Theme 7: Stylistic classification of English Vocabulary

1.Comment on the terms:

Literary layer: terms, poetic words, archaic words, barbarisms, foreignisms; colloquial layer: slang, jargonisms, professional words, dialectal words, vulgar words; neutral layer, nonce-words.

2.Find a word:

a) colloquial: parent, father, dad, ancestor.

b) bookish: darkness, harmony, foolish, glad.

c) slangism: wife, sister, missus, mother.

d) professionalism: shop, lab, store, barn.

e) vulgarism: bad, negative, awful, bloody.

3.Translate the following neologisms. Comment on the word-building means:

Disadvantaged, gogglebox, deterrent, redundancy, rethinking, denuclearize, parolee, detainee, sitters-in, outdoorsman, to front-page, the go-ahead, to snow-ball, mini-cruize, foodoholic, brown-bagger.

4.Pick out the archaic words from the given and translate them into Russian:

Do, dost, does, you, thee, ye, thou, horse, though, albeit, also, eke, spring, vernal, said, quoth, told, maiden, girl, perhaps, ere, before.

5.Give modern equivalents of the words. Translate them into Russian:

Bade, spouce, dire, aught, kine, swain, courser, ire, charger, thy, thine, troth, hath, whit.

6.The italicized words and word-groups in the following extracts belong to formal style. Describe the stylistic peculiarities of each extract in general and say whether the italicized represents learned words, terms or archaisms. Look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary:

1.“Sir,

in re Miss Ernestina Freeman

We are instructed by Mr. Ernest Freeman, father of the above-mentioned Miss Ernestina Freeman, to request you to attend at these chambers at 3 o'clock this coming Friday. Your failure to attend will be regarded as an acknowledgement of our client's right to proceed."

(From The French Lieutenant's Woman by J. Fowles)

2."I have, with esteemed advice..." Mr. Aubrey bowed briefly towards the sergeant,... "... prepared an admission of guilt. I should instruct you that Mr. Freeman's decision not to proceed immediately is most strictly contingent upon your client's signing, on this occasion and in our presence, and witnessed by all

present, this document."

3. R o m e o... So shows a snowy dove trooping with

crows,

As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.

The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,

And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

1Usually in modern correspondence you will find the form re [ri:] without the in.

2 measure (here) - dance.

7.The italicized words and word-groups in the following extracts belong to informal style. Describe the stylistic peculiarities of each extract in general. Look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary:

1….Now you are talking! I thought you would come off it when you saw a chance of getting back a bit of what you chucked at me last night. You’d had a drop in, hadn’t you?

2.What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

3.Mind you, she’s often thought of divorcing Dad, but somehow never got round to doing it. Not that she’s got a good word to say for him, mind you. She says he was the laziest, pottiest, most selfish chap she’s ever come across in all her life.

4.My wife has been kiddin’ me about my friends ever since we was married. She says that…they ain’t nobody in the world got a rummier bunch of friends than me. I’ll admit that most of them ain’t, well, what you might call hot…But of course they are old friends and I can’t give them the air.

8.Compose the following brief situations. Your language and style should suit both the subject and the situation:

a)A short formal letter to a Mrs. Grey, a distant acquaintance, in which you tell her that you cannot accept her invitation to a party. Explain the reason.

b)Two undergraduates are discussing why one of them has been expelled from his college. (Don't forget that young people use both literary and familiar colloquial words.)

c)The parents of the dismissed student are wondering what to do with him. (Older people, as you remember, are apt to be less informal in their choice of words.)

d)A short review on a theatrical production or film.

e)A discussion between two teenagers about the same play or film.

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