Sublanguages and styles VIewed as objects of linguistic research
Every manual on stylistics acquaints the learner with specific features of various types of speech (various texts). Those published in this country just since the late 1950s contain collectively as much information of this kind as to make presumptuous any attempt at offering the reader anything more comprehensive than can be found elsewhere. Therefore the chapters to follow contain only a critical survey of some of the existing style classifications, analysis of the few concepts that disclose, in the author's opinion, the most essential 'principium divisionis*, and finally, a brief description of several sublanguages singled out on the basis of that principle.
Chapter I. AN OUTLINE OF STYLE CLASSIFICATIONS
First, two books by I.R. Galperin, both reliable sources of detailed stylistic information.1 Galperin distinguishes five styles in present-day English. They are:
I. Belles Lettres
1. Poetry
2. Emotive Prose
3. The Drama
II. Publicistic Style
1. Oratory and Speeches
2. The Essay
3. Articles
III. Newspapers
1. Brief News Items
2. Headlines
3. Advertisements and Announcements
4. The Editorial
IV. Scientific Prose
V. Official Documents
The varieties enumerated certainly differ from one another, which is shown by the abundance of illustrations discussed. What prevented him from including a Colloquial Style was explained above (see Introduction).
There is one more point that calls for discussion: the validity of postulating a Belles-Lettres Style. It may in fact be assumed that
Galperin's position is not shared by most of those interested in style matters. The diversity of what is actually met with in books of fiction turns the notion of a belles-lettres style into something very vague, possessing no constant features of its own. Not a mere chance it seems that Galperin mentions not imaginative prose in general, but emotive prose, giving special accent to the 'euphuistic style'.2
The euphuistic school in the sixteenth century used a sublanguage of elaborate syntactic structures, exquisite lexical units, and pomposity obscuring common sense. Lively colloquial and popular words were not admitted; everything was elegantly aristocratic and artificial.3
In modern realistic prose the reader also comes across emotionally coloured passages of text that tend to use image-creating devices — tropes and figures of speech. Such passages are, as a general rule, the author's narrative, especially expositions, lyrical digressions, philosophical descriptions of landscape or the mental state of a character. At the same time, realistic writers often give their account of external events, short enumerations of everyday happenings, of the routine of social life; they reproduce the direct speech of their imaginary characters; they quote extensive extracts from legal documents, texts of telegrams, slogans, headlines of daily papers, advertisements, private letters (invented or authentic). To put it briefly, we can encounter practically every speech type imaginable in books of fiction, whose authors' guiding principle is being true to life.
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The next book to appear was Stylistics of the English Language by M.D. Kuznets and the author of the present (Leningrad, I960).4 A few years later it was translated by Miss Rosemarie Glaser (now Professor of the University of Leipzig) and twice published in the GDR (M.D. Kuznec, J.M. Skrebnev. Stilistik der englischen Sprache. — Leipzig, 1966; 1969).
The numerous amendments made in the Russian text and in the German translation by the present author (Kuznets died in 1962) did not concern the chapter on functional styles that she wrote. Hence, what follows is not a self-review or self-criticism.
As the length of the book discussed intimates, it is much less comprehensive, much more concise than the ones by I.R. Galperin. Numerous problems of stylistics are merely mentioned or very briefly analysed and scantily illustrated. The text classes described (they were called 'styles' by Kuznets, and her co-author did not see any fallacy in it at the time) differed noticeably from those of Galperin.
M.D. Kuznets' cursory description of style classes runs as follows: A. Literary, or 'Bookish' Style
1. Publicists Style
2. Scientific (Technological) Style
3. Official Documents B. Free ('Colloquial') Style
1. Literary Colloquial Style
2. Familiar Colloquial Style
As can be seen, both poetry and imaginative prose have been rejected (as non-homogeneous objects), although the book is supplied with a chapter on versification (also written by Kuznets). On the futility of attempts to differentiate 'literary' and 'familiar' colloquial speech, see the last chapter of this book.
