Specially literary, words terms technical sphere

How can the English vocabulary be classified?

l the literary layer

l the neutral layer

l the colloquial layer

What are the main aspects of the literary, neutral and colloquial layers of the English vocabulary?

The literary vocabulary:

l common literary;

l terms and learned words;

l poetic words;

l archaic words;

l barbarisms and foreign words;

l literary coinages including nonce-words.

The colloquial vocabulary:

l common colloquial words;

l slang;

l jargonisms;

l professional words;

l dialectal words;

l vulgar words;

l colloquial coinages.

3) What words are grouped under the term standard English vocabulary?

The common literary words + the neutral words + the common colloquial words

What are the distinguishing отличительные features черты of common literary and common colloquial words?

It gain the background of neutral words, we can establish 2 major groups. There are standard colloquial and standard literary. As for literary words they served to satisfied communicative demands of official, scientific, poetic massages. They are mainly observed in the written form of speech, while the colloquial words are employed in non official every day communication; the sphere of usage is oral. Both literary and colloquial words are thither subdivided into general and special or which in there term are divided into groups each of the groups serves an narrow specified communicative purpose.

3. Special literary vocabulary:

1) What is the difference between common literary and special literary words?

Specially literary, words terms technical sphere

Common Literary Terms:

Ambiguity

A statement which can contain two or more meanings. For example, when the oracle at Delphi told Croesus that if he waged war on Cyrus he would destroy a great empire, Croesus thought the oracle meant his enemy's empire. In fact, the empire Croesus destroyed by going to war was his own.

Anapest

In a line of poetry, two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable forming the pattern for the line or perhaps for the entire poem

Apostrophe

A figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something nonhuman. In these lines from John Donne's poem "The Sun Rising" the poet scolds the sun for interrupting his nighttime activities: "Busy old fool, unruly sun,/Why dost thou thus,/Through windows, and through curtains call on us?'

2) Where are terms used?

terms are words belonging a specific technical sphere or nomenclature, such words as teletype, semantics. Terms strive to be mono semantic which means only one meaning as possible.

3) What is the difference between archaisms, historisms and poetisms?

/Archaism: Archaisms – words, which are no longer in use in present day English

· Archaic proper this are words that ousted by newer synonyms (brethren, thou – three, thy, thine; -(e)th = -(e)s

·  Historisms - this are words denoting historical phenomena which are no more in use (vassal, falconet)

Historisms – words denoting historical phenomena which no longer exist

· Poetic words (steed – horse) Poetic words – monosemantic words, which evoke emotive meaning and colour the utterance with a certain loftiness

4) What are the typical features of barbarisms?

Barbarisms – words of foreign origin, not assimilated into the English language

l chic (=stylish);

l bon mot (=a clever witty saying);

l en passant (= in passing);

l ad infinitum (= to infinity).

  5) What are the two types of neologisms?

- tomatorama, bananarama (a sensational sale of bananas, tomatoes);

- blends such as avigation (aviation+navigation), rockoon (rocket+balloon)

Compounding, shortening, suffix

4. Special colloquial vocabulary:

1) What is the difference between common colloquial and special colloquial

         vocabulary? Neutral words, which form the bulk of the English vocab­ulary, are used in bottTliterary and colloquial language. Neutral words are the main source of synonymy and polysemy. It is the neutral stock of words that is so prolific in the production of new meanings.

The wealth of the neutral stratum of words is often overlooked. This is due to their inconspicuous character. But their faculty for as­suming new meanings and generating new stylistic variants is often quite amazing. This generative power of the neutral words in the Eng­lish language is multiplied by the very nature of the language itself. It has been estimated that most neutral English words are of monosyllabic character, as, in the process of development from Old English to Modern English, most of the parts of speech lost their distinguishing suffixes. This phenomenon has led to the development of conversion as the most productive means of word-building. Word compounding is not so productive as conversion or word derivation, where a new word is formed because of a shift in the part of speech in the first case and by the addition of an affix in the second. Unlike all other groups, the neutral group of words cannot be considered as having a special stylistic colour­ing, whereas both literary and colloquial words have a definite stylistic colouring.

Common literary words are chiefly used in writing and in polished speech. One can always tell a literary word from a colloquial word. The reason for this lies in certain objective features of the literary layer of words. What these objective features are, is difficult to say be­cause as yet no objective criteria have been worked out. But one of them undoubtedly is that literary units stand in opposition to colloquial units. This is especially apparent when pairs of synonyms, literary and colloquial, can be formed which stand in contrasting relation.

The following synonyms illustrate the relations that exist between the neutral, literary and colloquial words in the English language.

Colloquial

kid

daddy

chap

get opt

go on

teenager

flapper

(go ahead get going make a move

Neutral

child father fellow go away continue-boy {girl) young girl / begin 1 start

Literary

infant

parent

associate

retire

proceed

youth (maiden)

maiden

commence

It goes without saying that these synonyms are not only stylistic but ideographic as well, i. e. there is a definite, though slight, semantic difference between the words. But this is almost- always the case with synonyms. There are very few absolute synonyms in English just as there are in any language. The main distinction between synonyms re­mains stylistic. But stylistic difference may be of various kinds: it may lie in the emotional tension connoted in a word, or in the sphere of application, or in the degree of the quality denoted. Colloquial words are always more emotionally coloured than literary ones. The neutral stratum of words, as the term itself implies, has no degree of emotiveness, nor have they any distinctions in the sphere of usage.

Both literary and colloquial words have their upper and lower ranges. The lower range of literary words approaches the neutral layer and has a markedly obvious tendency to pass into that layer. The same may be said of the upper range of the colloquial layer: it can very easily pass into the neutral layer. The lines of demarcation between common colloquial and neutral, on the one hand, and common literary and neutral, on the other, are blurred. It is here that the process of inter-penetration of the stylistic strata becomes most apparent.

Still the extremes remain antagonistic and therefore are often used to bring about a collision of manners of speech for special stylistic pur­poses. The difference in the stylistic aspect of words may colour the whole of an utterance.

In this example from "Fanny's First Play" (Shaw), the difference between the common literary and common colloquial vocabulary is clearly seen.

"DORA: Oh, I've let.it out. Have I? (contemplating Juggins ' approvingly as he places a chair for her between the table and the sideboard). But he's the right sort: I can.see that (buttonholing him). You won't let it out downstairs, old man, will you?

JUGGINS: The family can rely on my absolute discretion."

The words in Juggins's answer are on the border-line between com­mon literary and neutral, whereas the words and expressions used by Dora are clearly common colloquial, not bordering on neutral.

This example from "David Copperfield" (Dickens) illustrates the use of literary English words which do not border on neutral:

"My dear Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "this is luxuri­ous. This is a way of life which reminds me of a period when I was myself in a state of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the Hymeneal ,altar."

"He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield," said Mrs. Micawber, archly. "He cannot answer for others."

"My dear," returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, "I have no desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been reserved for one destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to fall a vktim to pecuni­ary .involvements of a^ complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love, I regret it, but I can bear it."

"Micawber!" exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. "Have I de-" served this! IT who never have deserted you; who never will desert you, Micawber!"

"My love," said Mr. Micawber, much affected, "you will forgive, and our old and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive the moitientary laceration of a wounded spirit, made sen­sitive by a recent collision with the Minion of Power—in other words, with a ribald Turacock attached to the waterworks — and will pity, not condemn, its excesses."

There is a certain analogy between the interdependence of common literary words and neutral ones, on the one hand, and common collo­quial words and neutral ones, on the other. Both sets can be viewed as being in invariant — variant relations. The neutral vocabulary may be viewed as the invariant of the standard English vocabulary. The stock of words forming the neutral stratum should in this case be regarde3 as an abstraction. The words of this stratum are generally deprived of any concrete associations and refer to the concept more or less directly. Synonyms of neutral words, both colloquial and literary, assume a far greater degree of concreteness. They generally present the same notions not abstractly but as a more or less concrete image, that is, in a form perceptible by the senses. This perceptibility by the senses causes subject­ive evaluations of the notion in question, or a mental image of the con­cept. Sometimes an impact of a definite kind on the reader or hearer is the aim lying behind the choice of a colloquial or a literary word rather than a neutral one.

In the diagram (p. 71), common colloquial vocab­ulary is represented as overlapping into the standard English vocab­ulary and is therefore to be considered part of it. It borders both on the neutral vocabulary and on the special colloquial vocabulary which, as we shall see later, falls out of standard English altogether. Just as common literary words lack homogeneity so do common colloquial words and set expressions. Some of the lexical items belonging to this stratum are close to the non-standard colloquial groups such as jargon-isms, professionalisms, etc. These are on the border-line betwe.en the common colloquial vocabulary and the special colloquial or non-standard vocabulary. Other words approach the neutral bulk of the English vocabulary. Thus, the words teenager (a young girl or young man) and hippie (hippy) (a young person who leads an unordered and unconvention­al life) are colloquial words passing into the neutral vocabulary. They are gradually losing their non-standard character and becoming widely recognized. However, they have not lost their colloquial association and therefore still remain in the colloquial stratum of the English vocabulary. So also are the following words and expressions: take (in 'as I take it'^as I understand); to go for (to be attracted by, like very much, as in "You think she still goes for the guy?"); guy (young man); to be gone on (—to be madly in love with); pro (=a professional, e. g. a professional boxer, tennis-player, etc.).

