Stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary.

English Vocabulary as a System

Stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary.

The varieties of English

Standard English

Non-standard English

Levels of language

Registers

The vocabulary of the modern English language may be characterized as great in volume and comprehensive and heterogeneous in character, i.e. it contains a great number of words, embraces a great many branches of human activity and includes words from various sources.

Analyzing the vocabulary of English, we must remember that the language in actual use, the language of fiction as well as the language of science, art and technology differs greatly from that of dictionaries both in quantity and in quality. It is also noteworthy that the word-stock of the greatest English writers throughout the ages is fundamentally the same, which proves that there is a certain stable layer of words, which changes very slow, if it changes at all, and comprises the basis for the further growth of the vocabulary. We call them basic stock or general vocabulary.

These are frequently used words, indispensable in the most ordinary intercourse among people and have been such for a long period of time, they form the core of the vocabulary. For example: names of things and phenomena of the surrounding nature (sun, moon, water, fire, earth, snow, rain), names of human beings and of dwelling places, parts of human body (man, woman, mother, father, house, head, hand), names of the main spectral colours and of the processes of life activity (red, green, young, go, come, drive, live, make, etc.)/ structural elements of the language {in, on, to, and, but).

Most of the words of these divisions are old native words. These words are known to all English speaking people. Basic stock words can be recognized not only by their stylistic neutrality but also by lack of connotations. Their meanings are general and directly convey the notion. However, it is hard to establish the borderline between the basic stock of words and the rest of the vocabulary. Such borderlines are flexible as are the exact limits of a language's vocabulary.

Stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary.

The English vocabulary can be traditionally subdivided into two large stylistically marked layers: literary words and expressions and conversational words and expressions (the words of the basic stock being stylistically neutral). Each of these large layers is, in its turn, further subdivided into lexical groups (scholars have different opinions on some items of classification). All of them, when used, serve as a source of additional information about the speaker.

All the words in English classified as literary can be divided into general literary words and special literary words. Among the general literary words we find many high-flown or learned words. General literary words can be used in all functional styles of speech of its written type, they are common to all fields of knowledge. To this vocabulary stratum also belong archaic and obsolete words, and professional terminology.

Archaisms very closely verge on the ?learned? category. These are words that were common but have been ousted from the language by their modern synonyms and are no longer used in neutral or colloquial intercourse. They remain in the language: they are used in poetry and in official documents, e.g. thou, hereby, damsel, errant, behold, woe, etc. Among archaisms a certain groups of words is sometimes called obsolete words. They are words which have gone out of use and are no longer understood by the present generation: v/hilom (formerly), wight (fellow), anon (at once), etc. When the thing is no longer used, its name becomes an historism. Historisms are words denoting objects of material culture and phenomena of the past, e.g. the names of ancient transport means (brougham, berlin, hansom, phaeton), types of weapons (a crossbow, a blunderbuss).

A term is a word or a phrase with a fixed meaning, denoting a thing or a process in some branch of science, production or in some other field of human activity, and having acquired certain linguistic characteristics, i.e. it should be monosemantic, have only a denotational meaning, possess no synonyms, e.g. appendix (med.) - a small narrow tube attached to the large intestine. In medical sphere it is monosemantic.

Conversational words and expressions may be colloquialisms, slang, dialectisms, vulgarisms, jargonisms. There are three groups of colloquial words: literary, familiar and low colloquial words. Literary colloquial words are used by educated people in everyday intercourse. The sphere of communication of literary colloquial words also includes printed page: they are used by English and American writers of the XX century. Familiar colloquial is more emotional, free and careless; it is characterized by a great number of ironical or jocular expressions. Low colloquial is a term used for illiterate popular speech, it contains vulgar words and elements of dialect. The basis of distinction between low colloquial and the two other types of colloquial is social.

Dialectal words reflect the geographical background of the speaker. Differences in language use depend on an individual's social and geographical background, dialects refer to the language variety based on the user. By the way a person speaks, we may be able to learn a lot about that person's background.

Dialect is a language variety peculiar to one region of the country in which the language is spoken. A dialect is traditionally opposed to Standard English. The English language has several important dialectal subdivisions:

Nor_______________________ them

Dialectal words are constantly being incorporated into colloquial and standard English.

