English Stylistics. Стилистика английского языка - Гуревич Валерий - Страница 3

English dialects are divided into northern (including the Scottish dialect) and southern (including 'cockney', the dialect of the area south of London).

The Scottish dialect comes back to the Gaelic language (гаэльский язык), a language of Celtic origin (кельтский) and to the Scottish (Scots) language (one of the Germanic languages): cf. such words used by speakers of English in the area of Scotland as bairn (=child), auld (= old), ben (= mountain), bonnie (= beautiful), canny (= careful), brae (= slope, bank), haggis (= pudding), ilka (= every), keek (= look), kirk (= church), laddie, lassie (= boy, girl), loch (= lake). The pronunciation of Scottish dialectal words may also have some peculiarities, e.g. [u:] instead of [au], e.g. [hu:s] (= house), [u:t] (= out), [du:n] (= down); [ai] instead of [ou] – e.g. [stain] (= stone), [bain] (= bone), [raid] (= road), etc.; long [ae] instead of long [a:] in certain words, e.g. [daens] (= dance), [laest] (= last); the consonant [r] is produced by vibration of the tip of the tongue. The poet Robert Burns wrote in the Scottish dialect.

The Southern dialect of English is phonetically characterized by the dental-nasal [n] instead of the purely nasal [ng] (He is doin'/sittin', instead of 'doing', 'sitting'); by the loss of the consonant [h] in the initial position: [ia] (=hear), [art] (= heart), etc. Elements of this dialect can be observed in the speech of the characters in the novels of Thomas Hardy (19th century English classical writer).

The Irish dialect of English is spread in Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK. It is not the Irish language itself (which is of Celtic origin and is spoken in the Irish Republic – in the southern part of the island), but a variety of English, which includes: Irish words: girsha (= little girt), gaurlagh (= baby), colleen (= young girl), donny (= of weak health), cardia (= friendship); also – English words with a changed meaning: likely (= good), bravely (= very well), to join (= to cry), able (=strong), harvest (= autumn), to learn smb. (= to teach).

Variants of English used outside the territory of Great Britain are found in the former British colonies. One of the most notable and widespread is the American variant, which has preserved some of the features of the English language of the 17th century (the period of Early New English – the language used by the first British settlers in America). It has certain peculiarities of pronunciation, which include: the pronunciation of the sound [r] in any position in the word (girl, here) and the retroflexive articulation of this sound (as different from its alveolar articulation in British English); the substitution of the vowel [ae] for the long [a:] in ask, last, after, grass, laugh, chance, etc. (as in the Scottish dialect); pronunciation of the back lower variant of the vowel [a] instead of [o] in words like hot, pot, stop, cop, college, etc.; the loss of [j] before the vowel [u] after some consonants: cf. [su:t] for suit, [nu:] for new, [tu:n] for tune, [duti] for duty; the use of the dark variant of the consonant [l] in all positions; the voicing of some voiceless consonants in interlocal position (better, letter, closer); a slight nasalisation of vowels before or after nasal consonants (can't, stand).

There are also differences in vocabulary, e.g. fall (British – autumn), guess (= think), baggage (= luggage), drug (= medicine), store (= shop), can (= tin), elevator (= lift), hardware (= ironmongery), grades (= marks), mail (= post), bill (= banknote), to pay a check (= to pay a bill), gas (= petrol), hog (= pig), to line (= to queue up), movies (= pictures, cinema film), stocks (= shares), information desk (= enquiry-office), sidewalk (= pavement), carousal [karu'sel] (= merry-go-round), vacation (= holiday), class (= form; the boy is now in his first class at school), closet (= cupboard), candy (= sweets), sick (= ill), ten minutes after five (= past five), etc. As for grammar forms, American English uses gotten instead of got, and the future auxiliary will with all the persons. It also prefers simplified variants of spelling: color (=colour), favorite (= favourite), theater (=theatre), center (=centre), telegram (= telegramme), etc. 

b) English Vocabulary in the Aspect of Time

Besides the vocabulary that is in current (present-day) use, we also find archaic or obsolete (устарелые) words, which belong to some previous stage of language development but can still be found in works of fiction (especially in the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Swift or other classical authors). Cf. the archaic words Behold! (= Look!), Hark! (= Listen!), methinks (= I think), Nay (= no), Wither are you going? (= Where are you going to?), hither and thither (= here and there), thou/to thee (= you/to you), whilst (= while), awhile (= for some time), yon (= this, that), yonder ( = there), etc.

Archaic words are frequently used in poetry and thus belong also to poetic vocabulary (poetic diction): cf. quoth (= said), woe (= sorrow), swain (= shepherd), foe (= enemy), steed/charger (= horse), realm (= kingdom), nought/naught (= nothing), ere (= before), albeit (= although); here also belong certain shortened variants of the currently used words, e.g. oft (= often), eve (= evening), morn (= morning), etc.

The vocabulary that has gone out of use also includes the so called 'historisms' (историзмы) — words which reflect some phenomena belonging to the past times, e.g. knight (рыцарь), yeomen (йомены, independent peasants in old England), archer (лучник), sling (праща), ram (таран); cf. also Russian historisms like городничий, городовой, бояре.

On the other hand, we can also find in English vocabulary the so-called 'neologisms', i.e. words that have recently come into the language and are still felt as rather new: allergy, computer, astronaut, isotope, quasar, laser, aliens, supermarket, chain-stores, bikini, mini/maxi/midi (of clothes), paperbacks, etc.

Comparatively new borrowings from other languages, which are not yet completely assimilated in the language (phonetically or grammatically), are stylistically marked as 'foreign' words (sometimes, as barbarisms); they usually belong to a lofty (bookish) style: e.g. protège, a propos, bonjour, idée fixe, chic (= of very good taste, fashionable), alter ego (= one's second self), de facto (= in point of fact), status quo (= the existing state of things), ibid/ibidem (= by the same author), etc., viz. (= videlicet) (namely). 

Part 2

Functional Styles of Speech in Greater Detail

The Colloquial Style

This is the style of informal, friendly oral communication. The vocabulary of colloquial style is usually lower than that of the formal or neutral styles, it is often emotionally coloured and characterized by connotations (cf. the endearing connotation in the words daddy, kid or the evaluating components in 'trash', etc. in the examples of connotations above).