The spoken language abounds in set expressions which, are collo­quial in character, e. g. all sorts of things, just a bit, How is life treating you?, so-so, What time do you make it?, to hob-nob (=to be very friendly with, to drink together), so much the better, to be sick and tired of, to be up to something.

The stylistic function of the different strata of the English vocabu­lary depends not so much on the inner qualities of each of the groups, as on their interaction when they are opposed to one another. However, the qualities themselves are not unaffected by the function of the words, inasmuch as these qualities have been acquired in certain environments. И is interesting to note that anything written assumes a greater degree of significance than what is only spoken. If the spoken takes the place of the written or vice versa, it means that we are faced with a stylistic device.

Certain set expressions have been coined within literary English and their use in ordinary speech will inevitably make the utterance sound bookish. In .other words, it will become literary. The following

are examples of set expressions which can be considered literary: in accordance with, with regard to, by virtue of, to speak at great length, to lend assistance, to draw a lesson, responsibility rests.

2) What is understood by slang?

Slang – this are words which are often regarded as a violation of the norms (to take stock in – to be interested in, attach importance) highly emoted and expressive but they may lose the originality very fast and may be replaced by newer words and expressions.

l to take stock in — 'to be interested in, attach importance, give credence to'

l bread-basket — 'the stomach'

l to do a flit — 'to quit one's flat or lodgings at night without paying the rent or board'

l rot — 'nonsense!'

3) What jargons can you name? What is the typical feature of each jargon?

Jargonism: Are words market by the use with in particular social groups ad baring a secret character. Jargonism standing close to slangism and being expressing an some substandard soul not be confused as jargonism are used by limited groups of people united either professionally or unlike slang jargon covers a narrow semantic field.

l grease = 'money'; loaf  = 'head'; a tiger hunter = 'a gambler'; a lexer = 'a student preparing for a law course‘;

l Matlo(w)—'a sailor' (from the French word 'matelot')

l Man and wife—'a knife' (rhyming slang)

5) Is there a difference between jargonisms and professionalisms?

Jargonism:

Are words market by the use with in particular social groups ad baring a secret character. Jargonism standing close to slangism and being expressing an some substandard soul not be confused as jargonism are used by limited groups of people united either professionally or unlike slang jargon covers a narrow semantic field.

Professionalisms are words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation. They are formed according to the existing words formation patterns or they may present existing words in new meanings so they offer a vast verity of synonyms.

l tin-fish (=submarine);  

l block-buster (= a bomb especially designed to destroy blocks of big buildings);

l piper (=a specialist who decorates pastry with the use of a cream-pipe);

l a midder case (=a midwifery case);

l outer (=a knockout blow).

6) How are vulgarisms defined?

Vulgarism are coarse that are not generally use in public they have a strong emotive meaning moistly derogatory. History of valogorisms reflex the history the social ethics. Expletives and swear words of an abusive character (damn, bloody, to hell, goddam); obscene words (four-letter words banned in any form of intercourse as being indecent).

7) Where are dialectisms used?

Dialectismsare devoid of any stylistic meaning in the original dialogs but used outside they care a strong character of the locality in UK for major dialogs a established northern southern central and lowland Scotch. In the USA there 3 varieties: New England and, Southern and Midwestern. Dialects different in the fonetic level one in the same sound may be pronounced differently. They may also differ on the lexical level having there arong names for locally existing phenomena and supplying locally circulating for the words excepting by the language in general.

Tasks and exercises:

1. Point out stylistic differences within the groups of synonyms.

Face (neutral)-visage literary archaism - mug гримаса, морда colloquial vulgarism –deadpan - лицо derogatory

Nose neutral –snout colloquial vulgarism –beak colloquial level, slang -nasal cavity special literary word

I think neutral level -I gather common literary level -I presume common literary level -I take it special colloquial words -I guess neutral or common colloquial level –methinks archaism

Boy neutral –youth common literary level –lad literary dialectism -young male person common literary level –youngster common literary level –teenager common colloquial level

Nonsense neutral глупость, пустяк-absurdity common literary level –rot slang-trash special colloquial words slang

Silence please! common literary level - Stop talking! neutral - Shut up! special colloquial words vulgarism

Breathe in брать дыхание neutral - inhale common literary level -gasp colloquial words

You are colloquial words - thou art archaism