Stylistically neutral layer of the English vocabulary

Basic Vocabulary

These words are stylistically neutral. Their stylistic neutrality makes it possible to use them in all kinds of situations, both formal and informal, in verbal and written communication. Basic vocabulary is used every day, everywhere and by everybody, regardless of profession, occupation, educational level, age group or geographical location. These are words without which no human communication would be possible as they de­note objects and phenomena of everyday importance (e.g., house, bread, summer, winter, child, mother, green, difficult, to go, to stand, etc.).

Basic vocabulary words are the central group of the vocabu­lary, its historical foundation and living core. That is why words of this stratum show a considerably greater stability in comparison with words of other strata, especially informal.

Basic vocabulary words can be recognized not only by their sty­listic neutrality, but also by entire lack of other connotations (i.e. atten­dant meanings). Their meanings are broad, general and directly convey the notion, without supplying any additional information.

For instance, the verb to walk means merely "to move from place to place on foot", whereas in the meanings of its synonyms to stride, to stroll, to trot, to stagger and others, some additional information is en­coded as they each describe a different manner of walking, a different gait, tempo, purposefulness or lack of purpose and even length of paces. Compare the meanings of the aforementioned synonyms: to walk — to go or traverse on foot; to stride — to walk with long steps;

Thus, to walk, with its direct broad meaning, is a typical basic vocabulary word, and its synonyms, with their elaborate additional in­formation encoded in their meanings, belong to the periphery of the vocabulary.

Basic vocabulary words and the stylistically marked strata of the vocabulary do not exist independently but are closely interrelated. Most stylistically marked words have their neutral counterparts in basic vocabulary. (Terms are an exception in this respeet). On.the Qiher-.hand, colloquialisms may have their counterparts among learned words, most slang has counterparts both among colloquialisms and learned words. Archaisms, naturally, have their modem equivalents, at least, in some of the other groups.

The table gives some examples of such synonyms belonging to different stylistic strata:

In teaching a foreign language, basic vocabulary words constitute the first and absolutely essential part of students' functional and re­cognition vocabularies. They constitute the beginner's vocabulary. Yet, to restrict the student to basic vocabulary words would mean to deprive his speech of colour, expressive force and emotive shades, for, if basic vocabulary words are absolutely necessary, they also decidedly lack something: they are not at all the kind of words to tempt a writer or a poet. Actually, if the language had none other but basic vocabulary words, fiction would be hardly readable, and poetry simply non­existent.

The following table sums up the description of the stylistic strata of the English vocabulary:

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