Lecture 7. Stylistic differentiation of english vocabulary

Plan

Linguostylistics discerns the following lexico-stylistic layers of the English vocabulary:

1. Stylistically neutral words

2. Literary-bookish words

3. Colloquial words

Stylistically neutral layer, which is the living core of the vocabulary, consists of words mostly of native origin though it also comprises fully assimilated borrowings. Such words are devoid of any emotive colouring and are used in their denotative meaning e.g. man, sky, table, street, go, move, speak, easy, long, often, never, etc. In groups of synonyms neutral words fulfil the function of the synonymic dominant.

LITERARY-BOOKISH WORDS

Literary-bookish words belong to the formal style. The so-called learned words are used in descriptive passages of fiction, scientific texts, radio and television announcements, official talks and documents, business correspondence, etc. As a rule, these words are mostly of foreign origin and have poly-morphemic structure, e.g. solitude, fascination, cordial, paternal, divergent, commence, assist, comprise, endeavour, exclude, heterogeneous, miscellaneous, hereby, thereby, herewith, wherein, etc.

Terms are words or nominal groups, which convey specialized concepts used in science, technology, art, etc., e.g. gerontology, phoneme, radar, knee-joint, common denominator, periodic table, still life, choreography, etc.

Barbarisms are words or expressions borrowed without (or almost without) any change in form and not accepted by native speakers as current in the language, e.g. ad libitum, qui pro quo, entre nous, bon mot, table d'note, coup d'Etat, etc.

Poetic words with elevated, "lofty" colouring are traditionally used only in poetry. Most of them are archaic and have stylistically neutral synonyms, e.g. lone ("lonely"), brow ("forehead"), gore ("blood"), woe ("sorrow"), array ("clothes"), hearken ("hear"), behold ("see"), oft ("often"), ere ("before"), etc.

Archaisms are obsolete names for existing words, actions, phenomena, etc. All of them can be replaced by neutral synonyms, e.g. hark ("listen"), deem ("think"), glee ("joy"), aught ("anything"), nigh ("near"). Grammatical archaisms represent obsolete grammatical forms: thou, thee, thy, thine; yei; he goeth, thou knowest, etc. Among archaic words one should distinguish historical words that denote no-longer existing objects, e.g. yeoman, fletcher, gleeman, galleon, visor, arbalernt, etc. Historical words have no neutral synonyms in Modern English.

Neologisms are words and word-groups that denote new concepts, e.g. teledish, n. ("a dish-shaped aerial for receiving satellite television transmissions"); roam-a-phone n. ("a portable telephone"); graviphoton n. ("a

hypothetical particle"); Gieger counter n. ("a device for detecting radioactivity"); magalog n. ("a large magazine-format catalogue advertising mailorder goods"); NIC n. ("newly-industrializing country"), etc.

Among neologisms one can find the so-termed occasional words (or nonce-words) coined for a particular situation or context and aimed at a certain stylistic effect e.g. "A what? " Moneyholic. A word I've just made up to describe someone with an uncontrollable addiction to money" (D. Francis).

Several nonce words coined by famous English authors have penetrated to the Standard English vocabulary and are registered in dictionaries, e.g. Lilliputian (J. Swift), snob (W.M. Thackeray), to galumph, to chortle (L. Carrol).

One should not confuse occasional words with potential words based on productive word-formation patterns and devoid of any stylistic colouring. Typical cases of potential word-formation are composite numerals (thirty-five, four hundred and sixteen), numerous adjectives with the semi-suffix - like (moth-like, soldier-like) and some other widely distributed patterns. Being easily coined and understood, potential words are not registered in dictionaries.

COLLOQUIAL WORDS

Colloquial words are characteristic of the informal style of spoken English. One should distinguish between literary (standard) colloquial words as units of Standard English and non-literary colloquialisms that belong to sub-standard English vocabulary.

Literary colloquial words are used in everyday conversations both by cultivated and uneducated people and are also met in written literary texts.

As for their etymology and syllabic structure, literary colloquial words are closer to neutral words than to literary-bookish units, but, as a rule, have stronger emotional colouring. They are formed on standard word-formative patterns, some of them (for instance, contraction, phrasal verbs and nouns, substantivation) being particularly frequent: granny, birdie, latish, touchy, perm, disco, baby-sit, chopper, put up, do away, turn in, let-down, make-up, hand-in-glove, daily (n.), constitutional (n.), etc.

