Standard English

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Standard English

             “We have seen that standard English is basically an ideal, a mode of expression that we seek when we wish to communicate beyond our immediate community with members of the wider community of the nation as a whole. As an ideal, it cannot be perfectly realized, and we must expect that members of different ‘wider communities’ (Britain, America, Nigeria, for example) may produce different realizations. In fact, however, the remarkable thing is the very high degree of unanimity, the small amount of divergence. Any of us can read a newspaper printed in Leeds or San Francisco or Dehli without difficulty and often even without realizing that there are differences at all.”      

Randolph Quirk “The Use of English”.

The development of the English literary language

              William Caxton declares that he found himself in a dilemma “between the plain, rude and curious. But in my judgement, the common terms that be daily used been lighter to understand than the old and ancient English.”

…as the norm of literary English “…ye shall therefore take the usual speech of the court. And that of London and the shires lying about London within LX (sixty) miles and not much above.”             Puttenham “The Art of English Poesie”.

Stylistic classification of the English vocabulary

 

COLLOQUIAL             NEWTRAL   LITERARY

kid     child     infant

daddy    father     parent

chap     fellow    associate

get out    go away    retire

go ahead    continue    proceed

Poetic and highly literary words:

“Whilome in Albion’s Isles there dwelt a youth,

Who ne in virtue’s ways did take delight,

But spent his days in riot most uncouth,

And vex’d with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.” (G.G.Harold’s Pilgrimage”)

whilome – некогда, когда-то

ne           - не

uncouth  - грубый, неотесанный

Archaic words:

Obsolent words (they are at the stage of gradually passing out of general use):

thou  - thee, thy, thine;

-est – “thou makest”;

art, wilt – “thou wilt”;

palfrey -  a small horse.

Obsolete words (they have already gone out of use but are still recognized by the English speaking community):

nay – “no”;

methinks -  “It seems to me”.

Archaic proper (words that are no longer recognized in modern English):

troth – “faith”;

losel – “a worthless lazy fellow”.      

Historical words (for historical events, institutions, customs, material objects, etc. which are no longer in use; they have no synonyms):

yeoman, goblet, mace.

Archaic words are used in the creation of a realistic background to historical novels. Other functions are to be found in other styles - within the style of official documents:  aforesaid, hereby, therewith, hereinafternamed.

Barbarisms and foreign words:

Barbarisms are words which have already become facts of the English language, e.g. chic – ‘stylish’, bon mot – ‘a clever witty saying’.

Foreign words do not belong to the English vocabulary,

e.g. soviet, kolkhoz, perestroika.

Terminological borrowings: solo, tenor, concerto, blitzkrieg (‘the blitz’).

Terms: see ‘Seminars’.

Slang (including Cockney rhyming slang):  see ‘Seminars’.

Professionalisms: tin fish – ‘submarine’, block-buster – ‘a bomb especially designed to destroy blocks of big buildings (another informal meaning – ‘something very effective or remarkable, especially a very successful film or book’)

Dialectal words: lass – ‘a girl or beloved girl’, lad – ‘a boy or a young man’, hinny – ‘honey’.

Vulgar words:  ‘four-letter words’;

   damn, bloody, to hell, etc.;

                       euphemistic spelling: d--- (damn!), b---- (bloody);

                                                          It is  bee   nuisance.

 

Expressive means and stylistic devices

Phonetic: the human voice – pitch, melody, stress, pausation, etc.  

Morphological: He shall do it. (= I shall make him do it.)

     He has to do it. (=I t is necessary for him to do it.)

Word-building means: diminutive suffixes:  -y(ie), -let, e.g. dear – deary;

                                                                                                 stream –     streamlet;

‘isms and ologies’.

Lexical – see below.

Syntactical – see below.

 

Types of lexical meanings

‘Couple who survived an amazing 66 days at sea.

‘The always wind-obeying deep.’

The sea of lights.

Kettle boils; time flies; / a ray of hope; mountain chain.

‘The news you bring is a dagger to my heart’.

 

Phonetic expressive means and stylistic devices

Onomatopoeia is a combination of speech-sounds which aims at imitating sounds produced by nature, by things, by people and by animals.

Direct onomatopoeia: ding-dong, buzz, cuckoo, roar, ping-pong.

Transferred meaning, e.g. ding-dong – 1) noisy, 2) strenuously contested.

“Ding-dong row opens on a bill”

Indirect onomatopoeia is a combination of sounds the aim of which is to make the sound of the utterance an echo of its sense. (‘echo-writing’):

            “And the silken, sad, uncertain, rustling of each purple curtain.” (E.A.Poe)

Alliteration is a phonetic stylistic device which aims at imparting a melodic effect to the utterance. The essence of this device lies in the repetition of similar sounds, in particular consonant sounds, in close succession, particularly at the beginning of successive words.

