Stylistic and social stratification of the english lexicon

Topics for Discussion

1. Stylistic classification of the English lexicon.

2. Social stratification of the English lexicon.

3. Style and usage labels in English dictionaries.

Key Terms

appreciative	neologism
approving	obsolete
archaic	obsolescent
argot	offensive
Bible (biblical)	old-fashioned
cant	old use
colloquial	pejorative
common words	poetic
dated	political correctness
derogatory	pompous
dialectal	rare
emotive	register
emphatic	rhetorical
euphemism	rude
figurative	scientific
foreignism	slang
formal	spoken
historical	standard
humorous	non-standard
informal	substandard
ironical	subject field
jargon	taboo
jocular	technical
literary	vulgar

Tasks and Exercises

1. Make sure you understand the meaning of the key terms.

2. Compare style and usage labels in different dictionaries (see Recommended Dictionaries).

3. Make up lists of formal and informal words.

4. Study the diagrams and find points of sameness and differ­ence.

Diagram 1

_g

О ^{л E R A} я у COMMON

^C°UOQU»^

_{/ \}

_\

_*****

(From: The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Oxford, 1974. Vol. 1.)

Diagram 2

(From: ИР. Гальперин. Стилистика английского языка. М, 1977.)

Questions

• What are the three main layers of the lexicon?

• What groups of words make up the formal vocabulary?

• Into what groups does the informal vocabulary fall?

• In what does the difference between obsolescent, obsolete, ar­chaic and historical words lie?

• What is the difference between jargonisms and vulgarisms?

• What is the difference between professionalisms and terms? Where does the difference lie?

• What is understood by slang?

Recommended Reading

Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова КН. Лексико­логия английского языка: Учеб. пособие. На англ. яз. М, 1999.

Арнольд КВ. Лексикология современного английского.языка: Учебник для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. На англ. яз. М, 1986.

Гальперин И. Р. Стилистика английского языка: Учебник. М., 1977.

Гинзбург Р.З., Хидекель С.С, Князева ГЮ. и др. Лексиколо­гия английского языка: Учебник для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. На англ. яз. М., 1979.

Contemporary Linguistics. An Introduction / W. O'Grady,

M. Dobrovolsky, M. Aronoff. New York, 1993. Crystal D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Lan­guage. Printed in Italy, 1995.

McArthur T. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford, 1992.

Recommended Dictionaries

Кудрявцев А.Ю., Куропаткин Г.Д. Англо-русский словарь-справочник табуизированной лексики и эвфемизмов. М, 1993.

Новый англо-русский словарь / В.К.Мюллер, В.Л.Дашевская,

В.АКаплан и др. М, 1994. Новый Большой англо-русский словарь. В 3 т. /

Ю.Д. Апресян, Э.М. Медникова, А.В. Петрова и др. Под

общим рук. Ю.Д. Апресяна. М., 1997. Ayto J._y Simpson 1 The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang. Ox­ford; New York, 1996. Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary. London, 1995. The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Bombay, 1987. The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English.

AS.Hornby / Ed. J. Crowther. Oxford, 1995. The Oxford Russian Dictionary. English-Russian. Oxford, 1995. Partridge E. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.

London, 1979. Vol. 1,2. Partridge E. Smaller Slang Dictionary. London; Boston, 1976. Dictionary of American Slang / Сотр. and ed. by H.Wentworth

and S. B. Flexner. New York, 1975. Phythian В A. A Concise Dictionary of English Slang. London,

1984.

Spears К A. NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. USA 1993.

REGIONAL VARIETIES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: LEXICAL DIFFERENCES

1. The English language in different parts of the world. The notion of World Standard English (WSE). English as a global lan­guage.

1. The main variants of the English language.

2. Lexical differences of regional variants (American variant, Australian variant, Canadian variant, etc.).

2. British dialects (General overview).

3. Varieties of American English (General overview).

Key Terms

Americanism

Briticism

dialect

English mother tongue (EMT) speakers identity intelligibility internationalism lexical differences linguistic distinctiveness melting pot

Tasks and Exercises national language national standard official language regional variation sociolect

spelling differences Standard English variant variety

World Standard English (WSE) world language