech
- •Classifications of tropes
- •Imagery
- •The communicative aspect of the sentence and its actual division
- •2. Functional Styles:
- •C) Publicist (media) style
- •2) Informal styles
- •Lexical peculiarities of informal s:
- •Grammatical peculiarities of is:
2. Functional Styles:
Formal S.
Used in public speech when one addresses many. No feedback, everything must be thought over in advance. Elaborate, exact, rich vocabulary, synonyms and antonyms, special terms. They are: scientific; business/official (commercial, legal, military, diplomatic); publicist (oratory, newspaper, essays); poetic
Scientific S.: Very logical, appeals to the mind of the interlocutor. Objective, impersonal.; Terminology; Bookish words; Most of the words are abstract; Scientific phraseology, common to all branches of it (E.g. the field of inquiry); The word building means are borrowed affixes (E.g. enlarge, logical, correspondence), compound words composed of borrowings (E.g. panchronistic); Attributive nouns (E.g. fire control antiaircraft system); The use of connectives – compound conjunctions (E.g. moreover, inasmuch as, whereas); Non-finites, passive voice; Special sentence patterns: postulatory, argumentative, formulative.
Business style.
It shares many features with scientific s. though it is not so elaborate and is governed by traditions. Very long sentences, complicated syntax; Traditional formulas of archaic or foreign origin (E.g. in witness whereof); Abbreviations, figures; Complete enumeration; A very developed paragraphing; No emotionally colored words.
C) Publicist (media) style
Oratory sub-style is probably the most persuasive as it employs the power of human voice and personal appeal. E.g. Political speeches, sermons, orations on solemn public occasions.Essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social or aesthetic subject. It is a series of personal and witty comments on something.Newspaper style is sometimes treated as a style separate from publicistic because of its great diversity. It includes such varieties as journalistic articles and editorials, news items, reports, advertisements and announcements.
Phonetic features (in oratory)
Standard pronunciation, wide use of prosody as a means of conveying
the subtle shades of meaning, overtones and emotions. Phonetic compression.
Morphological features
1. Frequent use of non-finite verb forms, such as gerund, participle, infinitive.
2. Use of non-perfect verb forms.
3. Omission of articles, link verbs, auxiliaries, pronouns, especially in headlines and news items.
Syntactical features
Frequent use of rhetorical questions and questions-in-the-narrative in oratory speech.
All kinds of repetitions in oratory speech.
3. In headlines: use of impersonal sentences, elliptical constructions, interrogative sentences, infinitive complexes and attributive groups.
4. In news items and articles: news items comprise one or two, rarely three, sentences.
5. Absence of exclamatory sentences, break-in-the narrative, other expressively charged constructions.
Lexical features
1. Newspaper clichés and set phrases.
2. Terminological variety: scientific, sports, political, technical, etc.
3. Abbreviations and acronyms.
4. Numerous proper names, toponyms, anthroponyms, names of enterprises, institutions, international words, dates and figures.
5. Abstract notion words, elevated and bookish words.
6. In headlines: frequent use of pun, violated phraseology, vivid stylistic devices.
7. In oratory speech: words of elevated and bookish character, colloquial words and phrases, frequent use of such stylistic devices as metaphor, alliteration, allusion, irony, synonyms and antonyms etc.
8. Use of conventional forms of address and trite phrases.
Compositional features
Text arrangement is marked by precision, logic and expressive power.
Carefully selected vocabulary.
Variety of topics.
Wide use of quotations, direct speech and represented speech.
Use of parallel constructions throughout the text.
In oratory: simplicity of structural expression, clarity of message, argumentative power.
In headlines: use of devices to arrest attention: rhyme, pun, puzzle, high degree of compression, graphical means.
In news items and articles: strict arrangement of titles and subtitles, emphasis on the headline.
Careful subdivision into paragraphs, clearly defined position of the sections of an article: the most important information is carried in the opening paragraph; often in the first sentence.
d) POETIC STYLE
It may not be obligatorily called a functional style because it is limited historically.
It is the style of the 18-19th cent poetry and since then it has fallen into disuse. But still there is a set of language means which may be contrasted to all others. They were traditionally used in poetry, and when they appear in other texts, they call up a poetic atmosphere or create a humorous effect.