Functional Styles: A

Belles-Lettres Style

The belles-lettres [‘bel’letr] style is a generic name for 3 sub-styles:

1. The language of poetry or simply verse;

2. Emotive prose or the language of fiction;

3. The language of drama.

Each of these sub-styles has certain linguistic features common to all these sub-styles:

1. Genuine, not trite imagery achieved by purely linguistic devices;

2. The use of words in contextual & very often more than one meaning;

3. A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary & syntax;

4. The introduction of typical features of colloquial language

(in full degree – in drama, in a lesser degree – in emotive prose & in a very slight degree if any – in poetry).

The belles-lettres style is individual in its essence. Individuality in selecting language means is extremely apparent in poetic style, less apparent in publicist style, hardly noticeable in newspaper style and altogether missing in scientific prose.

The Language of Poetry

The main property of verse is its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterance. The rhythmic aspect calls forth (порождает, вызывает) syntactical and semantic peculiarities, which also fall into more or less orderly arrangement. Both syntax and vocabulary are limited by the rhythmic pattern and the result is brevity of expression, fresh unexpected imagery. Syntactically, this brevity is expressed in elliptical and fragmentary sentences, detached constructions, inversion, asyndeton and other syntactical SDs.

Rhythm and rhyme are immediately distinguishable properties of the poetic sub-style if they are worked out into compositional patterns. Rhyme and rhythm may be called external distinguishing features of the sub-style. Various compositional forms are generally studied under the name of versification or prosody.

Definitions:

Rhythm (ритм, размер) – regular movement of verse and music in which stressed syllables occur at different intervals.

Rhyme (рифма, стишок) –exact or near similarity of sound between the ends of words. (e.g. play - gay, Oh - no).

Prosody, or versification (стихосложение) – the laws governing the art of making verses; the theory of metre.

Metre (метр, размер стиха) is a definite pattern of poetic rhythm, which is determined by the character and the number of feet in a line. (Foot –стопа)

Foot – a metrical unit of prosody, which consists normally of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables.

Stanza – a group of lines forming a division of a song or a poem (строфа, станс).

Compositional Patterns of Rhythmical Arrangement. Metre and Line.

English verse is based on rhythmical arrangement and rhyme. Both rhythm and rhyme are objective qualities and exist outside verse (rhythm in work, movement, music; rhyme in phrases, proverbs, newspaper headlines, etc.) But in verse rhythm and rhyme have assumed their most typical compositional patterns making up classical verse on the following principles:

1. alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables;

2. an equal number of syllables in the lines;

3. a natural pause at the end of the line, the line being a more or less complete semantic unit;

4. identity of stanza pattern;

5. established pattern (принцип) of rhyming.

Deviations from these rules turn classical verse into free verse; in extreme cases it can border on prose.

English verse emanated (произошли) from song. Only after assuming independence from the song, verse became a genuine poetic system. Rhythm, being a substitute for music, acquired a new significance.

The most recognizable English metrical patterns are:

1. iamb [ai’ emb] (ямб) or iambic [ai’ embic] metre –

an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one:

e.g. I looked upon the rolling sea

And drew my breath away

2. trochee [‘trouki] = trochaic [,trou’keiik] metre (хорей, трохей) –

a stressed syllable is followed by one unstressed:

e.g. Would you ask me whence these stories,

Whence these legends and traditions?

3. anapest [‘ en pist] = anapestic , en ‘p estik] metre (анапест) –

a tri-syllabic foot, consisting of 2 unstressed syllables followed by one stressed:

e.g. Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove

4. dactyl [d ektil] = dactylic metre –

a tri-syllabic foot in which one stressed syllable is followed by 2 unstressed ones:

e.g. Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them

5. amphibrac [‘ emfibr ek] = amphibracic [, emfi’br ekik] metre –

a tri-syllabic foot in which one stressed syllable is framed by 2 unstressed ones:

e.g. O, where are you going to all you Big Steamers

(Making a careful study of almost any poems, we will notice irregularities or modifications of its normal metrical pattern. These modifications generally have some special; significance, usually connected with the sense, though in some cases they may be due to the nature of the language material itself.)

The above-mentioned arrangements of different syllables are units of the metre. The repetition of these units makes verse, each unit itself is called a foot. The number of feet in a line differs, but it rarely exceeds 8 (feet).

If a line consists of one foot, it is called monometer.

two feet dimeter

three feet trimeter

4 tetrameter

5 pentameter

6 hexameter

7 septameter

8 octometer .

The largest unit in verse is stanza. It is composed of a number of lines having a definite measure and rhyming system, which is repeated throughout the poem.

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