Lecture 8 Functional stylistics 1 Functional styles general

Lecture 8. Functional stylistics 1. Functional styles, general 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. characteristics, different classifications of functional styles. The belles-lettres style The newspaper style The publicistic style The scientific style The style of official documents The colloquial style

1. Functional styles, general characteristics, different classifications of functional styles n “Functional style is a system of linguistic means peculiar of a certain sphere of communication” /Ю. М. Скребнев/ n “Functional style of speech is a special social differentiation of speech, corresponding to a definite sphere of activity, having a special stylistic colouring, determined by the aims and a corresponding sphere of communication” / М. Н. Кожина /

Classification of FS Y. N. Skrebnev’s classification Functional Formal Publicistic Informal Scientific Oratory Styles Literary colloquial Familiar Colloquial Official Low colloquial Newspaper

I. V. Arnold’s classification Styles Commu. Voluntative Emotive Phatic nicative/In formative Aesthetic Oratoric + + + Colloquial + + - Poetic + - + Publicistic/ newspaper + + + - - Official + + - - - Scientific + - -

Stylistic functions 1. Communicative/Informative communicates some primary information E. g. The former method allows direct interpretation. 2. Voluntative (conative) – expresses one’s intention, urging people to some kind of action. E. g. : “Inform us of your intentions!” 3. Emotive – expresses one’s feelings, emotions, one’s personal attitude. E. g. : “Exquisite fountains, beautiful fountains!”

3. Phatic – attracts smb’s attention to make the situation interactive E. g. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” 4. Aesthetic – appeals to people’s heart, deriving the effect of beauty and emotional response. “Tired with all these, for restful death I cry!” /W. Shakespeare/

I. R. Galperin’s classification Functional Styles Belles- Lettres Style of Official Documents Publicistic Newspaper Lg of Emotive Prose Lg of Drama Lg of Poetry Scientific

The Belles Lettres style: 1. Genuine (not trite) imagery. 2. Contextual (connotative) meaning 3. 4. 5. prevails over denotative. The author’s individual vocabulary. Lexical and syntactical peculiarities. Colloquial language (in drama)

The Language of Poetry n Its main property is its orderly form based on rhythmical and phonetic arrangement of utterances. n Stanzas, lines n Rhythmical and rhyming patterns n Elevated vocabulary n Archaic, obsolescent and obsolete words n Phonetic EM n Genuine imagery at the lexical, syntactical and lexico-syntactical levels

The Language of Emotive Prose This substyle has the same features as have been pointed out for the belles-lettres style in general, but they are correlated differently. n The imagery is not as rich as in poetry n The percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high as in poetry n The idiosyncrasy of the author is not so clearly discernable n It is a combination of the spoken and written varieties of lg n It contains different types of narration and compositional forms n It allows the use of elements from other styles (the newspaper style, the official style, the style of scientific prose)

The Language of Drama n Plays have a clear-cut structure (acts, scenes, lists of characters, the author’s remarks, stage directions) n The lg of drama is almost entirely dialogical; n The author is present only in playwright’s remarks and stage directions. n The lg in plays is a stylized type of the spoken variety of lg: the usage of low colloquial expressions is restricted. n It bears almost all the features of the colloquial style.

The Scientific Style: 1. Rigour and precision (use of terms); 2. Logical sequence of utterances (developed system of connectives and parenthesis); 3. Impersonality (it must be assumed, it can be inferred, it must be emphasized); 4. Quotations, references, footnotes 5. Sentence patterns: ü postulatory ü argumentative ü formulative E. g. : “ One kind of variation that we might not want to label stylistic is variation due to regional, temporal & social dialects (Enkvist, 1973, p. 16).

The Newspaper Style is a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means, basically serving the purpose of informing and instructing the reader. n Brief news items; n Articles purely informative in character; n Advertisements and announcements; n Editorials; n Press reports; n Headlines.

The newspaper style has its specific features & is characterized by an extensive use of: 1. Special political & economic terms. E. g. : constitution, market economy, tax-deferred investments, diversification of economy; 2. Non-term political vocabulary. E. g. : public, people, peace, war, intervention. 3. Newspaper clichés. E. g. : vital issue, pressing problem, informed sources. 4. Abbreviations. E. g. : UNO, NATO, EU, TUC, MP, PR. 5. Neologisms. E. g. : sputnik, a teach-in, a sit-in, Watergate, corporatocracy, bird/swine flu, blogger

Grammatical peculiarities: 1. Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses. 2. Verbal phrases (infinitive, participial, gerundial). 3. Verbal constructions (the subjective infinitive construction (Complex Subject) to avoid mentioning the source of information). 4. Attributive noun groups (eg. The national income and expenditure figures). 5. Specific word order. 5 WH pattern rule: E. g. : The biggest blackout in US history crippled major metropolitan areas in the Northeast and Midwest on Thursday by shutting down trains, airports, traffic and cooling systems. (US Today, Aug. 15 -17, 2003)

The Headline. The main function is to inform the reader briefly, to show the reporter’s attitude to the facts reported. It may contain elements of appraisal. Syntactical patterns: 1. Full declarative sentences. California ballot is a field of dreamers. 2. Interrogative sentences. What’s next for Mr. Vick? 3. Nominative sentences. Blackout misery. Companies for Sale. Ageism Factor 4. Elliptical sentences. 50 MILLION AFFECTED IN Northeast and beyond as power grid fails.

Headlines 5. Sentences with articles omitted. Ex. : British soldier dies in ambulance bombing. Standard Investor Seeking to Sell Stake. 6. Phrases with verbals. Married – with cameras. Keeping prices down. To get USA aid. 7. QUESTIONS IN THE FORM OF STATEMENTS. Safe Sin? The more, the better? 8. Complex sentences. US Newspaperman Declares He Helped Bomb Havana. 9. Headlines including direct speech. Travel havoc: ‘We are not getting out today’

Advertisements & Announcements. Classified & Non-classified. n CLASSIFIED: Births, Marriages, Deaths, In Memorial, Business Offers, Personal, Farm, Aviary. E. g. “Trained Nurse with child 2 years seeks post London preferred – Write Box C, 658, The Times, EC 4”. n NON- CLASSIFIED: the reader’s attention is attracted by every possible means: typographical, graphic, stylistic. No brevity of language means.

The Publicistic Style n The Publicistic Style (essays, pamphlets, speeches, TV commentaries). The general aim of the publicistic style is 1) to exert a constant & deep influence on public opinion, 2) to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one 3) to cause him/her to accept the point of view expressed in the speech, essays or article not merely n by logical argumentation, but also n by emotional appeal.

The publicistic style The publicist style has the features common with the style of the scientific prose & that of emotive prose, i. e. 1) COHERENT & LOGICAL SYNTACTICAL STRUCTURE WITH THE EXPANDED SYSTEM OF CONNECTIVES, 2) CAREFUL PARAGRAPHING; 3) EMOTIONAL APPEAL IS ACHIEVED BY THE USE OF WORDS WITH EMOTIVE MEANING, 4) THE USE OF IMAGERY & OTHER SD AS IN EMOTIVE PROSE. 5) It is also characterized by BREVITY of expression which becomes epigrammatic in essays.

Oratory and speeches 1. Direct address to the audience: Ladies and 2. 3. 4. gentlemen! Dear friends! The use of the 1 st and 2 nd personal pronouns: ‘I have a dream today. I have a dream, that one day down in Alabama –‘ ‘I say to you, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. ’ Contractions: We’ve got; Metaphors, epithets, parallelism, antithesis, climax, repetition (anaphora, epiphora, chain, ring/frame repetition). E. g. : ‘It is high time this people had recovered from the passions of the war. It is high time the people of the North and the South understood each other…’

Essays The Essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subjects. It is characterized by personality in the treatment of theme & naturalness of expression. The most characteristic lg features: 1. Brevity of expression. 2. The use of the 1 st person sg. 3. The extended use of connectives to facilitate the correlation of ideas. 4. The abundant use of emotive words. 5. The use of similes & metaphors.

J. B. Priestley n ‘Oh, the conductors! When I was a boy, massive old Richter commanding the old massive Halle orchestra! … Why, my dear maestros, in spite of wars, bombs, taxes, rubbish and all, what a delight it has been to share this world and this age with you!’

