Stylistic Classification of the English Vocabulary

MINISTRY OFHIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION
OF THEREPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
GULISTAN STATEUNIVERSITY
The Englishand Literature Department.«StylisticClassification of the English Vocabulary»  
Gulistan 2008

Introduction
Themeactually. It is no news that any prepositional content – any «idea» – can beverbalized in several different ways. So, «May I offer you are chair?», Take aseat, please, «Sit down» – have the same proposition but differ in themanner of expression, which, in its turn, depends upon the situationalconditions of the communication act.
70percent of our lifetime is spent in various forms of communication activities –oral or written, so it is self evident how important it is for a philologist toknow the mechanics of relations between the non verbal, extralinguisticdenotional essence of the communicative act and its verbal, linguisticpresentation. That’s why I think to study the classification of the vocabularyis very important thing for the English teacher and students.
Theaims and purposes of the work. The work set a task to learn. The peculiaritiesof stylistic differentiation of English vocabulary. To show the examples ofdifferent scholars approaches to the theme.
Thepractical value. Materials of the work will help students, teachers andparticular translators and interpreters who work on the translation of theoriginals.
Literatureoverview. Basic information’s of the qualification work are given from themanuals of great scholars such as: Stylistics by Galperin I.R, A book ofpractice in stylistics by Kukharenko V.A, English Stylistics by Bobohonova L.T.Besides above mentioned manuals I took informations from Internet and WorldBook Encyclopedia.
Thestructure of the work. This qualification work consists of Introduction, mainPart, and Conclusion and at the end the list of used literatures.


1.General considerations of stylistic classification of the English vocabulary
Theword-stock of any given language can be roughly divided into three unevengroups, differing from each other by the sphere of its possible use.
Thebiggest division is made up of neutral words, possessing no stylisticconnotation and suitable for any communicative situation, two smaller ones areliterary and colloquial strata respectively.
Inorder to get a more or less clear idea of the word-stock of nay language, itmust be presented as a system, the elements of which are interconnected,interrelated and yet independent. Some linguists, who clearly see thesystematic character of language as a whole, deny, however, the possibility ofsystematically classifying the vocabulary. They say that he word-stock of anylanguage is so large and so heterogeneous that it is impossible to formalize itand therefore present it in any system. The words of a language are thought ofas a chaotic body whether viewed from their origin and development or fromtheir present state.
Indeed,coinage of new lexical units, the development of meaning, the differentiationof words according to their stylistic evaluation and their spheres of usage,the correlation between meaning and concept and other problems connected withvocabulary are so multifarious and varied that it is difficult to grasp thesystematic character of the word-stock of a language, though it coexist withthe systems of other level-phonetics, morphology and syntax.
Todeny the systematic character of the word-stock of a language amounts todenying the systematic character of language as a whole, words being elementsin the general system of language.
Theword-stock of a language may be represented as a definite system in whichdifferent aspects of words may be singled out as interdependent. A specialbranch of linguistic science lexicology has done much to classify vocabulary. Aglance at the contents of any book on lexicology coil suffices to ascertain theoutline of the system of the word-stock of the given language.
Forour purpose, i.e. for linguistic stylistics, a special type of classification,stylistic classification, is most important.
Inaccordance with the already mentioned division of language into literary andcolloquial, we may represent the whole of the word-stock of the Englishlanguage as being divided into three main layers: the literary layer, theneutral layer and the colloquial layer. The literary and the colloquial layerscontain number of subgroups each of which has a property it shares with all thesubgroups within the layer. This common property, which unites the differentgroups of words within the layer, may be called its aspect. The aspect of theliterary layer is its markedly bookish character. It is this that makes thelayer more or less stable. The aspect of the colloquial layer of words is itslively spoken character. It is this that makes it unstable, fleeting.
Theaspect of the neutral layer is its universal character. That means it isunrestricted in its use. It can be employed in all styles of language and inall spheres of human activity. It is this that makes the layer the most stableof all.
Theliterary layer of words consists of groups accepted as legitimate members ofthe English vocabulary they have no local or dialectal character.
Thecolloquial layer of words as qualified in most English or American dictionariesis not infrequently limited to a definite language community or confined to a speciallocality where it circulates.
Theliterary vocabulary consist of the following groups of words: 1. commonliterary: 2. terms and learned words: 3. poetic words: 4. archaic words; 5.barbarisms and foreign words: 6. literary coinages including nonce-words.
Thecolloquial vocabulary falls into the following groups: 1. common colloquialwords: 2. slang: 3. jargons: 4. professional words: 5. dialectal words: 6.vulgar words: 7. colloquial coinages.


2.Main part
 
2.1Neutral, common literary and Сommon colloquial vocabulary
Neutralwords, which form the bulk of the English vocabulary, are used in both literaryand colloquial language. Neutral words are the main source of synonymy andpolysemy. It is the neutral stock of words that is so prolific in theproduction of new meanings.
Thewealth of the neutral stratum of words is often overlooked. This is due totheir inconspicuous character. But their faculty for assuming new meanings andgenerating new stylistic variants is often quite amazing. This generative powerof the neutral words in English language is multiplied by the very nature ofthe language itself. It has been estimated that most neutral English words areof monosyllabic character, as, in the process of development from Old Englishto Modern English, most of the parts of speech lost their distinguish suffixes.This phenomenon has led to the development of conversion as the most productivemeans of word-building. Word compounding is not so productive as conversion orword shift in the part of speech in the first case and by the addition of anaffix in the second. Unlike all other groups, the neutral group of words cannotbe considered as having a special stylistic coloring.
Commonliterary words are chiefly used in writing and in polished speech. One canalways tell a literary word from a colloquial word. The reason fro this lies incertain objective features of the literary layer of words. What these objectivefeatures are, is difficult to say because as yet no objective criteria havebeen worked out. But one of the undoubtedly is that literary units stand inopposition to colloquial units. This is especially apparent when pairs ofsynonyms, literary and colloquial, can be formed which stand in contrastingrelation.
Thefollowing synonyms illustrate the relations that exist between the neutral,literary and colloquial words in the English language.
Colloquial Neutral Literary Kid Child Infant Daddy Father Parent Chap Fellow Associate Get out Go away Retire Go on Continue Proceed Teenager Boy (girl) Youth (maiden) Flapper Young girl Maiden Go ahead Begin Get going Start Commence
Itgoes without saying that these synonyms are not only stylistic but ideographicas a well, i.e. there is a definite, though slight, semantic difference betweenthe words. But this is almost always the case with synonyms. There are very fewabsolute synonyms in English just as there are in any language. The maindistinction between synonyms remains stylistic. But stylistic difference may beof various kinds: it may lie in the emotional tension connoted in a word, or inthe sphere of application, or in the degree of the quality denoted. Colloquialwords are always more emotionally colored that literary ones. The neutralstratum of words, as het term itself implies, has no degree of emotiveness, norhave they any distinctions in the sphere of usage.
Bothliterary and colloquial words have their upper and lower ranges. The lowerrange of literary words approaches the neutral layer and has a markedly obvioustendency to pass into that layer. The same may be said of the upper range ofthe colloquial layer: it can very easily pass into the neutral layer. The linesof demarcation between common colloquial and neutral, on the one hand, andcommon literary and neutral, on the other, are blurred. It is here that theprocess of interpenetration of the stylistic strata becomes most apparent.
Stillthe extremes remain antagonistic and therefore are often used to bring about acollision of manners of speech for special stylistic purposes. The differencein the stylistic aspect of words may color the whole of an utterance.
Inthis example from «Fanny’s First Play», the difference between the commonliterary and common colloquial vocabulary is clearly seen.
«Dora:Oh, I’ve let it out. Have I? (contemplating Juggins approvingly as he places achair for her between the table and the sideboard). But he’s the right sort: Ican see that (button holing him). You won’t let it out downstairs, old man,will you?
Juggins:The family can rely on my absolute discretion».
Thewords in Jugginses answer are on the border – line between common literary andneutral, whereas the words and expressions used by Dora are clearly commoncolloquial, not bordering on neutral.
Theexample from «David Copperfield» (Dickens) illustrates the use of literaryEnglish words which do not border on neutral:
«Mydear Copperfield,» said Mr. Micawber, «this is luxurious. This is a way of lifewhich reminds me of a period when I was myself in a state of celibacy, and Mrs.Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the Hymeneal altar».
«Hemeans, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield,» said Mrs. Micawber, archly. «Hecannot answer for others».
