Seminar 7. Functional styles of english

TOPICS FOR REPORTS:

1) Phonostylistics, its aims, subjects and methods of investigation.

2) Brief characterization of the main functional types in English.

3) The prosodic characteristics of the stylistic patterns:

a) informational descriptive texts;

b) informational descriptive monologues;

c) informational dialogues;

d) press reporting and broadcasting;

e) academic style reading;

f) publicistic oratorical speeches;

g) declamatory prose reading;

h) colloquial conversations.

NB! The prosodic characteristics are to be based upon the following scheme of analysis:

1. timbre;

2. delimitation;

3. style-marking prosodic features: loudness, levels of ranges, rate, pauses, rhythm;

4. the accentuation of semantic centers: terminal tones, pre-nuclear patterns, the contrast between the accented and unaccented segments.

HOME PRACTICE.

EXERCISE 1 Convert the following passage into a more informal style:

Mother was somewhat displeased when she observed that I had omitted to remove my soiled garments from the kitchen and place them in a more appropriate location, a task which I had given her an undertaking that I would perform before Father's return from his place of employment.

EXERCISE 2 Suppose that the following passage of prose was produced by a school pupil in response to a request to write a paragraph in Standard English and in a formal style. Identify features of (a) nonstandard dialect; (b) informal style; and (c) lack of knowledge of the appropriate register.

When my old man come home last night, he was really bushed. He sat and watched telly all evening. I done my homework and then watched television too. An operator doctor was talking about the Health Service. It was really boring. Then there was the one in charge of hospitals. He wasn't very interesting neither.

EXERCISE 3 Label the following sentences according to their dialect (standard or nonstandard), register (technical or non-technical) and style (formal or informal).

(a) I wants you to play this melody allegro, not adagio.
b) I want you to play this tune quickly, not slowly.
c) The rear off-side wheel look a bit wobbly.
d) The back left-hand wheel seems to be oscillating somewhat.
e) His patella sustained an injury.
f) He done his knee cap in.
g) The publican don't need no more firkins.
h) The landlord doesn't need any more small barrels.
i) She ain't attended no baptisms.
j) She hasn't been to any christenings.

EXERCISE 4 Convert the following passage of prose into a less technical register and a more neutral style, using a dictionary if necessary:

If the regular premium tendered on a due date is greater than the existing aggregate regular premium on that due date, the company will issue a supplementary schedule on which the increment regular premium will be the amount by which the regular premium tendered exceeds the existing aggregate regular premium; provided that, if waiver of premium benefit is specified in the plan schedule as available, or there is an increase in the life cover, the issue of the supplementary schedule will be subject to evidence satisfactory to the company as to the continued insurability of the life assured for waiver of premium benefit or life cover on the existing terms.

EXERCISE 5 It is of course not just professions such as law or medicine have technical, specialized registers. Consider some informal or nonacademic activity, sport or hobby that you know something about, such as car mechanics, knitting, train-spotting, football, music or cooking, and make a list of technical terms associated with this activity that people who know nothing about the subject might not know or understand.

EXERCISE 6 Invent examples of stylistically inappropriate greetings to different kinds of people such as friends, teachers, parents, shop assistants, etc.

EXERCISE 7 Identify the style and register of the following passage, and list the features which led you to make this identification:

The ground was bare ice polished by the wind, with scattered pebbles embedded in it. As it steepened, the slope became covered with brick-hard snow on which I found that my short-pointed crampons tended to scrape and slip. I was heading for a snow-filled gully or couloir. The ridge now towered directly above our heads. The sherpa wanted me to move farther to the right, to the foot of the ridge before it reaches the edge of the col, and from the point we had reached the gully appeared to rise so steeply that for a moment I was inclined to agree that we might as well try the alternative rock climb. But it would now have involved a long detour to the right, and there was a compelling urge to economize energy as much as possible. Indeed we already had little in reserve. We stopped to take our first rest, sitting in a shallow groove of an incipient bergschrund which marks a sudden steepening of the gully.

EXERCISE 8 Identify the style and register of the following passage, and list the features which led you to make this identification:

It is the business of epistemology to arrange the propositions which constitute our knowledge in a certain logical order, in which the later propositions are accepted because of their logical relation to those that came before them. It is not necessary that the later propositions should be logically deducible from the earlier ones; what is necessary is that the earlier ones should supply whatever grounds exist for thinking it likely that the later ones are true. When we are considering empirical knowledge, the earliest propositions in the hierarchy are not deduced from the other propositions, and yet are not mere arbitrary assumptions. They have grounds, though their grounds are not propositions, but observed occurrences. Such propositions, as observed above, I shall call basic propositions; they fulfil the function assigned by the logical positivists to what they call protocol propositions.

QUESTIONS FOR SELF STUDY:

1) What is the essential characteristic of phonostylistics? Is there any general theory of phonostylistics?

2) Give a definition of a phonetic norm.

3) Why does a person speak differently on different occasions? What determines the choice of a speech style?

4) Define an intonational style. What are intonational styles distinctions?

5) What is the difference between an informational and scientific styles?

6) Does the speaker try to achieve the balance between formality and informality within a scientific style extract? Why?

7) Do you think there should be crucial stylistic differences between reading serious descriptive prose (declamatory style) and reading scientific prose (scientific style)? Think of similarities and differences.

8) Why does familiar style allow the occurrence of entire range of intonation patterns existing in English?

9) What speech style is the most suitable for the use of foreign students?

LITERATURE:

1) Васильев В.А. Фонетика англ.яз. Теоретический курс. – М.: Высшая школа, 1970 – с. 60-70.

2) Дикушина О.И. Фонетика английского языка. Теоретический курс. – М.: Просвещение, 1965. – С. 47-50.

3) Соколова М.А., Гинтовт К.П., Тихонова И.С., Тихонова Р.М. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб.для студ.высш.уч.заведений. – 3-е изд., стереотип. – М.:Гуманит.изд.центр ВЛАДОС, 2003.- с.18-39.

4) Соколова М.А., Гинтовт К.П., Кантер Л.А., Крылова Н.И. Практическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб.для студ.высш.уч.заведений. –М.:Гуманит.изд.центр ВЛАДОС, 2003.- с.228-282.