Language of the drama

The stylization of colloquial language is one of the features of plays which at different stages in the history of English drama has manifested itself in different ways revealing, on the one hand, the general trends of the literary language and, on the other, the personal idiosyncrasies of the writer. Thus the language of plays is a stylized type of the spoken variety of language. The analysis of the language texture of plays has shown that the most characteristic feature here is to use the term of the theory of information, redundancy of information caused by the necessity to amplify the utterance. This is done for the sake of the audience.

The language of plays is entirely dialogue. The author´s speech is almost entirely excluded except for the playwright´s remark and stage directions. The language of the characters is in no way the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language, although the playwright seeks to reproduce actual conversation as far as the norms of the written language will allow. This variety of belles-lettres style has used the norms of the literary language of the given period. So 16th century drama is much different from 20th century drama.

16. Stylistics(Literary) is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own. The preferred object of stylistic studies is literature, but not exclusively "high literature" but also other forms of written texts such as text from the domains of advertising, pop culture, politics or religion. Stylistics also attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language, such as socialisation, the production and reception of meaning, critical discourse analysis and literary criticism. Stylistics - branch of general linguistics. It has mainly with two tasks: St-s – is regarded as a lang-ge science which deals with the results of the act of communication. There are 2 basic objects of st-s: - stylistic devices and figures of speech; - functional styles. Branches of st-s: - Lexical st-s – studies functions of direct and figurative meanings, also the way contextual meaning of a word is realized in the text. L.S. deals with various types of connotations – expressive, evaluative, emotive; neologisms, dialectal words and their behavior in the text. - Grammatical st-s – is subdivided into morphological and syntactical. Morph-l s. views stylistic potential of gram-l categories of dif-t parts of speech. Potential of the number, pronouns…- Syntactical s. studies syntactic, expressive means, word order and word combinations, dif-t types of sentences and types of syntactic connections. Also deals with origin of the text, its division on the paragraphs, dialogs, direct and indirect speech, the connection of the sentences, types of sentences. - Phonostylistics – phonetical organization of prose and poetic texts. Here are included rhythm, rhythmical structure, rhyme, alliteration, assonance and correlation of the sound form and meaning. Also studies deviation in normative pronunciation. - Functional S (s. of decoding) – deals with all subdivisions of the language and its possible use (newspaper, colloquial style). Its object - correlation of the message and communicative situation.

17.. GRAPHIC IMAGINERY. They include the use of punctuation, graphical arrangement of phrases, violation of type and spelling. Marks of punctuation: hyphen, dash, comma, period (full-stop), colon, semicolon, exclamation, interrogation, series of dots. They are used not only for the division of speech into its logical parts, but also for emphatic purposes which suggest a definite semantic interpretation of the utterance. ▲ Казнить, нельзя, помиловать. Another group of graphical means is based on the violation of type: italics, bold type, capitalization. Not only words but separate syllables, morphemes may be emphasized by italics (курсив). Spaced type is also included into this group of graphical means though it is not so frequent as italics

18. Proverbs are short, well-known, supposedly wise sayings usu. in simple language.

Proverbs are brief statements showing in a condensed form the accumulated people’s wisdom and life experience of the community and serving as conventional practical symbols for abstract ideas.

Their typical features are: rhythm, rhyme and/or alliteration, brevity (which manifests itself also in the omission of articles and connectives), the use of contrasts, synonyms, antonyms, etc.

Proverbs are usually didactic and involve imagery. E.g. Out of sight, out of mind.

Proverbs should not be confused with maxims, i.e. with non-metaphorical precepts. E.g. Better late than never; You never know what you can do till you try. They are not allegorical; there is nothing figurative in them, they are understood literally, word for word.

The usage of proverbs is marked by their possible modifications, which result in a particular effect: the modified form of the proverb is perceived against the background of the fixed form, thus enlivening it, and giving it a new vigour.

In other words, a modified proverb presupposes a simultaneous application of two meanings: the face-value or primary meaning, and an extended meaning drawn from the context. E.g. Come, he said, milk is spilt (it’s no use crying over spilt milk).

Phraseological unit / set expression / idiom – a complex word-equivalent in which the globality of nomination reigns supreme over the formal separability of elements. It is reproduced in speech. – See Idiom proper

Typology of ph.us. (according to the degree of motivation):

• - unities, phraseological (q.v.);
• - combinations, phraseological (q.v.);
• - fusions, phraseological (q.v.).

20. 20.CLIMAX,ANTICLIMAX,SUSPENSEClimax (gradation) is a stylistic device representing a gradual increase in significance, importance or emotional tension in the utterance. Logical climax – is based on the relative importance of the component parts looked at from the point of view of the concepts embodied in them. ▲ You’re a pig and a beast and a Bolshevik. Logical climax here implies political view of the character. Emotional climax is based on the relative emotional tension produced by words with emotive meaning. Quantitative climax is an evident increase in the volume of the corresponding concepts or simple numerical increase. Anticlimax: is a sudden drop from the different or important in thought or expression to the commonplace or trivial, sometimes for humorous effect. Anticlimax is represented by an unexpected turn of the thought which ends in complete semantic reversal of the emphasized idea. It results in defeated expectancy of the reader. Suspense is a compositional stylistic device which consists in arranging the matter of communication in such a way that the less important, descriptive, subordinate parts are amassed at the beginning, and the main idea is withheld till the end of the sentence. ▲ Swinging his cane (which he found to short) in his left hand (which he should have cut off long ago since it was constantly offending him), he began walking slowly down the avenue. Suspense aim at helping the reader in uncertainty and expectation, at creating constant emotional tension.

21. Publicistic style. ( oratory, speeches, essays, articles) the style is a perfect ex. Of historical changeability of stylistic differentiation of discourses. In Greece it was practiced in oral form which was named P. in accordance with the name of its corresponding genre. PS is famous for its explicit pragmatic function of persuasion directed at influencing the reader & shaping his views in accordance with the argumentation of the author. We find in PS a blend of the rigorous logical reasoning, reflecting the objective state of things & a strong subjectivity reflecting the authors personal feelings and emotions towards the discussed subject. Substyles: The oratory essays, journalistic articles, radio and TV commentary. Oratory. It makes use of a great hummber of expressive means to arouse and keep the public's interest: repetition, gradation, antithesis, rhetorical questions, emotive words, elements of colloquial speech. Radio and TV commentary is less impersonal and more expressive and emotional. The essay is very subjective and the most colloquial of the all substyles of the publicistic style. It makes use of expressive means and tropes. The journalistic articles are impersonal.

22. Graphic level Graphical expressive means include the use of punctuation, graphical arrangement of phrases, violation of type and spelling. Graphon: the intentional violation of the generally accepted spelling used to reflect peculiarities of pronunciation or emotional state of the speaker. Types of graphon: multiplication, hyphenation, capitalization, apostrophe. Functions: - to give the reader an idea about smth (level of education, emotional state, origin). – to attract attention. – to make smb memorize it. – to show smth, explain. Graphical means are popular with advertisers. They individualize speech of the character or advertising slogan. ▲ A better stain getter. ▲ How do you spell relief? R-O-L-I-P-S – to make reader / listener to remember it.

25 Polysemy is inherent in the very nature of words, since they always contain a generalization of several traits of the object they denote. The greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the number of elements that constitute its semantic structure is. These elements are called the lexico-semantical variants of the words, which are inter-related due to some common semantic component and form a unity.

Thus we may speak of the word’s semantic structure which is an organized whole composed by denotative meanings that a particular word possesses.

The lexical meaning of a word in speech is contextual and rigidly definite, therefore polysemy, as a rule does not interfere with the communicative function of a language, because in every particular case the situation of context cancels all the meanings, which are unnecessary or irrelevant in the given act of communication and make speech unambiguous.

If a polysemantic word is not intended to produce a particular stylistic effect it generally actualizes only one concrete lexical meaning, but when a word begins to manifest an interplay between the primary and derivative meanings a stylistic device of polysemantic effect materializes itself.

26 Rhetorical QUESTION Every syntactical structure has a definite function, which is also called its structural meaning. Sometimes syntactical structures are used in meanings which differ from their usual ones. In this case a structure assumes a new meaning which is very much alike a lexical transferred meaning. Rhetorical question may be defined as an utterance in the form of a the question which pronounces judgments and also expresses different kinds of modal shades of meaning (irony, doubt). ▲ And yet, where was the Jane Eyre yesterday? Where was her life? Where were her prospects?

