метафора стилистика прагматика / Linguistic Stylistics - Gabriela Missikova part3 (публиц)

11.1.2 Special Literary Vocabulary

Technical Terminology

There are several characteristic features of technical terms which can be listed as follows:

•highly conventional character;

•usually associated with a definite branch of science and therefore with a series of other terms belonging to that particular branch of science;

•terms do not function in isolation, they always come in clusters, either in a text on the given subject, or in special dictionaries, which provide careful selections of terms;

•terms tend to be monosemantic (interdisciplinary homonymy and polysemy exists);

•terms are predominantly used in special works dealing with the notions of some branch of science, therefore it may be said that they belong to the scientific style (but their use is not confined to this style);

•an ideal term is usually easily coined and accepted (some of them have international character in English, frequently they are loan-words);

•new coinages easily replace out-dated ones;

•sometimes terms are used in a satirical function, for example, “Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development,”

(W. M. Thackeray, Vanity Fair)

Poetic and highly literary words

•used primarily in poetry;

•they belong to a definite style of language (poetic language);

•poetic language has special means of communication, namely rhythmical arrangement, some syntactic peculiarities and a certain number of special words known as poetic vocabulary;

•poetic vocabulary has a tendency to detach itself from the common literary wordstock;

•poetic words claim to be of higher rank (older works name them ‘the aristocrats of a language’);

•poetic words and expressions were called upon to sustain the special elevated atmosphere of poetry;

•they do not present a homogeneous group;

•poetic tradition keeps alive archaisms and archaic forms of words

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•the use of poetic words does not as a rule create the atmosphere of poetry in the true sense

•poetic words may also have a satirical function.

Archaic words

I. R.Galperin (ibid.) mentiones three stages in the ageing process of words:

•The beginning of the ageing process is when the word becomes rarely used. These words are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use, for example, the pronouns thou, thee, thy, thine. Some dictionaries label them as obsolescent.

•The second group of archaic words are those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognised by the English speaking community. These are called obsolete, for example, methinks (it seems to me), nay (no).

•The third group consists of words which are no longer recognisable in modern English. They may be called archaic proper, for instance, troth (faith), a losel (a lazy fellow).

Barbarisms and foreign words

There is a considerable layer of words in English which are called barbarisms. These are the words of foreign origin which have not entirely been assimilated into the English language. They bear the appearance of a borrowing and are felt as something alien to the native tongue. They are considered to be on the outskirts of literary language. Most of them have corresponding English synonyms, for instance, chic (stylish), bon mot (a clever witty saying), en passant (in passing), etc.

It may become quite relevant to distinguish between barbarisms and foreign words in stylistic analysis. Such distinction can point out several characteristics of the language user and his or her intentions within the utterance. To quote I. R. Galperin (ibid.), “... barbarisms are words which have already become facts of the English language. They are part and parcel of the English word stock, though they remain in the outskirts of the literary vocabulary. Foreign words, though used for certain stylistic purposes, do not belong to the English vocabulary.”

Literary coinages (including nonce-words)

The term literary coinages is sometimes viewed as overlapping with the term neologisms and nonce-words. The words labelled as neologisms are in general new words or new meanings for established words. This definition is quite vague, because it is not always easy to define ‚what is new‘ in language. As I. R. Galperin (ibid.) points out, the coining of new words is firstly connected with a need to designate a new-born concept, these would be terminological neologisms or terminological coinages. Secondly, the new words are coined because their creators seek expressive utterances, these words can be named stylistic coinages or stylistic neologisms. Unlike

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neologisms which are mainly coined according to the productive models for wordformation in the given language, the literary-bookish neologisms (or literary coinages) may sometimes be built with the help of affixes and by other means which have gone out of use. In this case the stylistic effect is more apparent and the stylistic function of the device is stronger and more acute. Examples of new coinages of a literary-bookish type can be found, for instance, in the language of newspaper (e.g. Blimp, Blimpish).

