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Answer the following questions:
1. What classes of words do we distinguish from the etymological point of view?
2. What are the major characteristics of the native (Anglo-Saxon) vocabulary units?
3. What criteria can we use to distinguish borrowings in English?
4. What types of assimilation can we observe in borrowings?
5.What is the influence of borrowings on the language development?
6. What features of English brought to its becoming a global language?
LECTURE 17. ENGLISH VOCABULARY AS AN ADAPTIVE SYSTEM
Plan of the lecture:
1. Functional styles (register) of the English language
2. Formal (literary) style features
3. Learned and poetic words, euphemisms, archaic and obsolete words, professionalisms, terms, etc.
4. Informal (colloquial) styles and their features
5. Slang, dialectisms, occasionalisms, ad hoc words, nonce words, etc.
Being an adaptive system the vocabulary is constantly adjusting itself to the changing requirements and conditions of human communication and cultural and other needs. This process of self-regulation of the lexical system is a result of overcoming contradictions between the state of the system and the demands it has to meet. The speaker chooses from the existing stock of words such words that in his option can adequately express his thought and feeling. Failing to find the expression he needs, he coins a new one. It is important to stress that the development is not confined to coining new words on the existing patterns but in adapting the very structure of the system to its changing functions, which can be defined by functional style (register). Linguistically a functional style may be defined as a system of expressive means peculiar to a specific sphere of communication.
The lexicological treatment of style will be based on the principle of lexical oppositions. Every stylistically coloured word presupposes the possibility of choice, which means that there must exist a neutral synonym to which it is contrasted, e.g. steed : : horse. The basis of the opposition is created by the similarity of denotational meaning, the distinctive feature is the stylistic reference. A stylistic opposition forms part of an extensive correlation of oppositions, because for a style to exist there must be a considerable set of words typical of this style. Therefore stylistical oppositions are proportional oppositions:
It is also possible to consider oppositions between whole sets of words, i.e. oppositions between styles. The broadest binary division is into formal and informal (also called colloquial) English. The term formal English will be used in what follows to cover those varieties of the English vocabulary (there are also peculiarities of phonetics and grammar, but they do not concern us here) that occur in books and magazines, that we hear from a lecturer, a public speaker, a radio announcer or, possibly, in formal official talk.
These types of communication are characteristically reduced to monologues addressed by one person to many, and often prepared in advance. Words are used with precision, the vocabulary is elaborate; it is also generalized — national, not limited socially or geographically. Informal vocabulary is used in personal two-way every-day communication. A dialogue is assisted in its explicitness by the meaningful qualities of voice and gesture. The speaker has ample opportunity to know whether he is understood, the listener can always interrupt him and demand additional information, i.e. there is constant feedback. The vocabulary may be determined socially or regionally (dialect).
Formal style is characterised by an impersonal non-emotional way of expressing your ideas, frequent use of the passive, non-colloquial English and complex sentences. Short forms are acceptable only in quotes. Informal style is characterised by a personal, emotional and chatty way of expressing your ideas and use of colloquial English (idiomatic expressions), idioms and short forms.
Compare the examples: - The cottage, once inhabited by a famous poet, was built atop a steep, rocky hillside overlooking an idyllic landscape of lush fields divided by ancient dry stone walls, (formal) - My dad's cottage is out of this world as It's right on the top of a hill and looks down on gorgeous green fields which are split up by old dry stone waifs. (Informal) Formal style is restricted to formal situations. In general, formal words fall into two main groups: words associated with professional communication and a less exclusive group of so-called learned words.
These words are mainly associated with the printed page. It is in this vocabulary stratum that poetry and fiction find their main resources.
We find here numerous words that are used in scientific prose and can be identified by their dry, matter-of-fact flavour (e.g.comprise, experimental, heterogeneous, homogeneous, conclusive, divergent, etc).
To this group also belongs so-called ‘officialese’ (канцеляризмы). These are the words of the official, bureaucratic language. They should be avoided in speech and in print, e.g. assist (for help), endeavour (for try), proceed (for go), etc. .
In accordance with the division of language into literary and colloquial, we may represent the whole of the word stock of the English language as being divided into 3 main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer and the colloquial layer.
The literary layer of words consists of groups accepted as legitimate members of the English vocabulary. They have no local or dialect character. The literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words: 1. common literary; 2. terms and learned words; 3. poetic words; 4. archaic words; 5. barbarisms and foreign words; 6. literary coinages including nonce-words.
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