“The possessive instinct never stands still. Through florescence and feud, frosts and fires it follows the laws of progression”. (J.Galsworthy)

     Proverbs and sayings: Tit for tat; blind as a bat; to rob Peter to pay Pall.

       The titles of books: “Sense and Sensibility” (J.Austin); “Pride and Prejudice” (J.Austin);“The School for Scandal” (Sheridan).

The headlines of the articles: “BAR BARBARISM IN BARS’.

      “Papa is preferable mode of address”, observed Mrs. General. “Father is rather vulgar,my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good for the lips, especially prunes and prism”. (Ch.Dickens “Little Dorrit”)

             В переводе русскими эквивалентами “полезных для губ” слов явились: ”папа, пряник, персик, просьба, призма”, даже если они относились к совершенно другим предметам.

 Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar terminal sound combinations of words: might – right; needless – heedless; flesh – fresh – press; worth – forth.

 Rhythm is periodicity.  Rhythm in language demands oppositions: long, short; stressed, unstressed; high, low and other contrasting segments of speech.

 Rhythm in prose. The unit of measure in prose is not the syllable (as in verse) but a structure, a word combination, a sequence of words. The structural pattern, which in particular case is the rhythmical unit, will be repeated within the given span of prose. The rhythm will be based not on the regular alteration of opposing units, i.e. a regular beat, but on the repetition of similar structural units following one another or repeated after short intervals.

             “Walter, I beseech you to forgive me,” she said, leaning over him. For fear that he could not bear the pressure she took care not to touch him. “I’m so desperately sorry for the wrong I did you. I so bitterly regret it.”

             He said nothing. He did not seem to hear. She was obliged to insist. It seemed to her strangely that his soul was a fluttering moth and its wings were heavy with hatred.

             “Darling.”

             A shadow passed over his wan and sunken face. It was less than a movement, and yet it gave all the effect of a terrifying convulsion. She had never used that word to him before. Perhaps in  his dying brain there passed the thought, confused and difficultly grasped, that he had only heard her use it, a commonplace of her vocabulary, to dogs, and babies and motorcars. Then  something horrible occurred. She clenched her hands, trying with all her might to control  herself, for she saw two rears run slowly down his wasted cheeks.

            “Oh, my precious, my dear, if you ever loved me – I know you loved me and I was hateful – I beg you to forgive me. I’ve no chance now to show my repentance. Have mercy on me. I beseech you to forgive.”

           She stopped. She looked at him, all breathless, waiting passionately for a reply. She saw that he tried to speak. Her heart gave a great bound.”

                                                                (Somerset Maugham “The Painted Veil”)

            Dramatic feeling demands regular rhythm. Here: the iambic rhythm of blank verse.

 

    “there   passed   the   thought   confused   and

                __’___             __’__            _’__

                        difficultly    grasped

                      _’_                 ‘__

 

    that   he   had   only   heard   her   use   it, …

                          __’_       _’__            __’_

   …then   something   horrible   occurred.”

                 _’__             _’_                 _’__

   

Lexical expressive means and stylistic devices

Simile is a device based upon an analogy between two things, which are discovered to possess some feature in common otherwise being entirely dissimilar. The formal elements of a simile are; 1) a pair of objects; 2) a connective.

I wondered lonely as a cloud. 

My heart is like a singing bird.

The gap caused by the fall of the house had changed the aspect of the street as the loss of the tooth changes that of a face.

(like, as, as if, as though, such as;  -wise, -like)

“He resembled a professor in a five-elm college.” (S.Lewis)

“Clouds of tawny dust … flung themselves table-cloth-wise among the tops of parched trees.” (R.Kipling)

“His mind was restless, but it worked perversely and thoughts jerked through his brain like the misfiring of a defective carburetor. (S.Maugham)

Metaphor – is a relation between the dictionary and contextual logical meanings based on the similarity of certain properties of the two corresponding concepts.

“The last colours of sunset …were dripping over the edge of the flat world.”(G.Green)

“Her eyes were two profound and menacing gun-barrels.” (A.Huxley)

“I saw him coming out of the anesthetic of her charm.” (J.Thurber)

Extended metaphor:

“The slash of sun on the wall above him slowly knifes down, cuts across his chest, becomes a coin on the floor and vanishes.” (J.Updike)

           “The Jura mountains form the western frontier of Switzerland with France. Their summits are bare and windswept; foaming torrents splash noisily through rocky ravines, armies of dark pines march up the steep slopes in serried ranks.” (“Diversity of the Swiss Jura” ”The Times”)

(Cнижение образности в переводе:  «Темные сосны, словно солдаты, поднимаются сомкнутыми рядами по крутым склонам.»)

