XIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2021

The word-stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. Words change their meaning and sometimes drop out of the language altogether. New words spring up and replace the old ones. Some words stay in the language a very long time and do not lose their faculty of gaining new meanings and becoming richer and richer polysemantically. Other words live but a short time and are like bubbles on the surface of water — they disappear leaving no trace of their existence.

In every period in the development of a literary language one can find words which will show more or less apparent changes in their meaning or usage, from full vigor, through a moribund state, to death, i. e. complete disappearance of the unit from the language.

The beginning of the aging process when -the word becomes rarely used. According to Galperin, such words are called obsolescent, i.e. they are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use. To this category first of all belong morphological forms belonging to the earlier stages in the development of the language. In the English language these are the pronouns thou and its forms thee, thy and thine; the corresponding 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 pronoun ye.

The second group of archaic words are those that' have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by the English-speaking community: e. g. methinks (= it seems to me); nay (=ло). These words are called obsolete.

The third group, which may be called archaic proper , are words which are no longer recognizable in modem English, words that were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have become unrecognizable, e. g. troth (—faith); a losel (==a worthless, lazy fellow).

The border lines between the groups are not distinct. In fact they interpenetrate. It is specially difficult to distinguish between obsolete and obsolescent words. But the difference is important when we come to deal with the stylistic aspect of an utterance in which the given word serves a certain stylistic purpose. Obsolete and obsolescent words have separate functions, as we shall point out later.

There is 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 by historical events, and by institutions, customs, material objects, etc. which are no longer in use, for example: Thane, yeoman, goblet, baldric, mace. Words of this type never disappear from the language. They are historical terms and remain as terms referring to definite stages in the development of society and cannot therefore be dispensed with, though the things and phenomena to which they refer have long passed into oblivion. Historical words have no synonyms, whereas archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms.

Archaic words are primarily and predominantly used in the creation of a realistic background to historical novels. It must be pointed out, however, that the use of historical words (terms) in a passage written in scientific style, say, in an essay on the history of the Danish invasion, will bear no stylistic function at all. But the same terms when used in historical novels assume a different stylistic value. They carry, as it were, a special volume of information adding to the logical aspect of the communication.

This, the main function of archaisms, finds different interpretation in different novels by different writers. Some writers overdo things in this respect, the result being that the reader finds all kinds of obstacles in his way. Others under-estimate the necessity of introducing obsolete or obsolescent elements into their narration and thus fail to convey what is called “local color”.

Besides the function just mentioned, archaic words and phrases have other functions found in other styles. They are, first of all, frequently to be found in the style of official documents. In business letters, in legal language, in all kinds of statutes, in diplomatic documents and in all kinds of legal documents one can find obsolescent words which would long ago have become obsolete if it were not for the preserving power of the special use within the above-mentioned spheres of communication. It is the same with archaic and obsolete words in poetry. As has already been pointed out, they are employed in the poetic style as special terms and hence prevented from dropping completely out of the language.

Among the obsolescent elements of the English vocabulary preserved within the style of official documents, the following may be mentioned: aforesaid, hereby, therewith, hereinafternamed.

The function of archaic words and constructions in official documents is terminological in character. They are used here because they help to maintain that exactness of expression so necessary in this style. Archaic words and particularly archaic forms of words are sometimes used for satirical purposes. This is achieved through what is called Anticlimax. The situation in which the archaism is used is not appropriate to the context. There appears a sort of discrepancy between the words actually used and the ordinary situation which excludes the possibility of such a usage. The low predictability of an archaism when it appears in ordinary speech produces the necessary satirical effect.

Here is an example of such a use of an archaic form. In Shaw's play “How He Lied to Her Husband” a youth of eighteen, speaking of his feelings towards a “female of thirty-seven” expresses himself in a language which is not in conformity with the situation. His words are:“Perfect love casteth off fear”.

The stylistic significance of archaic words in historical novels and in other works of fiction (emotive literature—belles-lettres) is different. In historical novels, as has been pointed out, they maintain ‘local color”, i.e. they perform the function of creating the atmosphere of the past. The reader is, as it were, transplanted into another epoch and therefore perceives the use of archaic words as a natural mode of communication.

Not so when archaic words are encountered in a depiction of events of present-day life. Here archaisms assume the function of an SD proper. They are perceived in a twofold function, the typical quality of an SD, viz. diachronically and synchronically.

Stylistic functions of archaic words are based on the temporal perception of events described. Even when used in the terminological aspect, as for instance in law, archaic words will mark the utterance as being connected with something remote and the reader gets the impression that he is faced with a time-honored tradition.

List of References:

Galperin I. R. English Stylistics. Москва, 2014

Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка. «Флинта», 2002

ГуревичВ.В. English stylistics. Стилистика английского языка, 2017

Разинкина Н.М. Функциональная стилистика английского языка. - М.: Высшая школа, 1989.