Stylistics of Resources of Modern English
Examination Questions
The notion of style. The subject of stylistics. Different branches of stylistics. Linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics. Stylistics of the language and stylistics of speech. Stylistics of different layers of a language.
The word “style” originates from the Greek "stylos"(“a pen”) and denotes a good, effective way of expression.
Stylistics is a branch of philology that studies general principles of choice and usage of different expressive means and their effectiveness for communication in different situations.
Stylistics has several branches: stylistics of language (linguo-stylistics), inclusive of functional stylistics and stylistics of speech, inclusive of literary stylistics. Linguo-stylistics studies sublanguages and functional styles, different expressive means and stylistic devices. Stylistics of speech studies real texts in the unity of form and expression, analyzing the way ideas are communicated according to the specific situation.
Stylistics
of speech studies texts of all
functional styles, while literary
stylistics studies only texts belonging
to belles-lettres style. Stylistics of
speech and literary stylistics as its
part deals with whole texts, while linguo-stylistics
deals with “elements of style”, “bits and pieces” of texts,
that is expressive
means and stylistic devices.
Linguo-stylistics: the aim is to study possibilities of expressiveness of language.
Literary stylistics: the aim is to get the ideas of the author.
Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary. Neutral, literary, colloquial layers. Neutrality and stylistic coloring of words.
The vocabulary of any given language can be divided into 3 groups, differing from each other by the sphere of their possible use. The biggest division consists of neutral words, possessing no stylistic connotation and suitable for any communicative situation, two smaller ones are literary and colloquial strata.
When we classify some speech (text) fragment as literary or colloquial it does not mean that all the words constituting it have a corresponding stylistic meaning. More than that: words with a pronounced stylistic connotation are few in any type of discourse, the overwhelming majority of its lexis being neutral. As L.V. Shcherba once said - a stylistically coloured word is like a drop of paint added to a glass of pure water and colouring the whole of it.
Stylistic type of classification divides the word-stock of the English language into three major groups: Neutral words – have universal character; Literary words – have markedly bookish character; Colloquial words – have lively spoken character.
Neutral words form the bulk of the English vocabulary and can be used in both literary and colloquial language. They are also the most productive words and can form new words by shifting in the part of speech or adding an affix to a stem. The neutral vocabulary of the language can be viewed as its invariant. The words of this layer are generally deprived of any concrete associations and refer to the concept directly. At the same time, their synonyms in both colloquial and literary layer assume a far greater degree of concreteness and cause evaluation of the notion in question.
Literary words.The words of this layer are mostly used in a polished speech and writing. They stand in opposition to colloquial units. These words are divided into a lower and an upper ranges. The upper range has the tendency to pass into the layer of the neutral words (common literary words), whereas the words of the lower range are never mixed with other layers (special literary words).
Colloquial words.These words are mainly used in informal spoken language. Like literary words, some of colloquial words approach the neutral bulk of the English language, but have not lost their colloquial character and therefore are easily recognized. They are usually more emotionally coloured than literary words.