Stylistic Differentiation
of the English Vocabulary
Дисциплина
Лексикология
Автор
Обвинцева Ольга Владимировна
Кандидат филологических наук
Доцент
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В.
Цель:
Ознакомить студентов со стилистической
лексики современного английского языка.
классификацией
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В.
Структура
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Три слоя лексики.
Нейтральные слова.
Слой литературной лексики и его составляющие.
Слой разговорной лексики и его составляющие.
Неологизмы в английском языке.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В.
Layers of the Vocabulary
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В.
Neutral Words
• form the bulk of the English vocabulary;
• are mostly monosyllabic;
• belong to native English stock and early borrowings;
• are the main source of polysemy and synonymy.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В.
Literary Words
• common literary words;
• terms;
• poetical words;
• archaic words;
• barbarisms and Foreignisms;
• nonce-words.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В.
Terms
Term
is a word or a word-group which is specifically employed by a
particular branch of science, technology, trade or the arts to convey a
concept peculiar to this particular activity.
Characteristics of terms:
• monosemantic within a certain field;
• have only denotational meaning;
• possess no synonyms.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Terms
Determinization:
The process when many words that were once terms have gradually
lost their quality as terms and have passed into the common literary
or even neutral vocabulary.
computer, inflation, bonds, suffix…
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Poetical Words
A set of words which contrast with all other words, because, having
been traditionally used only in poetry, they have poetic connotations.
array (clothes); billow (wave);
brine (salt water); brow (forehead).
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В.
Archaisms and related terms
Archaisms
words that were once common but are now replaced by synonyms
•
•
•
•
•
betwixt (between);
chide (scold);
hapless (unlucky;
woe (sorrow);
perchance (perhaps).
Obsolete words
words that dropped from the language
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Archaisms and related terms
Histоrisms
words which name the things no longer used
• horse-drawn carriages:
diligence, landeau, phaeton;
• sailing ships:
caravel, galleon, schooner;
• types of weapons:
blunderbuss , crossbow , sword.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Colloquial Words
• common colloquial words;
• professionalisms;
• jargonisms;
• slang;
• dialectal words;
• vulgarisms;
• nonce-words.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Classification of Colloquial Vocabulary
by I.V. Arnold
1. Literary colloquial :
The vocabulary used by educated people in the course of ordinary
conversation or when writing letters to intimate friends.
• pal, bite, snack ;
• exam, fridge, flu;
• put up, make out, do away, turn in.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Classification of Colloquial Vocabulary
by I.V. Arnold
2. Familiar colloquial :
The words belonging to the vocabulary:
• are more emotional, free and careless;
• are characterised by jocular or ironical expressions and noncewords;
• are used mostly by the young and semi-educated people.
doc, ta-ta (good-bye), to kid smb. (to tease smb.), shut up,
beat it (go away).
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Classification of Colloquial Vocabulary
by I.V. Arnold
3. Low colloquial :
The vocabulary:
• represents illiterate popular speech;
• contains more vulgar words, and sometimes also elements of
dialect.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Professionalisms
The words used in a definite trade, profession or calling by people
connected by common interests both at work and at home.
They name anew already-existing concepts, tools or instruments, and
have the typical properties of a special code.
Professionalisms used in different trades:
• tin-fish (a submarine);
• block-buster (a bomb especially designed to destroy blocks of big
buildings);
• piper (a specialist who decorates pastry with the use of a creampipe)
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Jargonisms
A group of words whose aim is to preserve secrecy within one or
another social group.
• grease (money);
• loaf (head);
• lexer (a student of law).
Common jargon:
Jargonisms whicn have gradually lost their special quality and belong
to all social groups and is therefore easily understood by everybody.
comp, quid, bucks, cop…
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Jargonisms
Special jargon:
Remains a foreign language for outsiders of any particular social
group.
military jargon, students’ jargon, medical jargon…
Cant:
A kind of special jargon, the jargon of thieves and vagabonds,
professional criminals.
