The publicistic FS

The publicistic style of language became a separate style in the middle of the 18^th century. Unlike other styles, it has two spoken varieties, namely the oratorical substyle and the radio and TV commentary. The other two substyles are the essay (moral, philosophical, literary) and journalistic articles (political, social, economic). The general aim of publicistic style is to influence the public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the expressed point of view.

Publicistic style is characterized by coherent and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of connectives and careful paragraphing. Its emotional appeal is achieved by the use of words with the emotive meaning but the stylistic devices are not fresh or genuine. The individual element is not very evident. Publicistic style is also characterized by the brevity of expression, sometimes it becomes a leading feature.

The oratorical style is the oral subdivision of the publicistic style. Direct contact with the listeners permits a combination of the syntactical, lexical and phonetic peculiarities of both the written and spoken varieties of language. The typical features of this style are: direct address to the audience; sometimes contractions; the use of colloquial words. The SDs employed in the oratorical style are determined by the conditions of communication. As the audience rely only on memory, the speaker often resorts to repetitions to enable his listeners to follow him and to retain the main points of his speech. The speaker often use simile and metaphor, but these are generally traditional, because genuine SDs may be difficult to grasp.

The essay is rather a series of personal and witty comments than a finished argument or a conclusive examination of the matter. The most characteristic language features of the essay are: brevity of expression; the use of the first person singular; a rather expanded use of connectives; the abundant use of emotive words; the use of similes and sustained metaphors.

Literary reviews stand closer to essays both by their content and by their linguistic

form. More abstract words of logical meaning are used in them, they more often resort to emotional language and less frequently to traditional set expressions.

Articles. Irrespective of the character of the magazine and the divergence of subject matter – whether it is political, literary, popular-scientific or satirical – all the already mentioned features of the publicistic style are to be found in any article. The character of the magazine as well as the subject chosen affects the choice and use of stylistic devices.

Words of emotive meaning, for example, are few, if any, in popular scientific articles. Their exposition is more consistent and the system of connectives more expanded than, say, in a satirical style.

The language of political magazines’ article differs little from that of newspaper articles. But such elements of the publicistic style as rare and bookish words, neologisms (which sometimes require explanation in the text), traditional word combinations and parenthesis are more frequent here than in newspaper articles.