Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary

Terms to be memorized:

1. stylistic analysis

2. literary layer

colloquial layer

neutral layer

3. aspect

4. common literary

common colloquial

5. extreme ranges of the vocabulary

6. terms

7. poetic words

8. highly literary words

9. slang

10.professionalism

11.vulgarism

12.jargonism

13.dialectism

Exercise 1. Read and translate the following text:

TEXT 2A

The smallest element or unit of style is the word. From the point of view of linguistic analysis we may split the word up into still smaller units, roots and derivational morphemes, or even into separate sounds, but stylistics deals with the word as a whole.

For the purposes of stylistic analysis we need two special types of word classification, because all the traditional divisions of the English vocabulary are based on different criteria. The first is based on the sphere of their usage and the second on their origin.

According to the sphere of usage the most obvious would be the division into three stylistic levels: literary, neutral and colloquial layers.

If we decide that literary are all those words which we would not normally use in everyday conversation but only in writing of a rather special kind, and colloquial are those which we tend to exclude from writing, then the considerable body of words that can be equally placed in either case can be called the neutral ones. On the surface that seems very simple, but it is also clear that boundaries between these groups are rather subject and depend on that what is taken as our standard.

And first of all it is observed in the fact that the usage of these three groups of words does not strictly coincide with the three stylistic spheres, i.e.

The neutral style does not operate exclusively with neutral words, it employs the greater part of the literary and formal vocabulary and also the less extreme colloquialisms.

Exercise 2. Answer the following questions:

1. What is the word from the stylistic point of view?

2. What classifications of the English vocabulary do you know?

3. What layers of the vocabulary are differentiated according to the sphere of its usage?

4. What is the main property of each stylistic layer?

Exercise 3. Try to find your own examples (5, 6 words) of each stylistic layer.

WORD STUDY:

Exercise 4. There are many phrasal verbs formed with come. Use the following in the sentences of your own:

come across, come by, come in,come out, come of age, come away, come undone, come in useful.

Exercise 5. Translate the proverbs and try to give Russian equivalents:

1. Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.

2. Better late than never.

3.He laughs best who laughs last.

4. A little learning is a dangerous thing.

5. It’s the early bird that catches the worm.

Exercise 6. Read and translate the following text: