Decomposition of Set Phrases

Linguistic fusions are set phrases, the meaning of which is understood only from the combination as a whole, as to pull a person's leg or to have something at one's finger tips. The meaning of the whole cannot be derived from the meanings of the component parts. The stylistic device of decomposition of fused set phrases consists in reviving the independent meanings which make up the component parts of the fusion. In other words, it makes each word of the combination acquire its literal meaning which, of course, in many cases leads to the realization of an absurdity. . Here is an example of this device as employed by Dickens:

"Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it or ' the Country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a door-nail." (Dickens)

As is seen in this excerpt, the fusion 'as dead as a door-nail', which simply means completely dead, is decomposed by being used in a different structural pattern. This causes the violation of the generally recognized meaning of the combination which has grown into a mere emotional intensifier. The reader, being presented with the parts of the unit, becomes aware of the meanings of the parts, which, be it repeated, have little in common with the meaning of the whole. When, as Dickens does, the unit is re-established in its original form, the phrase acquires a fresh vigour and effect, qualities important in this utterance because the unit itself was meant to carry the strongest possible proof that the man was actually dead.

9)Stylistic Classification of the English Vocabulary. Special Colloquial Vocabulary (Slang. Jargonisms. Professionalisms). 

There is no more or less satisfactory definition of the term “Slang”, it seems to mean everything that is below the standard of usage of present-day English. The "New Oxford English Dictionary" defines slang as follows: "a) the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type. (Now merged in c. /cant/)', b) the cant or jargon of a certain class or period; c) language of a highly colloquial type considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense."

Any new coinage that has not gained recognition and therefore has not yet been received into standard English is easily branded as slang. (E. Partridge). Many words formerly labeled as slang have now become legitimate units of standard English. Thus the word kid (=child), which was considered low slang in the 19^th c. is now a legitimate colloquial unit of the English literary language. (to take stock in—'to be interested in, attach importance, give cred­ence to'; bread-basket—'the stomach' (a jocular use)

It is suggestive that there is a tendency in some modern dictionaries to replace the label slang by informal or colloquial. This is mainly due to the ambiguity of the term “slang”. Some lexicographers still make use of the term 'slang' as a substitute for 'jargon', 'cant', 'colloquialism', 'professionalism', 'vulgar', 'dialectal'.

JARGON is a recognized term for a group of words that exists in almost every l-ge and whose aim is to preserve secrecy within one or another social group. Jargonisms are generally old words with entirely new meanings imposed on them. Most of them are absolutely incompre­hensible to those outside the social group which has invented them. Thus the word grease means 'money'; loaf means 'head'.

Jargonisms are social in character. They are not regional. In Britain and in the US almost any social group of people has its own jargon. The following jargons are well known in the English language: the jargon of thieves and vagabonds, generally known as cant; the jargon of jazz people; the jargon of the army, known as military slang; the jargon of sportsmen, and many others.

Slang, contrary to jargon, needs no translation. It is not a secret code. It is easily understood by the English-speaking community and is only regarded as something not quite regular. When a jargonism becomes common, it has passed on to a higher step on the ladder of word groups and becomes slang or colloquial.

Here are some examples of jargon: Piou-Piou—'a French soldier, a private in the infantry'. According to Eric Partridge this word has already passed from military jargon to ordinary colloquial speech. Dar—(from damned average raiser)—'a persevering and assidu­ous student'. (University jargon)

PROFESSIONALISMS are the words used in a definite trade, profession or calling by people connect­ed by common interests both at work and at home. They commonly designate some working process or implement of labour. Professional­isms are correlated to terms.

The main feature of a professionalism is its technicality. The se­mantic structure of a professionalism is often dimmed by the image on which the meaning of the professionalism is based, particularly when the features of the object in question reflect the process of the work, metaphori­cally or metonymically. Like terms, professionalisms do not allow any polysemy, they are monosemantic.

Here are some professionalisms used in different trades: tin-fish (^submarine); block-buster (= a bomb especially designed to destroy blocks of big buildings); piper (=a specialist who decorates pastry with the use of a cream-pipe); a midder case (=a midwifery case); outer (=& knockout blow).

Professionalisms should not be mixed up with jargonisms. Like slang words, professionalisms do not aim at secrecy. They fulfill a socially useful function in communication, facilitating a quick and adequate grasp of the message.