Ain’t a lifer, not him! Got a stretch in stir for pulling a leather up in
Chi.
The meaning:
He was not sentenced to imprisonment for life: he only has to serve
a term in prison for having stolen a purse in Chicago.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Slang
There is hardly any other term that is as ambiguous and obscure as
the term slang.
“Slang seems to mean everything that is below the standard of usage
of present-day English.”
“The term 'slang' is ambiguous because, to use a figurative
expression, it has become a Jack of all trades and master of none.”
I.R. Galperin
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Slang
“Slang is the part of the vocabulary consisting of commonly
understood and widely used words and expressions of humorous or
derogatory character – intentional substitutes for neutral or elevated
words and expressions.”
Yu. M. Skrebnev
“Expressive, mostly ironical words serving to create fresh names for
some things that are frequent topics of discourse. For the most part
they sound somewhat vulgar, cynical and harsh, aiming to show the
object of speech in the light of an off-hand contemptuous ridicule”.
I. V. Arnold
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Slang
Eric Partridge in “Slang: Today and Yesterday “ (1934)
writes that people use slang for any of at least 15 reasons:
For example, he says that people use slang:
1. In sheer high spirits, by the young in heart as well as by the
young in years; ‘just for the fun of the thing;
2. As an exercise either in wit and ingenuity or in humour;
3. To be ‘different’, to be novel.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Slang
Notions that excite an emotional reaction attract as a rule many
synonyms:
• Money: beans, brass, dibs, dough, wads;
• Head: attic, brain-pan, hat peg, upper storey;
• Drunk: boozy, cock-eyed, soaked, tight;
• Madness: loony, nuts, bananas, psycho;
• Woman: babe, chick, skirt;
• Man: dude, hunk, hombre.
According to the sphere of usage, slang is subdivided into general
slang and special slang.
General slang represent words that are not specific for any social or
professional group.
Special slang is peculiar for some group like teenager slang,
university slang, football slang, and so on.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Dialectal words
A dialect is any variety of English that is marked off from others by
distinctive linguistic features. Such a variety could be associated with
a particular place or region or, rather more surprisingly, it might also
be associated with a certain social group—male or female, young or
old, and so on.
Some dialectal words have become so familiar in colloquial English
that they are universally accepted as units of the standard colloquial
English.
Examples from Scottish English:
lass (girl), lad (boy), daft (silly).
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Dialectal words
But distinctive vocabulary does not only mark people out as local to
particular places.
No matter where one comes from, one might eat pudding or dessert
or sweet or afters, depending on a whole range of social factors, such
as family, education and career, that influence the way a person
talks.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Vulgarisms
The stylistically lowest group of words of non-standard English which
are considered too offensive for polite usage.
Two groups of vulgarisms:
Expletives and swear words:
are used now as general exclamations.
damn, bloody, to hell, goddam
2. Obscene words:
are known as four-letter words the use of which is banned in any
form of intercourse as being indecent.
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Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary
Обвинцева О.В
Neologisms
Newly coined words or words that have acquired a new meaning
because of social, economic, political or cultural changes in human
society.
Nonce-word, occasionalism:
aword coined to suit one particular occasion.
buzz-word:
a word or phrase that becomes very popular for a period of time.
Literary neologisms:
hostile architecture , high intensity training
Colloquial neologisms:
smasual, emoji, couplie
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Использованные источники
Обвинцева О.В.
Использованные источники
1. Арнольд, И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка :
учебное пособие / И.В. Арнольд. – 4-е изд., перераб. – Москва
: ФЛИНТА, 2017. 376 с.
2. Скребнев, Ю.М. Основы стилистики английского языка :
учебник для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. / Ю.М. Скребнев М.:
Астрель, 2003. 224 с.
3. Crystal, D. A little book of language / D. Crystal. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2010. 260 c.
4. Galperin, I.R. Stylistics / I.R. Galperin. M.: Higher School, 1981.
335 p.
5. Partridge, E. Slang today and yesterday / E. Partridge. London
[etc]: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. 476 p.
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