«Mydear,» returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, «I have no desire toanswer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees ofFate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been reserved forone destined, after protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniaryinvolvements of a complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love, Iregret it, but I can bear it.»
«Micawber!»exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. «Have I deserved this! I, who never havedeserted you; who never will desert you, Micawber!»
«Mylove,» said Mr. Micawber, much affected, «you will forgive, and our old andtried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive the momentary laceration of awounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with the Minion of Power-inother words, with a ribald Turncock attached to the waterworks – and will pity,not condemn, its excesses».
Thereis a certain analogy between the interdependence of common literary words andneutral ones, on the one hand, and common colloquial words and neutral ones, onthe other. Both sets can be viewed as being in invariant variant relations.
Theneutral vocabulary may be viewed as the invariant of the standard Englishvocabulary. The stock of words forming the neutral stratum should in this casebe regarded as an abstraction. The words of this stratum are generally deprivedof any concrete associations and refer to the concept more or less directly.Synonyms of neutral words, both colloquial and literary, assume a far greaterdegree of concreteness. They generally present the same notions not abstractlybut as a more or less concrete image, that is, in a form perceptible by thesenses. This perceptibility by the senses causes subjective evaluations of thenotion in question, or a mental image of the concept. Sometimes an impact of adefinite kind on het reader or hearer is the aim laying behind the choice of acolloquial or a literary word rather than a neutral one.
Inthe diagram, common colloquial vocabulary is represented as overlapping intothe standard English vocabulary and is therefore to be considered part of it.It borders both on the neutral vocabulary and on the special colloquialvocabulary which, as we shall see later, falls out of standard Englishaltogether. Just as common literary words lack homogeneity so do commoncolloquial words and set expressions. Some of the lexical items belonging tothis stratum are close to the non-standard colloquial groups such asjargonisms, professionalisms, etc. There are on the border line between thecommon colloquial vocabulary and the special colloquial or non-standardvocabulary. Other words approach the neutral bulk of the English vocabulary.
Thus,the words teenager (a young girl or young man) and hippie (hippy) (a youngperson who leads an unordered and unconventional life) are colloquial wordspassing into the neutral vocabulary. They are gradually losing theirnon-standard character and becoming widely recognized. However, they have notlost their colloquial association and therefore still remain in the colloquialstratum of the English vocabulary. So also are the following words andexpressions: take (in as I take it = as I understand); to go for (tobe attracted by, like very much, as in «You think she still goes for the guy?»);guy (young man); to be gone on (to be madly in love with); pro(professional, e.g. a professional boxer, tennis – player, etc.)
Thespoken language abounds in set expressions which are colloquial in character,e.g. all sorts of things, just a bit, how is life treating you?, so-so, whattime do you make it? To hob-nob (to be very friendly with, to drinktogether), so much the better, to be sick and tired of, to be up tosomething.
Thestylistic function of the different strata of the English vocabulary dependsnot so much on the inner qualities of each of the groups, as on theirinteraction when they are opposed to one another. However, the qualitiesthemselves are not unaffected by the function of the words, in as much as thesequalities have been acquired in certain environments. It is interesting to notethat anything written assumes a greater degree of significance than what isonly spoken. If the spoken takes the place of he written or vice versa, itmeans that we are faced with a stylistic device.
Certainset expressions have been coined within literary English and their use inordinary speech will inevitably make the utterance sound bookish. In otherwords, it will become literary. The following are examples of set expressionswhich can be considered literary: in accordance with, with regard to, byvirtue of, to speak at great length, to lend assistance, to draw a lesson,responsibility rest.
 
2.2Special literary vocabulary
 
2.2.1Terms
«Allscientists are linguists to some extent. They are responsible for devising aconsistent terminology, a skeleton language to talk about their subject matter.Philologists and philosophers of speech are in the peculiar position f havingto evolve a special language to talk about language itself.»
Thisquotation makes clear one of the essential characteristics of a term viz itshighly conventional character. A term is generally very easily coined andeasily accepted: and new coinages as replace outdated ones.
Thissensitivity to alteration is mainly due to the necessity of reflecting inlanguage the cognitive process maintained by scholars analyzing differentconcepts and phenomena. One of the most characteristic features of a term isits direct relevance to the system or set of terms used in a particularscience, discipline or art, i.e. to its nomenclature.
Whena term is used our mind immediately associates it with a certain nomenclature.A term is directly connected with the concept it denotes. A term, unlike otherwords, directs the mind to the essential quality of the things, phenomenon oraction as seen by the scientist in the light of his own conceptualization
«Aword is organically one with its meaning; likewise a term is one with aconcept. Conceptualization leaves, as it were, language behind although thewords remain as (scientific or philosophical) terms linguistically the differenceis important in that terms are much more easily substitutable by other termsthan are words by other words; it is easier to replace, say the term phonologyby phonemics (provided I make it clear what is meant)[1],than to replace everyday words like table and chair by other word
Termsare mostly and predominantly used in special works dealing with the nations ofsome branch of science. There sore it may be said that they belong to thestyle. They may as well appear in newspaper style, inpublicistic andpractically in all other existing styles of language. But their function inthis case changes. They do not always fulfill their basic function that ofbearing exact reference to a given concept. When used in the belles – lettersstyle, for instance, a term may acquire a stylistic function and consequentlybecome a (sporadical) SD. This happens when a term is used n such a way thattwo meanings are materialized simultaneously.
Thefunction of terms, if encountered in other styles, is either to indicate thetechnical peculiarities of the subject dealt with, or to make some reference tothe occupation of a character whose language would naturally contain specialwords and expressions.
Inthis connection it is interesting to analyze the stylistic effect of he medicalterminology used by A.J. Cromin in his novel «The Citadel»[2].The frequent use of medical terms in the novel is explained by its subjectmatter the life of a physician and finds it natural to use medical terminology.
Thepiling up of difficult and special terms hinders the readers understanding ofthe text if he is not a specialist even when the writer strives to explainthem. More over, such an accumulation of special terminology often suggeststhat the author is displaying his erudition. Maxim Gorki said that terms mustnot be overused. It has been pointed out that those who are learning use farmore complicated terms than those who have already learned.
Thereis an interesting process going on in the development of any language. With theincrease of general education and the expansion of technique to satisfy theever-growing needs and desires of mankind, many words that were once terms havegradually lost their quality as terms and have passed into the common literaryor even neutral vocabulary. This process may be called «determinization». Suchwords as «radio», ‘television’ and the like have long been in common use andtheir terminological character is no longer evident.
BrainFoster in his book «The Changing English Language» writes: «…science is one ofthe most powerful influences molding in English language into fresh shapes atthe present time. Scientific writing is not highly esteemed for its eleganceone recalls the tale of the scientist who alluded to a certain domain ofenquiry as a virgin field pregnant with possibilities but scientific jargon andmodes of thought inevitably come to the fore in a society which equatescivilization with chromium plated bath taps. Nor does the process date fromyesterday, for we have long been talking of people being ‘galvanized’ intoactivity or going full steam ahead, but nowadays this tendency to prefertechnical imagery is ever increasing, so that science can truly be said to havesparked off a chain reaction in the linguistic sphere»[3]
Thisquotation clearly shows how easily terms and terminological combinations becomedeterminized. We hardly notice sometimes the terminological origin of the wordswe use.
Butsuch determinized words may by the force of a stylistic device becomere-established in their terminological function, thus assuming a twofoldapplication, which is the feature required of a stylistic device.
Butwhen terms are used in their normal function as terms in a work ofbelles-lettres, they are or ought to be easily understood from the context sothat the desired effect in depicting the situation will be secured.
Hereis an example of a moderate use of special terminology bordering on commonliterary vocabulary.
«Therewas a long conversation along wait. His father came back to say it was doubtfulwhether they could make the loan. Eight percent, then being secured for money,was a small rate of interest, considering its need. For ten percent Mr. Kuzelmight make a call-loan. Frank went back to his employer, whose commercialcholer rose at the report» (Theodore Dreiser, «The Financier»).
Suchterms as ‘loan’, ‘rate of interest’, and the phrase ‘to secure for money’ arewidely known financial terms which to the majority of the English and Americanreading public need no explanation. The terms used here do not understood theymay to some extent be neglected. It will suffice if the reader has a generalidea, vague though it may be, of the actual meaning of the terms used. The maintask of the co writer in this passage is not to explain the process of businessnegotiations, but to create the environment of a business atmosphere.
