Different concepts of style

Relations between two elements

A task or role of an element

The notion of language function

Different types of clauses

- to specify some concepts or facts, to make them more concrete or detailed

subordination and coordination

When the clock struck twelve, he came. – subordination

The clock struck twelve, and he came. -coordination

The clock struck twelve, he came. - asyndetic connection

You never can tell in these cases how they are going to turn out and it’s best to be on the safe side. (Th. Dreiser)

Open that silly mouth of yours just once, and you’ll find yourself in jail… (D’Usseau)

They sat on the terrace and many of the fishermen made fun of the old man and he was not angry. (E. Hemingway)

What is the use to be alive when everything is rotten and nobody knows what to do? What’s the use to go to school and learn arithmetic and read poems and paint eggplants and all that stuff? What’s the use to sit in a cold room until it is time to go to bed and hear Jake and his wife fighting all the time and to go to sleep and cry and wake up and see the sad sky and feel the cold air and shiver and walk and eat oranges for lunch instead of bread?

(W. Saroyan The Oranges)

The Theory of Functional Styles of the English Language

the choice of language means depends on the communicative situation:

- the purpose of communication;

- its participants;

- their number (dialogue, a polylogue);

- the setting of communication act (at home, in the street, in an office, etc.)

1/ Sorry, I’m late! – but I got badly held up.

2/ I do apologize for being late. I’m afraid my train was delayed.

language =

- functions differently in different spheres of communication

- is a functioning system

functional approach towards language study - F.de Saussure, Ch. Bally, R. Yakobson and others

Function (in mathematics and biology):

language function =

- relation / a reference of utterances/texts to the objective reality (Morokhovsky)

- the role, which is played by different classes of words in the structure of the units of higher levels (Halliday)

- the role of a language unit or a subsystem of such units in communication (Vorobyova)

types of language functions:

- referential (or denotative, cognitive)

- communicative

V.Vinigradov:

- informative

- communicative

- volitional

P. Simpson

“the experiential function” =

- different language is used to represent patterns of experience in spoken or written texts

- different ways of using the language system to render the same event in a text

- why one type of structure should be preferred to another

a product of a certain function /task = style

style =

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11