The Problem of the English Literary Language. Standard English. Varieties of Language. (Spoken, Oral and Written).

Some Considerations on Style and Stylistic. Functional Styles (FS); Expressive Means (EM); Stylistic Devices (SD).

The word “stylistics” is derived from “stilos” (greek). Stylistics is a multi-disciplinary subject. It’s based on communication theory, discourse theory, linguistic philosophy, gender studies. Stylistics is a 20^th century invention. In the 19^th century they preferred to deal with literary subjects such as Rhetorics. It was a part of philosophy and literary studies in Greece. It was also called “the art of speech”. The object of stylistics is so various and many sided: the individual style of the author, functional styles, EMs and SDs. The aim of stylistics is to describe the targets and methods of stylistics.

Style is the basic element of stylistics. It’s concerned using the most of expressive in speech and in writing. This textuality lies in language variation and choice of language units to achieve the desirable effects during a conversation. Dictionaries define the word “style” as a particular way of writing, painting or as a way of variety. Therefore Stylistics should study various possibilities of language behaviour through choice of EMs and SDs.

 Functional Styles (FS)The types of texts that are distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of the communication are called functional styles of language (FS).A FS of a l-ge is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A func­tional style is thus to be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of a language.In the English literary standard we distinguish the following major functional styles (hence FS):

Each FS is subdivided into a number of substyles. The belles-lettres FS has the following substyles: a) the language style of poetry; b) the language style of emotive prose; c) the language style of drama. The Publicistic FS comprises the following substyles: a) the language style of oratory; b) the language style of essays; c) the language style of feature articles in newspapers and journals. The newspaper FS falls into a) the language style of brief news items and communiqués; b) the language style of newspaper head­ings and c) the language style of notices and advertisements. The scientific prose FS also has three divisions: a) the language style of humanitarian sciences; b) the language style of "exact" sciences; c) the language style of popular scientific prose. The official document FS can be divided into 4 varieties: a) the language style of diplomatic documents; b) the language style of business documents; c) the language style of legal documents; d) the language style of military documents.

In linguistics there are different terms to denote which utterances are foreground, i.e. made more conspicuous, more "effective and therefore imparting some additional information. They are called expressive means, stylistic means, stylistic markers, stylistic devices, tropes, "figures of speech and other names.

EMs of a l-ge are those phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic units and forms which make speech emphatic. EMs introduce conotational (stylistic, non-denotative) meanings into utterances. They noticeably colour the whole of the utterance no matter whether they are logical or emotional.

Phonetic expressive means include  pitch, melody, stresses, pauses, whispering, singing, and other ways of using human voice. Morphological ems are emotionally coloured suffixes of diminutive nature: -y (-ie), -let (sonn^y auntie, girlies). To lexical ems belong words, possessing connotations, such as epithets, poetic and archaic words, slangy words, vulgarisms, and interjections. A chain of expressive synonymic words always contains at least one neutral synonym. For ex-le, the neutral word money has the following stylistically coloured equivalents: ackers (slang), cly (jargon), cole (jargon), gelt (jargon), moo (amer. slang), etc. A chain of expressive synonyms used in a single utterance creates the effect of climax (gradation). To syntactic ems belong emphatic syntactic constructions. Such constructions stand in opposition to their neutral equivalents. The neu­tral sentence "John went away" may be replaced by the following expres­sive variants: "Away went John" (stylistic inversion), "John did go away" (use of the emphatic verb "to do"), "John went away, he did" (emphatic confirmation pattern), "It was John who went away" ("It is he who does it" pattern).

SDs (tropes, figures of speech) unlike EMs are not language phenomena. They are formed in speech and most of them do not exist out of context. Stylistic device is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or semantic property of a l-ge unit. It follows then that an SD is an abstract pattern, a mould into which any content can be poured. SDs function in texts as marked units. They always carry some kind of additional meaning.

According to principles of their formation, stylistic devices are grouped into phonetic, lexico-semantic and syntactic types. Basically, all SDs are the result of revaluation of neutral words, word-combinations and syntactic structures. Revaluation makes l-ge units obtain connotations and stylistic value. A stylistic de­vice is the subject matter of stylistic semasiology.

EMs have a greater degree of predictability than SDs. The latter may appear in an environment which may seem alien and therefore be only slightly or not at all predictable. Expressive means, on the con­trary, follow the natural course of thought, intensifying it by means commonly used in language.

The Problem of the English Literary Language. Standard English. Varieties of Language. (Spoken, Oral and Written).

The literary language is that elaborated form (variety) of the national l-ge which obeys definite morphological, phonetic, syntactical, lexical; phraseological and stylistic norms recognized as standard and therefore acceptable in all kinds and types of discourse. It allows modifications but within the frame work of the system of established norms. It casts out some of the forms of l-ge which are considered to be beyond the established norm.

The norm of usage is established by the l-ge community at every given period in the development of the l-ge. It is ever changing and therefore not infrequently evasive.

Sometimes we may even say that two norms co-exist. But in this case we may be positive that one of the co-existing forms of the l-ge will give way to its rival and either vanish from the language entirely or else remain on its outskirts.

Much of what was considered a violation of the norm in one period of the development of a l-ge is regarded as perfectly normal in another period. The literary l-ge constantly enriches its voc-ry. Neologisms are created according to the productive models of WB in a l-ge, and they don’t go beyond the boundaries of the literary l-ge. If a newly-coined word is understood by the community it may become the fact of the literary l-ge.

The functioning of the literary language in various spheres of human activity and with different aims of communication has resulted in its differentiation. This differentiation is predetermined by 2 distinct factors, namely, the actual situation in which the l-ge is being used and the aim of the communication. The actual situation of the communication has evolved two varieties of l-ge - the spoken and the written. Diachronically the spoken is primary form and the written is secondary one. Each of these varieties has developed its own features and qualities which in many ways may be regarded as opposed to each other.

The SL is maintained in the form of a dialogue, the WL in a form of a monologue. The SL has a considerable advantage over the written, in that the human voice comes into play. The SL cannot be detached from the user of it, the speaker, who is unable to view it from the outside. The WL, on the contrary, can be detached from the writer, enabling him to look upon his utterance objectively and giving him the opportunity to correct and improve what has been put on paper. That is why it is said that the WL bears a greater volume of responsibility than its spoken counterpart.

The SL differs from the WL phonetically, morphologically (contracted forms he’d=he would, she’s=she is), lexically, .and syntactically. The most striking difference between the SL and WL is, however, in the vocabulary used. There are words and phrases typically colloquial, on the one hand, and typically bookish, on the other. Such words and phrases as 'sloppy', 'to be gone on somebody' (= to be violently in love with smb) I take it (I understand) and others immediately mark the utterance as being colloquial, that is, belonging to the spoken variety of language.

The SL makes ample use of intensifying words. These are interjections and words with strong emotive meaning, as oaths, swear- which have lost their primary meaning and only serve the purpose of intensifying the emotional charge of the utterance. There is another characteristic feature of colloq l-ge, namely, the insertion into the utterance of words without any meaning, which are appropriately called «fill-ups» or empty words – here belong such words and set expressions as well, so to say, you see/know/understand, as wel as, -mmm, -er.r...

 The snt peculiarities of the SL reveal the true nature of the S variety of l-ge, that is, the situational character of the communication. The 1^st of them is what is erroneously called ellipsis, that is, the omission of parts of the utterance in situation in which the communication takes place. These are in fact not omissions, but the regular absence of parts unnecessary in lively conversation when there are two or more people speaking.

The 2^nd feature is the tendency to use the direct WO or omit the auxiliary verb, leaving it to the intonation to indicate the meaning of the sen-ce.

A snt structure with a tautological subject is also considered to be characteristic of colloquial English. It is a construction in which two subjects are used where one is sufficient reference. Usually they are noun and pronoun.

The characteristic syntactical features of the written variety of language can easily be perceived by the student of language. As the situation must be made clear by the context, the utterance becomes more exact. That means the relations between the parts of the utterance must be precise. Another snt feature of the WL is its use of complicated sentence-units. It is worthy of note that most of the ridicule poured on the bookish language used by different writers is concentrated on the vocabulary. Little or no mockery is made of the syntactical pattern, even though in the long run it is this feature that has as great a weight as any of the others in distinguishing the written from the SL.

3)The Development of the English Literary Standard Language (Historical Survey -XV-XVIII centuries).

The literary (standard) l-ge is one of the most important notions in stylistics and general linguistics. Confusion b/w the terms "literary l-ge" and "l-ge of literature" is frequently to be met. Literary l-ge is a historical category. The literary l-ge is that elaborated form (variety) of the national language which obeys definite morphological, phonetic, syntactical, lexical; phraseological and stylistic norms recognized as standard and therefore acceptable in all kinds and types of discourse.

The norm of usage is established by the l-ge community at every given period in the development of the l-ge. It is ever changing and therefore not infrequently evasive. There are 2 conflicting tendencies in the process of establishing the norm: 1) preservation of the already existing norm, sometimes with attempts to reestablish old forms of the l-ge 2) introduction of new norms not yet firmly established. Literary E. is almost synonyrnous with the term standard E. The E. literary language has had a long and peculiar history.

The New E. period, as it is called, is usually considered to date from 15th century. This is the beginning of the E. l-ge known, spoken and written at the present time. The influence of the various dialects was still strongly felt, but the London dialect was gradually winning general recognition. According to many historians of the E. l-ge, by the latter part of the 15th c. the London dialect had been accepted as the standard, at least in writing, in most parts of the country. This should to a very great extent be attributed to Qaxton, the first English printer, who in his translations and in the books he printed used the current speech of London.

In the 16th century literary E. began markedly to flourish. The rapid development of printing went parallel with the general growth of culture, to which much was contributed by the two universities, Oxford and Cambridge. In the 2nd half of the 16th c., a c. marked by the political and economic rise of England, literature began to flourish in all forms-drama, poetry and prose. Frequent translations were now made from the Greek and Latin classic writers. Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher and many other writers of the period exerted a very great influence on the growth and perfection of the E. literary l-ge.

To give a general idea of the factors influencing the development of literary E. in the 15th and 16th c-s, it will suffice to point out the following 3: 1) A common interest in classical literature during the Renaissance & hence the application of classical grammar, spelling and rhetoric to the E. l-ge. Attempts were made by scholars to force the classical norms into the E. l-ge; 2) A desire to keep the language pure, to retain and revive old Eng-s wds and as far as possible old E. morphological and syntactical forms. This tendency has been called archaic purism; 3) An orientation towards the living, developing and rapidly changing norms of the colloquial l-ge. In the domain of syntax and WO too, there was already considerable freedom of usage.

The Protestant Reformation played a great role in the development of the E. literary l-ge. Books on religion, translated or composed in strong, simple, living E. with few "learned" words, and understandable to the masses of ordinary people, were by act of Parliament placed in the churches and read aloud. Parts of the Bible & later the whole Bible were also translated in the same manner. By order of Queen Elizabeth I a Bible was placed in every church and people flocked to read it or hear it read.

Further, there were great difficulties in spelling. No two writers spelt all words exactly alike. From the OE period up to the 15th c. there had been chaos in E. spelling. Even the publication of dictionaries, which began in the middle of the 17th century, did not fix E. spelling. 17th century literary E. is characterized by a general tendency to refinement and regulation. In 1664 a special committee was set up, the aim of which was to normalize and improve the E. l-ge. But the Committee did not last long and had little influence in deciding upon the norms of usage.