Literary coinages have to compete with the rival synonyms already existing in the vocabulary of the given language. Some of them are felt to be unique because of a new shade of meaning they bring into the language. If a neologism is approved of by native speakers, it ceases to be a neologism and becomes a proper member of the general vocabulary. Many new literary coinages disappear entirely from the language, other leave traces, especially, when they are fixed in the literature of their time. This is not the case with colloquial coinages. These are spontaneous, and, due to their linguistic nature, cannot be fixed. Thus, some of them are felt to be new, fresh and fashionable for a certain period of time, but sooner or later they become worn out and usually fade away from the language.

11.1.3 Special Colloquial Vocabulary

Jargon

Jargon, or professional slang, is a recognised term for the group of words that exists in almost every language. Their aim is to provide (more or less) informal equivalents to technical terms. A sense of collegiality, close scholarly understanding within a group of experts, exclusiveness of a particular profession, and other sociolinguistic phenomena often result in outer illegibility, that is, jargonisms are usually fully understood only by experts, speakers otside the group find them usually illegible. Jargonisms are professional words, social in their character, they are not regional. Usually, any group of professionals has its own jargon. In the English language the jargon of the army is known as military slang, jargon of jazz people, the jargon of the sportsmen, etc. As stated above the various jargons remain a foreign language to outsiders, for example, crew (a group of sprayers), jam (meeting of sprayers), tagg (simple signature), piece (graffiti picture, a more complex creation) in the jargon of graffiti makers, or a lexer for a student preparing for a law course, etc. The lexis of professional slang, or jargon, can be also classified into groups of professional words or professionalisms.

Professionalisms

are words used in a definite trade or profession. They are used by people connected by the same interests both at work and at home. They are correlated to terms, for instance, block-buster (a bomb designed to destroy blocks of big buildings), piper (a specialist who decorates pastry with the use of a cream-pipe), outer (a knockout

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blow), etc.

Dialectal words

are those words which in the process of the integration of the English national language remained beyond its literary boundaries, and their use is generally confined to a definite locality.

Vulgar words

are ones which are used only in colloquial, or, especially, in unrefined or low speech. According to some authors (R. Webster), a vulgarism does not necessarily connote coarseness. I. R. Galperin (ibid.) defines vulgarisms as expletives or swearwords and obscene words and expressions. They are not considered as words in common use nor can they be classified as colloquialisms.

Colloquial coinages

or ‚nonce-words‘ are spontaneous and elusive. They are not built by means of affixes but are based on certain semantic changes in a word. When a nonce-word becomes fixed in a dictionary it is classed as a neologism for a very short period of time.

11.2 The Classification of Slang

In this part, some basic notions are discussed and main definitions are provided. The text is based on the classification of American slang as presented by R. L. Chapman in his preface to the New Dictionary of American Slang (1986). The language material analysed by R. L. Chapman is American English, however, his conclusions and definitions are generally applicable in the study of slang.

11.2.1 What is Slang?

The definition of slang in linguistics is especially notorious. The problem is one of complexity, such that a definition satisfactory to one person or authority would seem inadequate to another because the prime focus is different. Various definitions tend to stress one aspect or another of slang. An interesting approach is introduced by Robert L. Chapman, (ibid.), who stresses the individual psychology of slang speakers.

11.2.2 Sociolinguistic Aspect of Slang

The external and quantitative aspects of slang, its sociolinguistics, have been very satisfactorily treated in many linguistic works on slang (S. B. Flexner, 1975; E.

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Partridge, 1954).

Recorded slang emerged from the special languages of subcultures. The group which has been studied the longest and most persistently has been the criminal underworld itself (i.e. argot of criminals), including the prison population, whose cant or argot still provides a respectable number of unrespectable terms. Other undercultures contributing heavily are those of hoboes, gypsies, soldiers and sailors, of the police, or narcotic users, of gamblers, cowboys, of all sorts of students, of show-business workers, of jazz musicians and devotees, of athletes and their fans, of railroad and other transportation workers, and of immigrant or ethnic populations cutting across these other subcultures.

In the 1980s some of these traditional grounds for slang lost their productivity, and other subcultures emerged to replace them. For example the general adoption of terms from hoboes, railroad workers, gypsies and from cowboys has very nearly ceased, although the contributions of all these persist in the substrata of current slang. Criminals and police (cops and robbers) still make their often identical contributions, and gamblers continue to give us zesty coinages. Teenagers and students can still be counted on for innovation and effrontery. Show business workers are still a fertile source of slang.

The adoption of military, naval, and merchant marine slang has slowed, not surprisingly. World Wars I and II probably gave us more general slang than any other events in history. Railroad slang has been replaced, though on a lesser scale, by the usage of airline workers and truck drivers. The jazz world, formerly richly involved with drug use, prostitution, booze, and gutter life, is no longer so contributory, nor has rock and roll quite made up the loss, but taken as a whole, popular music, for instance, rock, blues, funk, rap, reggae, and others, are making inroads.

Terms from ‘the drug scene’ have multiplied astronomically. Sports also make a much larger contribution, with football and even basketball not challenging but beginning to match baseball as prime producers.

Among the immigrant-ethnic contributions, the influx from Yiddish continues to be strong but the old Dutch and German sources have dried up. Italian carries on in modest proportion. The Hispanic source has been surprisingly uninfluential, although a heavier contribution is predictable. All these are far behind the increased borrowing from black America (and this from the urban ghetto rather than the old Southern heartland).

Some sources of slang are entirely or relatively new. Examples of these are the computer milieu and the hospital-medical-nursing complex.

In the matter of sex, our period has witnessed a great increase in the number of terms taken over from homosexuals. Their contribution cannot be restricted to sex terms alone, since the gay population merges with so many others that are educated, witty, observant, acerbic, and modish.

The ‘growth sector’ is hardest to characterise now. To name it, R. L. Chapman uses a clumsy compound like ‘the Washington-Los Angeles-Houston-Wall StreetMadison Avenue nexus’. American culture occupies these centres, and they occupy the culture through pervasive and unifying communications media. They give to America the slang of brass, of the execs, of middle management, of dwellers in bureaucracies, of yuppies, and of the talk shows and the ‘people’ sort of columns and

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magazines. Bright, expressive, sophisticated people, moving and prospering with American lively popular culture. They are the trend-setters and source of the slang that seems to come from everywhere and not to be susceptible to labelling.

This new emphasis in the fortunes of American slang points to one of its important distinctions, that between so called primary and secondary slang.

11.2.3 Primary and Secondary Slang

Primary slang is the pristine speech of subculture members, so very natural to its speakers that it seems they might be mute without it. Of course they would not be, since we know that slang is by definition always an alternative idiom, to be chosen rather than required. Much of teenage talk, and the speech of urban street gangs, would be examples of primary slang.

Secondary slang is chosen not so much to fix one in a group as to express one’s attitudes and resourcefulness by pretending, momentarily, in a little shtick (show business) of personal guerrilla theatre, to be a member of a street gang, or a criminal, or a gambler, or a drug user, or a professional football player, and so on -and hence to express one’s contempt, superiority or cleverness by borrowing someone else’s verbal dress. Secondary slang is a matter of stylistic choice rather than true identification.

11.2.4 Individual psychology of slang

Obviously an individual resorts to slang as a means of attesting membership in the group and of cutting himor herself off from the mainstream culture. He or she merges both verbally and psychologically into the subculture that boasts itself on being different from, in conflict with and superior to the mainstream culture, and in particular to its assured rectitude and its pomp. Slang is thus an act of bracketing a smaller social group that can be comfortably joined and understood and be a shelter for the self.

11.2.5 Slang and Language Levels

Slang is the body of words and expressions frequently used by or intelligible to a rather large portion of the general public, but not accepted as good, formal usage by the majority. No word can be called slang simply because of its etymological history; its source, its spelling, and its meaning in a larger sense do not make it slang. Slang is best defined by a dictionary that points out who uses slang and what ‘flavour’ it conveys. Jonathan Green (1998) defines slang as “the counter-language, ... the language of the rebels, the outlaw, the despised, the marginal, the young. Above all it is the language of the city – urgent, pointed, witty, cruel, capable both of excluding and including, of mocking and confirming.” (Green, ibid., v). J. Green also points out that slang can be in its worst no more than vulgar for vulgarity‘s sake, stupid, the stuff of insult and obscenity. At its best it can be delightfully and even subtly humorous, a

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vibrant subset of the English language (ibid., v).