Professionalisms are used in emotive prose to depict the natural speech of a character. The skilful use of a professional word will show not only the vocation of a character, but also his education, breeding, environment and sometimes even his psychology. That’s why, perhaps, a literary device known as speech-characterization is so abundantly used in emotive prose.

10)Lexical EM and SD (General Considerations). Intensification of a Certain Feature of Thing or Phenomenon (Euphemisms. Hyperbole).

Transferred meaning is the interrelation between two types of the lexical meaning: dictionary and contextual. The contextual meaning always depends on the dictionary meaning. But when the deviation is very great that it causes an unexpected turn in the logical meaning, we register a SD. In other words, when we witness 2 meanings of the word realized simultaneously we are confronted with a SD, where 2 meanings interact.

The expressive means of a l-ge are those phonetic, morphological, wordbuilding, lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist in language-as-a-system for the purpose of logical and/or emotional intensification of the utterance. (The most powerful EM are phonetic.) At the lexical level there are many words which due to their inner expressiveness constitute a special layer. There are words with emotive meaning only (interjections), words with both referential and emotive meanings (epithets) etc.

A stylistic device is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized status and becoming a generative model. A SD is an abstract pattern, into which any content can be poured.

EMs have a greater degree of predictability than SDs.

In building up a definition the definer tries to single out the most essential features of the object. However, no definition can comprise all the inner qualities of the object. The SDs based on intensification of a certain feature of a thing or phenomenon we find that one of the qualities of the object is made to sound essential. In this group the quality picked out may be seemingly unimportant and transitory, but for a special reason it is elevated to the greatest importance.

Euphemismis a variety of periphrasis. It is a word or phrase used to replace an unpleasant word or expression by a conventionally more acceptable one (e.g. to die – to pass away, to be gone). Euphemisms are synonyms which aim at producing a deliberately mild effect. The linguistic peculiarity of euphemism lies in the fact that every euphemism must call up a definite synonym in the mind of the reader or listener.

Euphemisms may be divided into several groups according to their spheres of application: 1) religious, 2) moral, 3) medical, 4) parliamentary. The life of euphemisms is short. They very soon become closely associated with the referent (the object named) and give way to a newly coined word or word combination.

Political euphemisms are really understatements, the aim of which is to mislead public opinion and to express what is unpleasant in a more delicate manner. Genuine euphemism must call up the word it stands for. It is always the result of some deliberate clash between 2 synonyms (obscenity - a four letter word; a prostitute, a whore – a woman of a certain type).

Hyperbole can be defined as a deliberate overstatement or exaggeration of a feature essential (unlike periphrasis) to the object or phenomenon. In its extreme form this exaggeration is carried to an illogical degree, sometimes ad absurdum. (e.g. “He was so tall that I was not sure he had a face” O. Henry).

Like many SDs hyperbole may lose its quality as a SD through frequent repetition and become a unit of the language-as-a-system, reproduced in speech in its unuttered form (e.g. a thousand pardons, scared to death).

Hyperbole differs from mere exaggeration in that it is intended to be understood as an exaggeration. Hyperbole is a device which sharpens the reader’s ability to make logical assessment of the utterance. This is achieved by awakening the dichotomy of thought and feeling where thought takes the upper hand though not to the detriment of feeling.

11)Functional Styles of the English Language (General Considerations). The Belle Letters Style. Emotive Prose.

A functional style of language 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. FSs appear mainly in the literary standard of the language. In fact the standard Eng literary l-ge in the course of its development has fallen into several subsystems each of which acquired its own peculiarities which are typical of the given FS. In the Eng literary standard we distinguish the following major FSs:

1)the l-ge of Belles-lettres (a-the l-ge style of poetry, b-the l-ge style of emotive prose, c-the l-ge style of drama);

2)the l-ge of Official Docs (a-the l-ge style of diplomatic docs, b-the l-ge styles of business docs, c-the l-ge style of legal docs, d-the l-ge style of military docs );

3)the l-ge of Newspapers (a-the l-ge style of brief news items and communiqués, b-the l-ge style of newspaper headings, c-the l-ge style of notices and advertisements);

4)the l-ge of Scientific Prose (a- the l-ge style of humanitarian sciences, b-the l-ge style of “exact” sciences, c-the l-ge style of popular scientific prose);

5)the l-ge of Publicistic Literature (a- the l-ge style of oratory, b-the l-ge style of essays, c-the l-ge style of feature articles in newspapers and journals).

Each FS may be characterised by a number of distinctive features, leading or subordinate, constant or changing, obligatory or optional. Each FS is subdivided into number of substyles.   