A considerable role in the regulation of the norms was played by a number of new grammars which appeared at this period. Among these the "Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae" written in Latin by John Wallis and published in 1653 is particularly notable. It was a kind of protest against the blind imitation of Latin grammars, although the author could not free himself entirely from the influence of the Latin grammatical system and the Latin theory of l-ge. Early in the 17th c. E. dictionaries began to appear as practical guides to the use of new words, terms belonging to science and art and also "ink-horn" terms, which had poured into the E. l-ge in the 16th c. and continued to flow in the 17th.

As in every c. there was a struggle b/w the purists and the admirers of novelty. The normalizing tendency, so apparent in the 17th century, continues into the 18th. But by 18th century it had become a conscious goal. In the 18th c. two men had a great influence on the development of the norms of literary E. These were Jonathan Swift and Samuel Jonson. It was Swift who declared the necessity "to call a spade a spade", a phrase which has become a symbol for a plain and simple way of expression. The gap b/w the literary and colloquial E. of the 18th c. was widening. The restrictions forced on the written l-ge are felt in the speech of the characters in the novels and plays of this period.

4)The Development of the English Literary (Standard) Language (Historical Survey -XIX-XX centuries).

The 19th c. trends in literary E. are best summarized in the following statement by McKnight: "The spirit of purism was evidently alive in the early 19th c. The sense of a classical perfection to be striven for survived

from the 18th c. The l-ge must not only be made more regular, but it must be protected from the corrupting influences that were felt to be on all sides.

Vulgarisms were to be avoided and new words, if they were to be tolerated, must conform not only to analogy but to good taste." This puristic spirit is revealed mainly in the attitude towards voc-ry & pronunciation. Snt and mph changes are not so apparent as lex and phonetic ones and therefore are less exposed to the criticism of the purists. The tendency to protest against innovation, however, gradually gave way to new trends, those of the 19th c., which can be defined as the beginning of the recognition of colloquial E. as a variety of the national l-e. Colloquial words and exp-s created by the people began to pour into literary E. The literary critics and men-of-letters objected to the maxims laid down by their predecessors and began to lay the foundation for new theoretical concepts of the literary l-ge.

Another feature of the 19th c. literary E. to be noted is a more or less firmly established differentiation of styles, though this process was not fully appreciated by the scholars of the period. The dichotomy of written and oral intercourse which manifested itself mainly in the widening of the gap b/w the literary and nonliterary forms, so typical of 18th c. E., led the way to a cluster of varieties within the literary language, to its stratification into different styles.

The norms of 19th c. literary E. were considerably influenced by certain other styles of l-ge, which by this period had already shaped themselves as separate styles. By this period the shaping of the newspaper style, the publicistic style, the style of scientific prose and the official style may be said to have been completed and l-ge scholars found themselves faced with new problems. It became necessary to seek the foundation and distinctive characteristics of each functional style of l-ge and analyse them. In summing up the main

features of the struggle to establish norms for 19th c. literary E., special mention must be made of the 2 tendencies characteristic of this period.

One was reactionary purism the principles of which were laid clown in the 17th and 18th c-s and which became manifest in the struggle against any innovation no matter where it came from. This reactionary purism orientated the literary l-ge towards a revival of old words which had gone out of use and of constructions typical of earlier stages in the his-tory of E.                The other tendency was to draw on the inexhaustible resources of the vernacular both in vocabulary and in the lively syntactical patterns of colloquial E. so suggestive of the warm intonation of the human voice. This tendency was particularly observable in the belles-lettres style of language and Byron, Thackeray and Dickens contributed greatly to the enrichment of the literary l-ge. Reactionary purism is dying down and giving way to strong modernizing

tendencies, which flourish particularly in the newspaper style and the belles-lettres style.

The recognition in the 20th c. of the everyday speech of the people as a variety of the national l-ge has done much to legalize the colloquial form of E. which, until the present century had been barred from the domain of l-ge studies. We must point out that the functional styles of l-ge have shaped themselves within the literary form of the English l-ge. The divi-sion of the standard E. l-ge into two varieties, written and spoken (the literary l-ge and the colloquial l-ge), which was recognized earlier and which was acknowledged as a natural coexistence, now goes alongside the problem of the "closed" systems of styles of l-ge.