LECTURE 7

STYLISTIC CLASSIFICATION OF
THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY
 1. General remarks
 2. Standard English vocabulary
 3. Special literary vocabulary
 4. Special colloquial vocabulary
1. General Remarks

 Stylistically
the word-stock is
divided into three layers:
 the literary layer,

 the neutral layer,

 the colloquial layer.

The literary vocabulary :
 1) common literary words;
 2) terms or learned words;
 3) poetic words;
 4) archaic words;
 5) barbarisms and foreign words;
 6) literary coinages including nonce-
words.
The colloquial vocabulary:
 1) common colloquial words;
 2) slang;
 3) jargonisms;
 4) professional words;
 5) dialectal words,
 6) vulgar words;
 7) colloquial coinages.
2. Standard English vocabulary

 Stylistically
neutral words
 Common literary words

 Common colloquial words

Stylistically Neutral Words
 form the bulk of the English
vocabulary. They are used in both
literary and colloquial language.
Etymologically these words are
mostly native, and if of foreign origin,
borrowed long ago and completely
assimilated (e.g. Latin borrowings
wall, street, French borrowings river,
mutton, Scandinavian loan-words
husband, call, etc.)
Common literary words
 chiefly used in writing and in
polished speech. One can
always tell a literary word
from a colloquial word
though no objective criteria
for this differentiation have
been worked out yet.
 Infant – child – kid;
 Parent – father – daddy;

 Associate – fellow – chap;

 Retire – go away – get out.

These are stylistic synonyms.
Stylistic difference may be of
various kinds:
 it may lie in the emotional
tension,
 in the sphere of application,

 in the degree of the quality

denoted.
Common colloquial vocabulary
 borders both on the neutral
vocabulary and on the special
colloquial vocabulary. Some of
these lexical items are close to the
non-standard colloquial groups such
as jargonisms, professionalisms,
etc. Others approach the neutral
bulk of the English vocabulary.
 Thus, the words teenager (a young
man or young girl) and hippie/hippy
(a young person who leads an
unordered and unconventional life)
are colloquial words passing into the
neutral vocabulary. They are
gradually losing their non-standard
character and becoming widely
recognized.
3. Special literary vocabulary

 1) terms or learned words;

 2) poetic words;
 3) archaic words;
 4) barbarisms and foreign words;
 5) literary coinages including nonce-
words.
Terms

 special words which express certain

concepts of science, engineering,
politics, diplomacy, philosophy,
linguistics, etc.
 names of different phenomena,
processes, qualities peculiar to a
certain branch of science, art, etc.
 A term is directly connected with
the concept it denotes.
Terms have some peculiarities
 1) terms have no emotional,
expressive colouring; they have
exact definitions and are
stylistically neutral;
 2) they are never used in
figurative, transferred meaning;
 3) in one and the same branch of
science a term is usually
monosemantic; polysemy in technical
vocabulary is hardly desirable;
 4) terms are strictly systemized;
each term has its place in the
terminological system;
 5) terms are usually of international
character.
Types of terms
 1) terms which exist as terms only
and function within the limits of one
terminology, e.g.: diphthong,
monophthong, etc.;
 2) terms which may be used in
several terminological systems with
different specialized meanings, e.g.
operation, assimilation;
 3) terms which may function as
terms and ordinary words, e.g. to
dress (in medical terminology it
means “to bandage a wound”, in
agriculture it means “to prepare the
earth for sowing” and in naval
terminology it means “to decorate
with flags”).
Poetic and Highly Literary Words

 There is no poetic style in the

English language. But there
remains a set of words which
contrast with all other words
because, having been
traditionally used only in poetry,
they have poetic connotations.
 These words are more lofty and
more abstract in their denotative
meaning than their neutral
synonyms.
 The main function of poetic
words - to sustain the special
elevated atmosphere of poetry.
 nouns: array – clothes; billow –
wave; brine – salt water; gore –
blood; main – sea;
 verbs: behold – see; deem –
think; trow – believe; quoth –
past tense of speak;
 adjectives: fair – beautiful;
hapless – unhappy; lone – lonely;
murky – grim;
 adverbs: anon – presently;
nigh – almost; oft – often;
 pronouns: thee, ye; aught –
anything; naught – nothing;
 conjunctions: albeit –
although; ere – before.
I Saw Thee Weep
George Gordon Byron

I saw thee weep – the big bright tear

Came o’er that eye of blue;
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew:
I see thee smile – the sapphire’s blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;
It could not match the living rays
That filled that glance of thine.
 As clouds from yonder sun receive
A deep and mellow dye,
Which scarce the shade of coming eve
Can banish from the sky,
Those smiles unto the moodiest mind
Their own pure joy impart;
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
That lightens o’er the heart.
Archaic Words
 obsolete words for existing
objects.
 have a synonym in Modern
English, differing in its stylistic
sphere
 are divided into lexical and
grammatical.
 Lexical archaisms are archaic
nouns woe (sorrow), main (sea),
steed (horse), verbs slay (kill),
adjectives fair (beautiful), lone
(alone), pronouns aught (anything),
naught (nothing), adverbs eke
(also), ere (before).
 Grammatical archaisms are obsolete
grammatical forms - morphological
forms, belonging to the earlier stages
in the development of the language:
 the pronoun thou (you) and its forms
thee, thy, thine;
 verbal ending –(e)st for the second
person singular (thou makest, hast,
dost),
 the -(e)th inflection for the
third person singular (he
maketh),
 the verb-forms art (are),
wert (was), shalt, wilt (shall,
will).
Barbarisms and Foreign Words

 words of foreign origin which

have not entirely been
assimilated into English. They
bear the appearance of a
borrowing and are felt as
something alien. Etymologically
they are Latin, Greek or French.
 Most of them have
corresponding English synonyms
but are preferred for certain
stylistic purposes: bon mot (= a
witty saying), de facto (in fact),
en regle (according to rules),
belles lettres (fiction), brochure
(booklet), au revoir! (good bye!,
so long!), etc.
Literary Coinages (including Nonce-
Words)

 Neologism is a new word or a

new meaning for an established
word, the novelty of which is still
felt.
Neologisms can develop in three ways:

 1) a lexical unit existing in the

language can change its meaning to
denote a new object or
phenomenon. In such cases we
have semantic neologisms, e.g. the
word umbrella developed the
meanings ‘авіаційне прикриття,
політичне прикриття’;
 2) a new lexical unit can develop in
the language to denote an object or
phenomenon which already has
some lexical unit to denote it; in
such cases we have
transnomination, e.g. the word slum
was first substituted by the word
ghetto then by the word-group
inner town;
 3) a new lexical unit can be
introduced to denote a new
object or phenomenon; in this
case we have ‘a proper
neologism’, many of them are
cases of new terminology.
 New words are mainly coined
according to the productive models
for word-building in the given
language, namely by means of
derivation, composition, word-
combination, root-creation. Besides,
neologisms may come from foreign
languages as direct adoption of
foreign words or as translation of
the lexical unit.
 Modern information technology made its
contribution to many other spheres of
modern life and caused the appearance of
new words and word-combinations, e.g.
electronic foot-prints (електронні
відбитки), data spills (інформація
приватного характеру, відома третій
стороні), cyberthief (кіберзлодій),
cybercrook (кібершахрай), cyberpirate
(кіберпірат), cyberhacking (хакерство).
 Nonce-word - a word coined to
suit one particular occasion. They
are created to designate some
subjective idea or phenomenon.
They rarely pass into the language
as legitimate units of the
vocabulary, but they remain in the
language as constant manifestations
of its innate power of word-building.
 Let me say in the beginning that
even if I wanted to avoid Texas I
could not, for I am wived in
Texas, and mother-in-lawed,
and uncled, and aunted, and
cousined within an inch of my
life (J. Steinbeck).
4. Special Colloquial Vocabulary