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Next comes the well-known work by I.V. Arnold Stylistics of Modern English (two editions: 1973 and, thoroughly revised, 1981).5 I.V. Arnold singles out four styles:
1. Poetic style
2. Scientific style
3. Newspaper style
4. Colloquial style
What speaks in favour of I.V. Arnold's concept is that she recognises a colloquial style. Singling out a poetic and a scientific style seems valid (remembering, of course, the distance between traditional and modern poetry, or ancient history and molecular genetics for that matter). The problem of newspaper style, however, leaves much food for critical thought (Arnold is neither the first, nor the only scholar to touch on the problem: cf. the well-known monograph by V.G. Kos-tomarov The Russian Language in the Newspaper6). The diversity of genres in newspapers is evident to any layman: along with the 'leader' ('editorial') the newspaper page gives a column to political observers; it leaves much space for sensational reports; newspapers are full of serious lengthy essays on economics, law, morals, art, etc.; they give the reader lots of briefly told news of local events, including rumours (some of them publish stories or novels, one installment per issue); every Western paper (now also Russian) makes more than its living by being servant to the god of commerce (selling its space to advertizing firms). One could go on enumerating newspaper genres, each having its own
style.
While admitting the diversity of newspaper materials, I.V. Arnold insists on the validity of the 'newspaper style' theory. Her line of argument is this: finding common traits of newspaper style is possible after all. For the notion of 'scientific style' has been generally accepted, despite the obvious difference between a magazine article, an account of an experiment and technological documentation. There is no doubt that Arnold's remark on the three manifestations of the very questionable (to say the least) 'scientific style* is no proof; it does not fortify her own position. What Arnold says further could be true theoretically: "It is evident," she writes,
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"that the system of extralingual style-forming factors has much in common even in different types of newspaper materials, and since organization of lingual elements of style decidedly depends on extralingual factors, the specificity of the newspaper as a social phenomenon and, generally, the specificity of mass media make acknowledgement of newspaper style, as one of functional styles, a necessity."
It is quite true that, asI.V. Arnold says, "The newspaper is a means of information and a means of convincing. It is intended for a mass audience... It is usually read where and when it is hard to concentrate... Hence the necessity of special arrangement of information..." There follow requirements the reporter and the editor are supposed to comply with. No doubt they do comply, but they cannot help publishing texts whose authors or compilers never cared about newspaper readers' needs and convenience. Thus, texts of international treaties or other governmental documents admit of no change whatsoever.
The researcher's position would be less vulnerable if only specifically newspaper genres — say, current information obtained in a police station and sent to press without delay or correction were investigated to find out what might be really called 'newspaper style'. I.V. Arnold mentions the opinion of V.L. Nayer, who classes as 'newspaper style' only material 'informing the reader'.7 It is doubtless this material that shows the features of Journalese mentioned by Arnold herself: abundance of international words, and a propensity for innovations that soon turn into cliches: vital issue, free world, pillar of society, bulwark of liberty, escalation of war, etc.
To conclude, it might be stated that Arnold overlooks a very important style-forming sphere: that of official intercourse — business correspondence, legal documents, municipal announcements and the like. These have much in common, yet they naturally cannot be classed as poetry, science, newspaper or colloquial speech.
Very rich in information, with a number of new problems raised and solved, is the handbook by A.N. Morokhovsky and his three coauthors — O.P. Vorobyova, N.I. Likhosherst and Z.V. Timoshenko Stylistics of the English Language, published in Kiev.8 In the final chapter of the book "Stylistic Differentiation of Modern English", written by A.N. Morokhovsky a concise, but exhaustive review of factors to be taken into consideration when problem of styles is to be settled ends with the following set of style classes:
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1. Official business style
2. Scientific-professional style
3. Publicistic style
4. Literary colloquial style
5. Familiar colloquial style
Each item is discussed. Each style has a combination of distinctive features. Among them we find oppositions like 'artistic — non-artistic', 'presence of personality — absence of it', 'formal — informal situation', 'equal — unequal social status (of the participants of communication)', 'written form — oral form'.
A.N. Morokhovsky warns the reader that the five classes of what he calls 'speech activity' are abstractions, rather than realities, and can only seldom be observed in their pure forms: mixing styles is the prevailing practice.
On the whole, Morokhovsky's concept is one of the few that attempt to differentiate and arrange hierarchically the system of cardinal linguistic notions. In Morokhovsky's opinion, language as a system includes types of thinking differentiating poetic and straightforward language, oral and written speech; hence, ultimately, bookish and colloquial functional types of language. The next problem is stylistics of 'speech activity'. Its basic notion is 'style of speech activity' ("socially cognized stereotype of speech behaviour").
"Stereotypes of speech behaviour, or functional styles of speech activity, are norms for wide classes of texts or utterances, in which general social roles are embodied — poet, journalist, manager, politician, scholar, teacher, father, mother, etc."9 The number of stereotypes is not unlimited, but it is sufficiently great.10 What is termed 'text types' differs either in content or in denotation. E.g., texts in official business style may be administrative, juridical, military, commercial, diplomatic, etc.