The Belle Letters Style is a generic term for three substyles: 1. The language of poetry, or simply verse.

2. The language of the drama. 3. the l-ge style of emotive prose

Each of these substyles has certain common features, typical of the general belles-lettres style, which make up the foundation of the style:

1) aesthetico-cognitive function. This is a double function which aims at the cognitive process, which secures the gradual Enfolding of the idea to the reader and at the same time calls forth a feeling of pleasure.

The purpose of the belles-lettres style is not to prove but only to suggest a possible interpretation of the phenomena of life by forcing the reader to see the viewpoint of the writer.

The linguistic features are:

1. Genuine, not trite, imagery, achieved by purely linguistic devices.

2. The use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning, or at least greatly influenced by the lexical environment.

3. A vocabulary which will reflect to a greater or lesser degree the author's personal evaluation of things or phenomena.

4. A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax, a kind of lexical and syntactical idiosyncrasy.

5. The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (in plays) or a lesser one (in emotive prose) or a slight degree, if any (in poems).

The belles-lettres style is individual in essence.

Emotive Prose as a separate form of imaginative literature, that is fiction, came into being rather late in the history of the English literary l-ge. The first emotive prose which appeared was translations from Latin of stories from the Bible and the Lives of the Saints.

Emotive prose actually began to assume a life of its own in the second half of the 15th century when romances and chronicles describing the life and adventures of semi-legendary kings and knights began to appear. With the coming of the 16th century, English emotive prose progressed rapidly. Numerous translations from Latin and Greek, from modern languages played a great role in helping to work out stylistic norms for the emotive prose of that period. On the whole the emotive prose of the 16th century had not yet shaped itself as a separate style. The 17th century saw a considerable development in emotive prose. It was an epoch of great political and religious strife, and much that was written had a Publicistic aim. The writers of the 18th century did much to establish emotive prose as an independent form of literary art. The main stylistic feature of the emotive prose of the 18th century is a peculiar manner of conveying the impression that the event narrated actually occurred, that the narrative possessed authenticity. 19th century emotive prose can already be regarded as a substyle of the belles-lettres language style complete in its most fundamental properties. By the end of the nineteenth century and particularly at the beginning of the 20th, certain stylistic devices had been refined and continue to be further developed and perfected: represented speech, both uttered and unuttered (inner), and also various ways of using detached construction. Present-day emotive prose is to a large extent characterized by the breaking-up of traditional syntactical designs of the preceding periods. Not only detached construction, but also fragmentation of syntactical models, peculiar, unexpected ways of combining sentences, especially the gap-sentence link and other modern syntactical patterns, are freely introduced into present-day emotive prose.

Thus the main characteristics of emotive prose are:

1) The imagery’s not rich as in poetry; 2) The percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high as in poetry; 3)The idiosyncrasy of the author is not so clearly discernible. 4) The author’s evaluation is not so evident as in prose; 5) The combination of literary variants of the English language with the colloquial variant (a combination of spoken and written British variants; 6) Traditional syntactical design of the previous period (not only detached constructions but also peculiar unexpected ways of combining sentences)

12)SD Based on Interaction of Logical and Emotive Meanings (Oxymoron); SD Based on Interaction of Logical and Nominal Meanings (Antonomasia).

Logical meaning is the precise naming of a feature of the idea, phenomenon or object, the name by which we recognize the whole of the concept. This meaning is also synonymously called referential meaning or direct meaning. The meanings that are to be found in speech or writing and which are accidental should not be regarded as components of the semantic structure of the word. They may be transitory, inasmuch as they depend on the context. They are contextual meanings. A dictionary meaning is materialized in the context; a contextual meaning is born in the context. Every word possesses an enormous potentiality for generating new meanings.

The potentiality of words can also be noted in regard to emotive meaning. But unlike logical meaning, emotive one has reference not directly to things or phenomena of objective reality, but to the feelings and emo­tions of the speaker towards these things or to his emotions as such. Therefore the emotive meaning bears reference to things, phenomena or ideas through a kind of evaluation of them. The function of the words that have emotive meaning is to reveal the subjective, evaluating attitude of the writ­er to the things or events spoken of.

Oxymoron is a combination of 2 words in which the meanings of the 2 clash, being opposite in sense. E.g.: ‘terribly beautiful’, 'sweet sorrow'. As a rule, one of the two members of oxymoron illuminates the feature which is universally observed and acknowledged while the other one offers a purely subjective, individual perception of the object. Thus in an oxymoron we also deal with the foregrounding of emotive meaning.