Transposition i s a divergence between the traditional us-age of a neutral word and its situational (stylistic) usage. Words of every part of speech are united by their semantic and gram-matical properties. General lexico-grammatical meaning of nouns is substan-tivity, i. e. the ability to denote objects or abstract notions. Due to the diverse nature of substantivity, nouns are divided into proper, common, concrete, ab-stract, material and collective. Cases of transposition emerge, in particular, when concrete nouns are used according to the rules of proper nouns usage, or vice versa. It results in creation of stylistic devises named antonomasia or personification. For example: The Pacific Ocean has a cruel soul or John will never be a Shakespeare. Besides general lexico-grammatical meaning, nouns possess grammati-cal meanings of the category of number and the category of case. These meanings may also be used for stylistic objectives. According to the category of number, nouns are classified into countable and uncountable. Each group has its own regularities of usage. When these regularities are broken for stylistic reasons, speech becomes expressive. Uncountable singularia tantum nouns, or countable nouns in the singular, occasionally realizing the meaning of more than oneness, evoke picturesque connotations: to hunt tiger = to hunt tigers; to keep chick = to keep chicks. Normally, the genitive case form is a form of animate nouns. When inanimate nouns are used in this form, their initial meaning ofinanimateness is transposed. In such cases they render the meanings of time or distance (mile's walk, hour's time), part of a whole (book's page, table's leg), or qualitative characteris-tics (plan's failure, winter's snowdrifts, music's voice). Stylistic potential of nouns is significantly reinforced by transpositions in the usage of articles as noun-determiners. Such transpositions occur against generally accepted normative postulates which run: articles are not used with names of persons and animals, some classes of geographical names, abstract nouns and names of material. Uncommon usage of articles aims at importing specific shades of meaning into speech. Thus, the indefinite article combined with names of persons may denote one representative of a family (Mary will never be a Brown), a person unknown to the communicants (Jack was robbed by a Smith), a temporary feature of character (That day Jane was different. It was a sillv Jane). Not less expressive are cases when the name of a person is used as a common noun preceded by the indefinite article: Mike has the makings of a Bvron. Stylistic usage of the definite article takes place when names of persons are modified by limiting attributes (You are not the John whom 1 married), when a proper name denotes the whole family (The Browns are good people), or when a name of a person is mod-ified by a descriptive attribute denoting a permanent feature of character (I entered the room. There she was - the clever Polly}. Suchlike deviations in the usage of articles are possible with other semantic classes of nouns: geo-graphical names, abstract and material nouns. General lexico-grammatical meaning of adjectives is that of qualitative-ness. Qualitative adjectives are always estimative, that is why they are used as epithets (picturesque' view. idiotic shoe-laces, crazy bicycle, tremen-dous achievements) and can form degrees of comparison. Relative adjec-tives normally do not form degrees of comparison and serve as logical (non-stylistic) attributes (red colour, Italian car, dead man). However, they may be occasionally transposed into qualitative. Such transposition imports origi-nality and freshness in speech: This is the reddest colour I've ever seen in my life; "Ferrari" is the most Italian car which you can meet in this remote comer of the world; Carry was the deadest men ever present in that ambitious society. Expressiveness of adjectives may be as well en-hanced by non-grammatical transpositions in the formation of the degrees of comparison, when well-known rules of their formation are intentionally vio-lated: My bride was becoming beautifuller and beautifuller: You are the bestest friend I've ever met.Expressive devices may be created by transposition of pronouns. When objective forms of personal pronouns are used predicatively instead of nom-inative forms, sentences obtain colloquial marking (It is him: It is her: It is me: It is them: It is us,). The meaning of the pronoun I may be contextually rendered by the pronouns we, you, one, he, she and others. The so-called "scientific we" is used in scientific prose instead of / for modesty reasons. The same replacement in a routine conversation creates a humoristic effect (a tipsy man coming home after a workday and addressing his wife cheerful-ly, about himself: Meet us dear! We have come!). When the pronoun you is replaced by the pronoun one, the statement becomes generalized, its infor-mation being projected not only to the listeners, but to the speaker himself: One should understand, that smoking is really harmful! When / is substi-tuted by he, she, or nouns (the guy, the chap, the fellow, the fool, the girl, etc), the speaker either tries to analyse his own actions with the eyes of a stranger, externally, or he is ironical about himself. Stylistic effects may also be achieved by the usage of archaic pronouns: the personal pronoun thou (2 person singular) and its objective form three, the possessive pronoun thy and its absolute form thine, the reflexive pronoun thyself. These obsolete pro-nouns create the atmosphere of solemnity and elevation, or bring us back to ancient times. Transposition of verbs is even more varied than that of nouns. It is ex-plained by a greater number of grammatical categories the meanings of which may be transposed. Most expressive are tense forms, mood forms and voice forms. One of peculiar features of English tense forms is their polysemantism. The same form may realize various meanings in speech. Deviation from the general (most frequently realized) meaning makes verbs stylistically coloured. Commonly, the present continuous tense denotes an action which takes place at the moment of speaking. But it may also denote a habitual action (John is constantly grumbling), an action which occupies a long period of time (Sam is wooing Mary now), and an action of the near future (Pete is starting a new life tomorrow). In such cases the present continuous tense becomes synonymous with the present or future indefinite. But there is a difference. While the sentence "John constantly grumbles" is a mere statement, the sentence "John is constantly grumbling" introduces the negative connota-tions of irritation, condemnation, regret, sadness and others. There is a rule that verbs of sense perception and mental activity are not used in the continuous tense forms. This rule is often broken by the speaker intentionally or subconsciously. In both cases verbal forms convey additional stylistic meanings of subjective modality (I am seeing you = lam not blind; I am understanding you = You need not go into further details; I am feeling your touch = So tender you are, etc.). One of peculiar verbal transpositions is the change of temporary planes of narration when events of the past or future are described by present tense forms. Such transposition brightens the narration, raises its emotional tension, expresses intrigue, makes the continuity of events visual and graphic: It was yesterday and looked this way. The perpetrator comes to his victim, takes a long dagger out of his inner pocket and stabs the poor man right into his belly without saying a word. The man falls down like a sack, a foun-tain of blood spurting from the wound. Transposition is not the only way to make verbs expressive. A good many verbal forms are expressive in themselves. The imperative mood forms are not just commands, invitations, requests or prohibitions. They are a perfect means of rendering an abundance of human emotions. The sentence Just come to me now may contextually imply love or hate, threat or warning, promise or desire. A wide range of subjunctive mood forms offers a good stylistic choice of synonymous ways to verbalize one and the same idea. Compare the following synonymous pairs of sentences: It is time for me to go = It is time that I went; It is necessary for him to come = It is neces-sary that he come; We must go now not to be late = We must go now lest we be late; Let it be = So be it. The first sentence of each pair is stylistically neutral while the second sentence is either bookish or obsolescent. In many contexts passive verbal forms are more expressive than their active counterparts. Compare: A round table occupied the centre of the room = The centre of the room was occupied by a round table; They answered him zothing = He was answered nothing; They forgave him his rudeness = Ie was forgiven his rudeness.

28.

In this respect, Stylistics differs from other linguistic disciplines in several aspects. Firstly, it deals with the units of all language levels. Secondly, it investigates these units from the functional point of view. Thus, Stylistics studies connotational specificity of the elements of the language system, separate language subsystems (the so-called "functional styles of the language") and the language system as a whole.

The subject of Stylistics is the means of actualization of the main (communicative and cognitive) and additional language functions, that ensure the effectiveness of the speech activity of the speaker. The aim of communication is to transmit the necessary information.

The communicative act, though, is called to life by yet another aim -to meet the need of the speaker to achieve the desired pragmatic effect. To achieve this effect, the speaker resorts to a conscious choice of the appropriate language means: not only certain stylistic ones but also all graphic, phonetic, lexical, grammatical and syntactic means of the language.

According to I.V. Arnold, "stylistics is a branch of linguistics, which studies the principles and results of the choice and usage of lexical, grammatical, phonetic and other language means with the aim of transmitting of ideas and emotions in different communication settings".

29. Newspaper Style

Brief items: its function is to inform the reader. It states only facts without giving comments. The vocabulary used is neutral and common literary. Specific features are: a) special political and economic terms; b) non-term political vocabulary; c) newspaper clichés; d) abbreviations; e) neologisms.

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

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