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Lecture 1
Theme:
GENERAL NOTES ON STYLISTICS
COMMUNICATIVE STYLISTICS. TYPES OF FUNCTIONAL SPEECH STYLES
plan:
1. General Notes on style and Stylistics
2. The Development of the English Literary language
3. The problems of stylistic research.
Problem: What problem of stylistic do linguists discuss?
Key words:
outline
obscure
aesthetic
interrelation
devices
intensification
pitch
archaic
manifest
intentional
The term stylistics is derived from the word “style”. The word style goes back to the
word “stilos”. The Romans called thus a sharp stick used for writing on wax tablets. It was
already in Latin that the meaning of the word “stilos” came to denote not only the tool of
writing, but also the manner of writing. With this new meaning the word was borrowed
into European languages.
What is stylistics? The subject of stylistics has far not been definitely outlined. It
will not be an exaggeration to say that among the various branches of General Linguistics
the most obscure in content is undoubtedly stylistics. This is due to a number of reasons.
First of all there are confusions between the terms style and stylistics. The first concept is
so broad it isn’t easy to regard it as a term. Because we speak of style in architecture,
literature, behavior,
linguistics, dress and in other, fields of human activity. Even in
linguistics the word style is used so widely that it needs interpretation. Style applies to the
following fields of investigation: 1) the
aesthetic function of language, 2) expressive
means in language, 3) synonymous ways of rendering one and the same idea, 4) emotional
coloring in language, 5)
stylistic devices, 6) the splitting of the literary language into
separate subsystems called styles. 7) the interrelation between language and the thought
and 8) the individual manner of an author. The term style is also applied to the teaching of
how
to write clearly, simply and emphatically. Due to this, we achieve correctness in
writing and avoid ambiguity. There is a view that style is the correspondence between
thought and its expression. You know that language has two function; communicative and
expressive (shaping one’s thoughts).
The ma in goa l of tea chin g Mod e r n Eng li sh S ty li st ic s a s an a cade m ic
sub je ct i s to int rod uc e st ud ents t o thi s d is cip l ine an d
i ts int er r elat ion s
with othe r bran che s of l ing uis ti cs . The up dat ed s yl lab us of th i s co urs e
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prov id es an ins ight in to both st r uct ura l an d co gni ti ve unde r stand ing of
sty l ist ic ent it ie s and ph enom ena, into m ult i -a spe ct
d iff er ent iat ion of
spe ech r eg ist e rs, a s w el l as in to diff er ent cont empo rar y app roach e s to
text in te rp reta tion.
The tas ks of th e co urs e of l ie in: