Гос. Экзамен по английскому
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1. STYLISTIC CLASSIFICATION OF THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY
In accordance with the division of language into literary and colloquial, we
may represent the whole of the word stock of the English language as being
divided into 3 main parts: the literary, the neutral and the colloquial. The
literary layer of words consists of groups accepted as legitimate members of the
English vocabulary. They have no local or dialect character.
The literary vocabulary consists of the following groups of words: 1.
common literary; 2. terms and learned words; 3. poetic words; 4. archaic words; 5.
barbarisms and foreign words;
6. literary coinages including nonce-words.
The aspect of the neutral layer is its universal character. That means it is
unrestricted in its use. It can be employed in all styles and in all spheres of human
activity. It is this that makes the layer the most stable of all. The colloquial layer
of words as qualified in most English or American dictionaries is not infrequently
limited to a definite language community or confined to a special locality where it
circulates.
The colloquial vocabulary falls into the following groups:
1. common colloquial words; 2. slang; 3. jargonisms;
4. professional words; 5. dialect words; 6. vulgar words; 7. colloquial coinages.
The common literary, neutral and common colloquial words are grouped
under the term standard English vocabulary. Other groups in the literary layer
are regarded as special literary vocabulary and those in the colloquial layer are
regarded as special colloquial (non-literary) vocabulary.
Slang. The term slang is ambiguous and obscure. The “New Oxford English
Dictionary” defines slang as follows:
1) the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of low or disreputable
character; language of a low and vulgar type;
2) the cant or jargon of a certain class or period;
3) language of highly colloquial type considered as below the level of standard
educated speech, and consisting either of new words or current words employed in
some special sense.
In England and USA slang is regarded as the quintessence of colloquial
speech and therefore stands above all the laws of grammar.
2 . L e x i c a l s t y l i s t i c d e v i c e
i s s u c h t y p e o f d e n o t i n g p h e n o m e n a t h a t s e r v e s
t o c r e a t e a d d i t i o n a l e x p r e s s i v e , e v a l u a t i v e ,
s u b j e c t i v e c o n n o t a t i o n s .
I n f a c t w e d e a l w i t h t h e i n t e n d e d s u b s t i t u t i o n
o f t h e e x i s t i n g n a m e s a p p r o v e d b y l o n g u s a g e a n d
f i x e d i n d i c t i o n a r i e s , p r o m p t e d b y t h e s p e a k e r ’ s
s u b j e c t i v e o r i g i n a l v i e w a n d e v a l u a t i o n o f t h i n g s .
E a c h t y p e o f i n t e n d e d s u b s t i t u t i o n r e s u l t s i n a
s t y l i s t i c d e v i c e c a l l e d a l s o a t r o p e . T h i s a c t o f
s u b s t i t u t i o n i s r e f e r r e d t o t r a n s f e r e n c e – t h e n a m e
o f o n e o b j e c t i s t r a n s f e r r e d i n t o a n o t h e r , p r o c e e d i n g
f r o m t h e i r s i m i l a r i t y ( o f s h a p e , c o l o r , f u n c t i o n , e t c . )
o r c l o s e n e s s ( o f m a t e r i a l e x i s t e n c e , c a u s e / e f f e c t ,
i n s t r u m e n t / r e s u l t , p a r t / w h o l e r e l a t i o n s , e t c . )
Metaphor is transference of meaning on the basis of similarity.If a metaphor
involves likeness between inanimate and animate objects, we deal with
personification, as in the “face of London” or “the pain of the ocean”.
Metonymy is a figure of speech that consists in substituting the name of one
thing for that of another to which the former bears a well-known & close relation..
One type of metonymy – namely the one, which is based on the relations between
the part and the whole – is often viewed independently as synecdoche: I like
Pushkin.
Meiosis is a kind of strengtheny through the weakeny: Not half bad.
Oxymoron - the semantic and syntactical features are controdictionary:
sweet pain, living dead, pretty ugly, Толстой: живой труп.
Pun is the play of words.
Zeugma is the use of one word in two meanings simultaneously. He took his
head and his live.
Allusion denotes a brief referents to some literary or historical events
commonly known: кровавое воскресенье, наполеоновские планы.
6.Formation and development of the National English
We can speak about the English National Language as a language
understood and mainly used though out the country beginning with late Middle
English – Early new English.
The end of the Middle English period and the beginning of new English is
marked by the following events in the life of the English people:The end of the
war between the White and the Red Rose – 1485 and the establishment of an
absolute monarchy on the British soil with Henry Tudor as the first absolute
monarch. It signified the rise of an absolute monarchy in England and a
linguistic centralization leading to a predominance of the National Language
over the local dialects.
The introduction of printing – 1477 by William Caxton. The first English
printing office was founded in 1476 by William Caxton, and in 1477 there
appeared the first book to be printed in England called the Dictes and Saying of
the Philosophers. The appearance of a considerable number of printed books
contributed to the normalization of spelling and grammar forms fostering the
choice of a single variant over others.
Since the end of the 15
th
century the English Language began its
development as the language of the English nation. Thus, the English National
Language was formed on the basis of the London dialect which was
uppermost,among Middle English due to the political, geographical, economic
and linguistic position of London.
The importance of the London dialect as the foundation of the English
National Language grew also because of the fact that many of the best writers of
the 14-15
th
century (Chaucer) were Londoners or used the London dialect in
their writings. The 15
th
century is generally referred to as the time of the
beginning of the English National Language. But the literary norm of the
language was established later, in Early New English, many English authors of
the forthcoming centuries contributing to it (Spenser, Johnson, and
Shakespeare).
3. Metaphor is a trope in which a word or phrase literary denoting one kind of
object or idea is applied to another to suggest a lightness between them.
Metaphor is transference of meaning on the basis of similarity.
Similarity may concern colour, form, character, value. If a metaphor involves
likeness between inanimate and animate objects, we deal with personification,
as in the “face of London” or “the pain of the ocean”. There are different ways
of metaphorisation: by analogy- her tears are drops of the rain.. by opposition –
a goose-millioner.. by antithesis- to loose heart.. by parenthesis- a horse the bist
that bears me.
Metonymy is a figure of speech that consists in substituting the name of
one thing for that of another to which the former bears a well-known & close
relation.. One type of metonymy – namely the one, which is based on the
relations between the part and the whole – is often viewed independently as
synecdoche: I like Pushkin.
Metonymy and metaphor differ also in the way they are deciphered. In the
process of disclosing the meaning implied in a metaphor, one image excludes
the other, that is, the metaphor 'lamp' in the 'The sky lamp of the night', when
deciphered, means the moon, and though there is a definite interplay of
meanings, we perceive only one object, the moon. This is not the case with
metonymy. Metonymy, while presenting one object to our mind, does not
exclude the other. In the example given above the moustache and the man
himself are both perceived by the mind. It must also be noted that metonymy,
being a means of building up imagery, generally 'concerns concrete objects,
which are generalized. The process of generalization is easily carried out with
the help of the I definite article.
4. Stylistic phonetics deals with the expressiveness of sounds. “Onomatopoeia
is a combination of speech-sounds which aim at imitating sounds produced in
nature (wind, sea, thunder, etc.), by things (machines, tools, etc.), by people
(singing, laughter, etc.)”Well-known cases of Onomatopoeia are the use of
words that imitate natural sounds.
They are called onomatopoeic words (growl, grunt, hiss)
There are numerous examples of different kinds of Onomatopoeia in “Winnie-
the-Pooh.”For example, Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! (imitation of sound produced by a
bee).
Alliteration and Assonance.Poetry abounds in some specific types of
sound-instrumenting. The leading role belongs to “Alliteration – the repetition
of consonants, usually in the beginning of words, and assonance – the
repetition of the similar vowels, usually in the stressed syllables.
They both may produce the effect of
euphony.” Let us take an example of
Alliteration from A. Miln’s book “Winnie-
the-Pooh”:
“How sweat to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue
Every little Cloud
Always sings Aloud”
5. Stylistic Syntax defines a style. The main syntactical unit is sentence.
Syntactical SD deal with the syntactical arrangement of the utterance that
results in the emphasis of the whole construction.
Climax is sd from weaker to stronger: He was helpless, so very helpless.
anticlimax or bathos from stronger to weaker: “The wind sung…, and the
sailors swore”.
Inversion is a SD in which the direct word order is changed either
completely so that predicate precedes the subject or partially so that the object
precedes the subject-predicate pair.” For example, Never had Henry Pootel-
Piglet run so fast as he ran then. (A. Miln) We should remember that the
stylistic device of Inversion should not be confused with grammatical inversion
which is a norm in interrogative construction: Is he still hesitating?
Antithesis is a structure consisting of two steps, the lexical meanings of
which are opposite to each other. These steps may be presented by morphemes
(underpaid and overworked), by antonyms (or contextual antonyms) and
antonymous expressions and by completed statements or pictures semantically
opposite to one another: the pre-money wife’s did not go together with the pre-
post daughters.
8. Middle English
In ME four new diphthongs appeared: [ai], [ei], [au], [ou].All vowels which
occured before the combinations of consonants such as mb, nd, ld became
long.
The most important change in the consonant system will be the
development of the fricative consonant [ſ] and the affricates [t ſ] and [d ].
There are two grammatical categories in the declension of nouns: number and
case. There are two number forms in ME : singular and Plural. There are only
2 cases in ME: Common and Genetive, the OE nominative, accusative, dative
having fused into one case – the common case.
The article appeared (an and the) in ME period. At the end of the ME
period a new verbal developed – Gerund. Though the majority of OE suffixes
are still preserved in Me, they are becoming less productive. Words formed by
means of word-composition in OE, in Me are often understood as derived
words.
Scandinavian borrowings:Nouns: law, fellow, sky, skill.Adjectives: big,
week.Verbs: call, cast.
French borrowings:Government: government, noble, baron. Military life:
army, battle, peace.Religion: religion, sermon, prey.Relationship: aunt, uncle.
7. Old English
The changes that took place in the prehistoric period of the development
of the English Language and which explain the difference between Old English
and Common Germanic vowels were of the types; assimilative changes and
independent changes. Independent changes do not depend upon the
environment in which the given sound was found.
Almost all vowels, both diphthongs and monophthongs became more
narrow, with the exception of [e] and [i] which could go no further. a>e
strangiþu > strengpu.. æ>e tælian>tellan (to tell).
The Old English Language was a synthetic language which means that
all the principal grammatical notions were expressed by a change of the form of
the word in the narrow meaning of the term.
The grammatical categories of number was built up by the opposition of
two number forms: Singular and Plural. The grammatical categories of tense
was represented by two forms: Present tense and Past tense.
OE vocabulary has contained about 50 000 words. These words were
mainly native words. Many of words were inherited by English together with
some other Indo-European languages from the same common source.
The English-speaking people of the period mainly used internal means of
enriching the vocabulary to adapt their language to the expression of more
varied or new nations. The first Latin borrowings entered the language before
the germanic tribes. Words were connected with trade, building, religious
nature (bishop, devil).
10. Parts of speech as the main grammatical classes of words
The words of language are divided into grammatically relevant sets or
classes. The traditional grammatical classes or words are called “parts of
speech”. Words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional
and functional.
To the notional parts of speech of the English language belong the noun,
the adjective, the numeral, the pronoun, the verb, the adverb. The features
of the noun are the following:
1) the categorial meaning of substance (”thingness”);
2) the changeable forms of number and case; the specific suffixal forms of
derivation (prefixes in English do not discriminate parts of speech as such);
3)the substantive functions in the sentence (subject, object, substantival
predicative); prepositional connections; modification by an adjective.
