I. THE BELLES-LETTRES STYLE
We have already pointed out that the belles-lettres style is a generic term for three substyles in which the main principles and the most general properties of the style are materialized. These three sub-styles are: '
1. The language of poetry, or simply verse.
2. Emotive p г о s e, or the language of fiction.
3. Т'he language of the dr a ma.
1. LANGUAGE OF POETRY
The first substyle we shall consider is v e r s e. Its first differentiating property is its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactical and semantic peculiarities which also fall into a more or less strict orderly arrangement.
Present-day emotive prose is to a large extent characterized by the breaking-up of traditional syntactical designs of the preceding
The substyle of emotive prose has the same common features as have been pointed out for the belles-lettres style in general; but all these features are correlated differently in emotive prose. The imagery is not so rich as it is in poetry; the percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high as in poetry; the idiosyncrasy of the author is not so clearly discernible. Apart from metre and rhyfne, what most of all distinguishes emotive prose from the poetic style is the combination of the literary variant or the language, both in words and syntax, with the colloquial, variant.
3. LANGUAGE OF THE DRAMA
The author's speech is almost entirely excluded ex-,cept for the playwright's remarks and stage directions, significant though they may be.
it will not come amiss to state that any presentation of a play is an aesthetic procedure and the language of plays is of the type which is meant to be reproduced. Therefore, even when the language of a play approximates that of a real dialogue, it will none the less be "stylized".
II. PUBLICISTS STYLE
The publicist i*c s tу I e of language became discernible as a separate style in the middle of the 18th century. It also falls into three varieties, each having its own distinctive features. Unlike other styles, the publicistic style has a spoken variety, namely, the о r a tor i с a I sub-style. The development of radio and television has brought into being another new spoken variety, namely, the radio and TV с о т т е n-t a r y. The other two substyles are the essay (moral, philosophical, literary) and journalistic articles (political, social, economic) in newspapers, journals and magazines. Book reviews in journals, newspapers and magazines and also pamphlets are generally included among essays.
The general aim of publicistic style, which makes it stand out as a separate style, is to exert a constant and deep influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech, essay or article not merely through logical argumentation but through emotional appeal as well. This brain-washing function is most effective in oratory, for here the most powerful instrument of persuasion, the human voice, is brought into play.
III NEWSPAPER STYLE
N e w s paper style was the last of all the styles of written literary English to be recognized as a specific form of writing standing apart from other forms.
English newspaper writing dates from the 17th century. At the close of the 16th century short news pamphlets began to appear. Any such publication either presented news from only one source or dealt with one specific subject. Note the titles of some of the earliest news pamphlets: "Newe newes, containing a short rehearsal of Stukely's and Morice's Rebellion" (1579), "Newes from Spain and Holland" (1593), "Wonderful
1. BRIEF NEWS ITEMS
The principal function of a b r i e f news i te т is to inform the reader. It states facts without giving explicit comments, and whatever evaluation there is in news paragraphs is for the most part implicit and as a rule unemotional.
2. ADVERTISEMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Advertisements made their way into the British press at an early stage of its development, i.e. in the micHTth century. So they are almost as old as newspapers themselves.
The principal function of a d v e r t i s e>m en ts and announce-men ts, like that of brief news, is to inform the reader.
3. THE HEADLINE
The headline (the title given to a news item or an article) is a dependent form of newspaper writing. It is in fact a part of a larger whole. The specific functional and linguistic traits of the headline provide sufficient ground for isolating and analysing it as a specific "genre" of journalism.
IV SCIENTIFIC PROSE STYLE
The language of science is governed by the aim of the functional style of scientific prose, which is to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose the internal laws of existence, development, relations between different phenomena, etc. The language means used, therefore, tend to be objective, precise, unemotional, devoid of
any individuality; thfcre is a striving for the most generalized form of expression.
V. THE STYLE OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
There is one more style of language within the field of standard literary English which has become singled out, and that is the s ty le of official d о с и т е п t s, or "officialese", as it is sometimes called. As has already been pointed out, this FS is not homogeneous and is represented by the following substyles or variants:
1) the language of business documents,
2) the language of legal documents,
3) that of diplomacy,
4) that of military documents.
Like other styles of language, this style has a definite communicative aim and, accordingly, has its own system of interrelated language and
stylistic means. The main aim of this type of.communication is to state the conditions binding two parties in an undertaking.