Neutral, common literary and common colloquial vocabulary

The word-stock of any language may be represented as a definite system in which different aspects of words may be singled out as interdependent. Aspect- the most typical characteristic of a word.

The word-stock of any given language can be roughly divided into three uneven groups, differing from each other by the sphere of its possible use. The biggest layer of the English word-stock is made up of neutral words, possessing no stylistic connotation and suitable for any communicative situation, two smaller ones are and colloquial strata respectively.

Literary words serve to satisfy communicative demands of official, scientific, poetic messages, while the colloquial ones are employed in non-official everyday communication. Though there is no immediate correlation between the written and the oral forms of speech on the one hand, and the literary and colloquial words, on the other, yet, for the most part, the first ones are mainly observed in the written form, as most literary messages appear in writing. And vice versa: though there are many examples of colloquialisms in writing (informal letters, diaries), their usage is associated with the oral form of communication. Consequently, taking for analysis printed materials we shall find literary words in authorial speech, descriptions, considerations, while colloquialisms will be observed in the types of discourse, simulating (copying) everyday oral communication-i.e., in the dialogue (or interior monologue) of a prose work.

When we classify some speech (text) fragment as literary or colloquial it does not mean that all the words constituting it have a corresponding stylistic meaning. More than that: words with a pronounced stylistic connotation are few in any type of discourse, the overwhelming majority of its lexis being neutral. As our famous philologist L.V. Shcherba once said- a stylistically coloured word is like a drop of paint added to a glass of pure water and colouring the whole of it.

The literary and the colloquial layers contain a number of subgroups each of which has a property it shares with all the subgroups within the layer. This common property, which unites the different groups of words within the layer, may be called its aspect.The aspect of the literary layer is its markedly bookish character. It is this that makes the layer more or less stable. The aspect of the colloquial layer of words is its lively-spoken character. It is this that makes it unstable, fleeting. The aspect of the neutral layer is its universal character. That means it is unrestricted in its use. It can be employed in all styles of language and in all spheres of human activity. It is this that makes the layer the most stable of all.

The literary layer of words consists of groups accepted as legitimate members of the English vocabulary. They have no local or dialectal character.

The colloquial layer of words as qualified in most English or American dictionaries is not infrequently limited to a definite language community or confined to a special locality where it circulates.

Each of the two named groups of words, possessing a stylistic meaning (literary and colloquial), is not homogeneous as to the quality of the meaning, frequency of use, sphere of application, or the number and character of potential users. This is why each one is further divided into the common (general), i.e. known to and used by native speakers in generalized literary (formal) or colloquial (informal) communication, and special bulks. The latter ones, in their turn, are subdivided into subgroups, each one serving a rather narrow, specified communicative purpose.

The literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words:

1. common literary; 2. terms and learned words; 3. poetic words; 4. archaic words; 5. barbarisms and foreign words; 6. literary coinages including nonce-words.

The colloquial vocabulary falls into the following groups: 1. common colloquial words; 2. slang; 3. jargonisms; 4. professional words; 5. dialectal words; 6. vulgar words; 7. colloquial coinages.

The common literary, neutral and common colloquial words are grouped under the term standard English vocabulary. Other groups in the literary layer are regarded as special literary vocabulary and those in the colloquial layer are regarded as special colloquial (non-literary) vocabulary.

Neutral words, which form the bulk of the English vocabulary, are used in both literary 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 new words by means of conversion, word compounding, word derivation.

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.

The following synonyms illustrate the relations that exist between the neutral, literary and colloquial words in the English language: kid-child-infant, daddy-father-parent, chap-fellow-associate, go on, continue, proceed.

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 colouring of 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 borderlines between common colloquial and neutral, on the one hand, and common literary and neutral, on the other, are blurred.

Common colloquial vocabulary overlaps 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. Both common literary and common colloquial words are not homogenious. Some of them are closer to the non-standard groups while other words approach the neutral bulk of the vocabulary.

Blitz

1 a special effort to finish a job or to deal with a problem quickly and thoroughly:

blitz on: It's time we had a blitz on the paperwork.

2 a sudden military attack

The stylistic function of the different strata of the English vocabulary depends mostly on their interaction when they are opposed to one another

Phonetics as a science

Phonetics is not a new science. It was known to the ancient Greeks and to the ancient Hindus. The scientists of that time were concerned with speech sounds only. It may be said that the orthography of all written languages which use alphabets developed in the course of a very detailed phonetic analysis.

Nevertheless, phonetics, as an independent science, began to develop in western Europe and in Russia only in the 19th century. There has been considerable progress and growth in the 20th century. Within the last half century especially, new concepts have sprung up, new theories and new schools have come into existence, new methods of investigation have been developed.

Several new branches of phonetics have also arisen. The most important of these are special phonetics and general phonetics.

Special phonetics may be subdivided into descriptivephonetics and historical phonetics. Special phonetics is concerned (1) with the study of the phonetic structure of one language only, in its static form, at a particular period, synchronically (descriptive phonetics); (2) with the study of the phonetic structure of a language in its historical development, diachronically (historical phonetics).

General phonetics is based on the extensive material which the special phonetics of a great number of languages provides; it is also based on other sciences, such as physics, biology, psychology, speech pathology, etc. It has been able to analyse speech sounds from different points of view and to formulate a number of important theories: the phoneme theory, the theory of syllable formation, theories connected with syntagm, stress, intonation, graphical rules and rules of orthography, etc.

On the one hand, general phonetics is based on the data of special phonetics; on the other hand, general phonetics provides valuable theoretical material which enables us to understand clearly and to interpret correctly the different phonetic phenomena of concrete languages.

Closely connected with historical phonetics is comparative phonetics whose aims are to study the correlation between the phonetic systems of two or more languages and find out the correspondences between the speech sounds of kindred languages.

Phonetics can also be theoretical and practical. At the faculties of Foreign Languages in this country, two courses are introduced:

1. Practical, or normative, phonetics that studies the substance, the material form of phonetic phenomena in relation to meaning.

2. Theoretical phonetics, which is mainly concerned with the functioning of phonetic units in language.

We know that the phonic medium can be studied from four points of view: the articulatory, the acoustic, the auditory, and the functional.

We may consider the branches of phonetics according to these aspects. Articulatory phonetics is the study of the way the vocal organs are used to produce speech sounds. Acoustic phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds. Auditory phonetics is the study of the way people perceive speech sounds, in other words, it investigates the hearing process. Of these three branches of phonetics, the longest established, and until recently the most highly developed, is articulatory phonetics. For this reason, most of terms used by linguists to refer to speech-sounds are articulatory in origin.

Phoneticians are also interested in the way in which sound phenomena function in a particular language. In other words, they study the abstract side of the sounds of language. The branch of phonetics concerned with the study of the functional (linguistic) aspect of speech sounds is called phonology.

Phonology is quite a controversial subject. By the middle of the XXth century the term "phonetics" has become somewhat ambiguous. This is largely due to the Prague School of Linguistics which propagates a new science phonology, that is to be differentiated from phonetics. According to the conceptions of the Prague School, phonetics and phonology are two independent branches of science. Phonetics is a biological science, and is concerned with the physical and physiological characteristics of speech sounds. Phonology is a linguistic science, and is concerned with the social functions of different phonetic phenomena. The Prague School of Linguistics has many adherents. As a result of this, the term "phonology" is now widely used by linguists of many countries and refers to that part of linguistics which makes a study of all phonetic phenomena from the point of view of their social significance.