STYLISTIC CLASSIFICATION OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY

For stylistic purposes, Galperin (1977) presents the system of stylistic classification of English vocabulary which consists of three overlapping layers:

1.(unmarked) neutral layer – being the most stable level it forms the bulk of English vocabulary, its common core, includes field-nonspecific words, is the source of polysemy and synonymy and renders itself for the word-formation processes,

2. (marked) literary layer consisting of a) common literary words (used esp. in writing and polished speech), and b) special literary words, which include terms and learned words (terminology of sciences), poetic words (highly elevated vocabulary), archaic words (obsolescent, obsolete, archaic proper), barbarisms and foreign words (foreignisms), literary/terminological coinages (including nonce-words),

3.(marked) colloquial layer contains words which have lively spoken character: a) common colloquial words, b) special colloquial words which include slang (e.g., college slang, rap slang, military slang), jargonisms, professional words (e.g., journalese), dialectal words, vulgar words, colloquial coinages (nonce-words). The neutral layer along with the overlapping areas of common literary words and common colloquial words form the standard English vocabulary. The relations between the neutral and common colloquial/common literary words is represented by existing chains of synonyms.

Abbreviations, shortenings, the ways of vocabulary enrichment in English.

Words are made differently – productively and non-productively. Productive ways are: 1) affixation; 2) composition; 3) conversion; 4) shortening. Non-productive ways are: 1) stress-shift; 2) blending; 3) reduplication; 4) mutation (чередование); 5) sound imitation.

Both types are called word-building. But word-making is more general. It includes word-building, borrowings, the change of meaning and phraseology.

Shortening is a productive way of word-building which consists in making both new words and forms by dropping the parts of a word.

1) new words: (de)fence, mob(ile), (a)mend;

2) lexical variants (forms): (Ale)xander, doc(tor); acronyms – shortened words read in alphabetic manner: USA, BBC, USSR;

3) graphic abbreviations: h. (hour), m. (mile), Rd (road), A.D., B.C.;

4) synonyms: Bekka – Rebekka, USA – the United States of America;

5) etymological doublets (twins) – of the same origin but had different changes: twins – between, through – thorough, inn – in, miss – mistress, fancy – fantasy;

6) it gives homonyms: cab(ine) – cab(riolette) – cab(bage); I.D. (idea) – I.D. (identification card)

paye – pay as you earn

asap – as soon as possible

g.p. – generalpurpose

O’K – all correct

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