A course in practical stylistics. Discuss the text in class

Text 1

TEXTS FOR READING

PART II

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Summarize each paragraph from the text in one or two sentences.

WHAT IS THE ENGLISH WE USE?

Although in all linguistic description it is traditional to begin with the sounds, we shall have very little to say on the subject. In this book we are concerned with the choice and arrangement (or is it "dispo­sition"?) of word s-not with the more abstract rules of Syntax or variations in Morphology, and certainly not with the different kinds of sounds different native speakers of English naturally produce.

As far as grammar is concerned, the rules are few and easily accessible: the grammar of even the most difficult language can be fully mastered in no more than six months, according to Henry Sweet, whereas it takes a lifetime to become proficient in the choice and arrangement of words.

For pronunciation-we could do no better than refer the reader to Dr. R. A. Close: RP (Received Pronuncia­tion) is the pronunciation we use and teach because "... it has become, and is being, adopted by an in­creasingly large number of people for whom English is a mother tongue and even for whom it is a second language; because RP is so widely useful, and because it has been so thoroughly described and standardised, it is a very suitable dialect to choose for the purpose of teaching the language".

If we were now to return to Sweet's original il­lustration of the problem, we could easily assume that all we need is doing away with "translationese"-in spite of the fact that for years people had been led to believe that "formal" translation was the only possible approach to foreign language acquisition. As a result "translationese"-"... a banal and artificial form of lan­guage", which "... fails utterly to do justice to the rich resources of the receptor language" ^I3 had come into being. To combat the tendency, the translators had to be taught the "dynamic" approach. Unless one learns to translate "dynamically", one fails to do justice to the rich resources of the receptor language. In this manual we are not concerned with fiction or imaginative writing; our practical problem is scien­tific English in the broadest sense of the word that is, the English we use when we lecture, write books and articles, take part in international conferences, etc. In all those activities we use English cross-culturally: speaking English (instead of using our own language) is something unnatural, something that requires a spe­cial effort, it is an exercise in meaning equivalence across cultures. When we conceive an idea, we must either divest it of its natural Russian "garb" (if we think that thoughts are never "in the nude"), or learn to select the proper English "covering" at once, on the spur of the moment, when our thought is still in statu nascendi. But what exactly is the "garb" the educated foreign anglicist will be expected to choose for his thoughts? How does he know the difference between the right and the wrong one? Who or what is he supposed to watch and follow?

The literature on the subject of English for foreign students is very extensive. Among other things very much has already been said about the shortcomings of the conventional arts-based English course in so far as the overseas science student is concerned, also about the necessity for philologists and teachers of En­glish to learn new attitudes, to be able to "cater for restricted areas of advanced research". Many of these pronouncements are very important, although some of them¹, which are critical of the existing textbooks, go too far when they imply that it would be much better if adult scientists learned their English not from the "abominable textbooks", but from Swift, or Austen, or Faraday's History of a Candle. The History of a Candle may be good reading for scientists, but, as we shall show further on, classics and classical literature are hardly the proper texts for them to choose.

Of the categories discussed above only the abstract concept of "general English" has not so far been called in question. But it is much too abstract to serve as a guide; besides it probably comprises a variety of dif­ferent registers. It follows that the kind of English we are setting out to discover, describe, and deliberately teach to the foreign anglicist as his variety of En­glish, (that is, the kind of English for him to use when he speaks, gives lectures, takes examinations, talks to foreign specialists about his research, etc.), is neither the elusive "general English", nor is it the "restricted English" of the natural scientist, for this cannot be "institutionalized", described and taught.

What is it then? This is the question we shall seek to answer below by scrutinizing the more likely of the existing registers. We shall also try to include "posit­ive" material: books on English too often adduce "bad" or unacceptable modes of expression in order to con­demn them and thus warn the learner against them. Al­though one cannot prescribe convincingly without a certain amount of underlying criticism¹, precept must go hand in hand with practice and the learner must not only be told, but also shown what to do.

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