Chapter 1 Introduction
· What is the English Stylistics？
It is a science that deals with the research for a wide variety of the styles of written and oral English in English language. · What are language functions?
a) To deliver some infor to other people
b) To communicate with each other in society ·How do we express ourselves in a proper way? Several factors do work.
a) Phonetics b) Vocabulary c) Grammar
d) Some knowledge concerning English stylistics
·The correctness in using the language can not replace the appropriateness in language communication. Why? Four examples:
a) “ Hello ” and “ Hi ”
b) “ Assist me! Assist me! ” and “ Aid! Aid! ”
c) “That’s all right.” “That’s to say.” “It’s O.K..” d) See next page
d) “ I am terribly sorry to hear that your husband has just died, but don’t let it upset you too much. You’re an attractive, young lady. I’m pretty sure it is very easy for you to find someone else soon. ”
·The effects of language expressions are sometimes related to some non-linguistic factors. a) Sex ------ “ Oh, my God! ”
b) Age ------ “ Cheers! ” and “ Bye for now. ” c) Vocation ------ “ Watch the birdie. ” d) Received education ------ “ go to W.C. ”
e) Social station ------ “ What prompted you to apply for this job? ” ·Why should we learn and study English stylistics?
a) It will help us to express ourselves in English properly.
b) It will help us to know something about language features of a variety of English written
styles.
c) It will help us to select a proper way for getting the best language effects and attaining our communicative purposes.
d) It will help us to go at literary criticism.
e) It will help us to do the translation work well.
Chapter 2 Language Description & Stylistic Analysis ·There are 4 phonetic means in English:
1) stress 2) Intonation 3) pause 4) voice quality.
·Stress has several apparent stylistic and grammatical functions. (1) The first function is for emphasis.
(2) The second function is to change the meaning or the part of speech of some words, or both.
(3) The third function is to differ some English words
(4) The fourth function is to show someone’s surprise, anger, fear, doubt, pleasure, etc.. ·Intonation can be employed to express people’s happiness, sadness, certainty, hesitation, depression, etc. There are 5 pitches in phonetics:
(1) The falling pitch is used to show the meaning of definiteness, certainty and completeness.
(2) The rising pitch is employed to show the meaning of indefiniteness, uncertainty and incompleteness.
(3) The fall-rise pitch is used to give people some encouragement or give people a warning. (4) The rise-fall pitch is employed to give people a sincere praise or to show the feeling of shock.
(5) The level pitch is used to give account on something happened in the past. ·Pause can be divided into two. a) voiced pause b) silent pause ·Some useful rhetorical devices 1. Period and inversion 2. Parallelism and antithesis 3. Climax and anti-climax 4. Repetition
Chapter 3 Oral Style and Written Style ·Several occasions for using oral style: 1. In literary masterpieces 2. In everyday conversation 3. In informal speeches
·The differences between oral communication and written communication 1. Use some gestures ( body language ) in oral communication 2. Use a statement as a question in oral communication 3. Use some pure oral words in oral communication
· The comparison of language styles in oral style and in written style ·What can be used with oral style?
1) slangs 2) vogue words 3) abbreviations 4) phrasal verbs 5) idioms ·What can be used with written style?
1) Scientific English 2) Legal English 3) Religious English 4) Formal speech 5) Official documents
Chapter 4 Formal Style & Informal Style
·Five styles were advanced by Martin Joos in the book “ The Five Clocks ”
1) Frozen Style: legal items, historic literature, the documents for international conferences, etc.
2) Formal Style: This style is usually used to deliver some infor on formal occasions. 3) Consultative Style: With this style people usually offer some background information. It is usually employed in business activities.
4) Casual Style: People usually use it between friends, acquaintances, or insiders. Its main feature is that people usually employ ellipsis, slangs or cants with it.
5) Intimate Style: It is usually used between husband and wife. Moreover it is employed in jargons sometimes.
Chapter 6 Societal Deviation in English · What is societal deviation in English?
Societal deviation is something about societal dialects. ·Black English Vernacular: (土语)urban black English
·What are the reasons for you to know Black English Vernacular? ? (1)It will help us to know the status que of AE.(2) It will help to read some novels
in American literature. ?
Chapter 7 Time Deviation in English
· Three stages of the development of English language 1) The 1st stage is from 449 to 1100 ( Old English ).
(The verbs in Old English can be divided into two categories ------ one is strong verbs and another is weak verbs. The past tense forms of most of weak verbs are with the ending -cec, -ode, or -de after the original weak verbs.)
2) The 2nd stage is from 1100 to 1500 (Middle English).
( At that time “ hw ” in Old English became “ wh ” and “ cw ” became “ qu ”. )
3) The 3rd stage is from 1500 to present time (Modern English). (There are two remarkable features in Modern English. )
(1)There are many loans in Modern English. from Japanese/from French/from Latin/ from Chinese.
(2) There are some neologisms(新词) in Modern English.
·The application of English archaic words（过时的词）in modern times
1) In legal English 2) In religious English 3) In English poetry 4) In newspapers ·Why use archaic words in modern times? formal/rhyme/show-off
Chapter 8 Common Practical Styles
·Three functions of English advertisements
1) to attract readers’ attention 2) to arose customer interest 3) to erge customer to take actions as soon as possible.
