Лекція 6. Functional styles in modern English

Plan

Belles-letters style.
Publicistic style and its varieties.
Newspaper style and its linguistic peculiarities.
Scientific and official styles, their peculiarities.

1. Belles-letters style. It is common knowledge that we organise our speech taking into account the communicative situation in which it takes place. A speech functional style is a socially accepted stereotype of speech behaviour, closely connected with man's social activity. A style contains information concerning the speaker: his social role, psychological state, his attitude to
the listener and the subject of speech. In Modern English the following styles are usually distinguished: belles-lettres style, publicistic style, newspaper style, scientific style and official style.

This style is not homogeneous, it is usually divided into the following substyles:

the language of poetry;

the language of emotive prose;

the language of dramatic works.

All these substyles are characterised by the aesthetic-cognitive function and they provide for a gradual unfolding of the author's message to the reader. At the same time they give an aethsetic pleasure from perceiving the literary form in which the author's thoughts are clothed.

This pleasure is explained not only by admiring the language resources selected by the author, but also by the fact that the reader is given an opportunity to make his own conclusions regarding the author's message. So the chief purpose of this style is to prove that the author's interpretation of the described events is not the only correct one; on the contrary, the reader can formulate his own conclusions concerning the events described in the book.

This style is characterised by the following features:

1. Vivid, original imagery, achieved by purely linguistic means. In order to intensify the emotional impact upon the reader the author widely uses metaphors, similes, epithets, inversion, parallelism, other expressive resources of stylistics.

2. Words are used not only in their direct dictionary meanings, but also in contextual meaning, which is created by lexical environment and is influenced by the general conception of the belles-lettres work.

3. The word choice reflects the author's subjective perception of reality. It should be noted that every writer has his own inventory of words, and it is different from the word stock of other writers.

Though this style belongs to written styles, it has some features of colloquial style. Sometimes the whole book may be written in colloquial style, e.g. the novel by John Salinger The Catcher in the Rye which creates an impression of the main character's addressing the reader just from the pages of the novel.

Besides the already mentioned features, the language of poetry is characterised by a wide use of assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, archaic words and their forms, which create an impression of sophistication and solemnity. The language of drama, in its turn, is remarkable for a wide use of colloquial vocabulary and syntactic structures, the presence of authorial comments, the division of plays into acts and scenes. In plays the author's message is communicated to the reader not directly, but indirectly, through the speech and actions of characters.

2. Publicistic style and its varieties. This style goes back to the 18th century. It emerged from public speeches on social, moral and philosophical issues. This is the so-called oratorical substyle which also has an oral variety. With the appearance of radio and TV a new substyle emerged - radio and TV commentary. Besides, there are two more written substyles - the essay and journalistic articles in newspapers and magazines.

The chief purpose of pubiicistic style is to make a deep and lasting influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or listener that the interpretation of events, suggested by the author, is the only correct one. The author makes the reader accept his viewpoint not only with the help of logical arguments, but also through emotional influence. It is especially noticeable in oratorical substyle, in which human voice plays a very important part. The choice of stylistic devices in this case is predetermined by the conditions of communication. In order to move the audience emotionally the speaker makes use of traditional stylistic resources - image-bearing metaphors, unexpected comparisons, rhetoric questions and parallel constructions. But in order to produce a deeper impression on the audience their use can be exaggerated, thus resulting in embellishment of speech. In pubiicistic style stylistic devices and expressive means are closely interrelated. For instance, antithesis may be supported by parallelism, which can be complicated by various types of repetitions.

As a vivid example of the oratorical substyle we can cite the speech of Atticus Finch, a lawyer, at the trial of Tom Robinson. The speaker uses a lot of stylistic devices in order to rouse the jury and to make them believe that Tom Robinson is not guilty:

And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to 'feel sorry 'for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people's. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand - you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption - the evil assumption — that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their calibre.

As we can see, the emotional impact upon the reader is achieved by numerous stylistic resources: image-bearing epithets {quiet, respectable, humble), a hyperbole {unmitigated temerity), a metaphor {to put one's word against somebody), parenthetic constructions (with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County; the evil assumption), the repetition of the logically and semantically important words {confidence and confident) parallel constructions at the end of the paragraph.