The line between slang and colloqualism (the casual language of everyday speech) cannot be strictly and precisely drawn. As the authors of slang dictionaries claim, there is often a number of words which may be classified as colloquial. Moreover some of them have joined standard English (e.g. applesause, breadline convertible, dusters, hitchhikers, pizzeria, voodoo, etc.). Some slang dictionaries also indicate at what stage the word progressed from slang to standard use (e.g. Green, ibid.).

A detailed study of vocabulary levels in the English language is presented by R. L. Chapman (ibid.) who considers standard usage, colloquialisms, dialects, cant, argot, jargon and slang.

Standard usage

comprises words and expressions used, understood, and accepted by a majority of citizens under any circumstances or degree of formality. Such words are well defined and their most accepted spellings and pronunciations are given in standard dictionaries. In standard speech one might say: Sir, you speak English well.

Colloquialisms

are familiar words and idioms used in informal speech and writing, but not considered explicit or formal enough for polite conversation or business correspondence. Unlike slang, however, colloquialisms are used and understood by nearly everyone. The use of slang conveys the suggestion that the speaker and the listener enjoy a special ‘fraternity’, but the use of colloquialisms emphasises only the informality and familiarity of a general social situation. Almost all idiomatic expressions could be labelled colloquial. Colloquially, one might say: Friend, you talk plain and hit the nail right on the head.

Dialects

are the words, idioms, pronunciations, and speech habits peculiar to specific geographical locations. A dialectism is a regionalism or localism. In popular use ‘dialect’ has come to mean the words, foreign accents, or speech patterns associated with any ethnic group. In Southern (American) dialect one might say: Cousin, y’all talk mighty fine. In ethnic-immigrant ‘dialects’‘ one might say: Paisano, you speak good English, or Landsman, your English is plenty all right already.

Cant, jargon, and argot

are the words and expressions peculiar to special segments of the population.

Cant is the conversational, familiar idiom used and generally understood only by members of a specific occupation, trade, profession, sect, class, age group, interest group, or other sub-group of a main culture.

Jargon is the technical vocabulary of such a sub-group, jargon is ‘shop talk’. Argot is both the cant and the jargon of any professional criminal group. In

such usages one might say, respectively: CQ-CQ-CQ...the tone of your transmission is good; You are free of anxieties related to interpersonal communication; or Duchess, let’s have a bowl of chalk.

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Slang

is generally defined above. In slang one might say: Buster, your line is the cat’s pyjamas, or Doll, you come on with the straight jazz, real cool like.

Each of these levels of language is more common in speech than in writing, and slang as a whole is no exception.

Slang tries for a quick, easy, personal mode of speech. It comes mostly from cant, jargon, and argot words and expressions whose popularity has increased until a large number of the general public uses or understands them. Much of this slang retains a basic characteristic of its origin: it is fully intelligible only to initiates.

Eventually, some slang passes into standard speech; other slang flourishes for a time with varying popularity and then is forgotten; finally, some slang is never fully accepted nor completely forgotten. O.K., jazz (music), and A-bomb were recently considered slang, but they are now standard usages. Bluebelly, Lucifer, and the bee’s knees have faded from popular use. Bones (dice) and beat it seem destined to remain slang forever: Chaucer used the first and Shakespeare used the second.

It is impossible for every living vocabulary to be static. Most new slang words and expressions evolve quite naturally: they result from specific situations. New objects, ideas, or happenings, for example, require new words to describe them. Each generation also seems to need some new words to describe the same old things.

Railroaders (who were probably the first American sub-group to have a nationwide cant and argot) thought jerk water town was ideally descriptive of a community that others called a one horse-town. When the automobile replaced the horse the changes were natural and necessary: one-horse town > don’t spare the horses > a wide place in the road > step on it.

The automobile also produced such new words and new meanings (some of them highly specialised) as gas buggy, jalopy, bent eight, Chevvie, convertible*, lube.