The informal style of spoken English is also characterized by extensive use of occasional and potential words (see Neologisms above), qualifiers, responsives, pragmatic phraseological units, evaluative attributes and predicatives, e.g. Reaganomics, Oscarish, awfully glad, terribly sweet, dead right, you bet, there you are, what next?, it's no go, smart kid, lousy weather, too New-York, etc. Several classes of nomination are exclusively

colloquial: semantically diffused words (thing, stuff, affair, etc.), the so-termed ersatz-words (thingummy, whatsename, whatchamacallit, etc), syntagmatic doublets (you boys, Bobby boy, darling dear, etc.).

Non-literary (sub-standard) colloquial words include slang, jargonisms, professionalisms and vulgarisms.

Slang comprises highly informal words not accepted for dignified use. Such words are expressive sub-standard substitutes for current words of standard vocabulary. As a rule, their meanings are based on metaphor and have a jocular or ironic colouring, e.g. attic ("head"), beans ("money"), governor ("father"), saucers ("eyes"), soaked ("drunk"), to leg/it/ ("to walk"), to rag ("to tease"), etc. Slang words are easily understood by all native speakers, because they are not specific for any social or professional group (cf. with Ukrainian просторіччя, e.g. баньки /"очі"/, макітра /"голова"/, поцупити /"вкрасти"/, etc.). Therefore, such terms as "army slang", "school slang", "football slang", "sea slang" and the like are rather inaccurate.

Informal words peculiar for a certain social or professional group should be considered as jargonisms. Such words are usually motivated and, like slang words, have metaphoric character, e.g. bird ("rocket", "spacecraft"); garment ("pressure space suit") /astronauts' jargon/; to grab ("to make an impression on somebody") /newspaper jargon/; Mae West ("pneumatic vest")/military jargon/; grass, tea, weed ("narcotic") /drug addicts' jargon/, etc.

Among social jargons cant or argot (thieves' jargon stands somewhat apart. Cant (argot) words are non-motivated and have special "agreed-upon", secretive meanings, e.g. book ("life sentence"), spiv ("black-marketeer"), sposh ("money"), to rap ("to kill"), etc.

Professionalisms are sub-standard colloquial words used by people of a definite trade or profession. Such words are informal substitutes for corresponding terms, e.g. nuke ("nuclear"), identikit ("photorobot"), Hi-Fi ("high fidelity"), anchors ("brakes"), smash-up ("accident"), ack-ack gun ("anti-aircraft gun"), and the like.

Vulgarisms include: a) expletives and swear words of abusive character, like damn, goddam, bloody, etc.; b) obscene (or taboo, four-letter) words, which are highly indecent.

Phraseological unite, like words, belong to stylistically neutral literary-bookish and colloquial layers,

In most cases, phraseological collocations (standardized phrases) are stylistically neutral, to make friends, to make haste, to render a service, to go to bed, all of a sudden, on no account, etc.

Among literary-bookish phraseological units one can find barbarisms: ab ovo (Lat), ad verbum (Lat), a la lettre (Fr), apropos (Fr), etc.; archaic and poetic units, forever and aye, a heart of oak the apple of discord at fortune's alms, to bring to mould, to fall from grace, etc.; neologisms: Abominable Snowman, a back seat driver, to put on the back burner, straight from central casting, etc.

A great number of phraseologjcal units are literary colloquial, e.g. bag and baggage, alive and kicking, as crows flies, like water off duck's back, to be at sixes and sevens, to be on the carpet, etc.

Non-literary (sub-standard) colloquial phraseological unit are subdivided into:

a) slang units, e.g. to have a crush on somebody, to get (to go) bananas, to bat (to shoot) the breeze, to buy the farm, to get high, like the clappers, etc.

b) jargonisms, e.g. to put to bed (jur-); to break it up (theatre); to lay an egg (a bomb)(theatre); to be on the blink (eng.); to sell one's back (sport); rough stuff (sport); to pump iron (sport); to go into the drunk (av.), etc.

c) professionalisms, e.g. to hit the ground (av.); to ride the beam (av.,); to fall into a caldron (mil.); to ride a desk (mil.); to hit the headlines (journ.), etc.

