FUNCTIONAL STYLES: B

PUBLICISTIC STYLE

The publicistic style became a separate style in the middle of the 18^th century. It falls into three varieties. Unlike other literary styles, the publicistic style has a spoken variety – the oratorical sub-style. The development of radio and television has brought into being a new spoken variety of the radio and television commentary. The other two sub-styles are essay (moral, philosophical, literary) and journalistic articles (political, social, economic) in newspapers, journals and magazines.

Book reviews in journals, newspapers and magazines and also pamphlets are generally included among essays.

The general aim of the publicistic style is to influence public opinion, to convince the reader (or the listener) that the writer’s (or speaker’s) interpretation is the only correct one, and to make the reader (listener) accept the author’s viewpoint not merely through logical argumentation but through emotional appeal as well.

This function is most effective in oratory (ораторское искусство, риторика, красноречие) where the most powerful instrument of persuasion, the human voice, is brought into play.

Due to its characteristic combination of logical argumentation and emotional appeal, publicistic style has features in common with the style of scientific prose, on the one hand, and that of emotive prose, on the other. Its coherent (связный, последовательный) and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of connectives and its careful paragraphing (разделение на абзацы) makes it similar to scientific prose. Its emotional appeal is generally achieved by the use of words with emotive meaning, the use of imagery, and other stylistic devices as in emotive prose; but the SDs used in publicistic style are not fresh or genuine. The individual element essential to the belles-lettres style is, as a rule, missing here.

The manner of presenting ideas, however, brings this style closer to that of belles-lettres style, i.e. to emotive prose, as it is to a certain extent individual. No doubt, essays and speeches have greater individuality than newspaper and magazine articles where it is usually limited by the requirements of the style.

Publicistic style is characterized by brevity of expression. In some varieties of this style it becomes a leading feature, an important linguistic means. In essays brevity sometimes becomes epigrammatic.

Oratory and Speeches

Direct contact with the listener permits a combination of the syntactical, lexical and phonetic peculiarities of both the written and spoken varieties of language. In its leading features, however, oratorical style belongs to the written variety of language, though it is modified by the oral form of the utterance and the use of gestures. Certain features of the spoken language can be used here:

1. Direct address to the audience (e.g. Ladies and gentlemen, Honourable members);

2. The use of the 2^nd person pronoun “you”;

3. Sometimes contractions: I’ll, won’t, haven’t, isn’t, etc.;

4. The use of colloquial words.

This style is evident in speeches on political and social problems of the day, in orations and addresses on solemn occasions, in sermons (проповедь) and debates.

The sphere of application of oratory is confined to an appeal to an audience. The SDs employed in oratorical style are determined by the communicative situation. If the speaker intends to rouse the audience and keep it in suspense, he will use various traditional SDs. But undue prominence given to form may lead to an exaggerated use of these devices, to embellishment (приукрашивание).

Tradition is very powerful in oratorical style and the 16^th century rhetorical principles laid down by Thomas Wilson in his Arte of Rhetorique are sometimes still used in modern oratory, though, on the whole, modern oratory tends to lower its key more and more, confining itself to a quiet businesslike exposition of ideas. SDs are closely interwoven and mutually complementary (дополняющий), thus building up an intricate pattern.

The Essay

As a separate form of English literature the essay dates from the end of the 16^th century. It is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic, or literary subject, but it merely touches upon the surface. Personal treatment of the theme and a natural manner of expression are two of its most obvious characteristics. An essay is rather a series of personal and witty comments than a completed argument or a conclusive (заключительный, окончательный) examination of any matter.

The essay was very popular in the 17th and 18^th centuries. At that time essays were written on topics connected with morals and ethics, and on political and philosophical problems.

The 18^th century was the great age of essay writing.

In the 19^th century the essay as a literary term gradually changed into what we now call the journalistic article or feature article (очерк) which covers all kinds of subjects from politics, philosophy or aesthetics to travel, sport and fashion.

Feature articles are generally published in newspapers, especially weeklies and Sunday editions. They are often written by one and the same writer or journalist, who has cultivated his own individual style.

The most characteristic language features of the essay remain:

1. Brevity of expression (sometimes bordering on epigrammatic brevity);

2. The use of the 1^st person singular , which justifies a personal approach to the problems treated;

3. A rather expanded use of connectives which facilitate the process of grasping the correlation of ideas;

4. Abundant use of emotive words;

5. The use of similes and sustained metaphors as means of the cognitive process.

The real secret of the essay sub-style consists in the interrelation of these constituents. Depending on the writer’s individuality essays are written in a highly emotional manner resembling the style of emotive prose, others resemble scientific prose.

Modern essay is often biographical. Its vocabulary is simple and so is its logical structure and argumentation. But it still retains all leading features of the publicistic style.

In comparison to oratorical style, the essay aims at a more lasting and, hence, a slower effect. Epigrams, paradoxes and aphorisms are comparatively rare in oratory (they require concentrated attention of the listener). In the essay they are common. The reader has opportunity to study both the content and the form of the utterance.

The main difference between essays and speeches is that the essay seeks a lasting – and the speech an immediate effect. The key- note to the essay is its personality.

Journalistic Article (Feature Article –очерк)

Irrespective of the character of the magazine and the divergence of the subject-matter (whether it is political, literary, popular-scientific, or satirical) all the already mentioned features of publicistic style are to be found in any article. The character of the magazine as well as the subject chosen affects the choice of SDs. Words of emotional meaning are few if any, for example, in popular-science articles. The exposition is more consistent , and the system of connectives more expanded in this type of articles than in a satirical article.

The language of political magazine articles differs little from that of newspaper articles. But such elements of publicistic style as rare and bookish words, neologisms, traditional word-combinations and parenthesis are more frequent in journalistic articles.

Literary reviews stand closer to essays by their content and by their linguistic form More abstract words of logical meaning are used in them, they often resort to emotional language and less frequently to traditional set-expressions.