Phonostylistics What is Style?

Phonostylistics

1. What is Style?
One of the most important notions of linguistics is that of style. In fact, the word "style" has a very broad meaning. The Latin word stylus, from which it has originated, meant 'a tool used for writing on waxed tablets'.

Besides linguistics, style can be found in other areas of human knowledge and activity. There is style in architecture (e.g. Gothic, baroque), painting (clas­sical, impressionistic), fashion, and sports. Also, we can speak of the style of one's behaviour, (independent, authoritative, etc.) or lifestyle as a whole. G. Buffon, a French thinker, used to say: "The style is the man himself."

Style is a feature of not only human activity as such but also of its resul­tant artefacts - works of art, clothes, cars, buildings, etc. Each epoch facilit­ates the appearance and development of different styles and trends.

Our choice of style is actually determined by a set of codified rules and social restrictions (e.g. choice of particular clothes, speech etiquette accept­able on different social occasions, etc.). Such restrictions are liable to change and can differ from culture to culture.

In its most general meaning, style is a specific characteristic of human activity arising within the accepted norms as the result of choice. Style is given a more restricted meaning when it is used in an evaluative sense, re­ferring to the effectiveness of a mode of expression. This is implied by such popular definition of style as 'saying the right thing in the most effective way' or as 'good manners' (Crystal and Davy 1974).

The speech of an individual, which is characterized by some peculiari­ties typical of that particular individual, is viewed as idiolect. It includes the person's habitual idiosyncrasies, i.e. his particular way of speaking clearly different from others.

Each person belongs to some social group, age, gender, interest, profes­sion, education, and other. Because of this, speech retains certain features typical of the social group. Besides people, as a rule, possess some peculiar territorial (or orthoepic) traces of speech variation: they speak the way their community speaks. The social varieties of people's speech are viewed as social dialects, or sociolects; the territorial differences in the speech are labeled as territorial varieties.

The issues described above are within the scope of phonetic stylistics as they reflect the existing variability of language-in-action. They are also confined to the phenomenon of appropriateness in speech behaviour of dif­ferent language societies. The two most widespread territorial variaties of English are British and American English. The successful expansion of Eng­lish throughout the world, its obvious dominance in many areas of interna­tional intercourse as well as the present official status of English as a lingua franca have forced into being an abundance of new "Englishes" (Franglish, Spanglish, Japlish, Swedlish, Angleutsh, etc.). This process is in the phase of active development, which affects both the donor and the recepient lan­guages.

The study of new varieties of English is at the forefront of social pho­netics and phonostylistics as there is much to be investigated, described and evaluated. According to David Crystal (1997), less than three percent of the British population speak RP in its pure form, with many educated people having developed an accent known as "Modified RP" - a combination of RP and regional features.

Peter Roach in his practical course of "English Phonetics and Phonol­ogy" (2000) underlines that "the most familiar as the accent used by most announcers and newsreaders on BBC and British independent television broadcasting channels is BBC pronunciation. The BBC itself does not im­prove an "official" accent - individual broadcasters all have their own per­sonal characteristics, and an increasing number of broadcasters with Scot­tish, Welsh and Irish accents are employed. However, there is a useful degree of consistency in the broadcast speech of speakers with an English accent." The study of English Pronunciation standard is a great challenge in English Phonetics especially for foreign learners studying British English.