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GENERAL NOTES ON FUNCTIONAL STYLES OF LANGUAGE

We have defined the object of linguo-stylistics as the study of the nature, functions and structure of SDs and EMs, on the one hand, and the study of the functional styles, on the other. In section 2 of this Introduction (p. 25) we have outlined the general principles on which the notions of EMs and SDs rest.

It is now time to outline the general principles on which functional styles rest. A functional style of language is a system of interrelated

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¹ Stankievicz, E. Problems of Emotive Language. — In: "Approaches to Semiotics". The Hague, 1964, p. 246.

² For a more detailed analysis of the information carried by SDs see Гальперин И. Р. «Информативность единиц языка». М., 1974.

language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A functional style is thus to be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of a language.

The literary standard of the English language, like that of any other developed language, is not so homogeneous as it may seem. In fact the standard English literary language in the course of its development has fallen into several subsystems each of which has acquired its own peculiarities which are typical of the given functional style. The members of the language community, especially those who are sufficiently trained and responsive to language variations, recognize these styles as independent wholes. The peculiar choice of language means is primarily predetermined by the aim of the communication with the result that a more or less closed system is built up. One set of language media stands in opposition to other sets of language media with other aims, and these other sets have other choices and arrangements of language means.

What we here call functional styles are also called registers or disсоиrses.

In the English literary standard we distinguish the following major functional styles (hence FS):

1) The language of belles-lettres.

2) The language of publicistic literature.

3) The language of newspapers.

4) The language of scientific prose.

5) The language of official documents.

As has already been mentioned, functional styles are the product of the development of the written variety of language.¹Each FS may be characterized by a number of distinctive features, leading or subordinate, constant or changing, obligatory or optional. Most of the FSs, however, are perceived as independent wholes due to a peculiar combination and interrelation of features common to all (especially when taking into account syntactical arrangement) with the leading ones of each FS.

Each FS is subdivided into a number of substyles. These represent varieties of the abstract invariant. Each variety has basic features common to all the varieties of the given FS and peculiar features typical of this variety alone. Still a substyle can, in some cases, deviate so far from the invariant that in its extreme it may even break away.

We clearly perceive the following substyles of the five FSs given above.

The belles-lettres F S has the following substyles:

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¹This does not mean, however, that the spoken communications lack individuality and have no distinct styles of their own. Folklore, for example, is undoubtedly a functional style inasmuch as it has a definite aim in communicating its facts and ideas, and is therefore characterized by a deliberately chosen language means. Here we shall confine our attention to the study of the functional styles bred within the literary written standard. Those types of literature which began life purely as speech, were passed on by word of mouth, subsequently perpetuated in writing, are left to the care of specialists in folklore.

a) the language style of poetry; b) the language style of emotive prose; c) the language style of drama.

The publicistic F S comprises the following substyles: a) the language style of oratory; b) the language style of essays; c) the language style of feature articles in newspapers and journals.

The newspaper F S falls into a) the language style of brief news items and communiques; b) the language style of newspaper headings and c) the language style of notices and advertisements.

The scientific prose F S also has three divisions: a) the language style of humanitarian sciences; b) the language style of "exact" sciences; c) the language style of popular scientific prose.

The official document F S can be divided into four varieties: a) the language style of diplomatic documents; b) the language style of business documents; c) the language style of legal documents; d) the language style of military documents.

The classification presented here is by no means arbitrary. It is the result of long and minute observations of factual material in which not only peculiarities of language usage were taken into account but also extralinguistic data, in particular the purport of the communication. However, we admit that this classification is not proof against criticism. Other schemes may possibly be elaborated and highlighted by different approaches to the problem of functional styles. The classification of FSs is not a simple matter and any discussion of it is bound to reflect more than one angle of vision. Thus, for example, some stylicists consider that newspaper articles (including feature articles) should be classed under the functional style of newspaper language, not under the language of publicistic literature. Others insist on including the language of everyday-life discourse into the system of functional styles. Prof. Budagov singles out only two main functional styles: the language of science and that of emotive literature.^l

It is inevitable, of course, that any classification should lead to some kind of simplification of the facts classified, because items are considered in isolation. Moreover, substyles assume, as it were, the aspect of closed systems. But no classification, useful though it may be from the theoretical point of view, should be allowed to blind us as to the conventionality of classification in general. When analysing concrete texts, we discover that the boundaries between them sometimes become less and less discernible. Thus, for instance, the signs of difference are sometimes almost imperceptible between poetry and emotive prose; between newspaper FS and publicistic FS; between a popular scientific article and a scientific treatise; between an essay and a scientific article. But the extremes are apparent from the ways language units are used both structurally and semantically. Language serves a variety of needs and these needs have given birth to the principles on which our classification is based and which in their turn presuppose the choice and combination of language means.

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¹ See: Будагов Р. А. Литературные языки и языковые стили. М., 1967; Risel, E. Stilistik der Deutschen Sprache. M-, 1959.

We presume that the reader has noticed the insistent use of the expression 'language style' or 'style of language' in the above classification. This is done in order to emphasize the idea that in this work the word 'style' is applied purely to linguistic data.

The classification given above to our mind adequately represents the facts of the standard English language. For detailed analyses of FSs see chapter VI of this book (p. 249), where in addition to arguments for placing this or that FS in a given group, illustrations with commentary will be found.

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