5. vulgarisms, e.g. to hand somebody crap, to have a boob,to fress freebee, etc.

DIALECTS AND VARIANTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Linguists distinguish local dialects and variants of English. In the British Isles there exist five main groups of local dialects: Northern, Western, Midland, Eastern, and Southern. These dialects, used as means of oral communication, are peculiar to comparatively small localities. They are marked by some deviations mostly in pronunciation and vocabulary, but have no normalized literary form.

One of the best-known Southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect of London.

Regional varieties of English possessing a literary form are called variants. In the British Isles there are two variants: Scottish English and Irish English.

The varieties of English spoken in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India should also be considered as variants of Modern English. Each of them is characterized by distinct peculiarities in pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, and grammar system.

Read the following excerpts and comment on their dialectal peculiarities.

A. North-Western

"Well thou shall have to do summat my son. This pig-sty's no place for a man. Thee wife's next thing 'til a beggar. Thee dowter looks like an orphan. Thou looks like workhouse fodder. Thou shall hev to do summat. Yer mother's sick wid' worry."

"Don't bring her until it. Thou moans thou's shamed. That's all."

"All! Ay lad, Aa's shamed. But thou's bluddy near ruined Now - theee's a job, he'll give thee fourteen bob a week. Tek it. Git out of this muck-heap. That's what Aa kem to say."

"And now thou's off." /.../

"Ay - Aa's offl Aa'll catch diphtheria sittin' in this byre. What the hell man! Is this as good as thou can manage for thisel?' (M. Bragg).

B. Midland

"What sort o'work do you do?"

"I wok for my feyther 'polsterin'." /.../

"What's "polsterin?'

"Reparin' sofys and chairs. The old man teks wok in from pubs and 'ouses. /.../It's good work, but you've got to be as strong as a hoss, climbing up three flights o' stairs wi' a sofy on your back and getting nowt but threepence for your trouble when you get there."

"Don't your old man pay you wages?" "Ay," he said "but it ain't a sight"

C. Southern-Eastern

"Gearge! You gart whad a wand?' At that he turned and hurried down to her.

"Janny," he said over the rail of the cellar steps," 'tas the truth what Hen-frey sez. 'E's not in uz room, 'e en't And the front door's onbolted" /.. ./ "If 'e en't there," ne said, "is close are. And what's 'e doin' 'ithout 'is close, than? 'Tas a most curius basness." (H.G. Wells).

D. Cockney

The Flower Girl. Nah then, Freddy: look wh'y' gowin, deah.

Freddy. Sorry/ He rushes off/.

The Flower Girl /picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket/. Theres menners fyer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad, /…/

The Mother. How do you know that my son's name is Freddy, pray?

The Flower Girl. Ow, eez ye-ooa son, is e? (G.B. Shaw).

'That's where the Socialists myke their mistyke, sir. Nothing keeps me going but the sight of other people spendin' money. It's what we might all come to with a bit of luck. Reduce the world to a level of a pound a dy - and it won't even run to that, they sy! It'a not good enough, sir. I'd rather 'ave less with the 'ope of more. Take awy the gamble, and life's a frost" (J. Galsworthy).

E. Irish Variant

Haffigan. Tim Haffigan, sir, at your service. The top o the mornin to you, Misther Broadbent.

Broadbent I delighted with his Irish visitor/. Good afternoon, Mr. Haffigan.

Tim. An is it the afthernoon it is already? Begorra, what I call the mornin is all the time a man fasts afther breakfast./.../Besides, I'm Irish, sir: a poor aither, but a powerful dhrinker (G.B. Shaw).

F. Scottish Variant

"Did ye see the like! She's nearly gane! The puir thing! And her so young and so bonnie. I maun dae ma best for her /.../'. Back in her comfortable kitchen she shouted to her son, who sat before the huge cracking log fire: "Quick man! I want ye to run like fury to Levenford for a doctor. Ye maun get yin at a' costs. There's an ill woman in the byre. Go, in God's name, at once, and no' a word frae ye. It's life or death. ///// If ye dinna hurry she'll be gane. Haste ye awa' for help" (A. J. Cronin).