Territorial variants of English in the lexicological aspect

Stylistic characteristics of the vocabulary.

Linguists divide the English vocabulary into:-formal and informal. Formal English -is used in books, magazines, by lectures, public speakers, radio announces, office talks learned words(they’re neutral, not marked)-mind(mental activity), sun(solar system). In official documents and business correspondence we use special vocabulary=official vocabulary-room-accommodation, get-obtain. There’s also a layer of stylistically neutral words, which belong to literature – colloquial sphere. Informal English – is used in communications and subdivided into: colloquial speech(low-Argot(язык зеков)),familiar colloquial speech(сленг) Informal vocabulary is stylistically marked. To stylistically marked words, poetic words belong as well as poetic. Poetic words function specifically in poetic speech-thea=you,behold=see. Literary colloquial words are used with educated people, in literary works, they form the bulk of the literary.

Familiar and low colloquial words are used in more or less careless speech and in some aspects rude. Examples can’t be found in literature to create the atmosphere correctly-pinch(стащить)-low colloquial.

Some words are taken from dialogues, many set-expressions are widely used-I’d sooner die. Argot -are words used by criminals, it’s not widely used=mini language. Slang is used by different people of social or professional groups(widely spread in every day speech), special slang is futher subdivided into – University slang-teenager slang – sport slang; besides there’re vulgarisms / vulgar words belong to informal language. They can’t be used in communications as they sound rude, they deal mainly with sex(dirty Engl.)

All lexical units may be divided into General English (those common to all the variants) and Logically-marked, those specific to present-day usage in one of the variants and not found in the others (i.e. Briticisms, Americanisms, etc.). Philologists note the fact that differ­ent variants of English use different words for the same objects: flat-apartment, underground-subway, post-mail. There are also some full Briticisms, Americanisms, etc., i.e. lexical units specific to the British, American, etc. variant in all their mean­ings. For example, the words fortnight, pillar-box are full Briticisms, campus, mailboy are full Americanisms, outback, backblocks are full Australianisms.

The numerous locally-marked slangisms, professionalisms and dialectisms cannot be considered distinguishing features either, since they do not belong to the literary language. Lexical peculiarities in different parts of the English-speaking world are not only those in vocabulary, they also concern the very fashion of using words. For instance, the grammatical valency of the verb to push is much narrower in AuE, than in BE and AE. As to word-formation in different variants, the word-building means employed are the same and most of them are equally productive. The dif­ference lies only in the varying degree of productivity of some of them in this or that variant. As compared with the British variant, for exam­ple, in the American variant the affixes -ette, -ee, super-, as in kitchen­ette, draftee, super-market, are used more extensively.

Thus, the lexical distinctions between different variants of English are intricate and varied, but they do not make a system. For the most part they are partial divergences in the semantic structure and usage of some words.

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