Стилистика английского языка = English Stylistics

СТИЛИСТИКА 
АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА

English sTYlisTiCs

Допущено Министерством образования 
Республики Беларусь в качестве учебного пособия 
для учащихся учреждений образования, 
реализующих образовательные программы 
среднего специального образования  
по специальности «Иностранный язык»

Минск 
РИПО
2017

УДК 811.111’38(075.32)
ББК  81.2Англ-5я723
 
С80 

А в т о ры:  
канд. филол. наук, доцент Л. С. Крохалева,  
доцент Т. Ф. Бурлак, канд. филол. наук, доцент С. Ф. Чистая,
канд. филол. наук, доцент С. Е. Кунцевич, Г. А. Назина  

Ре це н з е н т ы:  
доцент кафедры английской филологии  УО «Гродненский 
государствен ный университет имени Янки Купалы», канд. филол. наук, 
доцент Е. О. Шейко; цикловая комиссия практической грамматики  
Лингвогуманитарного колледжа УО МГЛУ (Т. А. Соболь).

Все права на данное издание защищены. Воспроизведение всей книги или любой 
ее части не может быть осуществлено без разрешения издательства.
Выпуск издания осуществлен при финансовой поддержке Министерства 
образо вания Республики Беларусь.

Стилистика английского языка = English Stylistics : 
учеб. пособие / Л.С. Крохалева [и др.]. – Минск : РИПО, 2017. – 
122 с.
С80

ISBN 978-985-503-690-7.

В учебном пособии освещаются базовые теоретические положения, относящиеся к проблематике экспрессивной и функциональной стилистики, которые составляют основу стилистики как лингвистической дисциплины. Многочисленные 
примеры использования лексических и синтаксических стилистических приемов 
в оригинальных контекстах, а также аутентичные разножанровые тексты нацелены на формирование у обучаемых навыков лингвостилистического анализа. 
Учебное пособие предназначено для учащихся учреждений среднего специального образования лингвистического профиля. Может быть использовано специализирующимися в английском языке студентами заочной формы обучения, 
магистрантами и аспирантами нелингвистических вузов, а также широким кругом 
лиц, интересующихся стилистическим своеобразием английского языка.

УДК 811.111’38(075.32)
ББК 81.2Англ-5я723

ISBN 978-985-503-690-7                          © Оформление. Республиканский институт
 
 
 
                        профессионального образования, 2016

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Учебное пособие «Cтилистика английского языка» соответствует Типовой учебной программе по стилистике для колледжей 
и учреждений среднего специального образования лингвистического профиля и состоит из введения, двух частей, включающих 
семь глав (две и пять соответственно), и четырех приложений. 
Цель учебного пособия состоит в том, чтобы помочь учащимся 
овладеть программным материалом по учебной дисциплине «Стилистика (английский язык)». Приоритетной задачей выступает формирование навыков лингвостилистического анализа текстов, принадлежащих к рассматриваемым функциональным стилям, с использованием инструментария экспрессивной стилистики.
Данное учебное пособие главным образом предназначено для 
практического применения, поэтому при отборе учебного материала авторы принимали во внимание его значимость и актуальность не только в рамках лингвистики, но и в жизни современного 
социума. 
В учебном пособии освещаются базовые теоретические положения, относящиеся к проблематике экспрессивной и функциональной стилистики и составляющие основу стилистики как лингвистической дисциплины. В первой части наряду с теорией представлены многочисленные примеры использования лексических и 
синтаксических стилистических приемов в оригинальных контекстах, подобранных авторами для анализа. Вторая часть дает представление об основных функциональных стилях английского языка. 
Специфика рассматриваемых функциональных стилей проиллюстрирована аутентичными текстами либо их фрагментами, интерпретация которых предполагает формирование у обучаемых навыков лингвостилистического анализа. В обеих частях предусмо

Предисловие

трены вопросы для самоконтроля и задания для организации 
самостоятельной работы учащихся. 
Учебное пособие завершается планом комплексного стилистического анализа различных типов текстов (в том числе и нехудожественных) с позиций коммуникативно-функционального подхода. Концептуальной основой плана является понимание текста 
как субъектоцентрического феномена. План также базируется на 
моделях интерпретации разножанровых текстов, разработанных 
на кафедре стилистики английского языка Минского государственного линг ви стического университета и в течение ряда лет успеш но 
используемых в учебном процессе. Подобные модели углубляют 
и расширяют традиционное лингвостилистическое толкование 
текста и тем самым способствуют формированию дискурсивностилистических компетенций обучаемых.
Учебное пособие разработано на кафедре стилистики английского языка Минского государственного лингвистического университета. В авторский коллектив вошли: кандидат филологических 
наук, доцент Людмила Сергеевна Крохалева (Cинтаксическая стилистика, Научный стиль, общее руководство авторским коллективом), доцент Тамара Фадеевна Бурлак (Лексическая стилистика, 
Стиль официальных документов), кандидат филологических наук, 
доцент Светлана Федоровна Чистая (Медийный стиль, Художественный стиль, план комплексного стилистического анализа 
текста), кандидат филологических наук, доцент Светлана Евгеньевна  Кунцевич (Предисловие, Введение, разработка композиционной структуры и оформление пособия), старший преподаватель 
Гликерия Анатольевна Назина (Разговорный стиль, список стилистических терминов). 

INTRODUCTION

Stylistics is the academic discipline which studies certain aspects of 
language variation. Being an essential part of general linguistics, stylistics 
occupies the highest position in the traditional hierarchy of linguistic 
disciplines with theoretical phonetics at the bottom, theoretical grammar 
and lexicology in between. The object of study of this discipline is 
s t y l e , but the term needs further qualification as far as it is used in 
numerous senses. 
The word style was borrowed into European languages from Latin; 
originally stylos meant a short stick, sharp at one end and flat at the 
other. Such a tool was used for writing on wax tablets in ancient times. 
Now the word style can be applied to almost any kind of human activity 
which is performed in more than one way, as well as to the result of such 
an activity. Since speech communication is a unique sphere of human 
activity, it is not surprising that there exist various definitions of style 
in linguistics. The understanding of this term mainly depends on the 
scholar’s point of view and the aim of investigation. In a most general 
sense style is the result of individual choices and patterns of choice 
among linguistic possibilities. That is, the same thought, idea, belief, 
opinion, emotion, feeling or attitude can be expressed in more than one 
way. And it is very important to say the right thing at the right time and 
in the right place.
Depending on the school of thought linguists apply the term stylistics 
to l i n g u o s t y l i s t i c s ,  t h e  s t y l i s t i c s  o f  d e c o d i n g  and 
l i t e r a r y  s t y l i s t i c s . It is necessary to add to this list d i s c o u r s e 
s t y l i s t i c s  which is a comparatively new trend of contemporary 
stylistic research. Linguostylistics in its turn is traditionally subdivided 
into e x p r e s s i v e  s t y l i s t i c s  and f u n c t i o n a l  s t y l i s t i c s . 

Introduction

ExpREssIvE sTylIsTICs 

According to the theory of language levels, expressive stylistics can 
be further subdivided into p h o n o s t y l i s t i c s ,  m o r p h o l o g i c a l 
s t y l i s t i c s ,  s y n t a c t i c a l  s t y l i s t i c s ,  l e x i c a l  s t y l i s t i c s 
and t e x t  s t y l i s t i c s . Also one should not ignore g r a p h i c a l 
s t y l i s t i c s . Firstly, though graphic means do not belong to the 
generally recognized language levels, they serve to convey in written 
texts those ideas, feelings and emotions which in the oral types of texts 
are expressed by intonation and stress. Secondly, the layout of the text, its 
visual design (types, fonts, iconic elements, etc.) play an important role in 
logical structuring of the content expressed by the author in a particular 
language form. 
The basic notions of expressive stylistics are e x p r e s s i v e  m e a n s 
and s t y l i s t i c  d e v i c e s  which convey stylistic information. Stylistic 
information can be understood as an aggregate of different shades and 
nuances of stylistic meaning and typical or specific stylistic colouring of 
the language means employed in the text.
Expressive means are those phonetic, morphological, syntactical and 
lexical forms which are used for the purpose of logical and / or emotive 
intensification of the utterance. Lexical expressive means, for example, are 
labelled in good dictionaries as “intensifiers”; in most cases they have 
corresponding synonymous forms which are stylistically neutral. 
Expressive means intensify the thought contained in the utterance by 
commonly used language means (e.g. emotionally coloured words, modal 
verbs and expressions, diminutive suffixes – as in the words auntie, 
streamlet). 
The stylistic device is a productive model, an abstract pattern into 
which any content may be inserted. Stylistic devices can be regarded 
as a special code which has to be well known to the reader / listener 
for him / her to successfully decipher it. Stylistic devices function as 
marked units carrying stylistic information. Concrete realizations of 
an abstract scheme help to achieve desirable communicative effects. 
Actually, stylistic devices are those expressive means which correspond 
to certain language patterns included into the system of stylistic devices, 
each of them having a special name (e.g. metaphor, metonymy, rhetorical 
question, etc.). 

Introduction

Expressive means and stylistic devices perform in context various 
stylistic functions. The stylistic function can be defined as a pragmatic 
usage of a certain type of stylistic meaning – expressive, figurative, 
emotive, evaluative – in a communicative situation / in context. Some 
examples of stylistic functions are as follows: d e t a i l i n g , 
c o n c r e t i n g ,  e v o k i n g  f e e l i n g s ,  e x c i t i n g  e m o t i o n s , 
st i r r i ng  u p  i m a g i n at ion , the   functions of        i nt e n si f ic at ion , 
a c c e n t u a t i o n ,  g r a d a t i o n ,  l a y i n g  e m p h a s i s , etc. 
Text stylistics aims at investigating the most effective ways and means 
of producing texts belonging to different styles, substyles and genres. 
Stylistic analysis of a concrete text should lead to a clear and profound 
understanding of its content and form which are inseparable. In this 
respect stylistically significant seem to be the problems related to the 
types of information imparted by the text, the problem of text categories 
such as informativity, modality, expressiveness, emotiveness, accentuation 
and the problem of basic textual segments (a paragraph, for instance).
As this book is mainly designed for practical usage, the authors are 
selective in the areas they cover. Because of a special role played by 
lexical and syntactical devices in transferring stylistic information, the 
emphasis is on lexical and syntactical stylistics (See Chapter 1 and 
Chapter 2, Part I).

FUNCTIONal sTylIsTICs

Within the framework of the communicative-and-functional approach, 
scholars distinguish among different versions of the given language, the 
so-called functional styles. Functional style is a system of interrelated 
language means serving a definite aim in communication; functional 
styles are products of concrete social tasks set out by the language 
community (Galperin I. R.). They are the tools which help people to 
understand one another in different spheres of communication, including 
art, science, political, social and private life, etc. A particular choice and 
arrangement of vocabulary, grammar and other linguistic means, called 
style markers, are typical of texts belonging to a certain functional style. 
Each functional style is further subdivided into substyles and genres. 
Substyles and genres, in their turn, have their own language and 
compositional peculiarities. 

Introduction

One should bear in mind that, firstly, linguists are not unanimous in 
their understanding of the nature of functional style; secondly, functional 
styles undergo historical changes connected with technological 
development of human civilization and with historical development of 
the language itself.
According to the existing classifications, one can single out t h e 
s t y l e  o f  o f f i c i a l  d o c u m e n t s ,  t h e  s c i e n t i f i c  p r o s e 
s t y l e , the newspaper style and the publicist style (today some linguists 
think that these two taken together establish the style of mass media and 
certain parts of it should be treated as t h e  n e w s  m e d i a  s t y l e  a n d 
t h e  s t y l e  o f  a d v e r t i s i n g ) ,  t h e  b e l l e s - l e t t r e s  s t y l e , 
the style of religion, and t h e  c o l l o q u i a l  s t y l e . But not all of them 
are generally accepted, for that reason only five of them (those given here 
in spacing) are analysed in this book.
Each functional style is represented by a certain variety of genres that 
are typical only of it (See, for instance, the news media and scientific 
genres in Part II). To give a clear description of the functional style it is 
necessary to study thoroughly many texts of the same genre as well as 
many texts belonging to different genres of a particular style. Today’s 
picture of functional styles is rather schematic as the result of a durable 
tendency to extrapolate the linguistic data derived from randomly selected 
texts to the functional style as an abstract language whole (Razinkina 
N. M.).