The next step is division of text types into genres. The type of military texts (official style) comprises commands, reports, regulations, manuals, instructions; in diplomacy, notes, declarations, agreements, treaties, etc. The degree of regulation is strictest in the formal style and much freer for scientific or publicistic prose. With regard to texts of any type and genre, one may speak of their individual styles (from the viewpoint of "stylistics of individual speech").
Coming to a final evaluation of the theory (reviewed more briefly than it deserves) the author of the present book refers the reader to the very elaborate and complicated, but on the whole practicable, system presented by Morokhovsky.
In 1984, another, smaller book, appeared in Minsk.11 The book contains numerous ideas worth thinking about. Much space is given to critical analysis of the theories which V. A. Maltzev considers to be in keeping with his own concept of stylistics. Many observations and somewhat lengthy discourses quoted and discussed — of such scholars as D. Crystal and D. Davy, A.E. Derbyshire, H.W. Fowler, W. Labov, R. Quirk, E. Partridge; I.V. Arnold, I.R. Galperin, E.A. Zemskaya, K. A. Dolinin, M.N. Kozhina, V.A. Khomyakov, G.V. Kolshansky, V.A. Kukharenko.
But his theory as a whole is based on a detailed analysis of three linguists' conceptions, each allotted a separate chapter: "R. Jacobson's Language Functions" (p. 15-19), "M. Riffaterre's Stylistic Context" (p. 19-23) and "Yu.M. Skrebnev's Theory of Language Styles" (p. 33-38).*
The main division of lingual material for V. A. Maltzev is into 'informal' and 'formal' varieties. This seems much more justified than dividing it into 'artistic' and 'non-artistic': Maltzev evidently gives genetic aspect preference over 'social evaluation aspect' originating in the old philological approach of language manifestations (texts) from the viewpoint of their aesthetic value. Maltzev's treatment of both varieties is of necessity concise, but very informative.
V. A. Kukharenko, the author of books on stylistic analysis, supplies each set of stylistic assignments with theoretical preliminaries very laconically worded. On close inspection of A Book of Practice in Stylistics12 one is pleasantly surprised to learn that about 45 pages (of the 144 making up the whole) comprise a concise course of stylistics devoid of any excess, but hardly less informative than many a volume of several hundred pages — an outline composed more economically than is usually done.
V. A. Kukharenko, whose research work has for decades been connected with imaginative prose (from Dickens in the early 1950s up to Hemingway in the early 1970s), is naturally interested in fiction more than in scientific, technical, or legal texts. Although, as mentioned above, the "Belles-lettres Style" seems a vague subject, stylistic research in a genre, a School in Literature, a writer's idiostyle, or on functionally homogeneous places in his narrative are important stylistic tasks. Nearly every representative of the Stylistic School initiated and guided by V. A. Kukharenko at Odessa University studies books by English and American writers. Here will be mentioned only a few-names of those numerous researchers whose common feature is their unimpeachable thoroughness (combined with an obvious talent): meticulous registration of every word of the novel (or novels): I. M. Kolegayeva, N G.Shevchenko, N.L. Olshanskaya.
As for V. A. Kukharenko's classification, there is a point in it that will be discussed as a fundamental one in the next chapter.
Let us further have recourse to classifications suggested by researchers of other languages.
In the theory of E. Riesel, the German language is divided not into 'limited languages', or 'sublanguages', but right away into 'styles'. One
* The last of the three (the author of the present book) was flattered by V. A. Maltzev's sympathetic attention and his unconditional acceptance of the theory; moreover, his active defence of it against criticism by other linguists. Unhappily, the present author, who received the book from Maltzev's former students, had no opportunity of thanking V.A. Maltzev, for the latter did not live to see the book in print, having passed away two months before.
learns then that the terms 'language' and 'style' refer to each other as the general refers to the particular, style being part of the national language.13 Thus, Riesel does not differentiate notions as incongruent as material things and their distinctive features. She happily avoids enumerating styles, discerning, however, 'functional styles' (official, scientific, etc.) and what she calls 'Stilfarbungen' ('Stylistic Colourings') of 'high', 'middle', 'low' types (what certain English scholars treat as 'registers' and what partly deals with axiology — the science of values). According to the prominent Romanist R.G. Piotrowski, stylistics is a system of choice of linguistic units (i.e. not a line of research — Y.S.). "By style," he writes, "we will understand a system, or a principle, by which the choice of lingual material is made."14 'System' and 'principle' as synonyms look very uncommon. It is curious to note the fact that, on the one hand, Piotrowski differentiates semiotics, linguistics and stylistics; on the other hand, he believes that the nomenclature of styles is quite definite. That is certainly contrary to one's expectations, taking into account the generally modernistic attitude of the scholar. The reader might really be surprised to find in Piotrowski's book a traditional enumeration of the styles of the French language (not a single word about the obviously provisional nature of any division suggested).
