Stylistic functions of conversational (low-flown) words

Here we refer colloquial words, general slang words (interjargon), special slang words (social and professional jargons), dialectal words and vulgarisms. Some linguists differentiate slang and jargon, but the difference is vague and is practically irrelevant for stylistics.

Generally, colloquial words according to their usage may be divided into three big groups:

1) literary colloquial,

2) familiar colloquial:

3) low colloquial.

According to the relations between their form and meaning, all colloquial words may be divided into three subgroups:

1) words which are based on the change of their phonetic or morphological form without changing their lexical and stylistic meaning:

2) words which are the result of the change of both their form and lexico-stylistic meaning;

3) words which resulted from the change of their lexical and/or lexico-stylistic meaning without changing their form.

The first subgroup comprises such varieties of word-form change as:

a) clipping (shortening): serge - sergeant, caff - cafeteria;

b) contamination of a word combination: leggo - let's go, kinda - kind of, c'mon - come on; [gimme, dunno, gonna, wanna]

c) contamination of grammatical forms: I'd go, there's, we're going.

These words have no lexico-stylistic paradigms. They possess denotative meaning only.

Within the second group of colloquialisms, we may distinguish two varieties of the word-form change leading to the alteration of its lexico-stylistic meaning:

a) the change of the grammatical form which brings the change of the lexico-stylistic meaning: heaps - very many, a handful — a person causing a lot of trouble;

b) the change of the word-building pattern which causes the emergence of another lexico-stylistic meaning through:

—affixation: oldie, tenner, clippie;

—compounding: backroom boy, dip-joint:

—conversion: to bag, teach-in;

—telescopy: swellegant, flush, fruice;

—shortening and affixation: Archie (Archibald);

—compounding and affixation: strap-hanger, arty-crafty,

All these words form a lexico-stylistic paradigm as they have synonyms among neutral and literary words and are characterised by various connotations while giving additional characteristics to the denotatum.

The third subgroup of colloquial words is the most numerous and comprises:

a) words with emotive-expressive meaning only: oh, bach, ah as well as word combinations having a special expressive function: never, Good (Great) heavens, God forbid;

b) words and word combinations having both connotative and denotative meaning where the former one prevails: terribly, you don't say so, did he really;

c) words in which denotative and connotative meanings interplay: bunny — a waitress, colt-team - young team;

d) words in which denotative meaning in certain contextual conditions gives rise to a new connotative meaning: affair - business, to have an affair- to be in love, beggar - poor person, lucky beggar- lucky person;

e) words denotative and connotative meanings of which are completely different from their former meanings: chanter (poetic) - a singer; chanter (col.) - a person who sells horses at the market.

Slang is composed of highly colloquial words whose expressiveness and novelty make them emphatic and emotive as compared to their neutral synonyms.

We can distinguish two varieties of slang: general slang (interjargon) and special slangs (social as well as professional jargons). Some of the former slangisms may enter the colloquial or even the neutral layer of the vocabulary (phone, flu, sky-scraper). Novelty is the most impressive feature of slang. As it disappears, they lose their expressiveness.

Vulgarisms are the words which are not generally used in public. However, they can be found in modern literature nowadays, though formerly they were tabooed or marked by the initial letters only.

Dialectal words ('ud - would, 'im - him, 'aseen - have seen, canna - cannot, dinna- don't, sportin - sporting) are used to intensify the emotive and expressive colouring of speech which is primarily determined by the peculiarities of social or geographical environment.

Conversational words of all kinds are widely used for stylistic purposes. There are four speech spheres in which they are mostly largely used: everyday speech, newspaper language, poetry, and fiction.

In newspaper language, colloquial words and word combinations, and sometimes general slang words, are used to give an expressive evaluation of facts and events. In modern poetry, words of all layers are most widely used. Lyrical poetry allows the usage of various non-poetic words to create the atmosphere of sincerity, confidence etc. Slang words in fiction (mostly in dialogues) add to the informality and emotiveness of the character's speech alongside with indicating social and speech peculiarities of the personages.

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