GENERAL NOTES OF FUNCTIONAL STYLES (FSS) AS A FIELD OF STYLISTIC INVESTIGATION

OUTLINE

Functional Styles

Literary FSs Classification

Varieties Of Language

Functional Styles

The types of texts that are distinguished by their pragmatic aspect of communication are called functional styles of language (FS)/ discourses/registers.

Being the second field of investigation, FSs touch upon the following linguistic issues: oral and written varieties of language, the notion of literary (standard) language, the constituents of texts larger than a sentence, the generative aspect of literary texts, etc.

A FS/discourse/register of a language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a different aim in communication. It is thus to be regarded as the product of a certain task set by the sender of a message (I. Galperin).

Func­tional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of a language. The literary standard of the English language is not homogeneous. It has fallen into several subsystems each of which has acquired its own peculiarities which are typical of the given functional style.

Functional styles are differentiated according to the function of communication. Every functional style has its own primary object to pursue: to convey some information, to affect the feeling and mentality of the audience, to create a poetic work. Different linguistic situations demand different means of their realization. Accordingly functional styles are roughly divided into literary and colloquial.

Literary FSs Classification

Among literary styles most scholars single out belle-lettres (poetry, emotive prose, drama), publicistic literature, scientific prose, official documents and newspaper functional styles.

The belle-lettres style has the following sub-styles: poetic style, style of emotive prose, drama style. Poetic substyle stands apart due to its poetic form. Formal stanza arrangement with a definite measure and rhyming pattern is its obvious differentiating feature. Besides, poetic style is characterized by its poetic diction, the wealth of imagery and syntactical expressiveness. Poetry is an original and unique method of communication that we use to express our thoughts, feelings and experiences.

The publicistic FS comprises the following sub-styles: the language style of oratory; the language style of essays; the language style of feature articles in newspapers and journals.

Scientific prose. The primary function of this style is informative. Its object is to report the results of a scientific research, to describe new concepts in various spheres of knowledge. The text is logical and coherent, unemotional and impartial. All means of emotional expressiveness are avoided. Syntactical structure of sentences is complete, terms are used for the chosen field of research. Here we have the following divisions: the language style of humanitarian, "exact" sciences and of popular scientific prose.

Official style is the style of official documents. It is so conservative that words, structures and formulas used for decades are still preserved in official documents. The text is formalized and regulated by strictly observed rules. There are the following substyles within it: the language style of diplomatic, business and military documents.

Newspaper style is found in newspapers. But newspaper articles are so diverse in character that not all of them come under “newspaper style”. Since newspapers are mass media their primary function is to inform the reader. The informative material includes newspaper headlines, brief news items, press reports, advertisements and announcements.

a) Newspaper headlines aim at attracting attention to certain events or facts. Since newspapers are usually looked through in a hurry headlines help to find items of interest. They can outline the event, evaluate it or treat it ironically. They can attract by picking out the most intriguing sentence or mystifying the reader by a hint. E.g. Sarkozy vs. Ryanair.

b) Brief news items inform the reader without any comment. The event is presented in a matter-of-fact unemotional way. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his girlfriend Carla Bruni are suing low-cost airline Ryanair over a picture of the couple it used in an advert.

c) Press reports include analytical material, editorials, articles and press reviews of known public figures and journalists. Since they seek to influence public opinion they abound in words and phrases of evaluative connotation.

d) Advertisements and announcements are not purely informative, their main aim is to attract the eye of the reader, get hold of the listener, to grip his/her attention, then to inform about the product in a convincing way.

The signs of difference between FSs are sometimes almost vague between poetry and emotive prose, between newspaper and publicistic FSs, a scientific article and an essay.

Varieties Of Language

The functioning of the literary language in various spheres of human activity and with different aims of communication has resulted in its differentiation. This differentiation is predetermined by two distinct factors, namely, the actual situation in which the language is being used and the aim of com­munication. The actual situation of communication has evolved two varieties of language - the spoken and the written. Of the two varieties, the spoken is primary and the written is secondary. Each of these two has developed its own features and qualities, which in many ways may be regarded as opposed to each other.

The situation with the spoken variety can be described as the presence of an interlocutor. The written variety on the contrary is characterized by the absence of an interlocutor. The spoken language is maintained in the form of a dialogue, the written - in the form of a monologue. The spoken language has the advantage over the written form in that the human voice comes into play. This is a powerful means of modulating the utterance, as are all kinds of gestures, which, together with the intonation give additional information.

The written language has to seek means to compensate for what it lacks. Therefore the written utterance will inevitably be more diffuse, more explanatory. In other words, it has to produce an enlarged representation of the communication in order to be explicit enough.

The gap between the spoken and written varieties of language, wider or narrower, at different periods in the development of the literary language, will always remain apparent due to the difference in circumstances in which the two are used. The spoken language by its very nature is spontaneous, momentary, fleeting. It vanishes after having fulfilled its purpose, which is to communicate a thought. The written language, on the contrary, lives together with the idea it expresses.

The spoken variety differs from the written language phonetically, morphologically, lexically and syntactically.

The characteristic features of the spoken language are:

-the use of contracted forms (he'd; she's; I'd; I've)

-the use of "don't" instead of "doesn't"

-violations of grammar (I've asked you done that?)

-the use of colloquial words as opposed to bookish words

-the use of colloquial phrases (How come?)

the use of intensifying words (I sure like; You're basically right)

-the insertion into the utterance of words without any meaning, which are called "fill-ups" or "empty words" (and all; well, er-r; m-m; you know; so to speak)

-the omission of part of the utterance easily supplied by the situation in which the communica­tion takes place (Tell you why; Care to hear my ideas about it? Ever go back to England?)

-the tendency to use the direct word-order in questions or omit auxiliary verbs

-the use of unfinished sentences

-the emotiveness of the spoken language.

The characteristic features of the written language are:

-the abundance of all kinds of conjunctions, adverbial phrases and other means which may serve as connectives (moreover, likewise, similarly, on the contrary, however, presently etc.)

-the use of complicated sentence-units;

-logical coherence of the idea expressed.

The most essential property of the written variety of language is coherence and logical unity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Theme 3.