stylistic

1．What is stylistics? Why is it necessary for us to learn stylistics?
Stylistics means a discipline that studies the sum of stylistic features characteristic of the different varieties of language. It concerns itself with the situational features that influence variations in language use, the criterion for the classification of language variety, and the description of the linguistic features and functions of the main varieties of a language.
Stylistics study: a. helps develop a consistent method of language analysis and solve problems of interpretation by bringing into focus the stylistically significant features.
b. helps cultivate a sense of appropriateness and acquire a sense of style.
c. sharpens understanding and appreciation of literary works.
d. helps achieve adaptation in translation.
2．How does Martin Joo describe the range of formality in his book?
M’s range of formality: frozen, formal, consultative, casual, and intimate.
3．What factors affect the degree of formality?
a.Speech situation: setting purpose, audience, social relations and topic.
b.Linguistic features: vocabulary; phonology syntax and semantics.
4．What is a dialect? What is the relationship between regional and social dialects?
Dialect: means language variations associated with different users of the language.
5．What are the functions of a headline in a press advertisement?
Headline is the theme and center of advertisement, often in the most conspicuous position to attract consumers’ attention. Therefore, headline is cruci al to the success of advertisement. But what kind of headline is a good headline? Here are a few suggestions:
(1)Hit on what readers like, and make them feel it will benefit them.
(2) Try to introduce new things.
(3) Use words that could arouse readers’ i nterest.
(4) Avoid using vague words, avoid using privative words.
6．What are the functions of a body copy in a press advertisement?
Body Copy
After consumers' attention has been attracted to the advertisement by headline, they will move to the body copy, which is the main part of advertising information, to find something useful. Whether an advertisement has met the consumers’ requirement, satisfied their desire, and stimulated them to take action are the factors to judge the quality of a good advertisement.
7．What are the stylistic features of the press advertisement?
Ⅰ. Lexical features
a. One-syllable and simple verbs such as get and make are used.
b. Emotive adjectives are adopted to arouse reader’s interest.
c. Words are carefully chosen to make pun and alliteration.
d. Weasel words, such as help and like, make the use of strongest language possible in advertisements.
Ⅱ. Syntactical features
a. Sentences in advertisements are short. On average, a sentence consists of 11.8 words.
b. Elliptical sentences are used to spare advertising cost and at the same time improve advertising effectiveness.
c. Interrogative sentences and imperative sentences are common in advertisements
d. Present tense prevails in ads to suggest timelessness. And active voice is used to cater to audience’s habit in daily talk.
Ⅲ. Discourse features
A complete advertisement consists of five parts: Headline, Body Copy, Slogan, Illustration
And Trade Mark.Body copy is the key part, conveying product or service information. 8．What are main components of a press advertisement?
10. Summarize the basic requirements for the language of a effective advertisement?
11. What are the stylistic features of public speech?
Grammatical features:
(1). Variation in sentence length, sentence are mostly of the SP(O)(C)(A) structure with occasional ASPOC(A) form.
(2). Various sentence type: a. As public speeches are intended to inform ,to persuade, and to appeal,
most sentences are statements; occasional questions are used to give
the audience food for thought and to impress them.
b. Commands can be many, often introduced by “let”.
c. V ocatives of a general type are use
d.
(3). More complex-looking group structures.
Lexical features:
(1). Often use accurate and clear words.
(2). Adaptation of wording to particular audience.
Phonological features:
(1). Appropriate volume and pitch variation.
(2). Varying tempo and rightly timed pause.
(3). Often seek to use the rhythm of language by their choice and arrangement of words.
(4). Public speech is directed toward an audience sometimes very large so the speaker has to guard
against sloppy articulation and articulate each word clearly and accurately. In such a variety, assimilations should not occur, but elision can sometimes occur.
(5). Full use of non-verbal communication: gestures, eyes and etc.
Semantic features:
(1). Problem-cause-solution order (attention, need, satisfaction, visualization and action.). The use
of pairs of transitional phrases stating both the idea that the speaker is leaving and the one he is coming up to.
The use of internal previews and summaries.
The uses of signposts like numbers, questions or simple phrase to help the audience keep track of where the speaker is in the speech.
(2). Effective ways of delivery:
a. parallelism makes the statement clear, consistent and compelling.
b. antithesis contrasts ideas in a formal structure of parallelism.
c. repetition helps creat a strong emotional effort.
d. synonymous words are repeated to add force, clearness or balance a sentenc
e.
e. alliteration to catch the attention of audience and make ideas easier to remember.
f. figurative use of language.
12. What functions does a newspaper serve?
Newspapers provide us with news, advertisement, editorials, cartoons, comics, fiction poems, book reviews, and art criticisms and so on. The central function of a news paper is to tell us news (functional tenor), written chiefly to be red (mode); and has different categories and different formats (straight tenor).
13. What are the functions of a headline in a newspaper?
Headlines play a vital part in drawing the reader’s attention to the news story. A good headline summarizes the story so that the hurried reader can get the gist of a story at a glance and evaluate the news immediately.
14. What are the stylistic features of news reporting?
Graphological features:
Variation in the size and shapes of body types, especially the highlighting of the headlines, sometimes juxtaposed with pictures.
Headlines often have a variety of sizes and shapes of even a different color.
The news story is split into smaller nits-the use of subheadings, very short paragraphs for eye-catching and easier-to-read affect.
Characteristic use of punctuation is obvious. Inverted commas are frequently used for direct or indirect quotation, or to spotlight terms for particular attention.
Grammatical features:
(1). Alternating use of long and short statement-type sentences.
(2). Use of heavily modified nominal groups to wrap a large amount of information into the group.
Lexical features: (use simple, accurate and vivid words)
(1). Preference for journalistic words and set expressions.
(2). Wide use of neologisms for eye-catching effect.
a. words with extended meaning.
b. nonce-words.
c. coinages.
d. words borrowed extensively from sports, military, commerce, science and the technology,
gambling or even words from other languages.
(3). Extensive use of abbreviation.
(4). Avoidance of superlatives and tarnished word ornaments.
(5). A voidance of unobjective wording. Avoid the use of “I”, “me”, “my”, “our” in a news story
except when quoting someone phrase in a news story should be factual, not tinged with the personal opinion of feelings of the reporter.
Semantic features
(1). Distinctive discourse pattern: inverted pyramid.
(2). Simple way of transition: the unity of the news story is achieved through the obvious relatedness between sentences within a paragraph within a story, or with the use of common connectives.
(3) skillful headline: headlines are noted for their wide use of ellipsis with frequent omission of articles, possessives, verb “be’, even content words, so as to shorten the length and to be more concise and comprehensive.
a. wide use of present tense to convey a sense of freshness and immediacy of an event.
b. future happenings are often expressed with a infinitive.
c. composed of nominal groups.
d. ing-forms are frequent as headlines.
e. whole-sentence headlines even in the form of direct quote or command.
f. seek novelty and humor rhetorically.
g. alluding, punning, various figurative use of language.
style: 1) a person’s distinctive language habits, or the set of individual characteristics of language use.
2) a set of collective characteristics of language use; language habits share by a group of
people at a given time, in a given place, amidst a given occasion, for a literary genre, etc.
3) the effectiveness of a mode of expression
4) a characteristi c of “good” or “beautiful” literary writing.
Diatypic varieties (register): language variations associated with the different use to which they are put. Registers may be distinguished according to field, mode and tenor of discourse. Dialectal varieties (dialects): means language variations associated with different users of the language.
Individual dialect (idiolect): a person’s particular speech or writing style which result from such traits as his voice quality, pitch and stress patterns, favorite lexical items, and even grammatical structure.
Temporal dialect:a variety which correlates with the various periods of the development of
language: Old English, Middle English, Elizabethan English and Modern English. Regional dialect:a variety associated with various regions such as phonology, graphology, vocabulary and grammar.
Social dialect: a variety associated with certain social group. 4 varieties of social dialect: socioeconomic status varieties, ethnic varieties, gender varieties and age varieties. Standard dialect: the variety of a language based on the speech and writing of educational native speakers of that language. Used in news media and described in dictionaries and grammars.
Field of discourse: the linguistic reflection of the purposive role of the language user-the type of social activity the language user is engaged in doing in the situation in which the text has occurred.
Mode of discourse: the linguistic reflection of the relationship that the language user has to the medium of communication.
Tenor of discourse:the linguistic reflection of the personal relationships between speaker and hearer, and of what the user is trying to do with language for his addresses.
Functional tenor: concerned with the intention of the user in using the language.
Phonology: the study of the rules for the organization of sound system of a language. Graphology: the study of the writing system of language.
Cohesion: implicit connectivity works best for sequence of events and reason.。