13-09-2015 стилистика / Семинар 3_Stylistic Norm and Neutrality. Stylistic Function

Стилистика английского языка

Лабораторные занятия, 7 семестр

Занятие 3

NORM AND NEUTRALITY. STYLISTIC FUNCTION

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Which of the definitions of linguistic norm given below do you consider the best one? Which of the statements do you find rather debatable?

- The norm is "a regulator which controls a set of variants, the borders of variations and also admissible and inadmissible variants." (E. A. Makayev)

- "The norm is a set of stable (i.e. regularly used) means objectively existing in the language and systematically used."

- The norm is "a certain conventionally singled out assemblage of realizations of language means recognized by the language community as a model.'" (Gukhman & Semenyuk)

- "The norm is a linguistic abstraction, an idea thought up by linguists and existing only in their minds." (A. E. Darbyshire)

- "There is, of course, no such thing as the norm to be found in actual usage. It is a concept which must be expressed by means of a formula, and it is a concept about that which is left of uses of language when all stylistic qualities have been taken away from them." (A. E. Darbyshire)

2. What are the two main properties of a linguistic norm?

3. What is stylistic neutrality?

4. Comment upon the following statement:

It was common in the formative years of stylistics in the 1960s and in computational stylistics to define style itself in terms of a deviation from a norm (see, e.g. Bloch 1953; Levin 1962). And ideas of idiolect, of certain writers using certain constructions very or less frequently, presuppose some norm against which individual variation can be measured. We can see for various reasons how such an approach must be carefully considered. Style in this sense appears 'abnormal'; and what is assumed to be 'normal' would therefore have no 'sty1e' (From: ‘A Dictionary of Stylistics’ by Katie Wales, p. 275).

5. Give the definition of Standard English.

6. What is stylistic function?

7. What types of connotations do you know?

8. How does stylistic colouring and stylistic neutrality relate to inherent and adherent stylistic connotations?

PRACTICE SECTION

1) Look at the following words. Decide whether they have (a) no particular connotations, (b) strong negative connotations, (c) strong positive connotations.

Vehicle, slavery, democracy, was, photosynthesis, torture, the, brat, morphophonemics, Rolls Royce, fascism, building, freedom, hovel, a.

Compare your analysis of the list with someone else’s. Do you agree on which words are loaded, and whether they are positive or negative in their connotations?

2) Speak about the difference between the contextual and the dictionary meanings of italicized words. What kind of adherent stylistic meaning appears in them?

1. Mr. James Duffy lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was the citizen and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. (J.J.)

2. He does all our insurance examining and they say he's some doctor. (S.L.)

3. He seemed prosperous, extremely married and unromantic. (S.L.)

4. "What do you think?" The question pops their heads up. (K.K.)

5. We tooled the car into the street and eased it into the ruck of folks. (R.W.)

6. He inched the car forward. (A.H.)

7. "Of course it was considered a great chance for me, as he is so rich. And - and - we drifted into a sort of understanding - I suppose I should call it an engagement -"

"You may have drifted into it; but you will bounce out of it, my pettikins, if I am to have anything to do with it." (B.Sh.)

8. He sat with the strike committee for many hours in a smoky room and agonized over ways and means. (M.G.)

9. Betty loosed fresh tears. (Jn.B.)

10. When the food came, they wolfed it down rapidly. (A.M.)

11. He had seen many places and been many things railroad foreman, plantation overseer, boss mechanic, cow-puncher, and Texas deputy-sheriff. (J.R.)

12 Station platforms were such long, impersonal, dirty, ugly things, with too many goodbyes, lost hearts, and tears stamped into the concrete paving. (A. S.)

13. "Let me say, Virginia, that I consider your conduct most unbecoming. Nor at all that of a pure young widow."

"Don't be an idiot. Bill. Things are happening."

"What kind of things?"

"Queer things." (Ch.)

14. I need young critical things like you to punch me up. (S.L.)

15. Oh! the way the women wear their prettiest every thing' (T.C.)

3) Consider the following utterances from the point of view of the linguistic norm. What elements can be labelled as deviations from Standard English? What is their stylistic function?

1. Just after Morpheus had got both my shoulders to the shuck mattress I hears a houseful of unbecoming and ribald noises like a youngster screeching with green-apple colics. I opens my door and calls out in the hall for the widow lady, and when she sticks her head out, I says: “Mrs. Peevy, ma’am, would you mind choking off that kid of yours so that honest people can get their rest?” (O. Henry)

2. He had a clean-cravatish formality of manner and kitchen-pokerness of carriage (Ch. Dickens).

3. Miss Tillie Webster, she slept forty days and nights without waking up (O. Henry).

4. Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did not know when he made camp, when he broke camp… (J. London)

5. “…he didn’t realize it, but he was about a sentence away from needing plastic surgery” (Clifford). (The implication is: if he had gone on talking, he would have been beaten up, and his face disfigured so as to need plastic surgery)

6. “AS  I  WAS  SAYING,” said Eeyore loudly and sternly, “as I was saying when I was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that ” (A. Milne)

7. “[…] a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing their angelus they’ve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or to for his night office the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering the brains out of itself let me see if I can dose off 1 2 3 4 5 what kind of flowers are those they invented like stars the wallpaper in Lombart street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again so as I can get up early 111 go to Lambes there beside Findlaters and get them to send us some flowers to put about the place in case he brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no [...]” (J. Joyce)

8. I wanted to bring the crab but Heidi and June said it was too dead (H. Bates).

9. She produced facts in a Would-you-believe-it kind of way.

10. He had a face like a plateful of mortal sins (B. Behan).

11. Pity this busy monster manunkind not… (e.e. cummings).

12. One I-am-sorry-for-you is worth twenty I-told-you-so's.

13. He is the niece I told you about's husband.

14. Surrey all in one blaze like a forest fire. Great clouds of dirty yellow smoke rolling up. Nine carat gold. Sky water-green to lettuce-green. A few top clouds, yellow and solid as lemons. River disappeared out of its hole. Just a gap full of the same fire, the same smoky fold, the same green. Far bank like a magic island floating in the green (J. Cary).

15.When I was a younger man – two wives ago, 250,000 cigarettes ago, 3,000 quarts of booze ago… (K. Vonnegut, Jr.).

16. ‘You have not, then, had a Captain Curtis staying here?’ (A. Christie)

17. ‘If I were a sculptor […] I should choose Mr Neil Gibson as my model. His tall, gaunt, craggy figure had suggestion of hunger and rapacity. An Abraham Lincoln keyed to base uses instead of high ones would give some idea of the man’ (A. Conan Doyle).

18. … but the Leopard he was the ‘sclusivest sandiest-yellowest-brownest of them all – a greyish-yellowish catty-shaped kind of beast … […] he would lie down by a ‘sclusively yellowish-greyish-brownish stone or clump of grass, and when the Giraffe or the Zebra […] came by he would surprise them out of their jumpsome lives (R. Kipling).

19. He

climbed

and

he

climbed

and

he

climbed

and

as

he

climbed

he

sang

a

little

song

to

himself (A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh).

20. i'm

asking

you dear to

what else could a

no but it doesn’t

of course but you don’t seem

to realize i can’t make

it clearer war just isn’t what

we imagine but please for god’s O

what the hell yea it’s true that was

me but that me isn’t me

can’t you see now no not

any christ but you

must understand

why because

i am

dead (e. e. cummings)

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