In oxymoron the primary logical meaning of the adj. or adverb is capable of resisting the power of semantic change which words undergo in combination. It can be realized in several models: adj. + noun, adverb + adj. The most widely known structure of oxymoron is attributive, so it is easy to believe that the subjective part of the oxymoron is embodied in the attribute-epithet, especially because the latter also proceeds from the foregrounding of the emotive meaning. But there are also others, in which verbs are employed. Such verbal structures as "to shout mutely" (I.Sh.) or "to cry silently" (M.W.) seem to strengthen the idea, which leads to the conclusion that oxymoron is a specific type of epithet. But the peculiarity of an oxymoron lies in the fact that the speaker's (writer's) subjective view can be expressed through either of the members of the word combination.

Speaking about Antonomasia we should mention that it’s a SD based on the interplay between the logical and nominal meanings of a word realized simultaneously, i.e. a SD, in which the nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning or the logical meaning acquires the new - nominal — component. Antonomasia categorizes the person and indicates both the general and the particular. It gives us information about the bearer of the name.

There are several types of antonomasia. The first type is when a specific name serves to denote any representative or an object attached to the class it belongs. Such as in Th. Dreiser we read: "He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something...." The attribute "each", used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any female.   Another type of antonomasia we meet when a common noun serves as an individualizing name, as in D. Cusack: "There are three doctors in an illness like yours. I don't mean only myself; my partner and the radiologist who does your X-rays, the three I'm referring to are Dr. Rest, Dr. Diet and Dr. Fresh Air."       Still another type of antonomasia is presented by the so-called "speaking names" - names whose origin from common nouns is still clearly perceived. For example, such names from Sheridan's School for Scandal as Lady Teazle or Mr. Surface immediately raise associations with certain human qualities due to the denotational meaning of the words "to tease" and "surface".

Antonomasia is created mainly by nouns, more seldom by attributive combinations (as in "Dr. Fresh Air") or phrases (as in "Mr. What's-his name"). Common nouns used in the second type of antonomasia are in most cases abstract, though there are instances of concrete ones being used too. The use of antonomasia is now not only confined to the belles-lettres style. It is often found in Publicistic style, that is, in magazine and newspaper articles, in essays and also in military language.

13) Functional Styles of the English Language (General Considerations). Publicistic Style (Oratory and Speeches. The Essays. Articles).

A functional style of language 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. FSs appear mainly in the literary standard of the language. In fact the standard Eng literary l-ge in the course of its development has fallen into several subsystems each of which acquired its own peculiarities which are typical of the given FS. In the Eng literary standard we distinguish the following major FSs:

1)the l-ge of Belles-lettres (a-the l-ge style of poetry, b-the l-ge style of emotive prose, c-the l-ge style of drama);

2)the l-ge of Official Docs (a-the l-ge style of diplomatic docs, b-the l-ge styles of business docs, c-the l-ge style of legal docs, d-the l-ge style of military docs );

3)the l-ge of Newspapers (a-the l-ge style of brief news items and communiqués, b-the l-ge style of newspaper headings, c-the l-ge style of notices and advertisements);

4)the l-ge of Scientific Prose (a- the l-ge style of humanitarian sciences, b-the l-ge style of “exact” sciences, c-the l-ge style of popular scientific prose);

5)the l-ge of Publicistic Literature (a- the l-ge style of oratory, b-the l-ge style of essays, c-the l-ge style of feature articles in newspapers and journals).

Each FS may be characterised by a number of distinctive features, leading or subordinate, constant or changing, obligatory or optional. Each FS is subdivided into number of substyles.   

The Publicistic style became a sepa­rate one in the mid of the 18^th c, its general aim is to exert a constant and deep influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given is the only correct one & cause him to accept the point of view expressed.

Unlike other styles, the PubS has a spoken variety, namely, the oratorical sub-style. The development of radio and television has brought into being another new spoken variety, namely, the radio and TV commentary. The other two substyles are the essay (moral, philosophical, lit­erary) and journalistic articles (political, social, economic) in newspapers, journals and magazines. Book reviews in journals, newspapers and magazines and also pamphlets are generally included among essays.