 1) Slang
 2) Jargonisms
 3) Professionalisms
 4) Dialectal Words
 5) Vulgarisms
 6) Colloquial Coinages
Slang

 a) the special vocabulary used by any set

of persons of a low or disreputable
character; language of a low and vulgar
type;
 b) the cant or jargon of a certain class or
period;
 c) language of a highly colloquial type
considered as below the level of standard
educated speech, and consisting either of
new words or of current words employed
in some special sense. “New Oxford
English Dictionary”
 I.V. Arnold stresses that slang words are
identified and distinguished by contrasting
them to standard literary vocabulary.
They are 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.
 money: beans, brass, dibs, dough,
chink, wads.
 head: attic, brain-pan, hat peg, nut,
upper-story.
 drunk: boozy, cock-eyed, high and
many more.
 The best-known English slang dictionary
is compiled by E. Partridge.
Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional
English by E. Partridge
Jargonisms
 words whose aim is to preserve secrecy
within one or another social group.
 generally old words with entirely new
meanings imposed on them.
 are absolutely incomprehensible to those
outside the social group which has
invented them.
 they may be defined a code within a code,
i. e. special meanings of words that are
imposed on the recognized code – the
dictionary meaning of the words.
 Thus the word grease means
“money”; loaf means “head”; a
tiger hunter means “a gambler”;
a lexer is “a student preparing
for a law course”.
 Jargonisms are not regional,
they are social in character: the
jargon of thieves and
vagabonds, generally known as
cant; the jargon of the army,
known as military slang; the
jargon of sportsmen.
Professionalisms
 the words used in a definite trade,
profession or calling by people
connected by common interests
both at work and at home. They
commonly designate some working
process or implement of labour.
 Professionalisms are correlated to
terms, but terms nominate new
concepts that appear in the process
of technical progress and the
development of science, and
professionalisms name anew
already existing concepts, tools or
instruments, and have the typical
properties of a special code.
 tin-fish (=submarine); block-buster
(= a bomb especially designed to
destroy blocks of big buildings);
piper (= a specialist who decorates
pastry with the use of a cream-
pipe); outer (= a knockout blow).
Dialectal Words
 words which in the process of
integration of the English
national language remain
beyond its literary boundaries,
their use is generally confined to
a definite locality.
 Some dialectal words have
become so familiar in colloquial
or standard colloquial English
that they are universally
accepted as recognized units of
the standard colloquial English.
 To these words belong lass,
meaning ‘a girl or a beloved girl’
and the corresponding lad, ‘a boy or
a young man’, daft from the
Scottish and the northern dialect,
meaning ‘of unsound mind, silly’;
Still they have not lost their
dialectal associations and therefore
are used in literary English with the
stylistic function of characterization.
Vulgarisms
 expletive and swear words which
are of an abusive character, like
damn, bloody, to hell, goddam and
obscene words, i. e. the so-called
four-letter words the use of which is
banned in any form of intercourse
as being indecent.
 The function of these expletives is
to express strong emotions, mainly
annoyance, anger, vexation and the
like. They are not to be found in any
functional style of language except
emotive prose, and here only in the
direct speech of the characters.
A Pocket Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:
(Funny Book of Vintage British Swear Words,
18th Century English Curse Words and Slang)
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar
Tongue
The 100 most vulgar slang words

 More than 250,000 vulgarity votes

have been cast for slang words here
on The Online Slang Dictionary.
 These 100 words are the Worst of
the Worst. (Or the Best of the Best,
depending on your perspective.)
Colloquial Coinages
 spontaneous and elusive. Not all of them
are fixed in dictionaries or even in writing
and therefore most of them disappear
from the language leaving no trace in it
whatsoever.
 Unlike literary nonce-words, nonce-words
of a colloquial nature are not usually built
by means of affixes but are based on
certain semantic changes in words that
are almost imperceptible to the linguistic
observer until the word finds its way into
print.