Oratory and Speeches

Oratorical style is the oral subdivision of the publicistic style. Direct contact with the listeners permits the combination of the syntactical, lexical and phonetic peculiarities of both the written and spoken varieties of language. In its leading features, however, oratorical style belongs to the written variety of language, though it is modified by the oral form of the utterance and the use of gestures. Certain typical features of the spoken variety of speech present in this style are: direct address to the audience («ladies and gentlemen», «honorable members», the use of the2^nd person pronoun «you»), sometimes contractions (I'll, won't, haven't, isn't) and the use of colloquial words.

This style is evident in speeches on political and social problems of the day, in orations and addresses on solemn occasions as public weddings, funerals and jubilees, in sermons and debates and also in the speeches of counsel and judges in courts of law.

The Essay

The essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subjects. Personality in the treatment of theme and naturalness of expression are two of the most obvious characteristics of the essay. This literary genre has definite linguistic traits which shape the essay as a variety of the publicistic style.

The most characteristic language features of the essay are:

1. Brevity of expression, reaching in a good writer a degree of
epigrammaticalness.

2. The use of the first person singular.

3. A rather expanded use of connectives, which facilitate the process
of grasping the correlation of ideas.

4. The abundant use of emotive words.

5. The use of similes and metaphors as one of media for the
cognitive process.

Articles

Irrespective of the character of the magazine and the divergence of subject matter - whether it is political, literary, popular-scientific or satirical - all the already mentioned features of the publicistic style are to be found in any article. The character of the magazine as well as the subject chosen affects the choice and use of stylistic devices. Words of emotive meaning, for example, are few, if any, in popular scientific articles. Their exposition is more consistent and the system of connectives more expanded than, say, in a satirical style.

The language of political magazines articles differs little from that of newspaper articles. But such elements of the publicistic style as rare and bookish words, neologisms (which sometimes require explanation in the text), traditional word combinations and parenthesis are more frequent here than in newspaper articles. Literary reviews stand closer to essays both by their content and by their linguistic form. More abstract words of logical meaning are used in them, they more often resort to emotional language and less frequently to traditional set expressions.

Newspaper Style

English newspaper style may be defined as a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means which is perceived by the community speaking the language as a separate unity that basically serves the purpose of informing and instructing the leader.

Since the primary function of the newspaper style is to impart information the four basic newspaper features are:

1. Brief news items and communiques;

2. Advertisements and announcement;

3. The headline;

4. The editorial.

Brief News Items

The function of a brief news is to inform the reader. It states only facts without giving comments. This accounts for the total absence of any individuality of expression and the almost complete lack of emotional coloring. It is essentially matter-of-fact, and stereotyped forms of expression prevail.

The newspaper style has its specific features and is characterized by an extensive use of:

1. Special political and economic terms.

2. Non-term political vocabulary.

3. Newspapers clishés.

4. Abbreviations.

5. Neologisms.

Besides, some grammatical peculiarities may characterize the style:

1. Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses.

2. Verbal constructions.

3. Syntactical complexes.

4. Attributive noun groups.

5. Specific word order.

The Headline

The headline is the title given to a news item or a newspaper article. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about. Sometimes headlines contain elements of appraisal, i.e. they show the reporter's or paper's attitude to the facts reported.

The basic language peculiarities of headlines lie in their structure. Syntactically headlines are very short sentences or phrases of a variety of patterns:

1. Full declarative sentences.

2. Interrogative sentences.

3. Nominative sentences.

4. Elliptical sentences.

5. Sentences with articles omitted.

6. Phrases with verbals.

7. Questions in the form of statements.

8. Complex sentences.

9. Headlines including direct speech.

Не нашли, что искали? Воспользуйтесь поиском: