XIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2021

Functional Style is a system of interrelated language means serving a definite aim in communication. It is the coordination of the language means and stylistic devices which shapes the distinctive features of each style and not the language means or stylistic devices themselves. Each style, however, can be recognized by one or more leading features which are especially conspicuous.

In the English literary standard the following major FS are distinguished:

the belles-lettres functional style,

the publicistic functional style,

the newspaper functional style,

the scientific prose style,

the official documents functional style.

The belles-lettres functional style has the following substyles:

1) The language of poetry is characterized by its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactic and semantic peculiarities. There are certain restrictions which result in brevity of expression, epigram-like utterances and fresh, unexpected imagery. Syntactically this brevity is shown in elliptical sentences, in detached constructions, in inversion, etc.

2) Emotive prose shares the same common features, but these features are correlated differently than in poetry. The imagery is not so rich as in poetry; the percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high. Emotive prose features the combination of the literary variant of the language, both in words and in syntax, with the colloquial variant. But the colloquial language in the belles-lettres style is not a simple reproduction of the natural speech, it has undergone changes introduced by the writer and has been made "literature-like". In emotive prose there are always two forms of communication present - monologue (the writer's speech) and dialogue (the speech of the characters). Emotive prose allows the use of elements from other styles as well. But all these styles undergo a kind of transformation under the influence of emotive prose. Passages written in other styles may be viewed only as interpolations and not as constituents of the style.

3) Language of the drama is entirely dialogue. The author's speech is almost entirely excluded except for the playwright's remarks and stage directions. But the language of the characters is not the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language. Any variety of the belles-lettres style will use the norms of the literary language of the given period. The language of plays is always stylized, it strives to retain the modus of literary English.

The belles-lettres style is individual in essence. This is one of its most distinctive properties.

The pubicistic style treats certain political, social, economic, cultural problems. The aim of this style is to form public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener. It has the following substyles:

1) Oratory. The oratorical style is the oral subdivision of the publicist style. It makes use of a great number of expressive means to arouse and keep the public's interest: repetition, gradation, antithesis, rhetorical questions, emotive words, elements of colloquial speech. Similes and metaphors are generally traditional. It is prepared beforehand and it is a monologue. It has some special formulas of address and conclusion.

2) Essays. The essay is very subjective and the most colloquial of the all substyles of the publicistic style. It is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic, etc. subjects. It makes use of expressive means and tropes. It is characterized by brevity of expressions, the use of the 1-st person singular (personal approach to the problem), expanded use of connections, naturalness of expressions, the abundant use of emotive words, use of similes and sustained metaphors.

3) Articles in newspapers and magazines. It is defined by the character of newspaper, magazine, as well as subjects chosen. Literary reviews stand closer to essays.

The newspaper functional style. Not all the printed materials found in newspapers comes under newspaper style. Only materials which perform the function of informing the reader and providing him with an evaluation of information published can be regarded as belonging to newspaper style. English newspaper style can be defined as a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means which is perceived by the community as a separate linguistic unity that serves the purpose of informing and instructing the reader.

Characteristic features:

1) Brief news items. Its function is to inform the reader. It states only facts without giving comments. The vocabulary used is neutral and common literary.

2) Headlines. The headline is a dependent form of newspaper writing. The main function is to inform the reader briefly of what the text that follows is about.

3) The editorial. The function of the editorial is to influence the reader by giving an interpretation of certain facts. It comments on the political and other events of the day. It appeals not only to the readers mind, but to his feelings as well.

4) Advertisements and announcements. The function of advertisements and announcements is to inform the reader. There are two types of them: classified and non-classified. In classified advertisements and announcements information is arranged according to the subject matter into sections: births, marriages, personal etc.

The newspaper also seeks to influence public opinion on political and other matters. Elements of appraisal may be observed in the very selection and way of presentation of news, in the use of specific vocabulary, casting some doubt on the facts recorded, and syntactical constructions indicating a lack of assurance of the reporter or his desire to avoid responsibility.

The style of scientific prose has 3 subdivisions:

1) the style of humanitarian sciences;

2) the style of "exact" sciences;

3) the style of popular scientific prose.

Its function is to work out and prove theoretically objective knowledge about reality, to create new concepts, to disclose the internal laws of existence, development, etc.

The peculiarities are: objectiveness; logical coherence, impersonality, unemotional character, exactness.

The scientific prose style consists mostly of ordinary words which tend to be used in their primary logical meaning. Emotiveness depends on the subject of investigation but mostly scientific prose style is unemotional.

The logical presentation and cohesion of thought manifests itself in a developed feature of scientific syntax that is the use of established sentence patterns: postulator, formulate, argumentative.

Some features of the style in the text are: use of quotations and references, se of foot-notes helps to preserve the logical coherence of ideas.

The Style of Official Documents has the following substyles:

1) language of business letters;

2) language of legal documents;

3) language of diplomacy;

4) language of military documents.

The aims are to reach agreement between two contracting parties and to state the conditions binding two parties in an understanding. Each of the substyles of official documents makes use of special terms. Legal documents: military documents, diplomatic documents. The documents use set expressions inherited from early Victorian period. This vocabulary is conservative. Legal documents contain a large proportion of formal and archaic words used in their dictionary meaning. In diplomatic and legal documents many words have Latin and French origin. There are a lot of abbreviations and conventional symbols.

Every functional style of language is marked by a specific use of language means, thus establishing its own norms which, however, are subordinated to the norm-invariant and which do not violate the general notion of the literary norm.

List of references:

Galperin I.R. English Stylistics - Москва «Высшая школа» 1981. – 333 с.

Functional Styles in Modern English: https://textarchive.ru/c-2964345-pall.html

Functional Styles of the English Language: https://www.studmed.ru/view/functional-styles-of-the-english-language_39c25376457.html