The essay is a literary work of moderate length on philosophical, social and ethical topics, which is characterised by the author's subjective treatment of the subject. Among the most typical linguistic features of the essay are: brevity of expression, the presence of the author (the pronouns /, we), a wide use of conjunctions and emotionally coloured words. Here is an extract from an essay devoted to the problem of fighting crime in the history of civilisation:

Caging men as a means of dealing with the problem of crime is a modem refinement of man's ancient and limitless inhumanity, as well as his vast capacity for self-delusion. Murderers and felons used to he hanged, beheaded, flogged, tortured, broken on the rack, blinded, ridden out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered, or arrayed in the stocks. Nobody pretended that such penalties were anything other than punishment and revenge. Before nineteenth-century developments, dungeons were mostly for the convenient custody of political prisoners, debtors, and those awating trial. American progress with many another grim "advance", gave the world the penitentiary. (Wic.)

3. Newspaper style and its linguistic peculiarities. Newspaper style is a system of interconnected and interdependent lexical, grammatical and phraseological means which has the purpose of informing and interesting the reader. The newspaper is a vehicle of mass media, it is intended for mass audiences, it is a means of influencing the reader and bringing him to the journalist's understanding of facts. People read newspapers in situations where it is difficult to concentrate: on the underground, on the train, at breakfast, etc. Consequently, the newspaper has the task of presenting information in such a way as to give it quickly, briefly, and to make a certain emotional impact upon the reader. The reading of newspapers should not require any preliminary preparation on the part of the reader, though alongside ordinary, constantly repeated topics the newspaper can touch upon any problem which has gained relevance in recent days or weeks. All these factors result in the necessity of using standard syntactic patterns and lexical cliches, as the journalist has little time for processing information.

Reading newspapers we cannot but notice that their vocabulary abounds in proper names, place names, names of establishments and organisations, a lot of dates. There are also many international words and neologisms, which can later turn into cliches, e.g. vital issue, free world, pillar of society, escalation of war, aggravation of a situation, etc. Researchers also point out numerous stereotypical phrases, e.g. Mr X is reported as saying.... It is alledged that... The vocabulary is mostly neutral, all the information is concrete, as a rule. Very conspicuous is the abundance of evaluative and expressive elements, e.g. JWien the last Labour Government was kicked out. {Daily Mail).

In order to make contact with the reader various graphic means are widely used - types, titles, which should catch the reader's eye, the distribution of an article among a few pages, which makes it possible for the reader to take notice of the article.

It is common knowledge that the titles in British and American newspapers are rather specific, as their task is to make the reader interested in the piece of information in the newspaper and to present the article in a concise form, e.g.:

1. Italy's radio, TV workers on strike.

2. Apollo trail-blazers back relaxed and joking.

3. Convict sentenced for life for coffin girl kidnap.

In the first title the author just tells the readers that in Italy the personnel of radio and TV companies have gone on strike, so this heading is purely informational in character. In the second heading we can see that a group of American astronauts aboard the spaceship "Apollo" have returned to the Earth, as well as some additional information - they are in high spirits and good health. The third heading is rather mystifying. We cannot understand it completely until we have read the whole article. As for the article, it runs about a criminal, escaped from prison, who kidnapped a millionaire's daughter in order to get a ransom, and kept her in a wooden box. Later the criminal was captured and the girl set free. The title, which gives the general orientation, is followed by a subtitle. It is printed in smaller letters and enlarges on the information given in the title. The first lines of the article proper give the gist of the information, then details follow.

Newspaper articles contain a lot of quotations which can be presented either in inverted commas or without them, in a reduced form. The journalist's commentary often accompanies the information. Ordinary verbs in newspaper language are often replaced by set phrases, which create an impression of smoothness, e.g. to make contact with, to play the leading part, to serves the purpose of. Instead of short words longer word combinations are used, e.g. with respect to, having regard to, in view of not unimportant, not inevitable. All these cliches make the text sound sophisticated, though the contents may be quite commonplace. Alongside traditional information items the newspaper contains editorials, whose style is close to publicistic, as well as dvertisements and announcements, which have their own peculiarities and make a special substyle within newspaper style.