Inthis example the terms retain their ordinary meaning though their function inthe text is not exactly terminological. It is more nearly stylistic, inasmuchas here the terms serve the purpose of characterizing the commercial spirit ofthe hero of the novel. However, they are not SDs because they fail to meet themain requirement of an SD.
Thefollowing is an example where a term is used as an SD.
«Whata fool Fawd on Crawley has been,» Clump replied, «to go and marry a governess.There was something about the girl too.»
«Greeneyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development,» Squill remarked. (W.M. Thackeray).
Thecombination ‘frontal development’ is terminological in character (usedsometimes in anatomy). But being preceded by the word ‘famous’ used in thesense indicated by the Shorter Oxford Dictionary as ‘a strong expression ofapproval (chiefly colloquial), excellent, capital» the whole expression assumesa specific stylistic function due to the fact that ‘frontal development’ isused both in its terminological aspect and in its logical meaning ‘the breastof a woman’.
Anotherexample of the same kind terms becoming SDs:
«Ishould like,» said young Jolyon, «to lecture on it: PROPERTY AND QUALITIES OF AFORSYTE. This little animal disturbed by the ridicule of his own sort, isunaffected in his motions by the laughter of strange creatures (you and I).hereditarily disposed to myopia, he recognizes only the persons and habitats ofhis own species, among which he passes an existence of competitive tranquility».(Galsworthy).
Inthis excerpt the twofold application of meanings terminological and stylisticis achieved by the following means; the verb to ‘lecture (on…)’ and the titleof the subject’ properties and qualities (of a Forsyte)’ direct the mind to thedomain of science, i.e. they are used in a terminological sense. But when theyare followed by a word with nominal meaning (Forsyte) they assume an additionalmeaning a stylistic one. This dash of incongruous notions arrests the mindforces it to re-evaluate the terminological meaning of the words which aim atsupporting the pseudo-biological and medical aspect of the message-this beingcontained in the words ‘sort’, ‘creature’, little animal’, ‘species’,‘habitats’, ‘myopia’. This aspect is also backed up by such literary words andword – combinations as ‘tranquility’ and ‘passes an existence’ which are infull accord with the demands of a lecture.
Wheneverthe terms used in the belles letters style set the reader at odds with thetext, we can register a stylistic effect caused either by a specific use ofterms in their proper meanings or by simultaneous realization of two meanings.
 
2.3Poetic and highly literary words
Poeticwords form a rather insignificant layer of the special literary vocabulary.They are mostly archaic or very rarely used highly literary words which aim atproducing an elevated effect. They have a marked tendency to detach themselvesfrom the common literary word-stock an gradually assume the quality of termsdenoting certain definite notions and calling forth poetic diction.
Poeticwords and expressions are called upon to sustain the special elevatedatmosphere of poetry. This may be said to be the main function of poetic words.
V.V. Vinogradovgives the following properties of poetic words:
«…thecobweb of poetic words and images vials the reality, stylizing it according tothe established literary norms and canons. A word is torn away form its referent.Being drawn into the system of literary styles, the words are selected andarranged in groups of definite images, in Phraseological series, which growstandardized and stale and are becoming conventional symbols of definitephenomena or characters or of definite ideas or impressions». [4]
Poeticaltradition has kept alive such archaic words and forms as yclept (p.p.ofthe old verb clipian – to call, name); quoth (p.t. of clean – to speak); eftsoons (eftsona, – again, soon after), which are used even by modernballad-mongers. Let us note in passing that archaic words are here to beunderstood as units that have either entirely gone out of use, or as words someof whose meanings have grown archaic, e.g. hall in the following line fromByron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
Desertedis my own good hall, its hearth is desolate.
Itmust be remembered though, that not all English poetry makes use of «poeticismsor poetical terms», as they might be named. In the history of Englishliterature there were periods, as there were in many countries, which werecharacterized by protests against the use of such conventional symbols. Theliterature trends known as classicism and romanticism were particularly rich infresh poetic terms.
Poeticalwords in an ordinary environment may also have a satirical function, as seen inthis passage from Byron.
ButAdeline was not indifferent; for
(Nowfor a common – place!) beneath the snow,
Asa volcano holds the lava more
Within– et cetera. Shall I go on? – No.
Ihate to hunt down a tired metaphor,
Solet the often used volcano go.
Poorthing: How frequently, by me and others, it heath been stirred up till itssmoke quite smothers! (Don Juan)
Thesatirical function of poetic words and conventional poetic devices is wellrevealed in this stanza. The tired metaphor and the often used volcano aretypical of Byron’s estimate of het value of conventional metaphors andstereotyped poetical expressions.
Thestriving for the unusual the characteristic feature of some kinds of poetry isa kin to the sensational and is therefore to be found not only in poetry, butin many other styles.
Amodern English literary critic has remarked that in journalese a policemannever goes to an appointed spot; he proceeds to it. The picturesque reporterseldom talks of a horse, it is a steed or a charger. The sky is the welkin; thevaley is the vale; fire is the devouring elements…
Poeticalwords and word-combinations can be likened to terms in that they do not easilyyield to polisemy.
Theyare said to evoke emotive meanings. They color the utterance with a certain airof loftiness, but generally fail to produce a genuine feeling of delight; Hoyare too hackeyed for the purpose, too stale. And that is the reason that theexcessive use of poeticisms at present calls forth protest and derision towardsthose who favor this conventional device.
Suchprotests have had a long history. As far back as the 16th centuryShakespeare in a number of lines voiced his attitude toward poeticisms,considering them as means to embellish poetry. Here is one of the sonnets inwhich he condemns the use of such words.
Suis it not with me as with that Muse.
Stirr’dby a painted beauty to his verse,
Whoheaven itself for ornament doth use
Andevery fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Makinga complement of proud compare,
Withsun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,
WithApril’s first-born flowers, and all things rare.
Thatheaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.
O,let me, true in love, but truly write,
Andthen believe me, my love is as fair
Asany mother’s child, though not so bright
Asthose gold candles fix’d in heaven’s air;
Letthen say more that like of hearsay well;
Iwill not praise that purpose not to sell
(SonnetXXI)
Itis remarkable how Shakespeare though avoiding poetic words proper uses highlyelevated vocabulary in the first part of the sonnet (the octave), such as‘heaven’s air’, ‘rehearse’, ‘complement’, ‘compare’ (noun), ‘rondure’, ‘hems’, incontrast to the very common vocabulary of the second part (the sestette).
Thevery secret of a truly poetic quality of a word does not lie in conventionalityof usage. On the contrary, a poeticism through constant repetition graduallybecomes hackeyed. Like anything that lacks freshness it fails to evoke agenuinely aesthetic effect and eventually call forth protest on the part ofthose who are sensitive to real beauty.
Asfar back as in 1800 Word worth raised the question of the conventional use ofwords and phrases, which to his mind should be avoided. There was (and stillpersists) a notion called «poetic diction» which still means the collection ofepithet, periphrases archaisms, etc., which were common property to most poetsof the 18th century.
However,the term has now acquired a broader meaning.
ThusOwen Barfield says:
«Whenwords are selected and arranged in such a way that their meaning either arousesor is obviously intended to arouse aesthetic imagination, the result may bedescribed as poetic diction.[5]
Poeticdiction in the former meaning has had a long lineage. Aristotle in his «Poetics»writes the following:
«Theperfection of Diction is for it to be at once clear and not mean. The clearestindeed is that made up of the ordinary words for things, but it is mean… thediction becomes distinguished and non-prosaic by the use of unfamiliar terms,i.e. strange words, metaphors, lengthened forms and everything that deviatesfrom the ordinary modes of speech… A certain admixture, accordingly, of unfamiliarterms is necessary. These, the strange words, the metaphor, the ornamentalequivalent, etc. will save the language from seeming mean and prosaic, whilethe ordinary words in it will secure the requisite dearness.»[6]
Agood illustration of the use of poetic words the bulk of which are archaic isthe following stanza from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
Whilome(at some past time) in Albion’s isle (the oldest name of the island of Britain)there dwelt (lived) a youth,
Whone (not) in virtu’s ways did take delight:
Butspend his days in riot (wasteful living) most uncouth (unusual, strange).
Andvex’d (disturbed) with mirth (fun) the drowsy ear of Night.
Ahme! (interjection expressing regret, sorrow) in sooth (truly he was a shamelesswight (a human being).
Sore(severely, harshly) given to revel (noisy festivity) and ungodly (wicked) glee(entertainment);
Fewearthly things found favor in his sight.