R.G. Piotrowski singles out the 'bookish style', which is, in its turn, subdivided into more particular types: that of literary narration ('medial'), the solemnly-poetic style (characterized as the highest); then follow the 'scientific-professional' and 'official business style' (it might be mentioned here, by the way, that the English denomination of this type of speech is 'Officialese').
The second style, in Piotrowski's opinion, is what he calls 'literary-colloquial'. The reader learns that this style "grows out of interaction of the literary language with the oral dialogical form of speech." The third (and last) style is 'common parlance', or 'popular speech'. There are no other styles in French — if we are to believe Piotrowski.
He is not the first to distinguish between 'stylistics of a national language' and 'stylistics of literary imaginative speech'. No reasons for this differentiation are given. Just as questionable appears his statement: "... the fundamental question of stylistics is the problem of isomorphism and asymmetry of the plane of expression and the plane of content in language" (see: Introduction).
Another French Stylistics, by Y.S. Stepanov(1965), is also permeated with ideas that came to our linguistics from abroad over 35 years ago.15 In keeping with the general trend of the period, the terminology is used by Y.S. Stepanov much in a manner of his own. Thus, the word level has a broader sense in his manual than its French counterpart niveau, which, according to E. Benveniste's theory, merely denotes the homogeneous
planes of the hierarchical linguistic structure: those of phonemes, morphemes, words, etc.16 In the book under discussion, 'the structural level', 'the level of the norm', and 'the level of individual speech' are distinguished.
Having informed the reader about the existence of special systems in the language, special varieties of language (which is undoubtedly true and indispensable to stylistics), Stepanov explains that these systems are called 'functional styles of language or speech' (the difference between language and speech17 is thus regarded as inessential).
One of the functional styles is said to be 'the neutral style', or 'the norm', others are stylistically coloured. So, once again there is an attempt to equalize the notions of neutrality and norm; we learn besides about the existence of 'neutral styles' (the plural of the word style looks rather uncommon here). A scholar of vast erudition, Y.S. Stepanov indulges in paradoxical reasoning. For a special paragraph on neutral style (p. 219) suddenly deviates from the idea of its plurality:
As we understand it, the neutral style is not an abstraction, but one of the really existing styles of a national language. It is used in actual intercourse of people, therefore it is a style, not completely devoid of emotional, expressive, and social elements, but only possessing them to a lesser degree than other styles. It appears rather unexpected that a style with the elements mentioned (however insignificant their degrees of expression) should be considered neutral.
Turning his attention to the crucial problem of style classes, Y.S. Stepanov does not have the slightest doubt that the optimal classification is practicable. To corroborate his viewpoint, he reproduces the popular classification of J.P. Vinay and J. Darbelnet (1958). The national language is divided by them into bon usage (correct speech) and langue vulgaire (common parlance, popular, 'ungrammatical' speech).18 Language and speech, as we have already seen, are not differentiated by Y.S. Stepanov.
His further subdivisions are as follows. To the first class ('good usage') belong: poetic language, language of 'imaginative literature', the 'bookish style' (the reader may again notice indiscriminate treatment of 'language' and 'style'), as well as the colloquial style. To the second, common parlance, popular speech, argot and jargon (the last two terms concern only vocabulary and phraseology).
The bookish style (mentioned in the first class) is further subdivided into 'administrative', 'juridical', 'scientific', and so on.
A rather peculiar place is occupied by the conception of M.P. Brandes in her Stylistics of the German Language.19 "Stylistics," she writes, "is a linguistic science giving the rules for using language in concrete
communicative situations so as to have a subjective influence over people" (p. 4). Brandes further remarks that"...all the existing definitions of style are, on the whole, both correct and incorrect, as long as they are one-sided" (p. 4). Here, it should be remarked at once that being 'one-sided' is by far not always a fault of a definition: any definition is only expected to suffice for the aims set. Definitions claiming universality and an all-round approach to their object are theoretically absurd and of no practical use: to get an 'all-round' view one must move round the object. Viewed from the opposite point, the object is not the same. A definition is only meant to separate what is being defined from what is not.
In Brandes' definition, its pragma-linguistic orientation is clearly seen. No linguist, however, can foretell the recipient's reaction. In the given case, the problem of influence is not absolutely relevant for the simple reason that there are text types not intended for influencing anybody: such are, for instance, notes taken for one's own use.