Due to its characteristic combination of logical argumentation and emotional appeal, PubS has features in common with the style of scientific prose, on the one hand, and that of emotive prose, on the other. Its coherent and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of connectives and its careful paragraphing, makes it similar to scientific prose. Its emotional appeal is generally achieved by the use of words with emotive meaning, the use of imagery and other stylistic devices as in emotive prose; but the stylistic devices used in PubS are not fresh or genuine. PubS is characterized by brevity of expression. In some varieties of this style it becomes a leading feature, an important linguistic means. In essays brevity sometimes becomes epigrammatic.

The oratorical style of language is the oral subdivision of the PubS. Its certain typical fea­tures are: direct ad­dress to the audience (ladies and gentlemen, honourable member(s), the use of the 2nd person pronoun you, etc.), sometimes contractions (/'//, won't, haven't, isn't and others) and the use of colloquial words.

The SDs employed in oratorical style are determined by the conditions of communication. Repetition can be regarded as the most typical SD of English oratorical style. Almost any piece of oratory will have parallel constructions, antithesis, suspense, climax, rhetorical questions and questions-in-the-narrative. Questions are most frequent because they promote closer contact with the audience. The change of intonation breaks the monotony of the intonation pattern and revives the attention of the listeners.

The essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subjects.  The essay was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 17th century essays were written on topics connected with morals and ethics, while those of the 18th century focused attention on political and philosophical problems.

The most characteristic language features of the essay, however, remain 1) brevity of expression, reaching in good writers a degree of epigrammaticalness, 2) the use of the first person singular, which jus­tifies a personal approach to the problems treated, 3) a rather expanded use of connectives, which facilitate the process of grasping the correla­tion of ideas, 4) the abundant use of emotive words, 5) the use of similes and sustained metaphors as one of the media for the cognitive process. It is in the interrelation of these constituents that the real secret of the essay substyle consists.

The language of political magazine articles differs little from that of newspaper articles as described in the chapter on Newspaper Style. But such elements of PubS as rare and bookish words, neologisms, traditional word-combinations and parenthesis are more frequent here than in newspaper articles.

14)Functional Styles of the English Language (General Considerations). Newspaper Style (Brief News. Items. The Headlines. Advertisements and Announcements. The Editorial).

A functional style of language 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. FSs appear mainly in the literary standard of the language. In fact the standard Eng literary l-ge in the course of its development has fallen into several subsystems each of which acquired its own peculiarities which are typical of the given FS. In the Eng literary standard we distinguish the following major FSs:

1)the l-ge of Belles-lettres (a-the l-ge style of poetry, b-the l-ge style of emotive prose, c-the l-ge style of drama);

2)the l-ge of Official Docs (a-the l-ge style of diplomatic docs, b-the l-ge styles of business docs, c-the l-ge style of legal docs, d-the l-ge style of military docs );

3)the l-ge of Newspapers (a-the l-ge style of brief news items and communiqués, b-the l-ge style of newspaper headings, c-the l-ge style of notices and advertisements);

4)the l-ge of Scientific Prose (a- the l-ge style of humanitarian sciences, b-the l-ge style of “exact” sciences, c-the l-ge style of popular scientific prose);

5)the l-ge of Publicistic Literature (a- the l-ge style of oratory, b-the l-ge style of essays, c-the l-ge style of feature articles in newspapers and journals).

Each FS may be characterised by a number of distinctive features, leading or subordinate, constant or changing, obligatory or optional. Each FS is subdivided into number of substyles.   

Newspaper style was the last of all the styles of written literary English to be recognized as a specific form of writing standing apart from other forms. English newspaper writing dates from the 17th century. It took more than a century to establish a style and a standard of its own. And it is only by the 19th century that newspaper English may be said to have developed into a system of language media, forming a separate functional style. To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will be sufficient to analyse the following basic newspaper features:

1) brief news items, 2) advertisements and announcements, 3) the headline, 4) the editorial.

The HEADLINE (the title given to a news item or an article) is a dependent form of newspaper writing. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly what the text that follows is about. But apart from this, headlines often contain elements of appraisal, i.e. they show the reporter's or the paper's attitude to the facts reported or commented on, thus also performing the function of instructing the reader. English headlines are short and catching, they "compact the gist of news stories into a few eye-snaring words. A skilfully turned out headline tells a story, or enough of it, to arouse or satisfy the reader's curiosity."