Saveconcubines (prostitutes) and carnal (not spiritual) company,
Andflaunting (impudent) wassailers (drunkards; revelers) of high and low degree.
Theuse of poetic words does not as a rule create the atmosphere of poetry in thetrue sense; it is a substitute for real art.
Poeticwords are not freely built in contrast to neutral, colloquial and commonliterary words, or terms. The commonest means is by compounding, e.g.‘young-eyed’, ‘rosy-fingered’.
Somewriters make abundant use of this word-building means. Thus Arthur Hailey inhis novel «In High Places» has ‘serious-faced’, ‘high ceilinged’,‘beige-carpeted’, ‘tall backed’, ‘horn-rimmed’ in almost close proximity.
Thereis, however, one means of creating new poetic words still recognized asproductive even in present-day English, viz. the use of a contracted form of aword instead of the full one, e.g. ‘dear’ instead of dreary, ‘scant’ (=scanty).
Sometimesthe reverse process leads to the birth of a poeticism, e.g. ‘vasty’ (=vast.‘The vasty deep’, i.e. the ocean); ‘steepy’ (=steep), ‘paly’ (=pale).
Thesetwo conventional devices are called forth by the requirements of the metre ofthe poem, to add or remove a syllable, and are generally avoided by modernEnglish poets.
Poeticalwords and set expressions make the utterance understandable only to a limitedmember of readers. It is mainly due to poeticisms that poetical language issometimes called poetical jargon.
Inmodern English poetry there is a strong tendency to use words in strangecombinations. It manifests itself in the coinage of new words and, most of all,in combining old and familiar words in a way that hinders understanding andforces the reader to stoop and try to decipher the message so encoded.
Thefollowing may serve as examples;
‘Thesound of shape’, ‘night-long ages’, ‘to utter ponds of dream’, ‘wings ofbecause’, ‘to reap one’s same’, ‘goldenly whole, prodigiously’ keen star whomshe-and he-, – like its of am perceive… (E.E. Cummings).
Allthese combinations are considered ungrammatical inasmuch as they violate therules of encoding a message. But in search of new modes of expression modernpoets, particularly those who may be called «modernists», have a strong biasfor all kinds of innovation. They experiment with language means and are readyto approve of any deviation from the normal. So also are literary criticsbelonging to what is called the avant-garde movement in art, the essence ofwhich is the use of unorthodox and experimental methods? There usually leadboth the poet and the critic to extremes, examples of which are given above.
 
2.4Archaic, Obsolescent and Obsolete Words
Theword-stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. Words changetheir meaning and sometimes drop out of the language altogether. New wordssprig up and replace the old ones. Some words stay in the language a vey longtime and do not lose their faculty of gaining new meanings and becoming richerand richer polysemantically. Other words live but a short time are like bubbleson the surface of water they disappear leaving no trace of their existence.
Inregistering these processes the role of dictionaries can hardly be over-estimated.Dictionaries serve to retain this or that word in a language either as a relicof ancient times, where it lived and circulated, or as a still living unit ofthe system, though it may have lost some of its meaning. They may also preservecertain nonce-creations which were never intended for general use.
Inevery period in the development of a literary language one can find words whichwill show more or less apparent changes in their meaning or usage, from fullvigour, though a moribund state to death, i.e. complete disappearance of theunite from the language.
Weshall distinguish three stages in the aging process of words:
Thebeginning of the aging process when the word becomes rarely used. Such wordsare called obsolescent, i.e. they are in the stage of gradually passing out ofgeneral use. To this category first of all belong morphological forms belongingto the earlier stages in the development of the language. In the Englishlanguage these are the pronouns thou and its forms thee, thy and thine: thecorresponding verbal ending – est and the verb-forms art, wilt (thou makest,thou wilt); the ending – (e) th instead of – (e) s (he maketh) and the pronounye.
Tothe category of obsolescent words belong many French borrowings which have beenkept in the literary language as a means of preserving the spirit of earlierperiods, e.g. a pallet (a straw mattress), a palfrey (a small horse); garniture(furniture); to emplume (to adorn with feathers of plumes).
Thesecond group of archaic words are those that have already gone completely outof use but are still recognized by the English speaking community: e.g.methinks (it seems to me); nay (no). These words are called obsolete.
Thethird group, which may be called archaic proper, are words which are no longer recognizablein modern English, words that were in use in Old English and which have eitherdropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance somuch that they have become unrecognizable, e.g. troth (faith); a losel (aworthless, lazy fellow).
Itwill be noted that on the diagram the small circles denoting archaic and poeticwords overlap and both extend beyond the large circle «special literaryvocabulary». This indicates that some of the words in these layers do notbelong to the present day English vocabulary.
Theborder lines between the groups are not distinct. In fact they interpenetrate.It is specially difficult to distinguish between obsolete and obsolescentwords. But the difference is important when we come to deal with the stylisticaspect of an utterance in which the given word serves a certain stylisticpurpose. Obsolete and obsolescent words have separate functions, as we shallpoint out later.
Thereis still another class of words which is erroneously classed as archaic, viz.historical words. By gone periods in the life of any society are marked byhistorical events, and by institutions, customs, material objects, etc. whichare no longer in use, for example.: Thane, yeoman, goblet, baldric, mace. Wordsof this type never disappear from the language. They are historical terms andremain as terms referring to definite stages in the development of society andcannot therefore be dispensed with, though the things and phenomena to whichthey refer have long passed into oblivion. Historical words have no synonyms,where as archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms.
Archaicwords are primarily and predominantly used in the creation of a realisticbackground to historical novels. It must be pointed out, however, that the useof historical words(terms) in a passage written in scientific style, say, in anessay on the history of the Danish invasion, will bear no stylistic function atall. But the same terms when used in historical novels assume a differentstylistic value. They carry, as it were, a special volume of information addingto the logical aspect of the communication.
This,the main function of archaisms, finds different interpretation in differentnovels by different writers. Some writers overdo things in this respect, theresult being that the reader finds all kinds of obstacles in his way othersunder estimate the necessity of introducing obsolete or obsolescent elementsinto their narration and thus fail to convey what is called «local colour»
Inhis «Letter to the Young Writer» A.N. Tolstoi states that the heroes ofhistorical novels must think and speak in the way the time they live in, forcesthem to. If Stepan Razin, he maintain, were to speak of the initialaccumulation of capital, the reader would throw the book under the table and hewould be right. But the writer must know all about the initial accumulation ofcapital and view events from this particular position.
Onthe whole Tolstoy’s idea does not call for criticism. But the way it is wordedmay lead to the misconception that heroes of historical novels should speak thelanguage of the period they live in. If those heroes really spoke that languageof the time they lived in, the reader would undoubtedly throw the book underthe table because he would be unable to understand it.
Asa matter of fact the heroes of historical novels speak the language of theperiod the writer and the reader live in, and the skill of the writer isrequired to color the language with such obsolete or obsolescent elements asmost naturally interweave with the teature of the modern literary language.These elements must not be archaic in the narrow sense.
Theymust be recognizable to the native reader and not hinder his understanding ofthe communication.
Thedifficulty in handling archaic words and phrases and the subtlety required wasacutely felt by A.S. Pushikin. In his article «Juri Miloslavki, or theRussian of 1612,» Pushkin writes:
«WalterScott carried along with him a crowd of imitators. But how far hey are from theScottish charmer! Like Agrippa’s pupil, they summoned the demon of the past butthey could not handle him and fell victims of their own imprudence».
WalterScott was indeed an inimitable master in the creation of an historicalatmosphere. He used the stylistic means that cerate this atmosphere with thestylistic means that create this atmosphere with such skill and discrimination,that the reader is scarcely aware that the heroes of the novels speak hislanguage and not that of their own epoch. Walter Scott himself states theprinciples which he considers basic for the purpose; the writer’s language mustnot be out of date and therefore incomprehensible, but words and phrases ofmodern coinage should be used.
«Itis one thing to use the language to express feelings common both to us and toour forefathers,» says Scott, «but it is another thing to impose upon them theemotions and speech characteristics of their descendants».
Inaccordance with these principle Walter Scott never phonographs the language ofearlier periods; he sparingly introduces into the texture of his language offew words and expressions more or less obsolescent in character and this isenough to convey the desired effect without unduly interlarding present dayEnglish with outdated elements of speech. Therefore we can find such words asmethinks, haply, nay, travail, repast and the like in great number and, ofcourse, a multiplicity of historical terms. But you will hardly find a truearchaism of the nature indicated in our classification as archaisms proper.
