Special literary vocabulary

The literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words: 1. common literary; 2. terms and learned words; 3. poetic words; 4. archaic words; 5. barbarisms and foreign words; 6. literary coinages including nonce-words.

Specific literary vocabulary: a) Terms are generally associated with a definite branch of science. They always come in clusters. Terms are characterized by a tendency to be monosemantic. A term has a stylistic function when it is used to create an atmosphere or to characterize a person. b) Poetic and highly literary words. Poetic words belong to a definite style of language and perform in it their direct function. Poetic language has special means of communication, i.e. rhythmical arrangement, some syntactical peculiarities and certain number of special words. Poetic words claim to be, as it were, of higher rank.

c) Archaic words The word stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. In every period in the development of a literary language one can find words which will show more or less apparent changes in their meaning or usage. 3 stages in the aging process of words: 1) the beginning of the aging process when the word becomes rarely used. Such words are called obsolescent; 2) archaic words -(obsolete) are those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by the English speaking community. 3) Archaic proper - words which are no longer recognized in modern English. There is another class of words which is erroneously classed as archaic, historic words. Words of this type never disappear from the language.

d) Barbarisms are words of foreign origin. They bear the appearance of a borrowing. The great majority of these borrowed words form part of the rank-and-file of the English vocabulary. Most of them have corresponding English synonyms, (chic) f.e. shik - stylish, bomond. They are given in the body of the dictionary. Barbarisms are words which have already become facts of the English language and are part-and-parcel (неотъемлемая часть) of the English word-stock, though they remain on the outskirts of the literary vocabulary. They are given in the body of the dictionary. Some foreign words fulfill a terminological function. They are called terminological borrowings: soviet, kolkhoz, perestroika; they do not have synonyms.

e) Literary Coinages (including Nonce-Words) The coining of the new words arises first of all with the need to designate new concepts. The first type of newly coined words designate newly born concepts and are called terminological coinages. The second type is used to seek expressive utterance. They are called stylistic coinages.

Blending of 2 words by curtailing the end of the first component or the beginning of the second component: music comedy, cinemactress, avigation, smog, galumph, chortle. Means of coining 1. most of the literary bookish coinages are built by means of affixation and word compounding. They can also be built by the means of conversion, derivation and change of meaning. New terms are imposed on old words. The new meaning may coexist with old one. New meaning may drive out the old meaning. f.e. orbit - orbital, land - lander. Another means of word-building is blending of 2 words into one by curtailing the end of the first component or the beginning of the 2nd. For example: music+comedy = musicocomedy, cinemactress, alligation

Nonce-word is another type of neologism. That is a word coined to suit one particular occasion.

Neologism is a new word or a new meaning for an established word concept. These words are created to designate (называть) some insignificant subjective idea or evaluation of a thing or phenomenon and generally become moribund (отмирающий).

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 13540