Detachment

When placed in a certain syntactic position, sentence components may seem formally independent of the word they refer to. Such components of a sentence structure are called “detached”:

There was a nice girl there, I liked her name, Linda

It was indeed, to Forsyte’s eyes, an odd house

Rhetoric questions

and

Other cases of syntactic transposition

Contextual environment of a language unit may change its initial meaning. A typical case of contextual transposition of meaning is a rhetoric question. In fact, a rhetoric question is not a question but an affirmative or negative statement put into the interrogative shape. A rhetoric question needs no answer because the answer to it is quite obvious:

The communicative function of a rhetoric question is to catch the attention of the audience, make the sequential sentences sound persuasive and significant.

There are some more varieties of contextual transposition of meaning:

• Exclamatory sentences with inversion: Much he knew about it!

• Negative sentences implying emphatic affirmation: I will hang myself if it isn’t Barney Woods who did it!

• Syntactic structures with Subjunctive mood: I wish I had not done it.

47 Functional styles

Functional Style is a system of interrelated language means serving a definite aim in communication. A well-developed language, such as English, is streamed into several functional styles. The widely accepted classification of functional styles singles out bookish and colloquial styles.

The group of bookish styles embraces:

• the style of official documents,

• the style of scientific prose,

• the newspaper style,

• the publicistic style,

The group of colloquial styles includes:

• the literary colloquial style,

• familiar colloquial style

The speaker resorts to a certain functional style due to such extralingual factors: the character of the situation in which communication takes place (official, ceremonial, informal, private or other); the relations between the communicants (formal, official, friendly, hostile, spontaneous); the aim of communication (transference of specific information, emotional attitudes, establishment of business contacts, etc. ); oral or written communication.

the group of bookish styles

The style of official documents

The style of official documents aims at establishing, developing and controlling business relations between individuals and organizations. Being devoid of expressiveness, it is fully impersonal, rational and pragmatic.

The graphical level of the style of official documents is distinguished by specific rules of making inscriptions, using capital letters and abbreviations.

The lexical level of the style of official documents is characterized by domination of bookish, archaic words, professional terms and clichés.

The morphological features of the style of official documents are such: wide use of non-finite forms of the verb, impersonal, and indefinite pronouns.

The syntactic level of the style of official documents is distinguished by long and super-long sentences of all structural types, always two-member and no-elliptical, complicated by complexes of secondary predication, detachments, parenthetic insertions and passive constructions.

The style of scientific prose

The style of scientific prose serves as an instrument for promoting scientific ideas and exchanging scientific information among people. The peculiarities of this style are objectiveness, impersonality, unemotional character.

To the graphical level of the style of scientific prose belong number- or letter-indexed paragraphing, a developed system of headlines, titles and subtitles, footnotes, pictures, tables, scheme and formulae.

The lexical level of the style of scientific prose is constituted by special terms of international origin and set-phrases and clichés which introduce specific flavour of bookishness and scientific character into the text.

The morphological level of the scientific prose style is characterized by the use of the personal pronoun “we” in the meaning of “I”. The scientific “we” is called “the plural of modesty”.

The syntactic level of the style of scientific prose does not differ much from that of the style of official documents and is distinguished by impersonal long and super-long sentences of all structural types, enumeration and a developed system of connectives.

The newspaper style

The newspaper style serves to inform people about events and occurrences which may be of some interest to them.

The graphical level of the newspaper style is notable for the system of headlines. The headlines have formed themselves into a specific genre. They combine three functions: gripping readers’ attention, providing information and evaluating the contents of the article. To perform these functions newspaper headlines must be sensational, expressive and informative. Sentences in headlines tend to be short, one-member or elliptical, affirmative, negative, interrogative and exclamatory.

The lexical level of the newspaper style consists mostly of neutral common literary words. One of unattractive features of the newspaper style is the overabundance of clichés. A cliché is a hackneyed phrase or expression. The phrase may once have been fresh or striking, but it has become tired through overuse. Clichés usually suggest mental laziness or the lack of original thought.

The syntactical level of the newspaper style as well any other bookish style is a diversity of all structural types of sentences (simple, complex, compound and mixed) with a developed system of clauses connected with each other by all types of syntactic connections.

The publicistic style.

The publicistic style is the style of speeches, lectures, reports; the style of radio and TV programs; the style of essays and journalistic articles. The most essential feature of this style is the direct contact of the speaker with the audience. That why on all the level the speaker uses the devices aimed at making information persuasive.

On the lexical level the speaker resorts to various language means of addressing to establish and maintain contact with the audience.

On the morphological level is characterized by the frequent use of the personal pronoun “We”.

On the syntactic level public speeches, radio and TV commentaries are crammed with syntactic stylistic devices of repetitions, rhetoric questions to make the information convincing.

The group of colloquial styles

the literary colloquial style

The literary colloquial style is the style of informal, friendly oral communication.

On the phonetic level the literary colloquial style is noted for phonetic comparison of frequently used forms: it’s, don’t, I’ve.

The morphological level of the literary colloquial style is characterized by prevalence of active and finite forms of the verb.

The lexical level of literary colloquial style comprises neutral, colloquialisms, abbreviations, etiquette language and conversational formulas, interjections and exclamations, phrasal verbs, idioms.

On the syntactic level sentences tend to be short and elliptical, with clauses connected asyndetically. The syntax of colloquial speech is also characterised by the preferable use of simple sentences or by asyndetic connection (absence of conjunctions) between the parts of composite sentences; complex constructions with non-finite forms are rarely used.

the familiar colloquial style

Familiar colloquial style is used in very free, friendly, informal situations of communication – between close friends, members of one family.

The phonetic level is distinguished by the use of deviant forms (gonna=going to, whatcha=what do you, dunno=don’t know), omission of unaccepted elements (you hear me?)

On the morphological level it is a use of evaluative suffixes, nonce words.

On the lexical level we find emotionally coloured words, low-colloquial vocabulary and slang words. This style admits also of the use of rude and vulgar vocabulary, abundance of specific colloquial interjections (boy, wow, hey, there), use of hyperbole, epithets, metaphor and simile.

The syntactic level is characterized by the use of parallel structures, repetitions of various kinds, repeated use of conjunction and.