Besidesthe function just mentioned, archaic words and phrases have other functionsfound in other styles. They are, first of all, frequently to be found in thestyle of official documents. In business letters, in legal language, in allkinds of statutes, in diplomatic documents and in all kind of legal documentsone can find obsolescent words which would long ago have become obsolete if itwere not for the preserving power of the special use within the above mentionedspheres of communication. It is the same with archaic and obsolete words inpoetry. As has already been pointed out, they are employed in the poetic styleas special terms and hence prevented from dropping completely our of thelanguage.
Amongthe obsolescent elements of the English vocabulary preserved within the styleof official documents, the following may be mentioned; aforesaid, hereby,there-within, herein after named.
Thefunction of archaic words and constructions in official documents isterminological in character. They are used here because they help to maintainthat exactness of expression so necessary in this style.
Archaicwords and particularly archaic forms of words are some times used for satiricalpurposes. This is achieved through what is called Anticlimax. The situation inwhich the archaism is used is not appropriate to the context there appears asort of discrepancy between the words actually used and the ordinary situationwhich includes the possibility of such a usage. The low predictability of anarchaism when it appears in ordinary speech produces the necessary satiricaleffect.
Hereis an example of such a use of an archaic form. In Shaw’s play «How He Lied toHer Husband» a youth of eighteen; speaking of his feeling towards a «female ofthirty seven» expresses himself in a language which is not in conformity withthe situation. His words are:
«Perfectlove casteth off fear».
Archaicwords, words-forms and word-combinations are also used to create an elevatedeffect. Language is specially mounded to suit a solemn occasion; all kinds ofstylistic devices are used, and among them is the use of archaisms.
Somearchaic words due to their inner qualities (sound – texture, nuances ofmeaning, morphological peculiarities combination power) may be revived in agiven.
2.5Special colloquial vocabulary
 
2.5.1Slang
Thereis hardly any other term that is as ambiguous and obscure as the term slang.Slang seems to mean everything that is below the standard of usage ofpresent-day English.
Muchhas been said and written about it. This is probably due to the uncertainty ofthe concept itself. No one has yet given a more or less satisfactory definitionof the term. Nor has it been specified by any linguist who deals with theproblem of the English vocabulary.
Thefirst thing that strikes the scholar is the fact that no other Europeanlanguage has singled out a special layer of vocabulary and named it slang,though all of them distinguish such groups of words as jargon, cant, and thelike. Why was it necessary to invent a special term for something that has notbeen clearly defined as jargon or can’t have? Is this phenomenon specificallyEnglish? Has slang any special features which no other group within thenon-literary vocabulary can lay claim to? The distinctions between slang andother groups of unconventional English, though perhaps subtle and sometimesdifficult to grasp, should nevertheless be subjected to a more detailed linguisticspecification.
Webster's«Third Mew International Dictionary» gives the following meanings of the term:
Slang[origin unknown] 1: language peculiar to a particular group: as a: the specialand often secret vocabulary used by a class (as thieves, beggars) and usu. feltto be vulgar or inferior-argot; b: the jargon used by or associated with aparticular trade,» profession, or field of activity; 2: a non-standardvocabulary composed of words and senses characterized primarily by connotationsof extreme informality and usu. a currency not limited to a particular regionand composed typically of» coinages or arbitrarily changed words, clipped orshortened forms, extravagant, forced or facetious figures of speech, or verbalnovelties usu. experiencing quick popularity and relatively rapid decline intodisuse.
The«New Oxford English Dictionary» defines slang as follows:
«a)the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputablecharacter; language of a low and vulgar type. (Now merged in c, \cant\) b) thecant or jargon of a certain class or period; c) language of a highly colloquialtype considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consistingeither of new words or of current words employed in some special sense.»
Asis seen from these quotations slang is represented both as a special vocabularyand as a special language. This is the first thing that causes confusion. Ifthis is a certain lexical layer, then why should it be given the rank oflanguage? If, on the other hand, slang is a certain language or a dialect oreven a patois, then it should be characterized not only by its peculiar use ofwords but also by phonetic, morphological and syntactical peculiarities.
J.B. Greenoughand C.L. Kitteridge define slang in these words:
«Slang…is a peculiar kind of vagabond language, always hanging on the outskirts oflegitimate speech but continually straying or forcing its way into the mostrespectable company.»[7]
Anotherdefinition of slang which is worth quoting is one made by Eric Partridge, theeminent student of the non-literary language.
«Slangis much rather a spoken than a literary language. It originates, nearly always,in speech. To coin a term on a written page is almost inevitably to brand it asa neologism which will either be accepted or become a nonce-word (or phrase),but, except in the rarest instances, that term will not be slang. «3
Inmost of the dictionaries sl. (slang) is used as convenient stylistic notationfor a word or a phrase that cannot be specified more exactly. The obscureetymology of the term itself affects its use as a stylistic notation. Wheneverthe notation appears in a dictionary it may serve as an indication that theunit presented is non-literary, but not pinpointed. That is the reason why thevarious dictionaries disagree in the use of this term when applied as astylistic notation.[8]
Anynew coinage that has not gained recognition and therefore has not yet beenreceived into standard English is easily branded as slang.
TheTimes of the 12th of March, 3957 gives the following illustrations of slang: leggo(let go), sarge (sergeant), 'I've got a date with that Miss Morris to-night'.But it is obvious that leggo is a phonetic impropriety caused by careless rapidspeaking; sarge is a vulgar equivalent of the full form of the word; date is, awidely recognized colloquial equivalent (synonym) of the literary and evenbookish rendezvous (a meeting).
Thesedifferent and heterogeneous phenomena united under the vague term slang cause naturalconfusion and do not encourage scholars to seek more objective criteria inorder to distinguish the various stylistic layers of the English colloquialvocabulary. The confusion is made still deeper by the fact that any word orexpression apparently legitimate, if used in an arbitrary, fanciful ormetaphorical sense, may easily be labelled as slang. Many words formerlylabelled as slang have now become legitimate units of Standard English. Thusthe word kid (child), which was considered low slang in the nineteenth century,is now a legitimate colloquial unit of the English literary language.
Somelinguists, when characterizing the most conspicuous features of slang, pointout that it requires continuous innovation. It never grows stale. If a slangword or phrase does become stale, it is replaced by a new slangism. It isclaimed that this satisfies the natural desire for fresh, newly created wordsand expressions, which give to an utterance emotional coloring and a subjectiveevaluation. Indeed, it seems to be in correspondence with the traditional viewof English conservatism, that a special derogative term should have been coinedto help preserve the «purity of standard English» by hindering the penetrationinto it of undesirable elements. The point is that the heterogeneous nature ofthe term serves as a kind of barrier which checks the natural influx of wordcoinages into the literary language. True, such barriers are not without theiradvantage in polishing up the literary language. This can be proved by theprogressive role played by any conscious effort to sift innovations, some ofwhich are indeed felt to be unnecessary, even contaminating elements in thebody of the language. In this respect the American newspaper may serve as anexample of how the absence of such a sifting process results in thecontamination of the literary tongue of the nation with ugly redundantcoinages. Such a barrier, however, sometimes turns into an obstacle whichhinders the natural development of the literary language.
Theterm ‘slang’, which is widely used in English linguistic science, should beclearly specified if it is to be used as a term, i. e. it should refer to somedefinite notion and should be definable in explicit, simple terms. It issuggested here that the term 'slang' should be used for those forms of theEnglish vocabulary which are either mispronounced or distorted in some wayphonetically, morphologically or lexically. The term 'slang' should also beused to specify some elements which may be called over-colloquial. As for theother groups of words hitherto classified as slang, they should be specifiedaccording to the universally accepted classification of the vocabulary of alanguage.
Butthis must be done by those whose mother tongue is English. They and they only,being native speakers of the English language, are its masters and lawgivers.It is for them to place slang in its proper category by specifying itscharacteristic features.
Slangis nothing but a deviation from the established norm at the level of thevocabulary of the language. V.V. Vinogradov writes that one of the tasksset before the branch of linguistic science that is now called stylistics, is athorough study of all changes in vocabulary, set phrases,» grammaticalconstructions, their functions, an evaluation of any breaking away from theestablished norm, and classification of mistakes and failures in word coinage.[9]
H.Wentworth and S. Flexner in their «Dictionary of American Slang» write:
«Sometimesslang is used to escape the dull familiarity of standard words, to suggest anescape from the established routine of everyday life. When slang is used, ourlife seems a little fresher and a little more personal. Also, as at all levelsof speech, slang is sometimes used for the pure joy of making sounds, or evenfor a need to attract attention by making noise. The sheer newness andinformality of certain slang words produce pleasure.
