10. Registers and styles

    Cards (55)

    • Register
      Language variation based on the use, situational context (communicative purposes, mode of production, ways of interaction), and linguistic features (typical lexical and grammatical characteristics)
    • Functional style

      A system of language means which serves a definite aim in communication
    • Functional styles of English

      • Belles-lettres
      • Scientific prose
      • Publicistic
      • Newspaper
      • Official document
    • Functional styles

      • They have their own norms but do not violate the general notion of the literary norm
      • They are patterns of mainly written variety of language
    • Styles identified by Joos

      • Frozen style
      • Formal style
      • Consultative style
      • Casual style
      • Intimate style
    • Genre
      Message type that over time develops an identifying structure, communicative events which share communicative purpose
    • Register
      A text variety: typical linguistic characteristics + the situation of use + communicative purpose
    • Genre
      A text variety: conventional structure + the situation of use + communicative purpose
    • Style
      A text variety: preferences in the use of linguistic features
    • Publicistic style

      • Presents opinions
      • Aim: to influence public opinion through logical arguments and emotional appeal
    • Publicistic style substyles

      • Oratory and speeches
      • The essay
      • Journalistic articles
    • Oratory and speeches

      • To persuade
      • Direct contact with the listeners – gestures, body language, physical appearance
      • Address political and social problems
    • Oratory and speeches

      • Weddings, funerals, sermons, courts
      • Political speeches: debates, speeches at meetings
    • Oratory and speeches

      • Layout: careful and simple structure
      • Vocabulary: emotive meaning, direct address to the audience (ladies and gentlemen), colloquial words
      • Grammar: 2nd person (you), contradictions (I'll, won't,...)
      • Syntax: logical and coherent, rhetorical questions, repetition, changing intonation (to break monotony), repeated direct address (dear friends)
    • The essay

      • Moderate length on philosophical, social, or literary subjects
      • Series of personal and witty comments
      • Never goes deep into the subject
    • The essay

      • Naturalness of expression
      • Brevity of expression, use of 1st person singular (justifies the personal approach)
      • Use of connectives to correlate the ideas
      • Emotive words, metaphors
    • Journalistic articles

      • Rare and bookish words, neologisms
      • Expressing opinion – names of journalists appear
      • Traditional word combinations, emotional language
    • Journalistic articles

      • Reviews, opinions, columns
    • Newspaper style

      • Purpose: to bring latest, accurate information on current affairs
      • British newspapers can be classified into: popular (tabloids) and quality (broadsheet)
    • Newspaper style layout

      • Titles and headlines – to attract reader and emphasize importance
      • Paragraphs – not-well organized long sentences, short-paragraphing to help readers scan, long paragraphing well organized
      • Punctuation marks to engage and emphasize
      • Devices as: colours, photographs, pictures and diagrams
    • Newspaper style vocabulary

      • Long NPs, neologisms, loan words
      • Avoid ambiguity
      • Contractions and phrasal verbs => more intimate with readers
      • Stylistic devices – to attract attention, to make it more appealing, less boring
    • Newspaper style grammar
      • NPs with post-modifiers
      • Absence of auxiliaries in titles – saving space, can be guessed from context, present perfect
      • Probability modals (would, could, might) – uncertainty of style
    • Newspaper style syntax

      • Complex and long sentences in quality newspapers
      • Declarative sentences to report information
      • Interrogative sentences – mostly rhetorical questions involving the reader
    • News genre

      • To inform without evaluation
      • Language: stylistically neutral, political terms, economic terms, newspapers cliché, abbreviations, neologisms
      • Syntax: complex sentences, five-w-and-h-pattern rule (who, what, why, how, where, when)
    • Scientific prose style

      • Functions: to convey knowledge, to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose rules and relations (publish)
      • Features: accuracy, objectivity, exact logical, impersonal, unemotional, presenting facts and ideas
    • Scientific prose style layout

      • Well-organized paragraphs: introduction, body, conclusion
      • Titles and subtitles, summarizing the ideas
      • Figures, diagrams, tables
    • Scientific prose style vocabulary

      • Terminology – terms self explanatory or explained
      • Neutral words, set phrases, cliches
      • Precision, clarity, logical cohesion
    • Scientific prose style grammar

      • Past/ present simple, present perfect
      • Passive voice for objectivity "it must be emphasized"
      • Long compound NPs
      • Accuracy – adjectives, adverbs
    • Scientific prose style syntax

      • Connectives – to indicate conclusion, provide argument, bind information together (logical, contrast, addition)
      • Hedging – to tone down statement because of the opposition
      • Modal auxiliary verb: could, might, would
      • Modal lexical verbs: it seems, to believe
      • Adverbial: probably, possibly, unlikely
      • If clauses
      • Compound hedges: it seems likely that...
    • Substyles of official documents

      • Style of business documents
      • Style of legal documents
      • Style of diplomatic documents
      • Style of military documents
    • Vocabulary
      • Terminology – terms self explanatory or explained
      • Neutral words, set phrases, cliches
      • Precision, clarity, logical cohesion
    • Grammar
      • Past/ present simple, present perfect
      • Passive voice for objectivity ''it must be emphasized''
      • Long compound NPs
      • Accuracy – adjectives, adverbs
    • Syntax
      • Connectives – to indicate conclusion, provide argument, bind information together
      • Logical: thus, then, therefore
      • Contrast: but, yet, however
      • Addition: and, or
      • Hedging – to tone down statement because of the opposition
      • Modal auxiliary verb: could, might, would
      • Modal lexical verbs: it seems, to believe
      • Adverbial: probably, possibly, unlikely
      • If clauses
      • Compound hedges: it seems likely that…
    • STYLE OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

      • Aim to state the conditions and to reach agreement
      • Language: formal, accurate, concrete, clear
      • Features: clichés, terms, set expression, absence of emotiveness, abbreviations, symbols, contradictions
      • Layout: No paragraphs – equality of items, Punctuation marks not used to avoid double interpretation, Capitalization – emphasize important words
    • SUBSTYLES of official documents

      • Style of business documents
      • Style of legal documents
      • Style of diplomatic documents
      • Style of military documents
    • Vocabulary in official documents

      • Highly bookish logical dictionary meaning
      • Archaic words (archaic forms as: witnesseth, hereunder)
      • Pair of synonyms: made and signed, terms and conditions
      • Terms, phrases, clichés: hereinafter, it is understood and agreed, including without limitation
      • Latin (ad hoc, pro rata) and French (amicably)
      • Abbreviations, symbols, and marks. (et al. = and others, C and I = cost and insurance)
    • Grammar in official documents

      • Long NPs with post modifiers
      • Continuous tense not used
      • 'shall' in the sense of 'must' (the request shall be considered)
      • Adjectives rarely to avoid ambiguity
      • Adverbs of time and place to achieve precision (thereby, thereof, hereunder)
    • Syntax in official documents

      • Long complex complicated sentences
      • Declarative sentences: to reflect obligatory nature
      • Many interruptions to reflect the complexity
    • BELLES-LETTRES STYLE

      Aesthetic function, not to prove but only suggest possible interpretation, words in contextual meaning
    • Substyles of belles-lettres

      • Poetry
      • Prose drama