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Neutral words and common literary words

The majority of English words are neutral. Neutral words do not have stylistic connotations. Their meanings are purely denotative. They are such words as table, man, day, weather, to go, good, first, something, enough. Besides neutral vocabulary, there are two great stylistically marked layers of words in English word-stock: literary vocabulary and colloquial vocabulary. Literary vocabulary includes bookish words, terms, poetic and archaic words, barbarisms and neologisms. Colloquial vocabulary embraces conversational lexis, jargonisms, professionalisms, dialectal, slangy and vulgar words.

Neutral words form the lexical backbone of all functional styles. They are understood and accepted by all English-speaking people. Being the main source of synonymy and polysemy, neutral words easily produce new meanings and stylistic variants. Compare: mouse = 1) a small furry animal with a long tail; 2) mouse = a small device that you move in order to do things on a computer screen; 3) mouse = someone who is quiet and prefers not to be noticed.

Bookish words are mainly used in writing and in polished speech. They form stylistic opposition to their colloquial synonyms. Compare: infant (book­ish) = child (neutral) = kid (colloquial); parent (bookish) = father (neutral) = daddy (colloquial).

3. Special literary vocabulary: terms, poetic words, archaic words, bar­barisms and foreignisms, neologisms

Terms belong to particular sciences. Consequently, the domain of their usage is the scientific functional style. The denotative meanings of terms are clearly defined. A classical term is monosemantic and has no synonyms. Terms of general nature are interdisciplinary (approbation, anomaly, interpreta­tion, definition, monograph, etc.). Semantically narrow terms belong to a definite branch of science (math.: differential, vector, hypotenuse, leg (of a triangle), equation, logarithm). When used in other styles, terms produce different stylistic effects. They may sound humoristically or make speech "clever" and "scientific-like". Academic study has its own terms too. Terms such as palatalization or velarization (phonetics), discourse analysis (sty-listics), hegemony (political philosophy) and objective correlative (literary studies) would not be recognizable by an everyday reader, though they might be understood by someone studying the same subject.

Terms should be used with precision, accuracy, and above all restraint. Eric Partridge quotes the following example to illustrate the difference be­tween a statement in technical and non-technical form: Chlorophyll makes food by photosynthesis = Green leaves build up food with the aid of light. When terms are used to show off or impress readers or listeners, they are likely to create the opposite effect. There is not much virtue in using terms such as aerated beverages instead of fizzy drinks. These simply cause disruptions in tone and create a weak style. Here is an even more pretentious example of such weakness: Enjoy your free sample of our moisturizing cleansing bar (in other words - our soap).

The stylistic function of poetic words is to create poetic images and make speech elevated. Their nature is archaic. Many of poetic words have lost their original charm and become hackneyed conventional symbols due to their constant repetition in poetry (очи, дева, мурава, упование, стан (девичий), десница (правая рука), воинство, горнило, вещать, влачить, гласить, зардеть, отчий, златокудрьій, дивний, поньїне, воистину, в о славу).

It is a well-known fact that the word-stock of any language is constantly changing and renewing. Old words die and new words appear. Before disap­pearing, a word undergoes the stages of being obsolescent, obsolete and ar­chaic. The beginning of the aging process of a word is marked by decrease in its usage. Rarely used words are called obsolescent. To English obsolescent words belong the pronoun though and its forms thee, thy and thine, the verbs with the ending -est (though makest) and the ending -th (he maketh), and other historical survivals. Obsolete words have gone completely out of usage though they are still recognized by the native speakers (methinks = it seems to me; nay = no). Archaic words belong to Old English and are not recognized nowadays. The main function of old words is to create a realistic background to historical works of literature.

Barbarisms and foreignisms have the same origin. They are bor­rowings from other languages. The greater part of barbarisms was borrowed into English from French and Latin (parvenu - вьіскочка; protege -протеже; a propos - кстати; beau monde - вьісший свет; de novo -сьізнова; alter ego - другое «я»; datum - сведения, информация). Ваr barisms are assimilated borrowings. Being part of the English word-stock, they are fixed in dictionaries. Foreignisms are non-assimilated borrowings occasionally used in speech for stylistic reasons. They do not belong to the English vocabulary and are not registered by lexicographers. The main func­tion of barbarisms and foreignisms is to create a realistic background to the stories about foreign habits, customs, traditions and conditions of life.

Neologisms are newly born words. Most of them are terms. The layer of terminological neologisms has been rapidly growing since the start of the technological revolution. The sphere of the Internet alone gave birth to thou­sands of new terms which have become international (network server, brows­er, e-mail, provider, site, Internet Message Access Protocol, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, Microsoft Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, etc). The Internet is an immense virtual world with its own language and its people, good or bad. Hacker means "someone who uses a computer to connect to other people's computers secretly and often illegally in order to find or change information". Spammer means "someone who sends emails to large numbers of people on the Internet, especially when these are not wanted". Recent discoveries in biochemistry, genetic engineer­ing, plasma physics, microelectronics, oceanography, cosmonautics and other sciences demanded new words to name new concepts and ideas. The vocab­ulary of our everyday usage is also being enlarged by neologisms. Bancomat means "a European system of automatic cash-ejecting machines". Bank card means "a small plastic card that you use for making payments or for getting money from the bank".