«Butmore important than this expression of a more or less hidden aesthetic motiveon the part of the speaker is the slang's reflection of the personality, theoutward, clearly visible characteristics of the speaker. By and large, the manwho uses slang is a forceful, pleasing, acceptable personality.»
Thisquotation from a well-known scientific study of slang clearly shows that whatis labelled slang is either all kinds of nonce-formations – so frequentlyappearing in lively everyday speech and just as quickly disappearing from thelanguage–, or jocular words and word-combinations that are formed by using thevarious means of word-building existing in the language and also by distortingthe form or sense of existing words. Here are some more examples of words thatare considered slang:
totake stock in–'to be interested in, attach importance, give credence to
bread-basket–'thestomach' (a jocular use)
todo a flit–'to quit one's flat or lodgings at night without paying the rent orboard'
rot–'nonsense!’
thecat's pajamas–'the correct thing’
Sobroad is the term 'slang' that, according to Eric Partridge, there are manykinds of slang, e. g. Cockney, public-house, commercial, society, military,theatrical, parliamentary and others. This leads the author to believe thatthere is also a standard slang, the slang that is common to all those who,though employing received standard in their writing and speech, also use aninformal language which, in fact, is no language but merely a way of speaking,using special words and phrases in some special sense. The most confusingdefinition of the nature of slang is the following one given by Partridge.
«…personalityand one's surroundings (social or occupation-al) are the two coefficients, thetwo chief factors, the determining causes of the nature of slang, as they areof language in general and of style.»[10]
Accordingto this statement one may get the idea that language, style and slang all havethe same nature, the same determining causes. Personality and surroundingsdetermine:
1.the nature of the slang used by a definite person,
2.the nature of the language he uses,
3.the kind of style he writes.
Thereis a general tendency in England and to some extent in the US to over-estimatethe significance of slang by attaching to it more significance than itdeserves. Slang is regarded as the quintessence of colloquial speech andtherefore stands above all the laws of grammar. Though it is regarded by somepurists as a language that stands below standard English, it is highly praisednowadays as «vivid», «more flexible», «more picturesque», «richer in vocabulary»and so on.
Unwittinglyone arrives at the idea that slang, as used by English and Americans, is auniversal term for any word or phrases which, though not yet recognized as afact of Standard English, has won general recognition as a fresh innovationquite irrespective of its nature: whether it is cant, jargon, dialect, jocularor a pure colloquialism. It is therefore important, for the sake of ascientific approach to the problem of a stylistic classification of the Englishvocabulary, to make a more exact discrimination between heterogeneous elementsin the vocabulary, no matter how difficult it may be.
Thefollowing is an interesting example illustrating the contrast between StandardEnglish and non-literary English including slang.
Inthe story «By Courier» O. Henry opposes neutral and common literary words tospecial colloquial words and slang for a definite stylistic purpose, viz. to distorta message by translating the literary vocabulary of one speaker into thenon-literary vocabulary of another.
«Tellher I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where I shalljoin that Alaska moose hunting expedition. Tell her that, since she hascommanded me-neither to speak nor to write to her, I take this means of makingone last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake of what has been. Tellher that to condemn and discard one who has not deserved such treatment,without giving him her reason or a chance to explain is contrary to her natureas I believe it to be.»
Thismessage was delivered in the following manner:
«Hetold me to tell yer he's got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scootclean out to' Frisco. Den he's goin' to shoot snowbirds in de Klondike. He saysyer told him to send' round no more pink notes nor come hangin' over de gardengate, and he takes dis mean (sending the boy to speak for him. – I.G.)of putting yer wise. He says yer referred to him like a has-been, and nevergive him no chance to kick at de decision. He says yer swiled him and neversaid why.»
Thecontrast between what is standard English and what is crude, brokennon-literary or uneducated American English has been achieved by means ofsetting the common literary vocabulary and also the syntactical design of theoriginal message against jargonisms, slang and all kinds of distortions offorms, phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical.
Itis suggestive that there is a tendency in some modern dictionaries to replacethe label slang by informal or colloquial.[11]Such a practice clearly manifests the dissatisfaction of some lexicographerswith the term 'slang'. This is mainly due to the ambiguity of the term.
Onthe other hand, some lexicographers, as has already been pointed out, stillmake use of the term 'slang' as a substitute for 'jargon', 'cant','colloquialism', 'professionalism', 'vulgar', 'dialectal'. Thus, in hisdictionary Prof. Barnhart gives the label st to such innovations as «grab – tocause (a person) to react; make an impression on», which, to my mind, should beclassed as newspaper jargon; «grass or pot – marijuana», which are positivelycant words (the quotation that follows proves it quite unambiguously); «groove–somethingvery enjoyable,» «grunt – U.S. military slang», which in fact is a professionalism;«gyppy tummy, British slang, – a common intestinal upset experienced bytravellers», which is a colloquialism; «hangup–a psychological or emotionalproblem», which is undoubtedly a professionalism which has undergone extensionof meaning and now, according to Barnhart also means «any problem ordifficulty, especially one that causes annoyance or irritation.»
Theuse of the label sl in this way is evidently due to the fact thatBarnhart's Dictionary aims not so much at discrimination between differentstylistic subtleties of neologisms but mainly at fixation of lexical unitswhich have already won general recognition through constant repetition innewspaper language.
Theterm 'slang' is ambiguous because, to use a figurative expression, it hasbecome a Jack of all trades and master of none.

2.5.2Jargonisms
Inthe non-literary vocabulary of the English language there is a group of wordsthat are called jargonisms. Jargon is a recognized term for a group ofwords that exists in almost every language and whose aim is to preserve secrecywithin one or another social group. Jargonisms are generally old words withentirely new meanings imposed on them. The traditional meaning of the words isimmaterial, only the new, improvised meaning is of importance. Most of thejargonisms of any language, and of the English language too, are absolutelyincomprehensible to those outside the social group which has invented them,They may be defined as a code within a code, that is special meanings of wordsthat are imposed on the recognized code – the dictionary meaning of the words.
Thusthe word grease means 'money'; loaf means 'head'; a tiger hunter is 'agambler'; a lexer is 'a student preparing for a law course'.
Jargonismsare social in character. They are not regional. In Britain and in the US almostany social group of people has its own jargon. The following jargons are wellknown in the English language: the jargon of thieves and vagabonds, generallyknown as cant; the jargon of jazz people; the jargon of the army, known asmilitary slang; the jargon of sportsmen, and many others.
Thevarious jargons (which in fact are nothing but a definite group of words)remain a foreign language to the outsiders of any particular social group. Itis interesting in connection with this to quote a stanza from «Don Juan» byByron where the poet himself finds it necessary to comment on the jargonisms hehas used for definite stylistic purposes.
«Hefrom the world had cut off a great man,
Whoin his time had made heroic bustle.
Whoin a row like Tom could lead the van,
Boozein the ken[12], or at thespellken[13] hustle?
Whoqueer a flat[14]? Who (spiteof Bow street's ban)
Onthe high toby-spice[15] so flash themuzzle?
Whoon a lark[16], withblack-eyed Sal (his blowing)[17].
Soprime, so swell[18], so nutty[19],and so knowing?»
The– explanation of the words used here was made by Byron's editor because theywere all jargonisms in Byron's time and no one would understand their meaningunless they were explained in normal English. Byron wrote the following ironiccomment to this stanza:
«Theadvance of science and of language has rendered it un-necessary to translatethe above good and true English, spoken in its original purity by the selectnobility and their patrons. The following is a stanza of a song which was verypopular, at least in my early days;
«Onthe high toby-spice flash the muzzle,
Inspite of each gallows old scout;
Ifyou at all spellken can't hustle,
You'llbe hobbled in making a Clout.
Thenyour Blowing will wax gallows haughty,
Whenshe hears of your scaly mistake,
She'llsurely turn snitch for the forty–
Thather Jack may be regular weight.»
Ifthere be any gemman (=gentleman) so ignorant as to require a traduction, Irefer him to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq.,Professor of pugilism; who, I trust, still retains the strength and symmetry ofhis model of a form, together with his good humor and athletic as well asmental accomplishments.» (John Murray. «The Poetical Works of Lord Byron»)
Slang,contrary to jargon, needs no translation. It is not a secret code. It is easilyunderstood by the English-speaking community and is only regarded as somethingnot quite regular. It must also be remembered that both jargon and slang differfrom ordinary language mainly in their vocabularies. The structure of thesentences and the morphology of the language remain practically unchanged. Butsuch is the power of words, which are the basic and most conspicuous element inthe language, that we begin unwittingly to speak of a separate language.
Jargonismsdo not always remain the possession of a given social group. Some of themmigrate into other social strata and sometimes become recognized in theliterary language of the nation. G.H. McKnight writes:
«Thelanguage of the underworld provided words facetiously adopted by thefashionable world, many of which, such as fan and queer and banter and bluffand sham and humbug, eventually made their way into dignified use.»[20]
Thereare hundreds of words, once jargonisms or slang, which have become legitimatemembers of the English literary language.
Jargonismshave their definite place of abode and are therefore easily classifiedaccording to the social divisions of the given period. Almost any calling hasits own jargon, i.e. its set of words with which its members intersperse theirspeech and render it incomprehensible to outsiders. Some linguists even maintainthat:
«Withinthe limits of any linguistic unity there are as many languages as there aregroups of people thrown together by propinquity and common interests.»[21]
Thisis, of course, an overstatement. First of all, one should not mix up suchnotions as language and vocabulary. True, unknown words and phrases, if toomany, may render speech unintelligible. But this fact does not raise speech tothe level of a different language.
Jargonisms,however, do break away from the accepted norms of semantic variants of words.They are a special group within the non-literary layer of words.
Thereis a common jargon and there are also special professional jargons. CommonJargonisms have gradually lost their special quality, which is to promotesecrecy and keep outsiders in the dark. In fact, there are no outsiders wherecommon jargon is concerned. It belongs to all social groups and is thereforeeasily understood by everybody. That is why it is so difficult to draw a hardand fast line between slang and jargon. When a jargonism becomes common, it haspassed on to a higher step on the ladder of word groups and becomes slang orcolloquial.
Hereare some further examples of jargon:
Piou-Piou–'aFrench soldier, a private in the infantry'. According to Eric Partridge thisword has already passed from military jargon to ordinary colloquial speech.
Hummen–'afalse arrest' (American)
Dar– (from damned average raiser)–'a persevering and assiduous student'.(University jargon)
Matlo(w)–'asailor' (from the French word 'matelot)
Manand wife–'a knife' (rhyming slang)
Manany–'asailor who is always putting off a job or work' (nautical jargon) (from theSpanish word 'manana'–'to-morrow')
Theword brass in the meaning of 'money in general, cash' is not jargon inasmuch asthere is an apparent semantic connection between 'the general name for allalloys of copper with tin or zinc' and cash. The metonymic ties between the twomeanings prevent the word from being used as a special code word. The same canbe said of the words joker–'something used to play a trick or win one's pointor object with' from card-playing; drag–'to rob vehicles'; to soap-box–'to makespeeches out-of-doors standing on a soap-box'. These are easily understood bynative speakers and therefore fail to meet the most indispensable property ofjargon words. They are slang words or perhaps colloquial.
Onthe other hand, such words as soap and flannel meaning bread and 'cheese'(naval), and some of the words mentioned above are scarcely likely to beunderstood by the language community. Only those who are in the know understandsuch words. Therefore they can be classed as Jargonisms,
Itwill not come amiss to mention here the words of Vandryes, a well-known Frenchlinguist, who said that»… jargon distorts words, it does not create them.» Indeed,the creation of really new words is a very rare process, In almost any languageyou can find only a few entirely new words. It is not accidental therefore thatthe efforts of some poets to coin completely new words have proved to be anabsolute failure, their attempts being utterly rejected by the languagecommunity.
Inpassing, we must remark that both slang and the various jargons of GreatBritain differ much more from those of America (the United 112 States andCanada) than the literary language in the two countries does. In fact, the moststriking difference is to be observed in the non-literary layer of words andparticularly in slang and Jargonisms and professionalisms. (See quotation fromRandolph Quirk on p. 44).
«Americanslang,» remarks G.H. McKnight, «on the whole remains a foreign language to theEnglishman. American plays such as «Is zat so» and American novels such as «Babbitt»have had to be provided with glossaries in order to be intelligible in England.John Galsworthy in his recent novel «The Silver Spoon» makes a naturalistic useof colloquial idiom. He exhibits the rich element of native slang in thecolloquial speech of England.»[22]
Jargonisms,like slang and other groups of the non-literary layer, do not always remain onthe outskirts of the literary language. Many words have overcome the resistanceof the language lawgivers and purists and entered the standard vocabulary. Thusthe words kid, fun, queer, bluff, fib, humbug, formerly slang words orJargonisms, are now considered common colloquial. They may be said to bedejargonized.

2.5.3Professionalisms
Professionalisms,as the term itself signifies, are the words used in a definite trade,profession or calling by people connected by common interests both at work andat home. They commonly designate some working process or implement of labor.Professionalisms are correlated to terms. Terms, as has already been indicated,are coined to nominate new concepts that appear in the process of, and as aresult of, technical progress and the development of science.
Professionalwords name anew already-existing concepts, tools or instruments, and have thetypical properties of a special code. The main feature of a professionalism isits technicality. Professionalisms are special words in the non-literary layerof the English vocabulary, whereas terms are a specialized group belonging tothe literary layer of words. Terms, if they are connected with a field orbranch of science or technique well-known to ordinary people, are easilydecoded and enter the neutral stratum of the vocabulary. Professionalismsgenerally remain in circulation within a definite community, as they are linkedto a common occupation and common social interests. The semantic structure ofthe term is usually transparent and is therefore easily understood. These-mantic structure of professionalism is often dimmed by the image on whichthe meaning of the professionalism is based, particularly when the features ofthe object in question reflect the process of the work, metaphorically ormetonymically. Like terms, professionalisms do not allow any polisemy, they aremonosemantic.
Hereare some professionalisms used in different trades: tin-fish (=submarine); block-buster(a bomb especially designed to destroy blocks of big buildings); piper (=aspecialist who decorates pastry with the use of a cream-pipe); a midder case(=a midwifery case); outer (=a knockout blow).
Someprofessionalism, however, like certain terms, become popular and gradually losestheir professional flavor. Thus the word crane which Byron used in his «DonJuan»… was a verb meaning 'to stretch out the neck like a crane before adangerous leap' (in hunting, in order to 'look before you leap'). Now,according to Eric Partridge, it has broadened its meaning and is used in thesense of 'to hesitate at an obstacle, a danger. By 1860 it was no more professionalismused in hunting but had become a colloquial word of the non-literary stratumand finally, since 1390, entered the Standard English vocabulary.
«Nogood craning at it. Let's go down.» (Galsworthy)
Professionalismsshould not be mixed up with jargonisms. Like slang words, professionalisms donot aim at secrecy. They fulfill a socially useful function in communication,facilitating a quick and adequate grasp of the message.
Goodexamples of professionalisms as used by a man-of-letters can be found inDreiser's «Financier.» The following passage is an illustration.
Franksoon picked up all the technicalities of the situation. A «bull», he learned,was one who bought in anticipation of a higher price to come; and if he was «loaded»up with a «line» of stocks he was said to be «long». He sold to «realize» hisprofit, or if his margins were exhausted he was «wiped out». A «bear» was onewho sold stocks which most frequently he did not have, in anticipation of alower price at which he could buy and satisfy his previous sales. He was «short»when he had sold what he did not own, and he was «covered» when he bought tosatisfy his sales and to realize his profits or to protect himself againstfurther loss in the case prices advanced instead of declining. He was in a «corner»when he found that he could not buy in order to make good the stock he hadborrowed for delivery and the return of which had been demanded. He was thenobliged to settle practically at a price fixed by those to whom he and other «shorts»had sold.
Asis seen, each financial professionalism is explained by the author and thewords themselves are in inverted commas to stress their peculiar idiomaticsense and also to indicate that the words do not belong to the Standard Englishvocabulary in the meanings they are used.
Thereare certain fields of human activity which enjoy nation-wide interest andpopularity. This, for example, is the case in Great Britain where sports andgames are concerned. English pugilistic terminology, for example, has gainedparticularly wide recognition and therefore is frequently used in a transferredmeaning, thus adding to the general image-building function of emotive prose.Here is an example of the use of such professionalisms in fiction.
«FatherKnickerbocker met them at the ferry giving one a right-hander on the nose andthe other an uppercut with his left just to let them know that the fight wason.»
Thisis from a story by O. Henry called «The Duel» in which the writer depicts twocharacters who came from the West to conquer New York. The vocabulary of boxing(right-hander, uppercut), as well as other professional terms found in the story,like ring, to counter, to clinch, etc., help to maintain the atmosphere of afight, which the story requires.
Professionalismsare used in emotive prose to depict the natural speech of a character. Theskilful use of a professional word will show not only the vocation of acharacter, but also his education, breeding, environment and sometimes even hispsychology. That is why, perhaps, a literary device known asspeech-characterization is so abundantly used in emotive prose. The use ofprofessionalisms forms the most conspicuous element of this literary device.
Aninteresting article was published in the Canadian Globe and Mail * in which theauthor shows how a journalist who mocks at the professionalisms in the languageof municipal planners, which render their speech almost incomprehensible,himself uses words and expressions unintelligible to the lay reader, Here isthe article.
2.5.4Dialectal words
Thisgroup of words» is obviously opposed to the other groups of the non-literaryEnglish vocabulary and therefore its stylistic functions can be more or lessclearly defined. Dialectal words are those which in the process of integrationof the English – national language remained beyond its literary boundaries, andtheir use is generally confined to a definite locality. We exclude here whatare called social dialects or even the still looser application of the term asin expressions like poetical dialect or styles as dialects.
Withreference to this group there is a confusion of terms, particularly between theterms dialectal, slang and vernacular. In order to ascertain the true value andthe stylistic functions of dialectal words it is necessary to look into theirnature. For this purpose a quotation from Cecil Wyld's «A History of ModernColloquial English» will be to the point.
«Thehistory of a very large part of the vocabulary of the present-day Englishdialects is still very obscure, and it is doubtful whether much of it is of anyantiquity. So far very little attempt has been made to sift the chaff from thegrain in that very vast receptacle of the English Dialect Dictionary, and todecide which elements are really genuine 'corruptions' of words which the yokelhas heard from educated speakers, or read, misheard, or misread, and ignorantlyaltered, and adopted, often with a slightly twisted significance. Probably manyhundreds of 'dialect' words are of this origin, and have no historical valuewhatever, except inasmuch as they illustrate a general principle in the modificationof speech. Such words are not, as a rule, characteristic of any RegionalDialect, although they may be ascribed to one of these, simply because somecollector of dialect forms has happened to hear them in a particular area. Theybelong rather to the category of 'mistakes' which any ignorant speaker maymake, and which such persons do make, again and again, in every part of thecountry.» We are not concerned here with the historical aspect of dialectalwords. For our purpose it will suffice to note that there is a definitesimilarity of functions in the use of slang, cockney and any other form ofnon-literary English and that of dialectal words. All these groups when used inemotive prose are meant to characterize the speaker as a person of a certain locality,breeding, education, etc.
Thereis sometimes a difficulty in distinguishing dialectal words from colloquialwords. Some dialectal words have become so familiar in good colloquial orstandard colloquial English that they are universally accepted as recognizedunits of the standard colloquial English. To these words belong lass, meaning'a girl or a beloved girl' and the corresponding lad, 'a boy or a young man',daft from the Scottish and the northern dialect, meaning 'of unsound mind,silly'; fash, also Scottish, with the meaning of 'trouble, cares'. Still theyhave not lost their dialectal associations and therefore are used in literaryEnglish with the above-mentioned stylistic function of characterization.

Conclusion
Thereexist the following main layers of the English and the Uzbek vocabulary:literary, neutral and colloquial. Each of these layer has its own feature: theliterary layer has a bookish character, the colloquial layer has a spokencharacter and the neutral layer is deprived of any coloring and may enter bothliterary and colloquial layers. These three layers have their ownclassification.
Withinthe literary layer we distinguish: common literary words, terms, poetic words,archaic words, barbarisms and neologisms. Within the colloquial vocabulary wedistinguish: common colloquial words, vulgar words. The neutral layerpenetrates both the literary and colloquial vocabulary and is deprived of anystylistic coloring.
Commonliterary words have a neutral character. This statement becomes obvious when weoppose common neutral literary words to bookish and colloquial.Common bookish Colloquial
To begin
To eat
To commence
To consume
Bring about, get off
to cram
Termsare words denoting notions of some special field of knowledge: medicalterminology: antibiotic.
Generallyterms are used in the language of science but with certain stylistic purposethey may be used in the language of emotive prose. For example, Arch. Croninemployed a lot of medical terms in some of his books. All this is done to makethe narration bright, vivid and close to life. It is a well-known fact thatterms are monosemantic and have not any contextual meaning. In most cases theyhave only a denotation free meaning.
Poeticwords. This group of words stands between terms and archaic words. They areclose to terms because they are monosemantic and they are close to archaicwords because they are out of use: for example: brow(forehead), steed(horse).The fiction of poetic words may be different when used in the text, itcalls on a certain type of environment and mood. Sometimes these words are usedto produce a satirical effect.
Forexample: It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
Theholy time is quite as a Nun
Breathlesswith adoration (W. Wordsworth).
Archaicwords are those which are not used now except for special purposes. Some ofthem are passing out of use: thee (you), thy (your), hath (has).
Archaicwords are very close to historical words: names of ancient weapons, types ofboats, carriages. For example: blunderbuss (an old type of gun).
Inmany cases we have archaic words in poetry. They are used here to create the elevatedstyle.
Barbarismsare words which came into the English vocabulary from other languages and haveretained their spelling and pronunciation: For example: chic (stylish), bon mot(a clever witty saying), mon-sieur (sit), tres bien (very good).
Thefunction of barbarisms is to create local color. Many writers employ thisdevice; Eg: «Monsieur ne mange rien» said sister St. Joseph (S. Maugham).
Neologisms(or coinages) appear when there is the need to express new ideas and notions.They are produced in accordance with the existing word-building models of theEnglish language, mainly due to affixation, word-compounding.
Ex:me first-mefirstism, do it yourself-do it-yourself.
Anotherwide spread group of coinages is formed with prepositions in postposition:sit-in, teach-in.
Whenthey are used in the written text they produce special stylistic effect. Theirfunction may be different to produce a humorous effect, to make distinct theadditional meaning.
Colloquiallayer of the vocabulary.
Commoncolloquial words. The essential part of these words constitutes common neutralvocabulary which is in everyday usage. There are 3 types of colloquial words:
1.Words which change their phonetic form.
Forexample: S`long (So long) `kew (thank you)
Sometimescertain syllables may be omitted: `cos (because), `ave (have)
2.Words which change their form and meaning.
Forexample: back number (out-of-clate), oldie (the old song). Noddy (a stupidperson).
3.Words which change their meaning in certain contexts.
Forexample: I like his get up-I like his way and manner. Let me know how you comeout-let me know the results. Slang. Slangs are words which are used to createfresh names for some things. Sometimes slangs are vulgar and cynical.
Thereare following slang words for money: beans, jolly, brass.
Thefunctions of slang in the written text may be the following to characterize thespeech, of the person, to produce a special impression and humorous effect. Forexample: breadbasket (the stomach), go crackers (go mad)
Jargons.The vocabularies of jargon are the words existing in the language but whichhave acquired new meanings: There are the jargon of thieves, of jazz people,army.
Peoplewho are far from that profession may not understand this jargon. For example:grease (money), loaf (head).Many of jargon words are based on the use of thetransferred meanings of words. For example. He was a great gas. (talked toomuch without saying anything useful or interesting.)
Professionalwords are words which are used in certain sphere of human activity but thesewords name this profession indirectly. For example: a tin-fish (submarine), right-hander(upright).
Thefunction of professionalisms may be different: to characterize the speech of aperson, to make the description more precise and realistic. For example: heartman (a cardiologist), red ink (blood).
Dialectalwords are such words which are connected with a certain area or region. Forexample: a lass (a girl or a beloved), fash (trouble). All these belong to Scottishdialect. Examples of southern dialect: volk (folk), yound (found). Irish words:eejts (idiots), colleen (a girl).It’s quite natural that dialectal words arecommonly used in oral speech and emotive prose and always perform the functionof charactering a person, his breeding and education through his speech.
Vulgarwords perform the function of interjections and speech characterization. Forexample: smeller (a nose), old bean (a familiar form of address), nigger (a black)

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