The publicistic style (the ps)

-became a separate style in the middle of the 18 century.

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

This function is the most effective in oratory 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, the PS has features in common with the style of scientific prose on the one hand (1) and emotive prose (2) - on the other.

1. Its coherent and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of connectives and its careful paragraphing, makes it similar to scientific prose.

2. 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 stylistic devices used in publicist 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 close to belles-lettres style, i.e. to emotive prose. No doubt, essays and speeches have greater individuality than newspaper articles where it is usually limited.

The PS is characterized by brevity of expression. In some varieties of this style it becomes a leading feature, an important linguistic means. It falls into 3 varieties:

1. unlike other styles it has a spoken variety - the oratorical sub-style. The development of radio and TV has brought into being one more spoken variety - the radio and television commentary.

2. essay, which can be moral, philosophical, literary, etc. Also includes book reviews in journals, newspapers and magazines, and pamphlets as well.

3. the newspaper style presented by a journalistic article (political, social, economic, etc.) in newspapers, journals and magazines.

The newspaper style (the ns)

English NS may be defined as a system of interrelated means (lexical, grammatical and phraseological) which is perceived by the bearer of the language as a separate unity, the main purpose of which is to inform and instruct the reader.

Not all the printed matter found in newspapers comes under the title "the NS". Modern newspapers carry material of different character. On their pages one can find news, comments, poems, stories, articles in special fields, puzzles and so on.

Since the primary function of the NS is to impart news, only printed matter serving that purpose may be called the NS proper. Here belong:

1. brief news items (inform the reader only stating facts without giving commentary; essentially matter-of-fact and have almost no emotional colouring. They have complicated syntactical structure as a reporter is obliged to be brief.)

2. press reports (parliamentary or court proceedings, etc.)

3. advertisements (printed notices about things to be sold or wanted, or about vacant positions) and announcements (notices about what is happening or is going to happen).

4. journalistic articles.