2) Informal styles

IS are characteristic of personal two-way everyday communication. A dialogue is assisted by the qualities of voice and gestures, The speaker can always see whether he is understood and the listener can always interrupt him. Constant feedback. That’s why linguistic forms are freer; it is rich in emotional words, pronouns and generic terms,

a) literary colloquial

b) familiar colloquial

Lexical peculiarities of informal s:

1. ready-made lexical formulas. The difference between 1 and f col in using them is that fc is more definite, categorical, emotional and tends to exaggerate, while Ic is more reserved and polite.

2. Col st is characterized by a number of intensifiers that is a rather standard set of words which increase expressiveness; terribly sorry, absolutely fabulous, dead right, Intensifiers are used according to some standards, to the norms of com bin ability: severe winter, thorough knowledge, stone deaf_? dead tired, dead slow driver. Another group of intensifiers are adverbs ever, even, just. E.g. He’s ever such a clever man.

3. The use of emotional words. In literary colloquial they are more refined, in fc they are rude, vulgar, obscene. Emotional words are shouldn’t be confused with words naming emotions, though in some context such words can be emotional: I looked a perfect fright yesterday,

4. The presence of empty words, time-fillers, hesitators. They don’t convey any special meaning but are used for the sake of rhythm, or not to end the sentence abruptly, or to conceal one’s embarrassment or hesitation.

Grammatical peculiarities of is:

1. The abundance of elliptical, exclamatory, interrogative sentences.

2. Pronouns are more numerous and they can be used a bit differently: Who is there?- it’s me/I/.

a) LC is reserved, polite and spoken by educated people of older generation

• Abounds in conversational polite formulas

• Composite verbs are widely used (to put up, to make up etc,)

• Contracted forms (can’t, won’t)

• Disjunctive questions

• Generic terms (get, fix, thing)

• Asyndetic coordination

• Elliptical sentences

• Parenthetic words

b) FC is used among younger generation, only in intimate conversation. It shares many features of literary colloquial, but it has some specific features as well:

• Vulgar, semi-vulgar words, special slang and dialectisms. E.g. damned, lousy, to be weak in the attic, to go west - die.

• Colloquial way of calling people.

• A rich use of interjections fab! - fabulous

• The use of diminutive suffixes: mummy, daddy

• Syntactic tautology: You are crazy you are. Sam Brown he is crazy.

• Double negation

3.

Prof. Galperin differs from many other scholars in his views on functional styles because he includes in his classification only the written variety of the language. In his opinion style is the result of creative activity of the writer who consciously and deliberately selects language means that create style. Colloquial speech, according to him, by its very nature will not lend itself to careful selection of linguistic features and there is no stylistic intention expressed on the part of the speaker. This viewpoint gives ground for debate. Individual speech, oral variety included, is always marked by stylistic features that show the speaker’s educational, social and professional background. Moreover we always assume some socially determined role and consciously choose appropriate language means to perform it and achieve the aim of communication.

One more debatable point in Galperin’s classification is the distinction of the belles-lettres style:

a) poetry; b) emotive prose; c) the language of the drama.

This notion comes under criticism and is not shared by other linguists because it seems rather artificial especially in reference to modern literature. 1) Every writer has his own manner of writing, and there are a lot of trends and genres 2) literature is the model of the world outside us, it reflects our life thus it reflects all f. Styles. A writer may quote extracts from legal documents, newspapers items, ad­vertisements, slogans, headlines, etc. which do not belong to belles-lettres style in its traditional meaning. The dialogues are very often examples of informal styles.

As a matter of fact, in modern works of fiction we may encounter practically any functional speech type imaginable. So most other classifications do not distinguish the language of fiction as a separate style.

Some linguists solve the problem of belle-lettres style by opposing the language of literature and non-literature – all uses of the language - oral and written - other than literature.

Phonetical expressive means

Euphony- the coordination between the meaning and the sound to produce an artistic effect, when the sound imagery corresponds to the general mood of the utterance. It is based on the prevalence of vowels, on sonorous sounds, on voiced consonants. Thus we see that not only separate sounds, but classes of sounds may be repeated producing a certain stylistic effect.

The main patterns of sound repetition: alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme

Alliteration – is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this devise lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words(Doubting, dreaming, dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before)

Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combination of words.

Onomatopoeia(sound imitation) – a combination of speech sounds which aims at imitating sounds prodused by nature, by people or by animals. It can be direct and indirect.

Direct: is contained in words that imitate natural sounds - ding-dong; ping-pong;

Indirect : is a combination of sounds the aim of which is to make the sound of the utterance an echo of its sense –( and the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain)

Rhythm is a deliberate arrangement of speech into regularly repeating units.

The unit of measure in prose, however, is not the syllable but a structure, a word combination, a sequence of words, that is, phrases, clauses, sentances, even syntactical wholes. The rhythm will be based not on the regular alternation of opposing units, i.e. a regular beat, but on the repetition of similar structural units following one another or repeated after short intervals.

Meter (Trochaic foot. Iambus. Dactyl. Amphibrach. Anapest)

Trochaic foot – would you ask me whence these stories(или буря мглою небо кроет в русском языке)

Iambus – oh let me true in love but truly write(я помню чудное мгновенье)

Dactyl – cannot to write of them, cannot to left of them(золото, золото, падает с неба! Дети кричат и бегут за дождем)

Amphibrach - O, where are you going to all you Big Streamers(однажды в студеную зимнюю пору)

Anapest – would you ask what the birds say& The sparrow, the dove(я не знаю, зачем, почему, отчего)

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