FUNCTIONAL STYLES

1. FUNCTIONAL STYLES

2. 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

3. 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

4. Linguostylistics • studies correlation of speech situation and linguistic means by speakers • different styles in speech and language

5. Functional Style • a system of expressive means peculiar to a specific sphere of communication

6. Functional Style • sphere of communication – circumstances attending the process of speech in each particular case

7. Informal Style • used in personal two-way every-day communication • vocabulary may be determined socially (educational and cultural background, age group, occupation) or regionally (dialect)

8. 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

9. 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.)

10. 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.

11. 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.)

12. Informal Style • lexical expressions of modality (e.g. definitely, in a way, I should think so, not at all, by no means , etc.)

13. Informal Style • Colloquial words • literary colloquial (cultivated speech) • familiar colloquial • low colloquial (illiterate speech) • Slang words • Dialect words

14. 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

15. 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

16. Low Colloquial Speech • illiterate unpopular speech • contains more vulgar words • sometimes contains elements of dialect

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. Slang • general slang – specific for any social or professional group • special slang – peculiar for some groups: teenager slang, football slang, sea slang, etc.

21. 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

22. Dialect Words • Dialect is a variety of a language which prevails in a district, with local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar

23. Dialect Words • dialect words may enter colloquial speech, slang, then neutral vocabulary and formal language e.g. car, tram, trolley

24. 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

25. 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

26. Formal Style • learned words • literary words • words of scientific prose • official words • poetic diction • Archaic and obsolete words • Professional terminology

27. 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

28. 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)

29. 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)

30. Archaic and Obsolete Words • Obsolete words are words that dropped from the language, “no longer in use, esp. for at least for a century”

31. 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)

32. 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

33. Historisms • names of ancient transport means, ancient clothes, weapons, musical instruments, etc. e.g. landauландо; четырехколесный экипаж или автомобиль со съемным верхом, phaetonфаэтон ( четырехколесная открытая коляска ), hansomдвухколесный экипаж ( с местом для кучера сзади ) calash легкая коляска ( имеющая низкие колеса и складной верх ) berlin старинный дорожный четырехколесный крытый экипаж

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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)

37. 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

38. Interrelations between different strata of vocabulary

39. Stylistically-neutral and stylistically-marked words