What is style?

Every type of speech uses its own lingual sub-systems: not all the forms comprising the national language but only a certain number of forms.

Every sub-system consists of:

1. linguistic units common to all the sub-systems;

2. specific linguistic units, to be found only in the given subsystem.

It is self-evident that sub-systems differ from one another by their specific spheres alone, because their non-specific spheres coincide. Hence, specific spheres differentiating the sub-systems (and, ultimately, types of speech) may be called their styles, or, style may be defined as the specific sphere of the given sub-system. Roughly speaking, style is a complex of lexical, grammatical, etc. peculiarities by which a certain type of speech is characterized.

Every linguistic unit, along with the meaning, has its stylistic value which may be characterized as connotation (i.e. additional meaning). The connotation of a linguistic unit is just what we think of it as belonging either to the specific sphere of a certain sub­system or to the non-specific sphere common to all the sub­systems. Hence, stylistic value is actualized by means of associations, namely:

• linguistic units that are used everywhere cause no definite associations with any particular type of speech. Thus, they have no definite stylistic value and are called stylistically neutral;

• linguistic units belonging to the specific sphere of a subsystem are mentally associated with that sphere. They are stylistically coloured.

LECTURE 2