4. Scientific and official styles, their peculiarities. In scientific style all language means are subordinated to the aim of creating an objective picture of a state or phenomenon. Therefore they are objective, precise, devoid of emotiveness and individuality. Here are the characteristic features of this style:

1. The existence of logical connection between utterances, which is shown with the help of a wide use of conjunctions and connectives.

2. A scientific description of the subject requires the use of special words - terms, whose number increases as the scientific and technological progress develops.

3. The presence of speech cliches and standard phrases. As a rule, a scientific presentation begins with facts which are common knowledge, after this the author unfolds his own argumentation and makes conclusions.

4. The use of quotations and references which have a certain structure: the author's name, the title of the book referred to, the name of the city where the book was published, the name of the publishing house, the year of its publication.

5. A frequent use of footnotes, placed at the bottom of the page. They contain additional information which the author does not want to include in the text of the article so as not to violate the sequence of narration.

6. Scientific style is devoid of emotionality and subjectivity, the author tries to present facts objectively and impartially. For this reason passive constructions are widely used as they are considered to be more objective. In this way, the commonly used phrases like I weighed 10 grams of the stuff and dissolved it in as little water as I could will be changed in scientific style for a more objective sentence: Ten grains of the substance were dissolved in a minimum amount of water.

All the above-mentioned peculiarities of scientific style can be visible in the next extract, devoted to the topic of the category of case in English:

We have considered the three theories, which, if at basically different angles, proceed from the assumption that the English noun does not distinguish the grammatical case in its functional structure. However, another view of the problem of the English noun cases has been put forward, which sharply counters the theories hitherto observed. This view approaches the English noun as having completely lost the category of case in the course of historical development. (M.B.)

The fragment begins with the universally known truth that the noun in English does not posses a noun inflection, after which the author passes on to expostulate another theory. The extract abounds in linguistic terms, contains the cliches proceed from the assumption, put forward a view, the sentences follow each other in logical succession, there exists a close connection between them. At the same time the reader cannot but perceive the impersonality and objectivity of the presentation of scientific data.

Official style resembles scientific style in its impartiality and objectivity. It is subdivided into the following substyles: the language of official documents; that of diplomacy; that of legal documents; that of military documents. Here are its most characteristic features:

1. A special set of cliches, terms and stereotyped phrases, e.g. / beg to inform you; on behalf of smb.; in connection -with smth.

2. The frequent use of abbreviations and symbols, such as MP (Member of Parliament), Gvt (government), $ (dollar), £ (pound sterling), Ltd. (limited), Co. (company), etc.

3. The use of words in their direct dictionary meanings. In official style utterances are formulated in such a way as to avoid misinterpretation or ambiguity.

4. A specific syntactic arrangement of texts with long, logically constructed sentences, a ramified system of subordinate clauses, linked by means of conjunctions and connectives.

As a vivid example of official style we can cite the beginning of a letter sent by the chairman of the Organizing Committee of a scientific conference to one of his colleagues:

Dear Sir!

Contributed papers accepted for the conference will be presented in oral sessions or in poster sessions, each type of presentation being considered of equal importance for the success of the conference. The choice between the one or the other way of presentation will be made by the Programme Committee.

Sincerely

T. W. Thomas,

Chairman.

Literature:

Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка. – М., 1990.
Єфімов Л.П., Ясінецька О.А. Стилістика англійської мови і дискурсивний аналіз. Учбово-методичний посібник. – Вінниця, 2004.
Мороховский А.Н., Воробьев О.П. и др. Стилистика английского языка. – К., 1991.
Трибуханчик А.М. Курс стилістики англійської мови (для денного відділення). – Ніжин,2006.
Galperin I.R. Stylistics. – М, 1981.
Kukharenko V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics: A manual. – Vinnytsia, 2003.

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