General Characteristics

Functions

- provides information without comment or appeal

- delivers ‘hot news’

- addresses general public

Forms

- primarily written

- newspaper reporting: short news, informative articles, interviews (called ‘journalese’)

- statements, announcements

- advertisements

- special form of headlines

General Characteristics

- clear, concise, brevet

- stereotypical in terms of both lexicology and syntax

- reliance on situational context

- nominal character

- condensed character

- quotations for the sake of objectivity, immediacy, dramatic effect

- paragraphing

- different script types and sizes

- diagrams, charts, sketches, illustrations

Punctuation

- sometimes lack of commas to separate pre-posed adverbials, adjectives in a sequence, sentences in co-ordinating relationship

- frequent inverted commas

- frequent dashes (parenthesis) and colons (headlines)

Syntactical Features

- mostly declarative sentences, sometimes interrogatives and rhetorical questions, rarely imperatives

- sentence condensers and semi-clausal structures rather than dependent clauses

- co-ordinating sentences rather then subordinate clauses

- parenthesises separated by dashes

- mostly past tense, sometimes present tense

- shorter sentences for the sake of easy reading

- passive constructions for the sake of objectivity

- mostly neutral

Lexical Features

- neutral expressions

- euphemisms and ‘politically correct’

- no words outside the standard language variety; no dialect, no slang

- no emotional words, no interjections, no phraseology

x but: colloquial words, slang words, jargon in headlines and quotations

- politic and economic terms

- neologisms /‘laser, sputnik, missile’/

- inventive word-forming /‘peacenik; nixonomics; highjacker’/

- newspaper clichés /‘bitter end; calm before the storm; long arm of the law; leaving no stone unturned; lending a helping land; nipped in the bud’; also ‘generation gap’/

- proper names, numbers, figures

- acronyms /‘UNO, NATO, AIDS’/

- abbreviations /‘Gvt, Hq, Ltd; A-bomb, H-bomb, D-Day’/

Headlines

Functions

- provides a basic idea about the content of the following article

- should tell the story

General Characteristics

- condensed, concise, catching and attractive /‘Ludwig van and his Era’/

- verbal character /‘Door Closes on South Africa’/

5. Words of non-literary stylistic layer (Sub-standard English).

This layer also includes several subgroups:

a) Colloquialisms. Words that occupy an intermediate position between literary and non-literary stylistic layers and are used in conversational type of everyday speech, (awfully sorry, a pretty little thing, etc.)

b ) Slangisms. Words that have originated in everyday speech and exist on the periphery of the lexical system of the given language: go crackers (go mad); guru (god); belt up (keep silence); big-head (a boaster);

c ) Professionalisms. Words characteristic of the conversational variant of professional speech. Contrary to terms, professionalisms are the result of metonymic or metaphoric transference of some everyday words: bull (one who buys shares at the stock-exchange); bear (one who sells shares); sparks (a radio-operator); tin-hat (helmet), etc.

d ) Vulgarisms. Rude words or expressions used mostly in the speech of the uncultured and the uneducated, e. g. missus (wife), son of a bitch (a bad person), etc.

The border-line between colloquialisms, slangisms and vulgarisms is often hard to draw for there are hardly any | linguistic criteria of discrimination. This explains why,; one finds so many discrepancies in how these stylistic subgroups are labelled in various dictionaries.

Two more subgroups of the non-literary stylistic layer should be mentioned.

e) Jargonizes (cantisms). Words used within certain social and professional groups.

f). Regional dialectisms. Words and expressions used by peasants and others in certain regions of the country: baccy (tobacco), unbeknown (unknown), winder (window), etc.

7. Scientific Style. The main function of the scientific style: rational cognition and linguistic presentation of the dynamics of thinking. Other communicative tasks. Inner differentiation and the formation of the sub-styles and genres of the scientific style used in different fields of science, characterized by different manners of scientific presentation. Sub-styles and genres: scientific style proper \ thesis, abstract of thesis, monograph, article, report, abstract of a report...\ popular scientific \ an article, annotations, review, etc.).”Sub-languages” of scientific styles: law, political, medical, economic, technical, computer, linguistic, etc. Types of presentation: description and argumentation (deduction, induction). Different degree of polemics. Popularization of the scientific text. The addressee factor. Peculiarities of scientific communication: planned, prepared delayed in time communication (except for lectures and reports). Style-forming features: great role of tradition in the use of language means, objective and non-categorical presentation, specific means of expression, a certain extent of emphasis, restrictions in the use of intensification, evaluation, emotional language means, absence of imagery. Language means of the scientific style:

• 
  lexical means - highly specialized scientific terminology, terminological groups, revealing the conceptual systems of the scientific style, the peculiarities of the use of terms in scientific speech, the use of nouns and verbs in abstract meanings, special reference words, scientific phraseology - clichés, stereotyped and hackneyed word combinations and idioms, priority of neutral vocabulary, limitations in the use of emotional- evaluative and expressive vocabulary and phraseology, absence of non-literary vocabulary and phraseology (slang words, vulgarisms, obscene words), peculiarities in word- building (standard suffixes and prefixes, mainly of Greek and Latin origin – tele-, morpho, philo- -ism, etc.), peculiarities in the scarce use of imagery (usually trite and hackneyed, the priority of the functions of intensification and decoration, non-systematic, narrow contextual character, absence of rich associations, schematic and generalized character);
• 
  grammatical means: nominal character (the predominance of nouns over verbs) in the use of parts of speech, the use of prepositional “of-phrases” to substitute the genitive case, transposition of the classes of nouns, wide use of the Passive Voice, Indefinite Tenses, specialization of pronouns in demonstrative and intensification functions, numerous conjunctions revealing the logical order of the text as well as double conjunctions (not merely... but also, whether... or both... and, as...as), adverbs of logical connectuin;
• 
  syntactical means: priority of full, logically correct, regular syntactical models, the syntax of simple sentence in the scientific speech - extensive use of extended two-member sentence, priority in the use of compound sentences, extensive use of secondary predicative constructions (Complex Object, Participial and Gerundial Constructions), wide use of conjunctions and denominative prepositions, concise expression of syntactical connection in word combinations, sentences, groups of sentences, absolute priority of declarative sentences in the use of communicative types of sentences;
• 
  composition of scientific text as an explication of the stages of cognition and productive thinking, the usual model is presented by the following scheme - a problem situation, idea, hypothesis, proof, conclusion, compositional speech forms of discussion, argumentation and description, conclusion, types of narration, wide-spread co-referential repetition as a specific method of text development.

8. STYLISTIC DEVICES WHICH GIVE ADDITIONAL CHARACTERISTICS TO THE OBJECTS DESCRIBED

Simile

The simile is a stylistic device expressing a likeness between different objects.

The formal element of the simile is the following conjunctions and adverbs: like, as, as like, etc.

The simile is based on the comparison of objects belonging to different spheres and involves an element of imagination.

Simile interprets the object by comparing it with some other objects of an entirely different nature, and produces the desired effect on the reader.

The simile usually serves as a means to clearer meaning. By comparing the object or phenomenon the writer describes with a concrete and familiar thing, he makes his description clearer and more picturesque.

Besides making a narrative more concrete and definite, the simile helps the author to reveal certain feelings of his own as well.

Besides the original similes created by writers there are a great number of so-called traditional similes in the language which must be regarded as phraseological units.

In the author‘s narrative traditional similes are most often used to stress the highest degree of quality.

e.g. “Funny how ideas come,” he said afterwards, “like a flash of lightning.”

Periphrasis is a word-combination which is used instead of the word designating an object.

Every periphrasis indicates the feature of a notion which impressed the writer and conveys a purely individual perception of a given phenomenon.

As a result of frequent repetition periphrasis may become well established in the language as a synonymous expression for the word generally used to signify the object. Such word-combinations are called periphrastic synonyms.

In contrast to periphrastic synonyms genuine periphrasis is created in the process of writing and is an element of the individual style of a writer.

Periphrasis may be logical and figurative. Logical periphrases are based on logical notions. Figurative periphrasis may be based on metaphor and on metonymy.

Euphemistic periphrasis is a variety of periphrasis which substitutes a mild, delicate expression for one which seems to be rude or unpleasant. Euphemistic periphrasis has some features in common with euphemisms.

Periphrasis is used for various stylistic purposes, usually to achieve a humorous or satirical effect.

e.g. He bore under his arm the instruments of destruction.

9. 9. Repetition (all cases).

Repetition aims at logical emphasis in order to fix the reader’s attention on the key-words of the utterance. There are: 1) Anaphora – when the repeated unit comes at the beginning. ▲ Your cheek, your gluttony, your obstinacy impose respect on me. 2) Epiphora – the repeated units is at the end of a sentence. ▲ To get into the best society one has either to feed people, amuse people. 3) Framing repetition – the initial word is repeated at the end of the unit. ▲ Please don’t tie me down, please. 4) Linking repetition – the last word of one part is repeated at the beginning of the following one. ▲ If you have nothing to say, say it. 5) Chain repetition – a group of linking repetition used in the same utterance. ▲ Now he understood. He understood many things. 6) Synonymic repetition – repetition of the same idea with the help of synonyms. 7) Pleonasm – the use of more words than are necessary. Usually the fault of style. 8) Tautology – repetition of the same statement. Usually in other words the fault of style.

Enumeration is a stylistic device by which separate things are named one by one. So that they produce a chain, the links of which, being syntactically in the same position, are forced to display some kinds of semantic homogeneity. It’s frequently used to depict the scenery through a tourist’s eyes. It units both homogeneous and heterogeneous objects. If the united objects are homogeneous, enumeration is not a stylistic device. Example of simple enumeration: ▲ Kings, emperors, conquerors, pontiffs and all the other idols are swept away sooner or later.

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