Besides, in the definition discussed, the words "in concrete communicative situations" are acceptable only on condition that the scholar is acquainted with types, of situations and with corresponding speech types, sublanguages and styles.
Style treated by Brandes in the functional dynamic aspect is defined as a socially recognized and internally unified manner of using language, i.e., the principle of choice in combining lingual means, existing as an internally dynamic form and securing realization of the functions of subjective intellectual influence.
In its subjective aspect, style is the type of external lingual form a text takes as well as the structural view of the function of subjective intellectual influence.
The definitions are certainly overburdened with information, the importance of which may be obvious to Brandes herself, but can hardly be appreciated by the reader, who might recall V.V. Vinogradov's emphasis on 'social cognizance', or 'social recognition'20. It is true that some styles are indeed recognized by a cultivated speaker, but the very controversy among linguists over what style is and what it is not seems to refute Vinogradov's (and Brandes') idea. By the way, what about individual styles? Especially styles of writers whose works have lain unpublished for many years? In some such cases it comes natural to speak of 'posthumous styles' (i.e. posthumously discovered or made public).
"Internal unity" seems a mere declaration. The outer world as a unity is a well-known thesis of dialectical materialism, but do we ever search for unity when trying to find the specific feature that distinguishes the given text from others? Does a satirist dive deep to find the common centre of interrelations or does he merely register the formal whims of a colleague he intends to mock in a parody? Rather the latter.
As for 'dynamics of internal form', whatever is meant by that (variability inside the subsystem or syntagmatic unrolling of the text with its style) is actually never considered in practical analysis. On the whole, the given consideration is made more complicated than is required: that is the impression made on one who is resolved to overcome all the terminological barriers, to disentangle the intricacies of M.P. Brandes' ideas.
The resulting classification of styles in German is surprisingly simple (much more so, in fact, than M.P. Brandes' theory): 1) official; 2) scientific-technical; 3) 'newspaperese' (publicistic); 4) colloquial; 5) artistic. Thus her system does not deviate much from most of those discussed above.
A logically strict concept of speech types was suggested by K. A. Dolinin in his Stylistics of the French Language.21 K. A. Dolinin solves the problem by paying attention to three basic distinctive features, positively or negatively characterizing every type of speech: e(motional), s(pontaneous), and n(ormative). Each may be either present (e, s, n), or absent (ё, S, n). The number of combinations possible is eight. The whole makes the following table:
| 1. | с | а | п | 5. | ё | s | п |
| 2. | е | s | п | 6. | ё | s | п |
| 3. | е | п | 7. | ё | п | ||
| 4. | е | ко | п | 8. | ё | g | h |
In Dolinin's book the types of speech are enumerated right in the scheme. Here, to save space, only the number of each line with the respective list of speech types will be given.
1. Emotional normative conversation: literary colloquial speech.
2. Emotional non-normative conversation: familiar colloquial speech.
3. Emotional non-spontaneous literary speech: "publicistic style", "oratorical style", "style of literary narrative", etc.
4. Emotional non-spontaneous non-normative style.
5. Non-emotional normative talk.
6. Non-emotional non-normative talk.
7. Non-emot., non-spont., norm, (literary) speech: a very large group of 'informative' genres: "official business style", "scientific style", etc.
8. Non-emot., non-spont., non-norm, speech: e.g. an officialbusiness letter of a semi-literate man.
Summing up, we shall have to state that logical infallibility is combined here with insufficient informative force: it is the general principle that Dolinin intends to demonstrate (entirely succeeding); only a few concrete speech types and styles are mentioned. Dolinin's main concern is to show the validity and applicability of the scheme; as for attempting
to calculate what is incalculable by its very nature, K. A. Dolinin is too sagacious a scholar to engage in hopeless affairs.
We shall review, finally, one more well-known book: M.N. Kozhina's Stylistics of the Russian Language22 raises a considerable number of problems, to discuss which would take up too much space. We will, therefore, touch only upon Kozhina's view of stylistics and her list of the spheres of communication.
"In a most general sense," she writes, "stylistics can be defined as a linguistic science dealing with the means of expressiveness in speech, and laws of language functioning, laws that may be reduced to the most expedient use of linguistic units in view of the content of the utterance, the purpose, the situation, and the sphere of intercourse."
The author of the present work considers that placing expressiveness at the head of the definition is only a tribute to tradition: ancient rhetoric dealt with ways and means of ornamenting one's speech or making it unusually laconic, to impress listeners and convince them, not by an adroit argument, but by appealing to their emotions. In the introductory part of this book it was shown that an 'expressive' style is not opposed to a 'functional' style (or styles), but is a variety of the latter. Kozhina's definition could do without its first part and might be limited to the "science of laws of language functioning". It would then be free of the logical fallacy of mentioning a particular, optional subject before the general, all-embracing subject.
M.N. Kozhina lists type-forming and socially significant spheres of communication as follows: 1) official; 2) scientific; 3) artistic; 4) publicistic; 5) of daily intercourse (= colloquial).
We observe again a variety of what we have already met with several times. Kozhina's classification of spheres (and styles) can be criticized, like any other classification, because there can be no truth or untruth, and no ultimate reason in what is divided at will. In any attempt to divide a continuum, nearly everything can be made questionable — not because one makes it one's goal to criticize and deny whatever meets the eye, but just because language is a human creation, and language users are humans, not machines, and in their lingual behaviour, though it generally underlies certain rules and laws, anything might happen. Faith taken to the extreme may turn into prejudice or superstition.
Just as in some of the above classifications we can doubt the validity of treating separately (and thus opposing) the artistic ('belles-lettres') and the publicistic spheres (speech types, sublanguages and styles). Not only writers of poetry or fiction, but publicists and orators as well (literary critics could also be added here) make abundant use of ornamental and expressive means of language — tropes and figures first and foremost. Is the famous speech of Byron in the House of Lords on the February 27,
1812, in defence of the Luddites a mere statistical account of the hardships and sufferings of working people? No, it is a passionate Poet's prayer, precept, and prophecy, exquisite in its form. What can be said about The Gulag Archipelago by A.I. Solzhenitsyn? The great outcast is an outstanding writer. And yet most of the text of his book of tragedies is a businesslike and dispassionate account, an enumeration of arrests and deportations, starving and cannibalism, torture and mass executions of the innocent — facts, facts, facts, and names, names, names of voluntary informers and sadistic investigators, of guards, of professional killers and their victims, and yet more victims, victims. Only sometimes does the writer give vent to his human emotions of pity, indignation, and wrath, pronouncing an inexorable verdict of eternal condemnation on a genocide unheard of in the history of the human race.
But any question concerning the genre of this testimony to a nationwide crime that was state policy for decades is probably irrelevant. For there are creative feats that are too big for the customary system of notions.
NOTES
! Гальперин И.Р. Очерки по стилистике английского языка. — М., 1958; Galperin I.R. Stylistics. — М., 1971.
2 Galperin I.R. Stylistics. P. 279.
3 Galperin, op. cit., p. 280.
* Кузнец МД., Скребнев Ю.М. Стилистика английского языка. — Л., 1960.
6 Арнольд И.В. Стилистика современного английского языка. — Л., 1973; 2-е изд.:
Л., 1981. " Костомаров ВТ. Русский язык на газетной полосе. — М., 1971.
7 Наер ВЛ. О соотношении традиционного и оригинального в языке английской га-
зеты // Лингвистика и методика в высшей школе. — М., 1967.
8 Мороховский А.Н., Воробьева О.П., Лихошерст Н.И., Тимошенко З.В. Стилистика
английского языка. — Киев, 1984.
9 Idem, p. 234.
10 Idem, p. 235.
11 Maltzev VA. Essays on English Stylistics. — Minsk, 1984.
12 Kukharenko VA. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. — M., 1986.
13 Riesel E. Abriss der deutschen Stilistik. — M., 1954.
14 Пиотровский РТ. Очерки по стилистике французского языка. — Л., 1960.
15 Степанов Ю.С. Французская стилистика. — М., 1965.
w Benveniste Е. Problemes de linguistique generate. — Paris, 1966. See also p. 25 of the
present book.
17 Saussure, F. de. Cours de linguistique generale. — P., 1932. 14 Vinay J.P. et Darbelnet, J. Stylistique comparee du francais et de l'anglais. " Брандес MM. Стилистика немецкого языка. — M., 1983.
20 Виноградов В.В. Итоги обсуждения вопросов стилистики // ВЯ, 1955, I.
21 Долинин КА Стилистика французского языка. — М., 1978.
22 Кожина МЛ. Стилистика русского языка. — М., 1977; 2-е изд., 1983.
Chapter II. THE MOST GENERAL (BINARY) DIVISION OF LANGUAGE
From the somewhat lengthy discussion of classifications reviewed above, we should draw certain conclusions. No classification whatever can be exhaustive, universally applicable, and reflecting the innumerable relationships between common features and distinctions of all text types. The smaller the classes after segmenting the whole, the less practicable and logically reliable the result is bound to be. On the contrary, the division into smaller numbers diminishes the explanatory force of the procedure, but secures more definite results. Resorting to the binary division, i.e. to establishing only two varieties (units possessing a certain feature and those deprived of it), one achieves at least simplicity and safety of the system.
There is actually nothing new in the statement. The ancient and mediaeval rhetoric opposed, in a metaphorical manner, 'high' and 'low' styles ('medial' style in between could be regarded as what is 'stylistic neutrality' in the present book). The three-style gradation is known in Russia owing to our great encyclopaedist and enlightener Mikhail Lomonosov since the middle of the eighteenth century.
Natural as the figurative representation of social importance as 'high' and its opposite as 'low' might have been (the present author has himself used this scheme in classifying the vocabulary, see above, p. 56), this is not yet an answer to the question of why it seems reasonable to prefer this confrontation to others.
As a matter of fact, some of the stylists whose theoretical premises and classifications have been analysed, came very close to such a dichotomy — in fact, formulating a similar one, each using terms of his (her) own, and put it in first place, without, however, giving reasons for his (her) choice and perhaps scarcely aware of his (her) achievement. Characteristically, each seems (and must have been) independent of the others; the wording never coincides and the notions opposed differ considerably: in one opposition it is the type of social relations that come to the foreground; another proposes two oppositions, making use (in the first) of purely stylistic terms with their sense extended, and merely opposing (in the second) the two forms of lingual manifestation, which makes sense only if the reader can see the metonymy he is meant to; still another operates with axiological concepts of opposing what is good to what is bad. Some of them (or all of them) may have had their reasons, but none has expressly formulated them, or appeared to try.
Let us turn our attention to the positions of those authors whose primary division of the material is a variety of what has just been de-
scribed. Of the twelve books discussed only three put the dichotomy in question in first place.
Thus, in V. A. Maltzev's book the main division of lingual material is into 'informal' and 'formal' varieties1 (it was specially underlined above that he prefers this opposition to that of 'artistic — non-artistic' put forward by A.N. Morokhovsky).
Quite significant too are V. A. Kukharenko's oppositions within the frames of Functional Styles: hers is "Colloquial vs. Literary" and "Oral vs. Written".2 The author of the present book still insists on what he criticized on p. 15, but these oppositions are very indicative indeed. Practically speaking, what we observe here are two versions of the same opposition.
Nearly identical with those of Maltzev and Kukharenko is Y.S. Ste-panov's opposing (after Vinay and Darbelnet) of bon usage and langue vulgaire (literary and popular speech).3
Among those whose concepts have not been discussed above, N.Y. Shve-dova is worth mentioning. In her Outlines on Syntax of Russian Colloquial Speech4 Shvedova divides language into 'written' and 'colloquial'. The division is obviously wrong in its wording (more or less tolerable would be dividing the forms of lingual manifestations into 'written' and 'oral', 'colloquial' being only part of 'oral'), but the underlying sense, the basis of this linguistically faulty opposition is ultimately coincident with those actually proclaimed by V. A. Maltzev, V.A. Kukharenko, and Y.S. Stepanov (as a follower of the two French linguists mentioned).
What unites these oppositions of different sense and wording? They are not so much differentiated aesthetically, nor by the mere form they take (vocal or visual).
The common feature of all the oppositions discussed here is (no matter what notions are employed or what wording used) the following delimitation.
One member of the opposition is the well regulated speech types, subject to many kinds of rules, the violation of which is inadmissible and liable to punitive social sanctions (ostracism or at least minimizing communicative contacts with the transgressor).
The other member is made up of unregulated, uncultivated types of speech, untouched by grammarian. They are learnt, but hardly ever taught. Being informal, they are often viewed as illegitimate progeny of language never looked after, as the outlaws of the linguistic world.
The user of the first speech type is fully aware of his social responsibility, aware of the existing requirements he is expected to meet as best he can. Many conventions must be observed.
The selfsame person in an informal situation changes his lingual behaviour completely. Now he is free from stylistic restrictions; the only
trouble is to get himself understood, or even less: to express himself. The words and forms of constructions used are often unpredictable, chosen or made up on the spot. Here, stereotyped conventional formulas are also very much in use, but they differ from those of the former type.