ThE sTylIsTICs OF DECODINg

Nowadays no science is entirely isolated from other domains of 
human knowledge. Stylistics refers to such adjacent disciplines as 
rhetoric and literature; apart from that, it is confronted with certain 
overlapping issues of logic, psychology, sociology, statistics and the 
theory of information.
For example, the stylistics of decoding appeared under the influence of 
the theory of information.  In terms of this theory:
communication can be defined as an activity in which information 
••
is  transferred from one system to another by means of some physical 
embodiment; 

Introduction

human language is  the most powerful and elaborate of all means of 
••
communication.
In a natural language, messages are materialized in two kinds of signals: 
they are sound waves in the atmosphere (phonic substance), and the signs 
of writing or printing (graphic substance). In terms of the theory in 
question, language can be regarded as a very complicated code. In codes 
like languages no matter what is said, more can always be said about the 
same topic, and there is always more than one way of saying it. In language 
as a code there is always a potential, a stock of signs which could be used 
to convey the same message, to develop the same idea. This feature may 
be termed as redundancy; it is the redundancy of the language code that 
provides the opportunity of choice (Maltzev V. A.).
The primary concern of stylistics of decoding is with language codes 
and the particular message the reader can draw from the text, deciphering 
these codes while reading. It is claimed that the stylistics of decoding is 
based on the theoretical grounds of linguo- and literary stylistics  
(Arnold I. V.). The central interest of this school of stylistic studies is the 
output of the act of communication, the effect of the message. Needless to 
say, that only a skillful reader / listener can perceive the information 
contained in the text objectively.

lITERaRy sTylIsTICs

Some scholars think that the language of a particular writer can hardly 
be considered as an issue of linguostylistics. The reason is as follows: not 
only language means are to be analysed to understand the peculiarities of 
the author’s style. One should take into account the problems touched 
upon in the work of art, the message expressed in it, the literary trend the 
writer belongs to, the literary techniques employed, the aesthetic value of 
the work as an artistic whole. The object of linguostylistics is language, 
and its functioning in texts; the object of literary stylistics is literature 
and, to a great extent, how language is used in it.
Thus, the problem of individual style is a common ground for literature 
and linguistics. The term individual style presupposes a deliberate, 
though often intuitional, choice of language means. It is normally applied 
to the writer’s peculiar manner of using these language means to achieve 
the effects he / she desires. If the writer does possess an individual style, 

Introduction

it is easily recognizable and marked by uniqueness. By the language 
community, individual styles are linked to concrete proper names. The 
individual style is based on justifiable deviations from the literary norm; 
therefore, it presupposes a perfect knowledge of its variants bearing this 
or that stylistic colouring. The analysis of the author’s language preferences 
seems to be the most important procedure in estimating his / her creative 
individuality. Speech and language habits characteristic of an average 
person are called idiolect.
The observation of how the language code is used by the writer or 
poet serves only as a means to the main aim, that is interpretation. To 
interpret and evaluate literary pieces of writing as works of art is the 
ultimate purpose of literary stylistics.

DIsCOURsE sTylIsTICs

Discourse stylistics is a comparatively new interdisciplinary branch 
of stylistics. The noun discourse can designate “conversation”; “lengthy 
treatment of a subject”; “lecture, speech”. Used as a term, this word is 
also polysemantic: it means a “cohesive utterance containing more than 
one sentence”, “a text”, “an unlimited number of texts developing one 
and the same theme or overall topic”. 
Having a wide range of usages, the term in question tends to replace 
the term functional style that is a purely linguistic one. In discourse 
stylistics a special accent is laid on a wider range of extralinguistic 
factors – ideological, social, cultural, historical, psychological, etc. The 
words text and discourse are also treated by linguists as synonyms. In 
case they are used in different senses, text is regarded as an abstract unit 
belonging to language-as-a-system, and discourse is understood as an 
element of language-in-action / speech. Alongside these approaches, 
there exit many more essentially rational ones. 
As for discourse analysis, it is similar to stylistic analysis, but its main 
aim is to unveil the effects of a social situation / context on language 
choices and text interpretation. In other words, discourse analysis is context bound; therefore, it presupposes a careful study of its varied extralinguistic characteristics, mentioned above, the social relationships of the 
participants of the communicative event, the target audience (e. g. “ideal”