Seminar 1

STYLISTIC DIFFERENTIATION OF THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

1. Stylistics as a linguistic discipline. The subject-matter of Stylistics.
2. Basic notions of stylistics: language, speech activity and speech; style; individual style;
norm; variant / invariant; context etc.
3. What registers of communication are reflected in the stylistic differentiation of the
vocabulary?
4. Speak about the literary words, general (common) and special (terms, poetic words,
archaic words, barbarisms, foreignisms, neologisms).
5. Speak about general (common), special (jargonisms, professionalisms) and low
(dialecticisms, vulgarisms) colloquialisms:
a) What are the main characteristics of slang?
b) Speak about professional and social jargonisms:
c) Speak about the place and role of vulgarisms and dialectal words in the
national language (in the literary text)

Literature:
1. Galperin I.R. Stylistics. М.: Высшая школа, 1981. – 334 с.
2. Kukharenko V.A. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. – М.: Высшая школа, 1986.
(BPS)
3. Kukharenko V.A. Seminars in Style. (SS)
4. Yefimov L.P., Yasinetskaya T.A. Practical Stylistics of English. Вінниця: Нова
книга, 2004. – 240 с.
5. Мороховський А.Н., Воробьева О.П., Лихошерст Н.И., Тимошенко З.В.
Стилистика английского языка. Киев: Вища школа. 1984. – 247 с.
6. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного языка. М.: Просвещение, 1990. –
300 с.

Ex.1, p.29-31 (BPS)

State the type and function of literary words in the following examples:
1. (5). If manners maketh man, then manner and grooming maketh poodle.
2. (6). “Thou art the Man,” cried Jabes, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion.
“Seventy times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage – seventy times seven did I take council
with my soul – Lo! this is human weakness: this also may be absolved. The first of the seventy

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first is come. Brethren – execute upon him the judgement written. Such honour have all His
saints.”
3. (9). Riding back I saw the Greeks lined up in column of march. They were all still
there. Also, all armed. On long marches when no action threatened, they had always piled their
armour, helmets and weapons in their carts, keeping only their swords; wearing their short tunics
(made from all kinds of stuff, they had been so long from home) and the wide straw hats Greeks
travel in, their skins being tender to sun. Now they had on corselets or cuirasses, helmets, even
grades if they owned them, and their round shields hung at their backs.
4. (12). If any dispassionate spectator could have beheld the countenance of the
illustrious man, whose name forms the leading feature of the title of this work, during the latter
part of this conversation, he would have been almost induced to wonder that the indignant fire
that flashed from his eyes, did not melt the glasses of his spectacles – so majestic was his wrath.
His nostrils dilated, and his fists clenched involuntarily, as he heard himself addressed by the
villain. But he restrained himself again – he did not pulverize him.
“Here,” continued the hardened traitor tossing the licence at Mr. Pickwick’s feet;” get the
name altered – take home the lady – do for Tuppy.”

Ex. 2, p.9 (SS)

Give the English equivalents, state the original and stylistic purpose of barbarisms and
foreign words. Pay attention to their interrelation with the context.

1. She caught herself criticizing his belief that, since his joke about trying to keep her out of
the poorhouse had once been accepted as admirable humor, it should continue to be his
daily bon mot.
2. Nevertheless, despite her experience, she hadn’t yet reached the stage of thinking all men
beastly; though she could readily sympathize with the state of mind of any woman driven
to utter that particular cri de coeur.
3. Then, of course, there ought to be one or two outsiders – just to give the thing a bona fide
appearance. I and Eileen could see to that – young people, uncritical, and with no idea of
politics.
4. “Tyree, you got half of the profits!” Dr. Bruce shouted. “You’re my de facto partner.”
“What that de facto mean, Doc?.. “Papa, it means you a partner in fact and in law,” Fishbelly
told him.
5. Yates remained serious. “We have time, Herr Zippman, to try your schnapps. Are there
any German troops in Neustadt?”
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 “No, Herr Offizier, just what I’ve to tell you. This morning, four gentlemen in all, we went
out of Neustadt to meet the Herren Amerikaner.”
6. And now the roof had fallen in on him. The first shock was over, the dust had settled and
he could now see that his whole life was kaput.

Ex. 1, p.13-14 (SS)

State the function of slang in the following examples, also paying attention to the
morphological and syntactical characteristics of slang units and semantic and structural
changes some of them underwent to become a slang expression.