Nouns are subcategorized into proper and common, animate and
inanimate, countable and uncountable, concrete and abstract,.
The features of the verb: 1) the categorial meaning of process (presented in
the two upper series of forms, respectively, as finite process and non-finite
process); 2) the forms of the verbal categories of person, number, tense, aspect,
voice, mood; the opposition of the finite and non-finite forms; 3) the function of
the finite predicate for the finite verb; fhe mixed verbal - other than verbal
functions for the non-(inite verb.
The features of the adverb: 1) the categorial meaning of the secondary
property, i.e. the property of process or another property; 2) the forms of the
degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs; the specific suffixal forms of
derivation;
3) the functions of various adverbial modifiers.
To the basic functional series of words in English belong the article, the
preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection.
The article expresses the specific limitation of the substantive functions.
The preposition expresses the dependencies and interdependences of
substantive referents.
The conjunction expresses connections of phenomena. The particle unites
the functional words of specifying and limiting meaning. To this series,
alongside of other specifying words, should be referred verbal postpositions as
functional modifiers of verbs, etc.
The modal word, occupying in the sentence a more pronounced or less
pronounced detached position, expresses the attitude of the speaker to the
reflected situation and its parts. Here belong the functional words of
probability (probably, perhaps, etc.), of qualitative evaluation (fortunately,
unfortunately, luckily, etc.), and also of affirmation and negation.
15. Standard English, Variants and Dialects
9. New English
Vowels in the unstressed position already reduced in ME to the vowel of
the [ə] type are dropped in NE if they found in the endings of words OE nama
ME
name NEname[neim].
All long monophthongs in NE underwent a change that is called the Great
Vowel Shift. The vowels became more narrow and more front.
In NE what remained of the declension of the adjective in Me dissapeared
completely. The principal inner means in NE is the appearance of new words
formed by means of conversion. Book (n) – book (v) (The book is on the table
– he booked a room).
Ne borrowings may be subdivided into borrowings of the Early NE period
– XV – XVII century, the period preceeding the establishment of the literary
norm, and loan words which entered the language after establishment of the
literary norm.
Italian: gondola, volcano. Spanish: armada, negro, mosquito. Latin:
aggravate, contribute. America: canoe, maize.
French (after the restoration): ball, ballet. Before the October Revolution the
borrowing from the Rl were mainly words reflecting R Realia of the time:
borzoi, samovar.After the Revolution:Soviet, bolshevik, kolkhoz.
11. Phonemes, morphemes, words. The categorical structure of the word.
The morphological structure of language reveals its properties through the
morphemic structure of words. Morphology faces 2 segmental units:
morpheme; word.
But the morpheme is identified as a part of the word; its functions are
affected only as the corresponding constituting function of the word as a whole.
So in studying the morpheme we actually study the word.
The word is described as the minimal potential sentence, the minimal free
linguistic form, the elementary component of the sentence. The phoneme is the
minimal formal segment of language and morpheme is the minimal meaningful
segment.
The morpheme is formed by the phonemes. The word is a nominative
unit of language. It is formed by morphemes. It enters the lexica of language as
its elementary component. Together with other nominative units the word is
used for the formation of the sentence. According to the traditional
classification , morphemes are divided into: root morphemes (roots).affixes.
Notional words first of all nouns and verbs posses some morphemic feature
expressing grammatical meanings which determining the grammatical form of
the word. Grammatical meaning are very abstract. The grammatical form
units the whole class expresses the corresponding grammatical meaning
together with its individual concrete semantics.e.g. the meaning of substantive
plural is rended by the suffix –(e)s and in some cases by other specific means
such as phonemic interchange and a few lexim bound suffix – s.
face – faces bench – benches
book – books life – lives
ox – oxen brother – bretheren
deer-deer
21. Modification of consonants
Each sound is known to have three aspects: acoustic, articulatory and
auditory and therefore can be studied on these three levels. For the sake of
analysis each aspect can be considered and described independently though we
should take it reasonably obvious that there is no sharp dividing line between
them.
On the articulatory level each consonant may be identified by stating two
general facts about it: what sort of articulatory posture it is formed by;
whereabout in the mouth (or pharynx) it is produced.
Phonological description of sounds will be made in terms of the
articulatory level. As to the classification of English consonants there are few
ways of seeing the situation. According to V.A. Vassilyev primary importance
should be given to the type of obstruction and the manner of production of
noise.
On this ground he distinguishes two large classes of
consonants:occlusive, in the production of which a complete obstruction is
formed;constrictive, in the production of which an incomplete obstruction is
formed. (e.g. oppositions: [ti:] – [si:] occlusive – constrictive [pul] – [ful] occ.
– cons.)
Each of the two classes is subdivided into noise consonants and
sonorants. The division is based on the factor of prevailing either noise or tone
component in the auditory characteristic of a sound. In their turn noise
consonants are divided into plosive consonants (or stops) and affricates.
Another point of view is shared by a group of Soviet phoneticians. They
suggest that the first and basic principle of classification should be the degree
of noise. Such consideration leads to dividing English consonants into two
general kinds:noise consonants.
Sonorants.The place of articulation is another characteristic of English
consonants which should be considered from the phonological point of view.
The place of articulation is determined by the active organ of speech against the
point of articulation.
According to this principle the English consonants are classed into:
labial, lingual, glottal. The class of labial consonants is subdivided into: a)
Every language allows different kinds of variations: geographical or
territorial, perhaps the most obvious, stylistic, the difference between the written
and the spoken form of the standard national language and others. It is the
national language of England proper, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and
some provinces of Canada.
Modern linguistics distinguishes territorial variants of a national language
and local dialects. Variants of a language are regional varieties of a standard
literary language characterized by some minor peculiarities in the sound system,
vocabulary and grammar and by their own literary norms.
Standard English – the official language of Great Britain taught at
schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and
spoken by educated people.
English vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms belonging
to various local dialects. Local dialects are varieties of the English language
peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional
varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. Dialects are said to
undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools
and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.
The following three major belts of dialects have so far been identified,
each with its own characteristic features: Northern, Midland and Southern,
Midland being in turn divided into North Midland and South Midland.
British English, American English and Australian English are variants
of the same language, because they serve all spheres of verbal communication.
Their structural peculiarities, especially morphology, syntax and word-
formation, as well as their word-stock and phonetic system are essentially the
same. American and Australian standards are slight modifications of the norms
accepted in the British Isles. The status of Canadian English 'has not yet been
established.
The main lexical differences between the variants are caused by the lack of
equivalent lexical units in one of them, divergences in the semantic structures of
polysemantic words and peculiarities of usage of some words on different
territories.
14. The simple sentence
as any sentence in general is organized as the system of function
expressing positions the content of the function being the reflection of the
situational event. E.g. the small lady listened to me attentively.
Reflecting the categories of the subject simple sentences are divided into
personal and impersonal. The further division of personal sentences is into
human and nonhuman and human can be divided into definite and indefinite,
nonhuman – into animate and inanimate (it rain. It is 5 o’clock) - factual
sentences. There are perceptive sentences (it smells of flowers here) simple
sentences can be subdivided into process featuring sentences or verbal sentences
and substance featuring sentence. They may include substance as such and
substantive quality. E.g. the window is opening. The window is listening in the
sun.
The composite sentence as different from the simple sentence is formed
by two or more predicative lines. Being a polypredicative construction it
expresses a complicated act of thought, it can be an act of mental activity and
can consist of simple sentences. It can fall into two or more intellectual afforts
closely combined with one another.
The constitutive connections of the events are constructive in the
sentence. There are some connections in syntactical polysendeton and
predication. Composite sentences have got two main types of the connection of
clauses. e.g. by coordination the clauses are arranged as units Internet which
sentences have got equal ranks and by subordination sentences of unequal
ranks. This latter characteristic has an essent-semantic implication clarifying the
difference between the two types of poly predication and they have a special
importance of post-positional subordinate clauses.
17. Classification of functional styles of lang
А functional style of language is а system of interrelated language means
which serves а definite aim in communication. А functional style is thus to bе
regarded as the product of а certain concrete task set bу the sender of the
message. Functional styles арреаг mainly in the literary standard of а language.
The literary standard of the English language, like that of аnу other
developed language, is not as homogeneous as it mау seem. In fact the Standard
English literary language in the course of its development has fallen into several
subsystems each of which has acquired its own peculiarities which аге typical of
the given functional style. In the English literary standard we distinguish the
following major functional styles (hence FS):
1) The language style of poetry
2) The language of publicist literature.
3) The language of newspapers.
4) The language of scientific prose.
5) The language of official documents.
The publicist sty/e of language bесаmе discernible as а separate style in
the middle of the 18th century. Unlike other styles, the publicist style has а
spoken variety, namely, the oratorical sub sty/e. The development of radio and
television has brought into being another new spoken variety namely, the radio
and TV coтeпtary.
Newspaper style was the last of all the styles of written litеrаrу English to
bе recognized as а specific form of writing standing apart from other forms.
English newspaper writing dates from the 17
th
century, when short news
pamphlets began to арреаг, and it is only in the 19th century when newspaper
developed into а system of language media, forming а separate functional style.
The main aim of the functional style of scientific prose is to prove а
hypothesis, to create new concepts and to disclose the internal laws of existence,
development, relations between different phenomena, etc. The language means,
therefore, tend to bе objective, precise, and unemotional, devoid of аnу
individuality; there is а striving for the most generalized form of expression.
19. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations
bilabial; b) labio-dental; and among the class of lingual consonants three
subclasses are distinguished; they are: a) forelingual, b) medio-lingual and c)
backlingual.
13. The categories of the verb.
Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech. It performs
the central role in the expression of the predicative function in the sentence. In
the sentence the finite verb performs the function of the verb predicate
expressing the categorical features of predication. The non-finite verb performs
different function according to its intermediary nature, but its non-procession
functions are always actualized in close combination with it processional
semantic features.
Auxiliary verbs constitute grammatical elements of the categorical
forms of the verb. Speaking of the personal and numerical forms of the finite
verb we conclude that their intomixed character determined on the formal basis
answers in general the mixed character of the expression of person and number
by the pronominal subject name of predicative construction and that the
described formal perso-number system of finite verb is extremely and very
singularly definitiate. It is clear that personal and numerical forms of the verb
existing unity with the personal-numerical forms of the subject. These are the
verbs: be, have, do, shall, will, should, would, may, might.
Model verbs are used with the infinitive expressing obligation,
necessity, ability, permission, advisability, relation of probability. The modal
verbs – can, may, must, shall, will, ought, need, used to, dare – are defective in
forms. Be to and have to in the modal meaning are considered as modal verbs
and included in the list of model verbs. The finite forms of the verb express the
processial relation of the substances and phenomena making up the situation
reflected in the sentence. The finite verb is directly connected with the structure
of the sentence as a whole. The name categories of the finite verbs are: verbal
person, number, time, aspect, voice, mood.
The voice. By voice we mean different grammatical ways of expressing
the relation between a transitive verb and its subject and object. The 2 chief
voices are: active (he saw) and passive (he was seen).
Sweet notes that in English the passive is formed by combining the finite
forms of the auxiliary [be] with the past participle of the verb. According to
Bryant there exists what is sometimes called a notional passive. E.g. They
began the war (active). The war bagan (notional passive).
16. Language is a sequence of symbols (in written language) or sequence of
sounds (in spoken language). The relation of lang. to the extra linguistic world
involves 3 basic sets of elements: lang. signs, mental concepts & parts of
extraling. words which are usually called denotata.
Denotatum is the object of itself. On the syntagmatic level the symantic
structure of a word is analysed in its relationships with neighbouring words in
connected speech. On the paradigmatic level the word is studied in the
relaitionships with other words in the vocabulary system (in a comparison of
others). The lang. sign is a sequence of sounds (in spoken lang.) or symbols(in
written lang.) which is associated with a single concept in the minds of
speakers of lang. Word combinations are regarded as individual lang. signs if
they are related to a single mental concept which is different from the concepts
of its individual components.
The mental concept of the word usually consists of lexical meaning,
connotation, Association and grammatical meaning.
Lexical meaning is a general mental concept corresponding to a word or
a combination of words. Connotation is additional contrasting value of the
basic function of the lexical meaning (shade of meaning).Association is a more
or less regular connection established between the given and other m.c. in the
minds of the language speakers.
23. Word stress
The sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically. The
syllable or syllables which are pronounced with more prominence than the
other syllables of the word are said to be stressed or accented. The correlation
of varying prominences of syllables in a word is understood as the accentual
structure of the word.
According to A.C. Gimson, the effect of prominence is achieved by any
or all of four factors: force, tone, length and vowel colour. The dynamic
stress implies greater force with which the syllable is pronounced. In other
words in the articulation of the stressed syllable greater muscular energy is
produced by the speaker.
The European languages such as English, German, French, Russian are
believed to possess predominantly dynamic word stress. In Scandinavian
languages the word stress is considered to be both dynamic and musical (e.g. in
Swedish, the word komma (comma) is distinguished from the word komma
(come) by a difference in tones). The musical (tonic) word stress is observed in
Chinese, Japanese. It is effected by the variations of the voice pitch in relation
to neighbouring syllables.
The main drawback with any theory of stress based on production of
speech is that it only gives a partial explanation of the phenomenon but does
not analyze it on the perceptive level.
Word stress functions:
1. The CONSTITUTIVE function: it organizes the syllables of a word into
language unit having a defmite accentual structure, i.e. a pattern of relationship
among th syllables. The word does not exist as a lexica' unit without word
stress.
Syntagmatic relations are immediate linear relations between units in a
segmental sequence. The combination of two words or word-groups one of
which is modified by the other forms a unit which is reffered to as a syntactic ”
syntagma”. There are four main types of notional syntagmas: predicative (the
combination of a subject and a predicate), objective (-/- a verb and its object),
attributive (a noun and attribute), adverbial (a modified notional word, such as
a verb, adjective, or adverb, with its adverbial modifier).
The other type of relations, opposed to syntagmatic and called
“paradigmatic”, are such asd exist between elements of the system outside the
strings where they co-occur. Unlike syntagmatic relations, paradigmatic
relations cannot be directly observed in utterances, that is why they are reffered
to as relations “in absentia”.
A linguistic unit can enter into relations of two different kinds. It enters
into paradigmatic relations with all the units that can also occur in the same
environment.
PR are relations based on the principles of similarity. They exist between
the units that can substitute one another. For instance, in the word-group A
PINT OF MILK the word PINT is in paradigmatic relations with the words
bottle, cup, etc. The article A can enter into PR with the units the, this, one,
same, etc.
According to different principles of similarity PR can be of three types:
semantic, formal and functional.
Semantic PR are based on the similarity of meaning: a book to read = a
book for reading. He used to practice English every day - He would practice
English every day.
Formal PR are based on the similarity of forms. Such relations exist
between the members of a paradigm: man - men; play - played - will play - is
playing.
Functional PR are based on the similarity of function. They are
established between the elements that can occur in the same position. For
instance, noun determiners: a, the, this, his, Ann’s, some, each, etc.
PR are associated with the sphere of ‘language’.A linguistic unit enters
into syntagmatic relations with other units of the same level it occurs with. SR
exist at every language level. E.g. in the word-group A PINT OF MILK the
word PINT contrasts SR with A, OF, MILK; within the word PINT - P, I, N and
T are in syntagmatic relations.
SR are linear relations, that is why they are manifested in speech. They
can be of three different types: coordinate, subordinate and predicative.
24. Intonation is a language universal. There are no languages which are
spoken as a monotone.The boundaries of an intonation pattern may be marked
by stops of phonation, that is temporal pauses.Intonation patterns serve to
actualize syntagms in oral speech.
The syntagm is a group of words which are semantically and
syntactically complete. In phonetics they are called intonation groups.
The intonation group is a stretch of speech which may have the length of
the whole phrase. But the phrase often contains more than one intonation group.
The number of them depends on the length of phrase and the degree of semantic
impotence or emphasis given to various parts of it. The position of intonation
groups may affect the meaning.
Classification of intonation patterns: Different combinations of pitch
sections (pre-heads, heads and nuclei) may result in more than one hundred
pitch-and-stress patterns. But it is not necessary to deal with all of them, because
some patterns occur very rarely. So, attention must be concentrated on the
commonest ones: The Low (Medium) Fall pitch-and-stress group. The High
Fall group. Rise Fall group. The Low Rise group. The High Rise group. The
Fall Rise group. The Rise-Fall-Rise group. The Mid-level group.
No intonation pattern is used exclusively with this or that sentence type.
Some sentences are more likely to be said with one intonation pattern than with
any other. So we can speak about “common intonation” for a particular type of
sentence.
a) Statements are most widely used with the Low Fall
preceded by the Falling or the High level Head. They are final, complete and
definite.
b) Commands, with the Low Fall are very powerful, intense,
serious and strong.
c) Exclamations are very common with the High Fall.
We cannot fully describe English intonation without reference to speech rhythm.
Rhythm seems to be a kind of framework of speech organization. Some
linguists consider it to be one of the components of intonation. Rhythm is
understood as periodicity in time and space. We find it everywhere in life.
Rhythm as a linguistic notion is realized in lexical, syntactical and prosodic
means and mostly in their combinations. In speech, the type of rhythm depends
on the language. Linguists divide languages into two groups: syllable-timed
(French, Spanish); stress-timed (English, German, Russian).
25. The spread of the English language.
J. Layer holds the view that lexical stress shows a culminative function:
being characteristic property of the word, it is thought to help the listener to
judge how many individual words the speaker has produced in a given
utterance.
2. The IDENTIFICATORY function: correct lexical stress enables the
listener to decode the information in verbal conimuriication adequately, while
misplaced word stresses prevent understanding.
3. The DISTINCTIVE/CONTRAST WE function: word stress alone is
capable of differentiating the meanings of words or their forms: import (noun)
-- import (verb), `insult (noun) -- in'sult (verb).
18. Productive and non-productive ways of W-F
Most linguists consider the following major word-formational processes:
Affixation. Compounding. Conversion.
The minor word-formational processes are: Blending. Clipping. Back-
formation. Borrowing. Reduplication. Acronymy.
Some of the ways of forming words in nowadays English can be restored
to for the creation of new words whenever the occasion demands – these are
called productive ways of forming words, other ways of forming words cannot
now produce new words, and these are commonly termed non-productive or
unproductive.
R. S. Ginzburg gives the example of affixation having been a productive
way of forming new words ever since the Old English period. It follows that
productivity of word-building ways, individual derivational patterns and
derivational affixes is understood as their ability of making new words which
all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding.
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding
derivational affixes to different types of bases. Language is the mirror to
society and the vocabulary of English reflects the quick social, cultural, and
scientific changes undergone by modern society. New entries are constantly
added as speakers have to refer to new concepts, objects, and ideas, but very
few textbooks, if any, contain newly coined words.
Neologisms do not always appear in dictionaries, either, because they
have to be used frequently enough to be found there. In the vocabulary of
English, verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs belong to open classes, that is to
say, they are open because they can be extended indefinitely by the addition of
new items. But these new words, save exceptions, are not created from
nowhere, but are either borrowed or formed by combining words or parts of
words which already exist in the language, abbreviating them or changing their
word class Speakers of English can easily coin new terms to suit their needs.
Journalists, in particular, take advantage of the power that the English
language has to generate new terms. When we read a newspaper or a magazine
we are likely to come across words which we have never seen or heard before
because they have just been coined by a creative speaker or writer.
However, native speakers are perfectly able to process innovative word
uses, and neologisms can be easily understood because they share the pattern of
established words in the vocabulary. If alcoholic is familiar, then other words
formed on the same pattern, such as workaholic or shopaholic , are also
comprehensible.
20. Main trends in Phoneme theory
Phonetics, being a branch of linguistics, occupies a peculiar position. One
the one hand, it is quite independent, and develops according to its own laws.
Today the sphere of phonetics is wider and deeper than ever before; phonemes
and their distribution in words, their mutual adaptation, stress, syllable
formation, intonation, the relation between oral and written speech and a
number of other problems have now become objects of phonetic investigation.
On other hand, phonetics is closely connected with a number of other
sciences, such as physics (or rather acoustics), biology, physiology and others.
The more phonetics develops, the more various branches of science
become involved in the field of phonetic investigation.
Phonetics is an essential part of language because it gives language a
definite form; - the vocabulary and grammar of a language can function only
when the language has phonetic form.
Grammar and vocabulary depend on phonetics; they cannot exist outside
of phonetics, because all lexical and grammatical phenomena are expressed
phonetically. Thus, although phonetics serves as a means of expressing
grammatical and lexical phenomena, yet it has laws of its own which are
dependent of grammar and vocabulary.
12. The categories of noun
The noun has the power to isolate different properties of substances and
present them as correspondent self-dependant substances. The most
characteristic functions of the noun are those of subject and object of the
sentence.
Other syntactic functions (attributive, adverbial, predicative) are not
characteristic of its substantive quality as such. Nouns are divided into
countable and uncountable. This categorical feature is connected with the
number.
The number of the noun. This opposition shows the opposition of the
plural form to the singular form of the noun. The strong number of this binary
opposition is the plural form (formal mark is the suffix –(e)s: boxes, roses).
The other ways of expressing the number are: vowel interchange: man –
men, tooth – teeth; the archaic suffix –(e)n: ox – oxen, cow – kine.
The correlation of the individual singular and plural suffixes in a limited
number of borrowed nouns: formular – formule, phenomenon – phenomena in
some cases the plural form is homonymous with the singular form: sheep, deer,
fish.
As a part of speech the noun is also characterized by a set of formal
features determining its specific status in the lexical paradigm of nomination. It
has its word-building distinctions including typical suffixes, compound step-
models, conversion patterns. It discriminates the grammatical categories of
gender, number, case and article determination.
The English is spoken in Great Britain, the USA, Australia, new Zealand.
It is native to many who live in India, Israel, Malta, Ceylon. All the national
varieties of English have many common but they differ in pronunciation.
Standard pronunciation is the pronunciation of TV, radio and it is regionally
neutral. But only 5% speak RP. Nowadays English population still speak various
types of RP: conservative, general, near-RP.
In the British Isles the regional types of the English language are:
1. the southern English
2. the northern English
3. the standard Scottish
4. welsh and northern Ireland English
in the USA the regional types of the American variant of English are the Eastern
type, southern type, the general American type.
The social standard within English is so called Received Pronunciation.
It is the teaching norm and schools and higher learning establishments because
of the degree of undestandibility in English-speaking countries, the extend of
RP, investigation the number of the textbooks and audio-visual aids. In the USA
the most wide – spread type is general American like RP in Britain. General
American is the social standard. Since RP and general American are the most
widely accepted types of pronunciation.
Learners of English should know the differences between them.
Nowadays two main types of English are spoken in the English-speaking
world: English English and American English. According to British
dialectologists (P. Trudgill, J. Hannah, A. Hughes and others) the following
variants of English are referred to the English-based group: English English,
Welsh English, Australian English, New Zealand English; to the American-
based group: United States English, Canadian English.
Scottish English and Irish English fall somewhere between the two being
somewhat by themselves.
26. Language as a means of communication
Thus, a language may be regarded as a specific code intended for
information exchange between its users (language speakers). Indeed, any
language resembles a code being a system of interrelated material signs (sounds
or letters), various combinations of which stand for various messages.
Language grammars and dictionaries may be considered as a kind of
Соde Books, indicating both the meaningful combinations of signs for a
particular language and their meanings. For example, if one looks up the words
(sign combinations) elect and college in a dictionary he will find that they are
meaningful for English (as a opposed, say, to combinations ele or oll), moreover
of these words: elect college is also meaningful and forms a message.
The process of language communication involves sending a message by
a message sender to a message recipient - the sender encodes his mental
message into the code of a particular language and the recipient decodes it using
the same code (language).
The communication variety with one common language is called the
monolingual communication. If, however, the communication process
involves two languages (codes) this variety is called the bilingual
communication.
Translation is a specific communication process is treated by the
communicational theory of translation discussed in more detail elsewhere in this
Manual. Thus, a language is a code used by language speakers for
communication. However, a language is a specific code unlike any other and its
peculiarity as a code lies in its ambiguity – as opposed to a code proper a
language produces originally ambiguous messages which are specified against
context, situation and background information.
Apart from being a code strongly dependent on the context, situation
and background information a language is also a code of codes. There are codes
within codes in specific areas of communication (scientific, technical, military)
and so called sub-languages (of professional, age groups). This applies mostly to
specific vocabulary used by these groups though there are differences Internet
grammar rules as well.
29. Lexico-grammatical problems of translation.
22. Modifications of Vowel
Vowel quality and quantity are two main constituents of the English
vowels. The quality of a vowel is known to be determined by the size, volume,
and shape of the mouth resonator, which are modified by the movement of
active speech organs, that is the tongue and the lips. So vowel quality could be
thought of as a bundle of definite articulatory characteristics which are
sometimes intricately interconnected and interdependent.
A vowel like any sound has physical duration – time which is required
for its production (articulation).Although we isolated vowel quality and vowel
length, it was done only for the sake of analysis with the purpose of describing
the vocalic system of the English language. They are closely connected (e.g.
the lengthening of a vowel makes the organs of speech tenser at the moment of
production, etc).
Vowel quality is viewed according to the following criteria:1) stability
of articulation according to which we distinguish 3 groups of vowels:
monophthongs, diphthongs, diphthongoids.
Monophthongs don’t change their articulation during the pronunciation
(with the exception of [i:] – [u:]). They are divided into short and long. 2) the
position of the tongue may be of the horizontal and vertical movement.
According to the horizontal movement vowels can be:front [i:], [e], [ei], [æ],
[εə]. front-retracted [i], [iə]. central [Λ], [3:], [ə ], [3u], [εu]. back [o], [o:],
[u:], [a:].back-advanced [u], [uə].
The tongue position in its vertical movement gives us: close, mid, open
vowels, they have also narrow and broad variations:
1. close a) narrow [i:], [u:] b) broad [i], [u], [iə], [uə]
2. mid a) narrow [ e, 3:, ə , ei, 3u] b) broad [ə , Λ ]
3. open a) narrow [εə, o:, oi] b) broad [æ, ai, au, o, a:]
The British linguists consider the vowels to be: mid, low, high.
Lip rounding – according to this characteristic feature vowels can be
divided into rounded and unrounded. The higher the tongue raises the more
rounded the lips are.
Checkness – this quality depends on the character of the articulatory
transition from a vowel to a consonant. All short vowels are checked when
stressed, other vowels are free.
Tenseness characterizes the state of the organ of speech at the moment of
production of a vowel. Words in such pairs as [bid] – [bi:d], [sit] – [si:t] are
distinguished from one another by the opposition of different length, which are
called chronemes.
The difference in quantity is considered to be decisive and the difference
in quality (the position of the active organs of speech) is considered to be
subordinate to the difference in quantity.
27. The discipline “Theory of translation”
Translation means both the process and a result and when defying
translation both its aspects are necessary to explain translation. One need
compare the original (source) text and the resulting (target) one.
The formation of the source and target texts is governed by the roles
characteristic of the source and the target languages. The systems of two
languages consist of grammar units and rules, morphological and word-
building elements and rules, stylistical variations and lexical distribution
patterns (lexico-semantic patterns).
One should never forget that a language itself is a forming model of
thinking that is of mental concepts we use when thinking. In translation we deal
with two languages (two codes) and to verify the information they give us.
About the extra linguistic objects one should consider extra linguistic situation
and background information.
A very important fact of translation is the co-occurring words or the
words situated close to each other in a source text have invisible pointers
indicating various kinds of grammatical semantic and stylistic information.
This information is stored in human memory and the principal task of a
translator is to visualize all of these information.
In the example of chip we used so called auction modally that is we
built our translation on the basis of our knowledge about the languages
involved in translation and the knowledge of the way things are in life.
We intuitively formulated hypothesis about translation of certain words
and phrases and then verified them. In general when we translate the first thing
we do analyze the source text trying to extract from it all available information
necessary for generating the target text than verify this information against
situation and background knowledge and generate the target text. e.g. Europe’s
leaders trust that this criticisms will pale into insignificance when the full
import of expansion begins to grip the public mind.
