D. Low-flown vocabulary

SEMINAR 4

STYLISTIC LEXICOLOGY

POINTS FOR DISCUSSION:

1. What is the object of stylistic lexicology?

2. What are the grounds for stylistic differentiation of the English word-stock?

3. Comment upon the main principles (patterns) of classification of lexical stylistic means?

4. Discuss the types of lexical meaning.

5. What types of connotative meaning do you know? Dwell on each of them providing your own examples.

6. What is the difference between colloquial and slang words?

7. State the difference between barbarisms, foreign words, and exotic words.

PRACTICAL ASSIGNMENT

Task 1. Point out stylistic differences within the groups of synonyms.

1) face – visage – mug – deadpan

2) nose – snout – beak – nasal cavity

3) I think – I gather – I presume – I take it – I guess – me thinks

4) boy – youth – lad – young male person – youngster – teenager

5) lass – girl – maiden – wench – young female person

6) nonsense – absurdity – rot – trash

7) Silence, please! – Stop talking! – Shut your trap!

8) friend – comrade – pal – buddy – acquaintance

9) Hurry up! – Move on! – Hasten your step!

Task 2. Determine the functions performed by the words belonging to different lexical strata.

A. Colloquialisms

1. With all your bitching you’ve never finished a tour of duty even once. (J. Heller)

2. I was feeling about as cheerio as was possible under the circs when a muffled voice hailed me from the north-east… (P.G. Wodehouse)

3. Brenner had two more plays on Broadway in later years, both disastrous flops. One of them was produced by Craig. (I. Show)

4. I had a little operation on my dome and the doc left a couple of fox-holes in my skull to remember him by. (I. Show)

5. "You think we’ll run into that shark?" – "Nope." (R. Benchley)

B. Slang

1. "Now, listen", he said, "I ain’t the kind of joker going to give you hard time running around after another chicks and shit like tha." (J. Baldwin)

2. She really didn’t have any idea who this nut could be, or what he was after. (J. Baldwin)

3. "Swell", Brody said. "That’s just what I wanted to hear." (R. Benchley)

4. Robert whispered savagely: "Beat it. Get out of here. I want to be alone", I said.

5. "If you don’t mind, Belinder", he said, "I’m going to try to nap a little. I am absolutely bushed." (I. Shaw)

C. Jargons

1. They put me in this little cell with about four or five other cats. (J. Baldwin)

2. – I try to write interviews in depth for magazines. You’re making face. Why?

– "In depth", he said.

– You are right, she said. Deadly jargon. You fall into it. It shall never pass my lips again. (I. Show)

3. – I think we’ve got a floater on our hands, Chief.

– A floater? What in Christ’s mane a floater?

It was a word Hendricks had picked up from his night reading, "A drowning", he said embarrassed. (R. Benchley)

D. Low-flown vocabulary

1. "I say, old boy, where do you hang out?" (sitcom)

2. "You know Brooklyn?" – "No, I was never there. But I had a buddy at Myer was from Brooklyn." (sitcom)

3. Businessmen and politicians: what’s the dif? (newspaper)

4. "There we were … in the hell of a country – pardon me – a country of raw metal.” (interview)

5. "All those medical bastards should go through the ops they put other people through" (headline in the newspaper)

Task 4. For a week or two, keep a list of slang terms you find in a daily newspaper or a weekly news magazine. Which terms strike you as appropriate and effective? Which as poor usage? Why? Here’s an example from The Times to get you started.

Thousands of U.S. companies have learned that if their products are second rate, customers will quickly turn to those that are first rate. Brand loyalty still has allure but no longer counts for everything in an increasingly crowded global marketplace, in which armies of manufacturers are jostling for the customer’s eye in U.S. products are being pushed off store shelves by rival goods from every part of the world.

Task 5. Make up a list of neutral words used in the text below. Which three words that have positive connotation are they opposed to? Comment on the Iceberg theory principles that can be traced in the text, mentioning what can be found on the surface and what is hidden (implications, the author’s attitude).

We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different ways of walking across the town. Two of the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts. It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very beautiful, and you entered a gate and walked across a courtyard and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting from the courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and interested in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that were to make so much difference.

(E. Hemingway)

Task 6. Read through the initial passages taken from the classical and modern versions of the fairy-tale "Cinderella". Make a list of notions that are repeated in the two texts, compare them commenting on their stylistic connotation.

Cinderella

(by R. Dahl)

I guess you think you know this story.

You don't. The real one's much more gory.

The phoney one, the one you know,

Was cooked up years and years ago,

And made to sound all soft and sappy

just to keep the children happy.

Mind you, they got the first bit right,

The bit where, in the dead of night,

The Ugly Sisters, jewels and all,

Departed for the Palace Ball,

While darling little Cinderella

Was locked up in a slimy cellar,

Where rats who wanted things to eat,

Began to nibble at her feet.

Cinderella

(classical tale)

THERE was, many years ago, a gentleman who had a charming lady for his wife. They had one daughter only, who was very dutiful to her parents. But while she was still very young, her mamma died, to the grief of her husband and daughter. After a time, the little girl's papa married another lady. Now this lady was proud and haughty, and had two grown-up daughters as disagreeable as herself; so the poor girl found everything at home changed for the worse. But she bore all her troubles with patience, not even complaining to her father, and, in spite of her hard toil, she grew more lovely in face and figure every year.

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