Srtylistic classification of the English vocabulary

This man can beat up any other fighter, for he has very strong fists.

The individual in question is capable of destroying any adversary since his limbs are of wondrous power.

In fact, language units even if redundant denotationally are never redundant with regard to their stylistic connotation.

Stylistics is interested not merely in what sublanguage a linguistic unit belongs to, but in its general aesthetic value. Stylistics is expected to give recommendations as to the use of words: whether a word suits the sphere of speech, or whether it is either too high-flown (and would be out of place in the text) or too coarse, too low to be used at all. Compare the following sentences in terms of the language used in them.

3.This here feller will give any other fighting chap a thrashing: got mighty strong fists.

4.This guy can damn well give you a kick: he’s nifty with his mitts.

Scholars suggest different (more or less detailed) classifications of the English vocabulary. Let us consider and compare some of them.

I.R. Galperin divides all English word-stock into three layers: 1) literary, 2) neutral, and 3) colloquial. These layers respectively fall into a number of subgroups (see Fig. 4 below).

Neutral and common literary and common colloquial words form the standard vocabulary of English.

As V.A. Kukharenko states, 'words with a pronounced stylistic connotation are few in any type of discourse, the overwhelming majority of its Lexis being neutral'. Neutral words make the major bulk of any type of text (either oral or written). Neutral vocabulary possesses no stylistic connotation and can be used in any communicative situation.

Stylistically marked vocabulary is contextually and communicatively bound. It requires a thorough consideration of the type of discourse to be used in. Both literary and colloquial strata are further divided by V.A.Kukharenko into general and special bulks, the first being used by most native speakers of the language and the second serving a narrow (or specified) areas of communication.

To special literary words, V.A.Kuharenko refers two large subgroups of terms and archaisms (historical words). Special colloquial words split into slang, jargonisms, vulgarisms, and dialectal words.

Scholars from Kyiv school of stylistics adhere to N.D. Arutyunova's ideas of word semantics. They base their stylistic classification on two criteria - paradigmatic and syntagmatic dividing all English vocabulary into 1) words having a lexico-stylistic paradigm and 2) those having no lexico-stylistic paradigm.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11