Transcript Document

FUNCTIONAL
STYLES
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Definition of a functional style
Informal style
colloquial words
slang
dialect words
Formal style
learned words
archaisms and historisms
poetic diction
professional terminology
Neutral vocabulary
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
studies variations in language according to
uses depending on social, educational,
sex, age, etc. stratification
 studies correlation of linguistic facts with
the life and attitudes of the speaking
community
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Linguostylistics
 studies
correlation of speech
situation and linguistic means
by speakers
 different styles in speech and
language
Functional Style
a
system of expressive means
peculiar to a specific sphere of
communication
Functional Style
of communication –
circumstances attending the
process of speech in each
particular case
 sphere
Informal Style
 used
in personal two-way everyday communication
 vocabulary may be determined
socially (educational and cultural
background, age group,
occupation) or regionally (dialect)
Informal Style
gesture, tone, voice, situation are as
important as words
 careful choice of words plays a minor role
 vocabulary is much less variegated
 the same pronouns, auxiliaries,
postpositives, the same most frequent and
generic terms are used again and again
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Informal Style
the same pronouns, auxiliaries,
postpositives, the same most frequent and
generic terms are used again and again
 they convey a great number of different
meanings
 some words are overused (e.g. thing, do,
get, nice, really, etc.)
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Informal Style
characterized by imaginative phraseology
(e.g. a lot of moonshine),
 ready-made formulas of politeness and
tags,
 standard expressions of surprise, gratitude
(e.g. I‘m most grateful), apology, etc.
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Informal Style
substantives adjectives (e.g. greens for
’green leaf vegetables’, woolies for
‘woolen clothes’)
 lexical intensifiers, emphatic verbs and
adverbs with lost denotational meaning
(e.g. awfully, lovely, terrific, grand, dead
etc.)
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Informal Style
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lexical expressions of modality (e.g.
definitely, in a way, I should think so, not at
all, by no means , etc.)
Informal Style
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Colloquial words
literary colloquial (cultivated speech)
familiar colloquial
low colloquial (illiterate speech)
Slang words
Dialect words
Literary Colloquial Speech
used by educated people in the course of
ordinary conversation or when writing letters to
intimate friends
 e.g. bite, snack – meal
to have a crush on smb – to fall in love with smb
phrasal verbs - to put up, turn up, do away
shortenings – pram, exam, flu
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Familiar Colloquial Speech
more emotional, much more free and
careless
 used mostly by young and semi-educated
 characterized by a great number of jocular
or ironical expressions and nonce-words
 e.g. doc – doctor, ta-ta – good-bye
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Low Colloquial Speech
 illiterate
unpopular speech
 contains more vulgar words
 sometimes contains elements of
dialect
Slang
 contrasted
to standard literary
vocabulary
 mainly used by young and
uneducated
 characterized by the use of
expressive, mostly ironical words
which create fresh names for some
usual things
Slang
most slang word are metaphors and
jocular, often with a coarse, mocking,
cynical colouring, produce shocking effect
e.g. money – beans, bras, dibs, dough,
wads
drunk – boozy, cock-eyed, soaked
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Slang
slang words and idioms are short-lived,
soon they ether disappear or lose their
peculiar colouring and become either
colloquial or stylistically neutral
e.g. chap, fun, mob, shabby, hitch-hiker,
once in a blue moon
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Slang
slang – specific for any
social or professional group
 special slang – peculiar for some
groups: teenager slang, football
slang, sea slang, etc.
 general
Argot
special vocabulary used by a particular
social or age group, the so-called
underworld (the criminal circles)
 its main purpose - to be unintelligible to
the outsiders
 argot words are non-motivated
e.g. shin – knife, book – life sentence
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Dialect Words
 Dialect
is a variety of a language
which prevails in a district, with
local peculiarities of vocabulary,
pronunciation and grammar
Dialect Words
dialect words may enter colloquial speech,
slang, then neutral vocabulary and formal
language
e.g. car, tram, trolley
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Formal Style
 English
vocabulary that occur in
books and magazines, that we
hear from a lecturer, a public
speaker, a radio announcement,
in formal official talk
Formal Style
 used
in monologues addressed by
one person to many, often prepared
in advance
 words are used with precision
 the vocabulary is elaborate,
generalized, not limited socially or
geographically
Formal Style
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learned words
literary words
words of scientific prose
official words
poetic diction
Archaic and obsolete words
Professional terminology
Formal Style
literary words – used in descriptive
passages of fiction
 mostly polysyllabic words from Romance
languages
 create complex and solemn associations
e.g. delusion, felicity, cordial, solitude
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Formal Style
words of scientific prose
e.g. experimental, divergent, heterogeneous, as
early as, in terms of etc.
 officialese (канцеляризмы) – words of official,
bureaucratic language, peculiar to official
documents, business correspondence
e.g. accommodation (room), donation (gift),
comestibles (food), dispatch (send off)
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Formal Style
words of poetic diction are traditionally
used only in poetry
 characterized by a lofty, high-flown,
sometimes archaic colouring
 they are more abstract
e.g. array (clothes), steed (horse), lone
(lonely), naught (nothing), albeit (although)
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Archaic and Obsolete
Words
 Obsolete
words are words that
dropped from the language, “no
longer in use, esp. for at least for
a century”
Archaic and Obsolete
Words
Archaic words (archaism) are words
which survive in special contexts, “current
in an earlier time but rare in present
usage”
 associated with poetic diction
e.g. aye (yes), nay (no), morn (morning),
betwixt (between)
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Historisms
words denoting objects and phenomena
which are things of the past and no longer
exist
 they are names for social relations,
institutions, objects of material culture of
the past
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Historisms
names of ancient transport means, ancient
clothes, weapons, musical instruments, etc.
e.g. landau ландо; четырехколесный экипаж или
автомобиль со съемным верхом,
phaeton фаэтон ( четырехколесная открытая
коляска ),
hansom двухколесный экипаж ( с местом для
кучера сзади )
calash легкая коляска ( имеющая низкие колеса
и складной верх )
berlin старинный дорожный четырехколесный
крытый экипаж
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Professional Terminology
specialized vocabularies
 term is a word or a word-group which is
specifically employed by a particular
branch of science, technology, trade or the
arts to convey a concept peculiar to this
particular activity
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Professional Terminology
terms should be monosemantic (polysemy
may lead to misunderstanding)
 independent of the context
 have only denotational meaning
 terms should not have synonyms
e.g. paint, tint, dye (краска) - colour
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Neutral (basic) Vocabulary
 opposed
to formal and informal
words
 used in all kinds of situations,
independent of the sphere of
communication
 stylistically neutral (lack
connotations)
Neutral (basic) Vocabulary
constitute the core of the vocabulary,
denote objects and phenomena of
everyday importance
 characterized by high frequency
e.g. to walk, summer, child, green
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Interrelations between different
strata of vocabulary
Basic
vocabulary
Informal
Formal
begin
Start, get started
commence
Child,
baby
Kid, brat, bearn
(dialect)
Infant, babe
(poetical)
Stylistically-neutral and
stylistically-marked words
Stylisticallyneutral
words
Basic
vocabulary
Stylistically-marked words
informal
formal