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Literary English is almost synonymous with the term Standard English. Standard
English
is an abstraction, an ideal. It stands above all kinds of variants of English. This
ideal helps to establish more or less strict norms for all aspects of the language. The
publication of dictionaries dues much to establish the Literary language norms.
Functional styles of the English language
Plan:
1. The Belles-Lettres style
2. Publicistic style
3. Newspaper style
4.
Scientific prose style
5. The style of official documents
Problem:What is the importance of functional styles of the English language?
Key words:
generic
unfolding
aesthetico-cognitive
indispensable
ballads
expanded
pamphlets
advertisements
apparent
editorial
We have already pointed out that the
belles-lettres style is a generic term for three
substyles in which the main principles and the most general properties of the style are
materialized. These three substyles are:
1.
The language of poetry, or simply verse.
2.
Emotive prose or the language of fiction.
3.
The language of the drama.
Each of these substyles has certain common features, typical of the general belles-
lettres style, which make up the foundation of the style, by which
the particular style is
made recognizable and can therefore be singled out. Each of them also enjoys some
individuality. This is revealed in definite features typical only of one or another substyle.
This correlation of the general and the particular in each variant of the belles-lettres style
had manifested itself differently at different stage in its historical development.
The common features of the substyles may be summed up as follows. First of all
comes the common function which may broadly be called “aesthetico-cognitive.” This is a
double function which aims at the cognitive process, which secures the gradual unfolding
of the idea to the reader and at the same time calls forth a feeling of pleasure, a pleasure
which is derived from the form in which the content is wrought. The psychological
element – pleasure is not is caused not only by admiration of the selected language means
and their peculiar arrangement but also, and this is perhaps the main cause, by the fact that
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the reader is led to form his own conclusions as to the purport of the author. Northing
gives more pleasure and satisfaction than realizing that one has the ability to penetrate into
the hidden tissue of events,
phenomena and human activity, and to perceive the relation
between various seemingly unconnected facts brought together by the creative mind of the
writer.
The purpose of the belles-lettres style is not to prove but only to suggest a possible
interpretation of the phenomena of the phenomena of life by forcing the reader to see the
viewpoint of the writer. This is the cognitive sought, which is an aesthetico-cognitive
effect.
The belles-lettres style rests on certain indispensable linguistic features which are:
1. Genuine, not trite, imagery, achieved by purely linguistic devices.
2. The use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning,
or at least greatly influences by the lexical environment.
3. A vocabulary which will reflect to a greater or lesser degree the author’s
personal
evaluation of things or phenomena.
4. A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax, a kind of lexical and
syntactical idiosyncrasy.
5. The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (in
plays) or a lesser one (in emotive prose_ or a slight degree, if any (in poems).
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