“They had reached the mysterious mill where the red tape was spun, and Yates was determined to cut through it here and now.” (St.Heym “Crusaders”)

(Замена образа: (red tape – бюрократизм, волокита) «Они уперлись в стену штабной бюрократии, но Йейтс твердо решил тут же пробить эту стену.»)

Personification, a kind of metaphor, is a device which endows a thing or a phenomenon with features peculiar of a human being.

“My impatience has shown its heels to my politeness.” (R.Stevenson)

“Thou, nature, art my goddess.” (W.Shakespeare)

Zoozemy is a kind of metaphor where names of animals are used to underline human features.

A pig; a book-worm; a goose; a lion; a monkey.

Dog, hound, puppy.

Bulls / bears.

Horse-laugh, horse-sense.

To ferret out; to fish for complements; to monkey; to rat; to smell rat.

To have a bee in one’s bonnet; to flog a dead horse.

Metonymy is also based upon analogy, but, contrary to the simile and metaphor, there is an objectively existing relationship between the object named and the object implied.

“Director Rippleton had also married money.” (S.Lewis)

“Then they came in. Two of them, a man with long fair moustaches and a silent dark man. … Definitely, the moustache and I had nothing in common.” (D.Lessing)

Metonymy has two variants: synechdoche and metonymic antonomasia.

Synechdoche is based on quantitative relationship:

A part stands for the whole:

ABC – alphabet;                  a hand – a worker;

Big Wig – V.I.P;                   a head – a chief.

The whole stands for a part:

      The fox goes well with your hat.

The container stands for what is contained:

      I don’t like this dish.

The hall applauded.

The whole school came to the theatre.

The organ stands for the ability:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” (W.Shakespeare)

He has a good eye for old books.

The material stands for the object it is made of:

      silver; iron; tin; gold.

The instrument stands for the person who uses it:

He is a big pen.

He is a sword.

“Well, Mr.Weller, says the gentl’mn, you’re a very good whip, and can do what you like with your horses.” (Ch.Dickens)

The name of the author stands for his books:

           I like to read Dickens.

           The Captain had fallen into possession of a complete Shakespeare.

The name of the flower stands for the colour:

violet.

The feeling stands for the object of the feeling:

          Oh, my love.

Antonomasia is the use of a proper name for a common one.

Antonomasia may be metaphoric, i.e. based upon a similarity between two things:

“The Gioconda smile”. (A.Huxley)

Metonymic antonomasia:

The name of a person stands for the thing he has created:

    Mackintosh – a waterproof coat patented by C.Mackintosh, inventor.

Pullman – a railway carriage or motor coach with especially comfortable seats; sleeping-car (American designer).

Personalities:

      Garribaldi; Sandwich; Victoria (a two-wheeled carriage for two persons).

Geographical names:

            countries           towns                         islands, mountains

           china                    berlin                          canary

            holland                hawana                        madera

            morocco               winchester                  cheviot

Token names:                                 Scrooge; Miss Blue Eyes;          

“I say this to our American friends. Mr. Facing-Both-Ways does not get very far in this world”. (“The Times”)

Epithet is an attributive characterization of a person, thing or phenomenon. Poetic epithet and a simple adjective. Poetic epithet is based on the interplay of emotive and logical meaning in an attributive word, phrase or even sentence. The epithet is markedly subjective and evaluative. The ties with the noun are generally contextual. Epithet creates an image.

“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. (H.Lee)

Simple adjective, a logical attribute in the sentence, is purely objective, non-evaluating. It indicates one of the inherent properties of the thing spoken about: green meadows; white snow; round table; blue sky.

In stable word combinations the ties between the attribute and the noun defined are very close, and the whole combination is viewed as a linguistic entity. Combinations of this type appear as a result of the frequent use of certain definite epithets with definite nouns. The predictability of such epithets is very great (language epithets): ‘sweet smile’, ‘deep feeling’, ‘pitch darkness’, ‘powerful influence’.

Fixed epithet (the connection between the epithet and the noun is so strong that they build a specific unit which does not lose its poetic flavour): true love; dead silence; sweet Sir.

Structural classification:

1. simple epithet consists of one word ( adjective or adverb, modifying respectfully nouns or verbs):

“The glow of an angry sunset.” (Ch.Dickens)

2.  compound epithet:

 heart-burning sigh; cloud-shapen giant; sylph-like figures.

3. phrase epithet includes into one epithet an extended phrase or a completed sentence:

The never-to-be-forgotten day.

The don’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-kill-you expression of his face.

I-don’t-care appearance.

4.  reversed epithet is based on illogical syntactical relations between the modifier and the  modified: a devil of a job;

            “A devil of a sea rolls in that bay.” (G.G.Byron)

the devil of a woman = a devilish woman;

the giant of a man = a gigantic man.