It must be rather evident that the first type comprises the overwhelming majority of varieties known to the reader: "officialese" and "headlineese", science and technology, poetry and fiction, newspaper texts, and a church service, oratory and "cablese", etc. It goes without saying that many of the varieties are further subdivided into numerous classes: thus, the scientific or technological sphere, type, sublanguage, and style can be divided into more sublanguages than there are sciences and branches of technology: not only chemistry and physics consist of numberless branches, but even taking our own speciality, linguistics, one can hardly be sure that every reader knows what is investigated by such branches of it as 'glottochronology', 'ethnonymics', 'cryptology', 'kinesics', 'pasimology',5etc.
In the second type we shall find not so many varieties as in the first. The most important sphere (type, sublanguage, style) is colloquial, i.e. used by educated people in informal situations, without trying to be offensive or jocular. The same people, when expressing their negative attitude to somebody or something, use jargon or slang, or even vulgar words and expressions (the number of jargons is unlimited). Uneducated (or only formally educated) people speak 'common parlance', or 'popular, ungrammatical English'. The common parlance of this country, i.e. non-literary Russian, is spoken by poorly educated inhabitants of cities, deviations from the literary norm being practically the same everywhere. Dialects are current in the countryside; cities are nearly unaffected by them. In nineteenth century England some of the aristocracy were not ashamed of using their local dialects. Nowadays, owing to the sound media (radio, cinema and television), non-standard English in Britain is nearly, as in this country, a sure sign of cultural inferiority (e.g., the social status of Cockney).
What is certainly worth mentioning is that folklore (folk-songs, and folk-tales in particular) do not belong to the second type of speech, since they follow perhaps much stricter formal prescriptions than does overcultivated modernistic poetry.
The next problem is: how should we regard other forms of binary systems in stylistics? Can we criticise them as illogical or stylistically inessential? By no means. As already suggested, everything that is not utterly absurd deserves our attention. Is, for instance, the separation of 'artistic texts' from 'non-artistic' ones of any consequence for stylistics? Yes, certainly; moreover, it serves to create an independent branch of humanitarian studies. In our country, the research on poetic language, its image-creating
devices, its connection with cultural tradition and the experience of a nation and humanity in the appreciation of the beautiful, is called 'linguistic poetics'. In a way, it is a modern continuation of the poetics of antiquity. Its general aim is finding out the interrelation of ihe word and the image. According to V.P. Grigoryev, this science combines linguistics with the theory of literature.6 Perhaps one would not be mistaken in mentioning also aesthetics as an important ingredient of poetics.
Note. One should not be misled (by what has just been said about linguistic poetics) into believing that the revival of poetics deprives stylistica of its legitimate right to analyse poetry. Just as a grammar teacher may take a stanza to point out certain syntactical features to his students, or a phonetician to teach types of intonation by making them recite poems, so the stylist is entitled to study poetic texts. The difference in the approach of both the adherent of poetics and the ordinary stylist is that the former would relish the beauty, discussing what it is and how it is created; the latter would be engaged first and foremost in describing lingual features, explaining, if necessary, what he sees to be the writer's intentions.
As suggested above, the surest way of characterizing the problems of stylistic classification is to take the two extremes, that is, the most regularized speech type, predetermined by social requirements, and its direct opposite: the type of speech which is characterized by such liberty in the use of forms that run counter to what is preached in grammars and books of recommended usage, the result being somewhat unpredictable 'deviations' from what is required by common sense logic and school grammar rules. The first of the two types mentioned might be verdicted by one word as 'overpedantic' ('hypercareful'). The second is inofficial oral speech, lingual intercourse known for its carelessness with regard to puritan propriety, or, to make it more linguistically worded, with regard to literary norms of speech taught at school.
As for the terms usually employed to denote the most conspicuous examples of the two varieties, the one referring to the former is 'Officialese' (a jocular form by analogy with Chinese or Portuguese — cf. Cablese — the sublanguage of cablegrams; Headlineese — the sublanguage of headlines in newspapers, or Newspaperese itself, for that matter). The latter is known to the learner of English as 'Colloquial'.
NOTES
1 Maltzev VA. Essays on English Stylistics. — Minsk, 1984.
2 Kukharenho VA. A Book of Practice in Stylistics. — M., 1986.
3 Степанов Ю.С. Французская стилистика. — M., 1965.
* Шведова Н.Ю. Очерки по синтаксису русской разговорной речи. — М., 1960.
ь Glottochronology: a branch of lexicology studying the rate of linguistic changes; its findings help to establish the time depth of divergence and convergence of cognate languages; cryptology, linguistic study of social jargons aiming at secrecy; kinesics, that part of paralinguistics that deals with expressive gestures; pasimology = kinesics.
• Григорьев В.П. Поэтика слова. — M., 1979.
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