Stylistic Differentiation of the English Vocabulary

Style
a quality of writing

comes by metonymy from Latin stilus (the name of the writing-rod for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets)
the collective characteristics of writing, diction or any artistic expression and the way of presenting things, depending upon the general outlook proper to a person, a school, a period or a genre

Functional style
a system of expressive means peculiar to a specific sphere of communication

 The lexicological treatment of style is based on the principle of lexical oppositions Every stylistically coloured word presupposes the possibility of choice, which means that there must exist a neutral synonym to which it is contrasted

Therefore stylistical oppositions are proportional oppositions:

 The broadest binary division is into formal and informal (also called colloquial) English The term formal English is used in what follows to cover those varieties of the English vocabulary that occur in books and magazines, that we hear from a lecturer, a public speaker, a radio announcer or, possibly, in formal official talk

Informal vocabulary is used in personal two-way every-day communication A dialogue is assisted in its explicitness by the meaningful qualities of voice and gesture The speaker has ample opportunity to know whether he is understood The listener can always interrupt him and demand additional information The vocabulary may be determined socially or regionally (dialect)

The word-stock of any given language can be roughly divided into three uneven groups, differing from each other by the sphere of its possible use The biggest division is made up of neutral words, possessing no stylistic connotation and suitable for any communicative situation two smaller ones are literary and colloquial

Neutral
General Literary Special Word-stock Slang Jargonisms Colloquial Terms

Archaisms

Vulgarisms Dialects

COLLOQUIAL WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

The term colloquial is old enough S. Johnson thought colloquial words inconsistent with good usage and, thinking it his duty to reform the English language, he advised to clear it from colloquial barbarisms

COLLOQUIAL WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

By the end of the 19th century with Neogrammarians the description of colloquial speech came into its own, and linguists began to study the vocabulary that people actually use under various circumstances and not what they may be justified in using

Literary colloquial
is used to denote the vocabulary used by educated people in the course of ordinary conversation or when writing letters to intimate friends

Familiar colloquial
is more emotional and much more free and careless than literary colloquial is also characterised by a great number of jocular or ironical expressions and nonce-words

Low colloquial is a term used for illiterate popular speech

Inconsistent with good usage

Colloquial
Literary
used by educated people

Familiar
is more

Low
illiterate popular speech

emotional
and much more free

Slang
Words identified and distinguished by contrasting them to standard literary vocabulary

expressive mostly ironical serve to create fresh names for some things that are frequent topics of discourse sound somewhat vulgar, cynical and harsh aim to show the object of speech in the light of an off-hand contemptuous ridicule

Money - beans, brass, dibs, dough, chink, oof, wads Head - attic, brain-pan, hat peg, nut, upper storey

Adam and Eve Believe Would you Adam and Eve it? Alligator Later See you later alligator. Apples and Pears Stairs Get up those apples to bed! Bacon and Eggs Legs She has such long bacons. Bees and Honey Money Hand over the bees. Crust of Bread Head Use your crust, lad. Oxford Scholar Dollar Could you lend me an Oxford? Rabbit and Pork Talk I don't know what she's rabbiting about.

The most vital among slang words are then accepted into literary vocabulary. The examples are bet, bore, chap, donkey, fun, humbug, mob, odd, pinch, shabby, sham, snob, trip, also some words from the American slang: graft, hitch-hiker, sawbones, etc.

 It is convenient to group slang words according to their place in the vocabulary system, and more precisely, in the semantic system of the vocabulary If they denote a new and necessary notion, they may prove an enrichment of the vocabulary and be accepted into standard English If, on the other hand, they make just another addition to a cluster of synonyms, and have nothing but novelty to back them, they die out very quickly, constituting the most changeable part of the vocabulary

SLANG

GENERAL

SPECIAL

includes words that are not specific for any social or professional group

peculiar for some such group

SLANG
expressive function clearly motivated cradlesnatcher

ARGOT
primarily concerned with secrecy do not show their motivation rap kill

.Jargonisms

stand close to slang, also being substandard, expressive and emotive, but, unlike slang they are used by limited groups of people, united either professionally (in this case we deal with professional Jargonisms, or professionalisms), or socially (here we deal with jargonisms proper)

In distinction from slang, Jargonisms of both types cover a narrow semantic field: in the first case it is that, connected with the technical side of some profession. So, in oil industry, e.g., for the terminological "driller there exist "borer", "digger", "wrencher", "hogger", "brake weight"; for "pipeliner "swabber", "bender", "cat", "old cat", "collar-pecker", "hammerman"; for "geologist" - "smeller", "pebble pup", "rock hound", "witcher", etc.

Vulgarisms are coarse words with a strong emotive meaning, mostly derogatory, normally avoided in polite conversation History of vulgarisms reflects the history of social ethics. So, in Shakespearian times people were much more linguistically frank than in the age of Enlightenment or the Victorian era, famous for its prudish and reserved manners
Nowadays words which were labelled vulgar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are considered such no more

Such intensifiers as "bloody", "damned", "cursed", "hell of", formerly deleted from literature and not allowed in conversation, are not only welcomed in both written and oral speech, but, due to constant repetition, have lost much of their emotive impact and substandard quality

Formal Style LEARNED WORDS AND OFFICIAL VOCABULARY Text on some special problem usually contains a considerable proportion of so-called learned words, such as approximate n, commence v, compute v, exclude v, feasible a, heterogeneous a, homogeneous a, indicate v, initial a, internal a, miscellaneous a, multiplicity n, respectively adv.

Formal Style LEARNED WORDS AND OFFICIAL VOCABULARY

This layer is especially rich in adjectives All learned words have their everyday synonyms, which may seem either not dignified enough for scientific usage or less precise

The learned vocabulary comprises some archaic connectives not used elsewhere: hereby, thereby, whereby, hereafter, whereafter, thereafter, hereupon, whereupon, thereupon, herein, wherein, therein, herewith, therewith

It also contains double conjunctions like moreover, furthermore, however, such as

and group conjunctions: in consequence of, in as much as, etc.

Term is a word or a word-group which is specifically employed by a particular branch of science, technology, trade or arts to convey a concept particular to this activity Terms, i.e. words denoting objects, processes, phenomena of science, humanities, technique

Archaisms, i.e. words a) denoting historical phenomena which are no more in use (such as "yeoman", "vassal", "falconet"). These are historical words b) used in poetry in the XVII-XIX cc. (such as "steed" for "horse"; "quoth" for "said"; "woe" for "sorrow"). These are poetic words c) in the course of language history ousted by newer synonymic words (such as "whereof = of which; "to deem" = to think; "repast" = meal; "nay" = no) or forms ("maketh" = makes; "thou wilt" = you will; "brethren" = brothers). These are called archaic words (archaic forms) proper.

Thank you!