English Stylistics. Стилистика английского языка

From this point of view, functional styles express the first type of information, i.e. the relations between the interlocutors. In some situations these relations may be unrestrained (непринужденные), friendly, easy-going or intimate, and in that case the speaker chooses the so called informal style of speech, viz. the colloquial style, which is a 'lower' (сниженный) style of speech, characteristic of oral communication. In other situations the relations between the interlocutors may be restrained (сдержанные), strictly official, etc., and then the interlocutors try to be deliberately polite (подчеркнуто вежливыми), and they choose the so called formal style (the lofty, bookish style), which is generally characteristic of written language. The formal style is used in the genres of official or business documents, of scientific or publicist works. These genres, in their turn, may be further subdivided into more particular varieties of genres; for example, official documents may represent an order, instruction, resolution, proceedings of a meeting (протокол заседания), report, application (заявление), etc.

It is natural for speakers to try to avoid any confusion of formal and informal styles within one text, as such a confusion might give the wrong idea of the relations between the interlocutors: e.g. a letter to a person of higher authority cannot begin with words like 'Hi, how are you doing?', which would bear a sense of familiarity. But at the same time it is well worth mentioning that there may be samples of speech (oral or written) which are not clearly marked by features of any particular style, and which can therefore be regarded as a "neutral" style, suitable for any communicative situations.

Besides the formal and informal functional styles mentioned above (which reflect the relations between interlocutors), there are also stylistic characteristics of speech that reflect the attitude of the speaker to the content of his speech. This second type of stylistic information concerns the emotional character of speech, viz. the presence or absence of emotional or evaluative (оценочный) elements. In this respect we can distinguish:

1) an emotionally coloured style of speech

2) a deliberately unemotional (подчеркнуто безэмоциональный), or "cold" style of speech

3) a neutral style of speech

Emotionally coloured speech may be characterized, on the one hand, by a lofty emotional colouring (приподнятая эмоциональная окраска), such as solemn (торжественная), passionate (патетическая), ironic, wrathful (гневная), sarcastic (саркастическая), etc., or, on the other hand, by a lower colouring (сниженная окраска), such as jocular/humorous (шутливая), derogatory (уничижительная), rude (грубая), disapproving (неодобрительная), endearing (ласкательная), etc.

The lofty emotional colouring is characteristic of the publicist/oratory style, while the lower emotional colouring is typical of colloquial style. The deliberately unemotional character of speech is typical of the formal ('cold') styles, such as scientific, official or business speech, where the speaker tends to make his speech impersonal and avoid any emotional or evaluating elements.

Apart from the two directly opposed styles – the emotionally coloured and the deliberately unemotional – there may also be intermediate, stylistically neutral speech, which is neither emotionally coloured nor deliberately devoid of emotion. Thus, there may be samples of speech that are neutral both with respect to the relations between the interlocutors and with respect to the speaker's attitude toward what he says.

Stylistic differences of any kind can be expressed by various language means: phonetic, lexical or grammatical. One of the most vivid means is, naturally, the choice of vocabulary. 

Stylistic Characteristics of English Vocabulary

With respect to the functional styles, vocabulary can be subdivided into bookish (literary), which is typical of formal styles (scientific, official, business, publicist), and colloquial vocabulary which is typical of the lower style (colloquial). In addition, there is always present in the language a stylistically neutral vocabulary, which can be used in all kinds of style. Cf:

child (neutral) – kid (colloq.) – infant (e.g. infant schools – official, bookish) – offspring (also bookish, used in scientific works);

father (neut.) – daddy (coll.) – male parent/ancestor (formal);

leave/go away (neut.) – be off/get out/get away/get lost (coll., or familiar– colloquial) – retire/withdraw (bookish);