1. “I am the first one saw her. Out at Santa Anita she’s hanging around the track
every day. I’m interested: professionally. I find out she’s some jock’s jock is a stereotype of an
athlete regular, she’s living with the shrimp a very small or puny person or thing, I get the
jock told Drop it if he don’t want conversation with the vice boys: see, the kid’s fifteen. But
stylish: she’s okay, she comes across. When she’s wearing glasses this thick; even when she
opens her mouth and you don’t know if she’s a hillbilly an unsophisticated person, esp from the

mountainous areas in the southeastern US or an Okie a migrant agricultural worker

or what, I still don’t. My guess, nobody’ll ever know where she came from.
2. Bejees, if you think you can play me for an easy mark, you’ve come to the wrong

house. No one ever played Harry Hope for a sucker A person who is easily
deceived, tricked or persuaded to do something; a naive or gullible
person!
3. A cove couldn’t be too careful.- a boy or man; chap; fellow.
4. I’ve often thought you’d make a corking good actress.- extremely fine
5. “When he told me his name was Herbert I nearly burst out laughing. Fancy
calling anyone Herbert. A scream, I call it.”
6. I steered him into a side street where it was dark and propped him against a wall

and gave him a frisk to search (a person) as for concealed weapons or

stolen articles by passing the hands quickly over the person's
clothing..
7. “I live upstairs.”
The answer seemed to explain enough to relax him.

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 “You got the same layout?”
“Much smaller.”
He tapped ash on the floor. “This is a dump. This is unbelievable. But the kid don’t know
how to live even when she’s got the dough.”
8. (10) She came in one night, plastered, with a sun-burned man, also plastered…

Ex. 3, p. 15-16 (SS)

Differentiate professional and social jargonisms; classify them according to the narrow
sphere of usage, suggest a terminological equivalent where possible:
1. (1) She came out of her sleep in a nightmare struggle for breath, her eyes distended in
horror, the strangling cough tearing her again and again…Bart gave her the needle.
2. (2) I’m here quite often – taking patients to hospitals for majors, and so on.
3. (4) They have graduated from Ohio State together, himself with an engineering degree.
6. (5) “Okay Top,” he said. “You know I never argue with the First Sergeant.”
7. (6) The arrangement was to keep in touch by runners and by walkie-talkie.
8. (15) “How long did they cook you! ” Dongere’s stopped short and looked at him, “How
long did they cook you?” – “Since eight this morning. Over twelve hours…”
…”You didn’t unbutton then? After twelve hours of it”? “Me?...”They got a lot of dancing to
do before they’ll get anything out of me.”

Ex.2, p.31-33 (BPS)

Think of the type of additional information about the speaker or communicative situation
conveyed by the following general and special colloquial words:
1. (1) “She’s engaged. Nice guy, too. Though there’s a slight difference in height. I’d say a
foot, her favor.”
2. (2) “You know Brooklyn?”
“No. I was never there. But I had a buddy at Myer was from Brooklyn.”
3. (3) I didn’t really do anything this time. Just pulled the dago out of the river. Like all
dagos, he couldn’t swim. Well, the fellow was sort of grateful about it. Hung around like
a dog. About six months later he died of fever. I was with him, last thing, just as he was
pegging out, he beckoned me and whispered some excited jargon about a secret.
4. (9) “There we were…in the hell of a country – pardon me – a country of raw metal….It’s
like a man of sixty looking down his nose at a youth of thirty and there’s no such God-
darned – pardon me – mistake as that.

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 5. (10) “All those medical bastards should go through the ops they put other people
through. Then they wouldn’t talk so much bloody nonsense or be so damnably
unutterably smug.”
6. (11) “Let me warn you that the doc is a frisky bacheldore, Carol. Come on, now, folks,
shake a leg. Let’s have some stunts or a dance or something.”
7. (12) “Goddamn sonofabitching stool,” Fishbelly screamed, raining blows on Bert’s head
“Lawd Gawd in heaven, I’ll kill, kill every chink-chink goddamn chinaman white man on
this sonofabitching bastard earth.”
8. (19) “Don’t wanna sleep, Don’t wanna die, just wanna go a-travelin’ through the pastures
of the sky.”

Ex. 3, p.33-36 (BPS)

Compare the neutral and the colloquial (or literary) modes of expression:
1. (1) “Also, it will cost him a hundred bucks as a retainer.”
“Huh?” Suspicious again. Stick to basic English.
“Hundred dollars,” I said. “Iron men. Fish. Bucks to the number of one hundred.
Me no money, me no come. Savvy?” I began to count a hundred with both hands.
2. (8) “I say, old boy, where do you hang out?” Mr. Pickwick responded that he was at
present suspended at the George and Vulture.”
3. (9) “The scheme I would suggest cannot fail of success, but it has what may seem to you a
drawback, sir, in that it requires a certain financial outlay.” “He means,” I translated to
Corky, “that he has a pippin of an idea but it’s going to cost a bit.”
4. (12) “He tried those engineers. But no soap. No answer.”
5. (13) “You want to know what I think? I think you’re nuts. Pure plain crazy. Goofy as a
loon. That’s what I think.”
6.(15)“I am Alpha and Omega – the first and the last,” the solemn voice would announce.”