The term ?slang? is often used to denote a variety of vocabulary strata that consists either of newly coined words and phrases or of current words employed in special meaning, e.g. school slang, sport slang, newspaper slang, etc. Most of the words that are labelled 'slang' are conversational words of a highly colloquial substandard character whose expressiveness, novelty and certain coarseness make them emphatic and emotive as compared with their neutral synonyms. Some of slang words and phrases have become common in Modern English, e.g. mate, chap, to go in for, to back, it's up to you, chatter-box and many others.

Neologisms belong to both literary and conversational groups. Neologisms are newly coined words, or words that have acquired a new meaning because of social, economic, political or cultural changes in human society. Neologisms belong to both literary and conversational layers, e.g. literary: de-ice, pre?plan, nominee; conversational: telephonee, bloomers, yuppie. New notions constantly come into being, requiring new words to name them. The intense development of science, industry, means of communication has called forth the invention of new words and phrases, e.g. PC, hardware, pile up, headhunting, in- city, Moonscape, pro-choice, electronic virus, micro-surgical, mother sucker, google, teentailer, Bush lip, suicide bomber, weapons of mass destruction, 9-11, facial profiling, etc.

We can learn a great deal about people by the way they use language; we can determine where they come from, what their social and educational background is and often what their age is. No language is spoken exactly the same by all speakers at all times. English is no exception. ?In each of the major parts of the world in which English is used, standards exist and further standards are likely to become recognized. Such standards are determined by a particular nation, in terms of that nation, structure and in terms of the purposes for which English is used in it.? (R. Quirk. The Use of English. London, 1967, p.16.) That, however, does not exclude the existence of Standard English as a generally accepted norm. The stylistic differentiation of the vocabulary is not fixed forever, and is historically changeable.

Standard English

Languages are composed of different varieties and dialects. Within all languages there are standard forms and nonstandard forms. Standard forms are those acceptable by most people as being the educated form, the form used in the media and the form taught in schools. The same is true for dialects; every dialect has a standard and a nonstandard variety. A dialect is not in and of itself standard or nonstandard. Standard and nonstandard are value judgments imposed by people on the language variety spoken by a prestige group.

As many scholars have pointed out Standard English is itself a dialect, albeit a prestigious one. It has a prescribed norm, or standard use, that receives the highest respect within that society. This respect is based on grammatical usage and on pronunciation (in British English, for example, the most respected pronunciation is known as Received Pronunciation - RP), though Randolph Quirk argues that Standard English is about words and meanings, not accents.

Within Standard English three levels are generally recognized: they are called formal English, informal English and colloquial English.

Formal English is the English, more often written than spoken, used by highly educated people in formal situations. Grammar and usage are generally conservative. A wide and exact vocabulary is an important characteristic of formal English.

Informal English is the English most commonly written or spoken by educated people. In vocabulary and sentence style informal English is less elaborate than formal English.

Colloquial English is defined as ?used in or characteristic of familiar and informal conversation? (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary).

Standard variety users are considered models of good speech. Speech that deviates from these admired norms risks being viewed as nonstandard.

Most teachers (and their students) believe that only one form for all situations (including speaking and writing) can possibly be correct that is, standard which is a complex set of variables, involving not only the selection of a form suited to print or speech but also the choice of a language type which best fits the writer-speaker, audience, message, type, situation, setting, and numerous other factors.

For example, in Standard English sentences should not end in prepositions. We are supposed to say ?You don't know about what you're talking.? However, in real life, very few people would actually say or write that. Instead you would find ? You don't know what you're talking about.? Or: we are not supposed to say: ?That's the boy I went to school with.? Rather, we are supposed to say:?That's the boy with whom I went to school.?

The difference between standard and nonstandard, it should be noted, has nothing to do with differences between formal and colloquial language. Standard English has colloquial as well as formal variants.

Standard English is that variety of English which is usually used in print which is normally taught in schools and to non-native speakers learning the language. It is also the variety, which is normally spoken by educated people and used in news broadcast and other similar situations. The age of television takes the idea of Standard English for granted, e.g. the news is read in a way that would be intelligible to any English speaker in the world.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 3172