On the basis of this model one may already suggest a final target text
alter native: лидеры европейской интеграции считают, что как только
важность расширения европейского союза начнет утверждаться в
сознании общества, эта критика постепенно сойдет на нет.In human
translation the intermediate the representation of the target text will comprise
on the conscious levels only the most problematic variations of translation
which one can not resolve immediately.
Translation is a specific communication process is treated by the
communicational theory of translation. One word is hardly a common unit of
translation. It is specially true for analytical languages like English in which the
words are usually polysemantic and their meaning strongly depends on the
environment.
One is more likely to find a universal equivalent foe a word combination,
in particular foe a clichéd one (e.g. hands up, really made, good riddance),
because a word combination is already small context and the clichéd expressions
are commonly used in similar situations.
The general rule of translation reads: the longer is the source text, the
bigger is a chance to find a proper and correct translation equivalent.
Traditionally and from practical viewpoint the optimal length of text for
translation is a sentence.
In other words, in translation equivalent means indirectly equal, that is
equal by the similarity of meanings. E.g. words table and стол are equivalent
through the similarity of the meanings of the Russian word стол and one of the
meanings table.
In general sense and in general case words table and стол are not equal or
equivalent – they are equivalent only under specific translation conditions.
Translation equivalents in a dictionary are just the prompts for the
translator. One may find a proper equivalent only in speech due to the context,
situation and background knowledge.e.g. English word picture is generally
considered equivalent to Russian word картина.
However, already in the context to take pictures (фотографировать)
this equivalent is no longer correct and the word picture seems to have here no
equivalent (zero equivalent); in another context English in pictures because of
the situation (pictures in the book are small) equivalent картина acquires a
diminutive suffix английский в картинках; in a different situation, that of a
painters studio or gallery it is полотно that becomes the Russian equivalent of
the English word picture and this equivalent, as well as others, disappears again
in the context put me in the picture (введите меня в курс дела).
28. The units of translation.
Roughly the human translation theories may be divided into 3 main
groups which may be called: transformational approach, denotative
approach, communicational approach.
The transformational theories consist of many varieties which may
have different names, but they all have one common feature: the process of
translation regarded as transformation.
According to the transformational approach translation is viewed as the
transformation of objects and structures of the source language into those of the
target within of group of theories which we include into the transformational
approach a dividing line is sometimes drawn between transformations and
equivalences.
According to this interpretation a transformation starts at the syntactic
level when there is a change. In the process of translation; at the
morphological level morphemes of the target language are substituted for
those of the source.
At the lexical level words and word combinations of the target language
are substituted for those of the source. At the syntactic level syntactic
structures of the target language are substituted for those of the source. E.g. in
the process of translation the English word room is transformed into Russian
words комната, пространство, (zimmer).
The syntactic transformations in translation comprise a broad range or
structure changes in the target texts. Starting of the word order in the sentence
and finishing with division of the source sentence into two or more target ones.
The most common example of structural equivalences at the syntactic
level is that of some verb tense patterns. It is very important to understand that
the thesauruses of message – sender and recipient may be different to a greater
or lesser degree and that’s why we don’t understand each other even when we
think we are speaking one and the same language. In regular communication
there are two actors: sender and recipient.
Each of them uses two thesauruses. In special bilingual communication
(translation) we have two actors: sender, recipient, intermediary (translator).
The translator has two language thesauruses (source and target one) and
performs two functions: decodes resource message, encodes the target one to
be received by the recipient.
30.The principal translation devices: lexical and grammatical.
Basic translation devices
Basic translation devices are:
1.partitioning
2.integration
3.transposition
4.replacement
5.addition
6.omission
these devices are replied as tools to ensure adequate translation. In
translation of poetry a translator is bound to use a more or less standard set of
devices, which helps to convey the ideas of the source text in the best possible
way.
Although the choice of particular devices depends on the text type genre
and style as well as on the translation variety (oral, written, consinquitive,
simultaneous.
Partitioning is either replacing in translation of the source sentence by
two or more target ones or converting a simple source sentence into a
compound or complex target one.
Integration is an opposite of partitioning. It implies combining two or
more source sentences into one target sentence. Елена Филиппьева любит
все свои роли, если какую-нибудь из них не исполняет, начинает по ней
скучать. - Elena Philipyeva loves her roles and even misses them should too
much time pass without performing them.
Transposition is a peculiar variety of inner patitioning intransaltion
meaning a change in the order of the target sentence syntactic elements
(subject, predicate, object) as compound with that of the source sentence
dictated either by peculiarities of the target language syntax or by the
communication intend. E.g. ниоткуда появились ведерки из под патоки –
malasses buckets appeared from nowhere.
Replacement is any change in the target text at the morphological
lexical and syntactic levels of the language, when the elements of certain
source paradigms are replaced by different elements of target paradigms. He
used to come to Italy each spring - обычно он приезжал в италию каждую
весну.
The following basic types of replacements are observed in English -
Russian translation:
1.replacement of noun number and verb tense and voice paradigms. e.g.
replacing singular form by plural and vise verse; replacement of active voice by
passive? Replacement of future by present; past by present
2.replacement of parts of speech (the most common is replacing Russian
nouns by English verbs, when translating into English)
3.replacement in translation of a negative statement by an affirmative one is
an efficient device called antonymous translation
Addition in translation is a device intended for the compensation of
structural elements implicitly present in the source text or paradigm forms
missing in the target language. (According “to Times” – по данным газеты
Таймс.
Omission is reduction of the elements of the source text considered
redundant from the view point of a target language structural patterns and
stylistics. Omission is the opposite of addition - to understand it consider the
literal translation into English or the above nouns plasters from their Russian
translations with the original English text. E.g. предложение было
отвергнуто – the proposal was rejected and repudiated