A course of modern english lexicology

QUESTIONS TO LECTURE #1

1. What is the origin of the word “style”?
2. How do you explain the meaning of the word “style’ for different spheres of application?
3. What is the concept of style in stylistics?
4. What does stylistics as a branch of linguistics deal with?
5. What are the three sub-systems of the language distinguished by Professor Yu. Skrebnev?
6. Give your own examples of neutral, sub-standard and super-standard types of sentences with the same general meaning.
7. What are the two characteristics of any linguistic unit?
8. What are the expressive means of the language?
9. What do we call stylistic devices?
10. What are the styles of speech described by Academician V. Vinogradov in respect to their functions?
11. What is a register of speech?
Lecture #2

STYLISTIC CLASSIFICATION
OF THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

1. STYLISTICALLY-NEUTRAL WORDS
2. STYLISTICALLY-COLOURED WORDS:

A. Super-Neutral Words: • learned words; • archaisms; • professional terms

B. Sub-Neutral Words: • colloquial words; • slang; • dialect words

The words are used in speech with a different extent of regularity. Some words occur more frequently than the others, and they are indispensable in every act of communication, while other words are used only in some special spheres of linguistic intercourse. In accordance with the differentiation of the language into three subsystems we can sub-divide the vocabulary of the language into three groups, accordingly: neutral, sub-neutral and super-neutral.

1. STYLISTICALLY-NEUTRAL WORDS

Stylistically-neutral words are also called the basic vocabulary of the language. They can be used in all kinds of situations, both formal, and informal, in speech and in writing. They denote objects and phenomena of everyday importance (e.g. house, milk, dog, cat, to walk, to run, and etc.). Their meanings are broad, general, and bear no additional information.