·Some features of English advertisements (1) More simple sentences
(2) Less negative sentences ------ If people really want to express the negative meaning in advertisements, they may use “ nothing ” or “ no ” instead of “ not ”. (3) Frequent use of present tense
(4) More and more imperative sentences (5) Far more elliptical sentences
(6) More figures of speech (7) Some special adjectives (8) Some newly-created words
·Journalistic English: News report/news story ·two categories of newspapers
1) quality paper大报 2) tabloid小报
·Three requirements for news reports：Swift / objective / true ·Some features of journalistic English
1) Some journalistic jargons 2) Some acronyms 3) Some apocopation 4) Some aphoeresis 5) Some words with front and back clipping 6) Some syncopations 7) Some neologisms 8) Some blends 9) Some nouns are used as verbs to make the headlines vivid. Scientific English
·What can be written with scientific English? 1) Scientific works and literature 2) Academic theses 3) Laboratory reports 4) Product instructions
·Some important features of scientific English 1) Passive voice is high-frequently used in sentences.
2) Present tense is quite often employed in sentences because scientific concepts and principles are usually described as truths.
3) Long and complete sentences are often used to express meanings, ideas and concepts. 4) There are some words which are from Latin.
5) There is a simplicity in meaning for some words in scientific English. 6) There are some useful prefixes and suffixes in scientific English.
Chapter 9 Literary Style
·The language features of English poetry 1. The rhythm and the meter of English poetry
Rhythm is a regular succession of weak and strong stresses, accents, sounds, or movements in speech, music, poems, dancing, etc. ·How is the rhythm formed in English poems? Stressed syllables and unstressed syllables which alternately appear in a stanza may produce rhythm in English poems.
·What is meter? Meter is the measur. The English poetic rhythm is based on meter.构成英诗节奏的基础是韵律，即“格律”。
·How many meters are there in English poetic composition?
There are seven (1) iambus抑扬格 (2) trochee 扬抑格(3) dactyl扬抑抑格 (4) anapaest 抑抑扬格 (5) amphibrach双行诗 (6) spondee (7) purrhic ·What is stanza?
It consists of lines or verses. Simply speaking it is a poetic paragraph. ·Some common forms of stanzas:
1) couplet双行诗2) triplet三行诗3) quatrain 4) cinquain 5) sestet 6) septet 7) octet 8) Spenserian stanza 9) ten-verse poem 10) sonnet
A sonnet is a one-poem of 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter. (1) Petrarchan sonnet or Italian sonnet( abba abba cde cde ) (2) Shakespeare sonnet ( abab cdcd efef gg ) (3) Spenserian sonnet ( abab bcbc cdcd ee ) ·What is verse?verse is the poetic sentence,line
It is made up of one foot or more than one. Briefly speaking it is called a poetic sentence. ·How to keep a rhyme in a poem?
1) Keep an end rhyme ( It can be divided into four forms. )
(1) The first form is to keep a single rhyme (Sometimes it is called a masculine rhyme or a male rhyme. )
(2) The second form is to keep a double rhyme (Sometimes it is called a feminine rhyme or a female rhyme. ) .
(3) The third form is to keep a triple rhyme. (4) The fourth form is to keep an eye rhyme. 2) Keep a head rhyme 3) Keep an internal rhyme
·Blank verse：Unrhymed verse ·Three features of blank verses
1) They do not keep any rhymes, but they are the poems with some meter. 2) They can be long or short.
3) Their feet in each line are not uniform.
·Common Figures of Speech Used in English Poetry
Use of simile and repetition/head-rhymed (alliteration) /metapher/ parallelism/ personification / speaking silence, dumb confession / paradox 矛盾修饰法/hyperbole,overstatement exaggeration/ metonymy借代转喻 · Stylistic Features in Fiction
Two points of view（Two perspectives）
1) Use singular or plural number of the third person ------ as a narrator or a story-teller to narrate some plots in a novel.
Notes: a. Most of writers or novelists like to use this perspective. b. The effect of using this perspective is “ objective ”.
2) Use singular or plural number of the first person ------ as one of the characters to narrate some plots in a novel.
Note: In this way it will make readers think that it is really a true story and there is no trace of make-up.
·The dialogs in novels
1) Some useful informal words 2) Some common slangs ·Direct and indirect speeches in novels
1) Sometimes some novelists like to use direct speech in order to make a psychological description in narrating plots in a novel.
2) Sometimes some novelists like to use indirect speech in order to make a thought presentation in narrating plots in a novel. ·How to analyze a literary masterpiece?
1) Use a way of rhetorical analysis. 2) Use a way of syntactical analysis. Chapter 10 Common Expressing Styles in English Passages · What is the ornate style?
In the ornate style, people like to use some modifiers, such as adjectives, adverbs, etc, and use some rhetorical devices, such as simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, etc. In syntax, people like to use long sentences and some sentences with a complex structure or a parallel structure.
·What is the plain style?
In the plain style, people prefer to use short sentences. People rarely use big words. People don’t like to use many modifiers. As for syntax, people prefer to use compound sentences.
·Which style is better? Simply speaking, it depends. It depends on different occasions. ·What is the involved style?
In this style, people usually employ some detailed descriptive device to express something. They often use some specific words for their descriptions. ·What is the terse style?
In this style, people usually use brief words and simple-structured sentences which have some profound implied meanings.
·Relationship between Irony and humor:Irony is a language means while humor is an effect.
英语文体学知识重点