The headlines of news items, apart from giving information about the subject-matter, also carry a considerable amount of appraisal (the size and arrangement of the headline, the use of emotionally coloured words and elements of emotive syntax), thus indicating the interpretation of the facts in the news item that follows. But, of course, the principal vehicle of interpretation and appraisal is the newspaper article and the editorial in particular. The function of the EDITORIALS (leading articles or leaders) is to influence the reader by giving an interpretation of certain facts. Editorials comment on the political and other events of the day. Their purpose is to give the editor's opinion and interpretation of the news published and suggest to the reader that it is the correct one. Editorials are characterized by a subjective handling of facts, political or otherwise.

The principal function of advertisements and announcements, like that of brief news, is to inform the reader. There are 2 basic types of adverts and announcements in the modern English newspaper. In classified adverts and announcements various kinds of information are arranged according to subject-matter into sections, each bearing an appropriate name. As for the non-classified adverts and announcements, the variety of language form and subject-matter is so great that hardly any essential features common to all may be pointed out. The reader's attention is attracted by every possible means: typographical, graphical and stylistic, both lexical and syntactical. Here there is no call for brevity, as the advertiser may buy as much space as he chooses.

The principal function of brief news is to inform the reader. It states facts without giving explicit comments.

It goes without saying that the bulk of the vocabulary used in newspaper writing is neutral and common literary. But apart from this, newspaper style has its specific vocabulary features and is characterized by an extensive use of: a) Special political and economic terms, e. g. Socialism, constitution, president, apartheid, by-election, General Assembly, gross output, per capita production. b) Non-term political vocabulary, e. g. public, people, progressive, nation-wide, unity, peace. c) Newspaper clichés, i. e. stereotyped expressions, commonplace phrases familiar to the reader e. g. vital issue, pressing problem, informed sources, danger of war, to escalate a war, war hysteria, overwhelming majority, amid stormy applause.    d) Abbreviations— names of organizations, public and state bodies, political associations, industrial and other companies, various offices, etc.—known by their initials are very common, e.g. UNO (United Nations Organization), TUG (Trades Union Congress), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), EEC (.European Economic Community), FO (Foreign Office).   e) Neologisms. These are very common in newspaper vocabulary. The newspaper is very quick to react to any new development in the life of society, in science and technology. e.g. lunik, a splash-down (the act of bringing a spacecraft to a water surface), a teach-in (a form of campaigning through heated political discussion), backlash or white backlash (a violent reaction of American racists to the Negroes' struggle for civil rights).

The following grammatical peculiarities of brief news items are of paramount importance, and may be regarded as their grammatical parameters.

a) Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses. b) Verbal constructions (infinitive, participial, gerundial) and verbal noun constructions. c) Syntactical complexes, especially the nominative with the infinitive. These constructions are largely used to avoid mentioning the source of information or to shun responsibility for the facts reported. d) Specific word-order. The word-order in one-sentence news paragraphs and in what are called "leads" is more or less fixed.

15)Functional Styles of the English Language. Scientific Prose Style.

A FS of l-ge is a system of interrelated language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A FS 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. They are also called discourses.

Belles-lettre, Publisitic, Newspaper, Scientific Prose, of Official Documents. Stable system, but change from 1 period to another. Belles-lettres style, function - aesthetico-cognitive. Aim- to call aesthetic feelings of pleasure and promote cognitive process. Publicistic S. Sphere- mass media, aim- to influence public opinion, to persuade. Newspaper S. Sphere: mass media restricted by press (lang of newsp & governmental magazines). Function: to inform. Aim: to comment, to inform of certain political, cultural, economic events; to influence the public opinion on political or other matter. Scientific Prose. Sphere: science activity. Function: to give logical progress of some idea. Aim: to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts. Style of Offic Doc-s.Sphere: business, jurisdiction. Function: instructive, regulative. Aim: to reach agreement between two parties.

The Belles-lettres style has the following subtypes 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 four 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.

The style of scientific prose is mainly characterized by an arrangement of language means which will bring proofs to clinch a theory. The main function of scientific prose is proof. The selection of language means must therefore meet this principle requirement.
The genre of scientific works is mostly characteristic of the written form of language (scientific articles, monographs or textbooks), but it may also be found in its oral form (in scientific reports, lectures, discussions at conferences, etc.); in the latter case this style has some features of colloquial speech.
The language of science is governed by the aim to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose the internal laws of existence, development, relations between different phenomena, etc.

The language means used, therefore, tend to beobjective, precise, unemotional, and devoid of any individuality; there is a striving for the most generalized form of expression.
The most noticeable feature of this style is the logical sequence of utterances with clear indication of their interrelations and interdependence.