Recommended literature:

1. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка (Стилистика декодирования). – M., 2002. стр. 165 – 170; 225-238.

2. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. - M., 1987. pp. 123-125; pp. 252-270.

3. Кухаренко В.А. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. pp. 10-13, 18-19.

4. http://www.lingvoda.ru/LingvoDict/Stylistics.zip

5. http://www.durov.com/study/STYLISTICS-175.doc

UNIT 3

Semantic structure of a word

An Outline

1. Denotative and connotative meanings as a factor of style.

2. Contextual meaning and its stylistic function.

3. The theory of opposition; polysemy and synonymy.

4. Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary.

5. Formal layer of the English vocabulary.

6. Informal layer of the English vocabulary.

Sign is a material, sensuously perceived object (phenomenon, action) appearing in the process of cognition and communication in the capacity of a representative (substitute) of another object (or objects) and used for receiving, storing, recasting and transforming information about this object (I.R.G.:61)

Word - a unit of language functioning within the sentence or within a part of it which by its sound or graphical form expresses a concrete or abstract notion or a grammatical notion through one of its meanings and which is capable of enriching its semantic structure by acquiring new meanings and losing old ones. It possesses an enormous potentiality for generating new meanings; (I.R.G.:62, 66)

Word - a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterised by formal and semantic unity. (Antrushina:10)

“A word is a basic unit of a language, which denotes a concept and expresses emotions and relations”. (Meillet)

Lexical meaning or dictionary meaning:

- refers the mind to a concrete concept, phenomenon, or thing of objective reality, whether real or imaginary;

- a means by which a word-form is made to express a definite concept;

- closely related to a concept;

- sometimes identified with a concept;

A concept is considered an abstract or general idea of some phenomenon of objective reality and also comprises subjective feelings and emotions of human beings. A word expresses a concept by its meanings. Each meaning denotes a separate concept.

Prof. Galperin’s classification of the semantic structure of a word (Moscow school) comprises:

1. Logical 2. Nominal 3. Emotive meanings.

Logical (referential) or denotative meaning is the precise naming of a feature, idea, phenomenon or object: head, can (sl.), upper story (sl.), brain (sl.), etc. are united by the same denotative meaning.

The nominal meaning nominates an object. It is referred to proper nouns: Mr. Black, Mr. Hope. It serves the purpose of singling out one definite and singular object out of a whole class of similar objects: e.g. Browning, Taylor, Scotland, Black, Chandler, Chester.

Emotive meaning also materializes a concept in the word, but, unlike logical meaning, it has reference not directly to things or phenomena of objective reality, but to the feelings and emotions of the speaker towards these thighs or to his emotions as such. Emotive meaning (coloring) can be usual or occasional. A girl (tart, broad, bird) are referred to one person to portray the character’s respect or disrespect.

Contextual emotive meaning is an emotive meaning, acquired by a word only in a definite context: e.g.

1.”His face is red at first and then goes white and his eyes stare as if they’ll pop out of his head.”

2. “Would you like me to pop downstairs and make you a cup of cocoa?”

Contextual meaning is accidental and it is imposed by and depends on the context;

“Awake ye sons of Spain, awake, arise! (Byron) - (arise - revolt).

Contextual meaning of words in poetry serves the purposes of stylistic convergence:

“When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table.” (G.Eliot)