The Style of Official Documents is represented by the following substyles: n the lg of business documents n the lg of legal documents n the lg of diplomacy n the lg of military documents The main aim of this style is to state the conditions binding two parties in an undertaking (the state and the citizen, the organization and the citizen, the citizen and the citizen etc. )

The Main Features of the Official Style are 1. Conventionality (special system of clichés, terms and set expressions); E. g. : I beg to inform you, hereinafternamed, to ratify an agreement, extra revenue. 2. Encoded character (conventional symbols, abbreviations, contractions) E. g. : M. P. , Ltd, $, VP 3. Unemotiveness: the use of words in their logical dictionary meaning 4. Formulas of greeting, parting, politeness, gratitude (Dear Sir, Sincerely/faithfully yours)

5. A general syntactical mode of combining several pronouncements (paragraphs) into one sentence n The Preamble is: n Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, n Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, n Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge, …………………. . n Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations (…)

The structure of the business letter: A. The heading; B. The reference; C. The date; D. The inside address; E. The opening salutation; F. The body; G. The complimentary close; H. Enclosure.

Business Letter Sample A 12 Castle Road, Saunderstown, RI 02874 C 13 th March, 2010 B DB/DS D Canyon Department Stores 10 Main Street Darien, CT 06820 E Dear Sir, F I am a shareholder of your company for the last fifteen years and I have got as many as 800 ordinary shares. I have been offered 250 shares at a premium of 5% and I shall feel much obliged if you would kindly let me know the progress being made by the Company and the likelihood of any increase on the dividend in the near future. GYours faithfully, David Brown H Enc.

Informal functional styles: n. Literary Colloquial; n. Familiar Colloquial; n. Low Colloquial.

Informal FS: Characteristic features: 1. Economy of language means; 2. Redundancy of language means; 3. Dialogical unity: a) question – answer unity; b) repetition unity; c) parallelism unity.

n ECONOMY: Been traveling all the winter. – Egypt, Italy and that chuckled America! – I gather! (Galswarthy) n REDUDANCY: Well! I mean, like as if I kept saying it many times!

Examples a) “When do you begin? – Tomorrow. ” (q-a unity) b) “There’s so much talk of suicide, ” he said. – James’ jaw dropped. - “Suicide! What should he do that for? ” “So you would naturally say … - And mean? ” (repetition unity) c) “Well, Mr. Desert, do you find reality in politics? ” – “Do you find reality in anything? ” (parallelism unity)

Lexical characteristic features n Shortened words, contracted forms of auxiliaries (He’s/ he’d/what’s the diff? ) n Emotionally coloured words; E. g. : Dear, sweet, old Charlie, duckie. Wasn’t she beautiful! Dear me! Well! Why! There! n Time-fillers (as a matter of fact, in fact, well!, to tell you the truth)

Lexical characteristic features n Words of the most general character (thing, lot, business, matter, stuff …) n Occasional words E. g. : “To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son!” (A. T. ) n Slang, jargon, vulgarisms. E. g. : ‘Oh, but wasn’t T. D. stewed! Say, he was simply ossified (drunk)! What did Gladys say to him? ’ n the devil, the hell, lousy: What the hell do you mean?

n Intensifiers: actually, in fact, indeed, really, undoubtedly awfully, terribly, terrifically n Onomatopoeic words /‘drip drop; bow wow; splash’/ n Interjections: ‘oh my, gee, yeah’ n Phraseology, idioms: an armchair critic; a back -seat driver; an empty nester; keep a dog and bark yourself; fit to be tied (angry)

n Phrasal verbs E. g. : Retire – go away, arrest – run in, betray – let down. n Syntactical features: Ellipsis, Redundancy, Parenthesis, Tautology, Double negation, Repetition. E. g. : “You are crazy, you are!” - “I’ll tell you what…’’Don’t you ever say it again! Don’t you mind! “You be careful!”

n Phonetic features: casual pronunciation: ‘Watch ma call it? Gimme cupa tea!’ n Grammatical: n Imperative constructions (voluntative function) You be careful! Don’t you ever say so again! Don’t you mind! n Emphatic constructions: You really did go a little too far!

1. Compare the classifications given by I. Galperin and I. Arlond. Distinguish differences and similarities. 2. Choose 3 FS and give their essential (the most important) features. 3. What are the main substyles of the Belleslettres style? 4. What similarities can be traced between the colloquial style and the substyle of drama?