Like most major innovations, the automobile affected American social history and introduced or encouraged road hogs, joint hopping, chicken (the game), car coats, suburbia*.

The automobile is only one obvious example. Language always responds to new concepts and developments with new words. R. L. Chapman (ibid.) outlines several fields of slang production. Some of the listed words have lost their slang character and have become part of standard language. They are indicated (some of them also in the previous text) by an asterisk:

Wars: redcoats, minutemen, bluebelly, over there, doughboy, gold brick, jeep*.

Mass immigrations: Bohunk, greenhorn*, shillelagh, voodoo*, pizzeria*.

Science and technology: ‘gin*, side-wheeler, wash-and-wear, fringe area, fallout.

Turbulent eras: Redskin, maverick, Chicago pineapple, free love*, fink, breadline*.

Evolution in the styles of eating: applesauce*, clambake, luncheonette*, hot dog*, coffee and.

Dress: Mother Hubbard, bustle, shimmy, sailor, Long Johns*, zoot suit, Ivy League*.

Housing: lean-to, bundling board, chuckhouse, WC, railroad flat, split-level, sectional.

Music: cakewalk, bandwagon, fish music, long hair, rock.

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Personality: Yankee, alligator, flapper, sheik, hepcat, B.M.O.C., beetle, beat.

New modes of transportation: stage, pinto, jitney, kayducer, hot shot, jet jockey.

New modes of entertainment: barnstormer, two-a-day, clown alley, talkies, d.j., Spectacular.

Changing attitudes towards sex: painted woman, fast, broad, wolf, jailbait, sixtynine.

Human motivations: boy crazy, gold-digger*, money-mad, Momism, Oedipus complex*, do-gooder*, sick.

Personal relationships: bunkey, kids*, old lady, steady*, ex, gruesome twosome, John.

Work and workers: clod buster, scab*, pencil pusher*, white collar*, graveyard shift*, company man.

Hair styles: bun, rat, peroxide blonde, Italian cut, pony tail, D.A.

Those social groups that first confront a new object, cope with a new situation, or work with a new concept devise and use new words long before the population at large does. The larger, more imaginative, and useful a group’s vocabulary, the larger its contribution to slang.

To generate slang, a group must either be very large and in constant contact with the dominant culture or be small, closely knit, and removed enough from the dominant culture to evolve an extensive, highly personal, and vivid vocabulary. Teenagers are an example of a large subgroup contributing many words. Criminals, carnival workers, and hoboes are examples of the smaller groups. The smaller groups, because their vocabulary is vivid and personal, contribute to the general slang out of proportion to their size.

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Chapter 12:

FUNCTIONAL STYLES OF THE ENGLISH

LANGUAGE

12.1 Stylistic significance

In stylistics, the study of the function of linguistic elements in texts is central, not only of their grammatical function, but more importantly to their function in relation to the meaning of the text, their contribution to the overall theme and structure. This is known as stylistic significance.

Non-literary stylistics (see Crystal & Davy 1969) and register studies have related situational types of language to predominant functions, for example, advertising with persuasion, TV commentary with information, etc. Such typologies according to predominant functions are also an aspect of text linguistics. So in text linguistics, it is distinguished between descriptive, narrative and argumentative texts.

12.2 Attempts to Categorise Functions of Language

In his Closing statement: Linguistics and Poetics (In: The Stylistic Reader, 1996, pp. 10-35) Roman Jakobson presents summary remarks about poetics in its relation to linguistics. To outline the field of study of poetics, its aims and methods, he focusses on the study of the poetic function of language, while emphasizing that language must be investigated in all variety of its functions. An outline of the language functions requires a detailed analysis of all factors which help to constitute any speech event, any act of verbal communication. A simple model of a communication channel consists of three phenomena: the addresser sends a message to the addressee. To be operative the message requires a context referred to, graspable by the addressee (either verbal or capable of being verbalized), a code fully (or at least partially) common to the addresser and addressee, and, finally, a contact, a physical channel and psychological connection between the two, enabling both of them to enter and stay in communication. R. Jakobson (ibid., p. 12) offers a scheme presenting all these factors:

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