Oratory and speeches

1. Direct address to the audience: Ladies and gentlemen! Dear friends!

2. The use of the 1^st and 2^nd personal pronouns: “ I have a dream today. I have a dream, that one day down in Alabama –I say to you, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.”

3. Contractions: We’ve got.

Parallelism, antithesis, climax, repetition (anaphora, epiphora, chain repetition). “ It is high time this people had recovered from the passions of the war. It is high time the people of the North and the South understood each other…”

Radio and TV commentary is less impersonal and more expressive and emotional. The journalistic articles are impersonal.

The Essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subjects. It is characterized by personality in the treatment of the theme and naturalness of expression.

The most characteristic language features:

1. Brevity of expression, epigrammaticalness.

2. The use of the 1^st person sg.

3. The extended use of connectives to facilitate the correlation of ideas.

4. The abundant use of emotive words.

5. The use of similes and metaphors. “ Oh, the conductors! When I was a boy, massive old Richter commanding the old massive Hale orchestra! … Why, my dear maestros, in spite of wars, bombs, taxes, rubbish and all, what a delight it has been to share this world and this age with you!”

The essay is very subjective and the most colloquial of the all substyles of the publicist style. It makes use of expressive means and tropes.

The Newspaper FS, its Substyles and their Peculiarities

The Newspaper Style is a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means, basically serving the purposes of informing and instructing the reader. To understand the language peculiarities of English newspaper style it will be sufficient to analyze the following basic newspaper features:

1) Brief news items;

2) Advertisements and announcements;

3) Headlines;

4) Editorials;

5) Press reports.

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

1) Special political and economic terms; Ex.: socialism, capitalism, constitution, market economy;

2) Non-term political vocabulary; Ex.: public, people, peace, war, intervention.

3) Newspaper lichés; Ex.: vital issue, pressing problem, war hysteria.

4) Abbreviations; Ex.:UNO, NATO, EU, TUC, MP, PR

5) Neologisms. Ex.: sputnik, lunik, a teach-in, a sit-in, Watergate, Camillgate.

Grammatical peculiarities:

1) Complex sentences with a developed system of clauses.

2) Verbal constructions.

3) Syntactical complexes.

4) Attributive noun groups.

5) Specific word order.

6) WH pattern rule:

Ex.: The biggest blackout in US history crippled major metropolitan areas in the Northeast and Midwest on Thursday by shutting down trains, airports, traffic and cooling systems. (US Today, Aug. 15-17, 2003)

The Headline. The main function is to inform the reader briefly, to reveal the reporter’s attitude to the facts reported. It may contain elements of appraisal.

Syntactical patterns:

1) Full declarative sentences. California ballot is a field of dreamers.

2) Interrogative sentences. What’s next for Mr. Vick?

3) Nominative sentences. Blackout misery. Companies for Sale. Ageism Factor.

4) Elliptical sentences. 50 MILLION AFFECTED IN Northeast and beyond as power grid fails.

5) Sentences with articles omitted. British soldier dies in ambulance bombing. Standard Investor Seeking to Sell Stake.

6) Phrases with verbals. Married – with cameras. Keeping prices down. To get USA aid.

7) Questions in the form of statements. Safe Sin? The more, the better?

8) Complex sentences. US Newspaperman Declares He Helped Bomb Havana.

9) Headlines including direct speech. Travel havoc: “We are not getting out today”.

Advertisements and Announcements. The function of advertisements and announcements is to inform the reader. There are two types of them: classified and non-classified.

Classified: Births, Marriages, Deaths, In Memorial, Business Offers, Personal, Farm, Aviary.“ Trained Nurse with child 2 years seeks post London preferred – Write Box C, 658, The Times, EC 4”.

Non-classified: the reader’s attention is attracted by every possible means: typographical, graphical, stylistic. No brevity of language means.

The Scientific Prose Style, its Substyles and their Peculiarities

The Scientific Prose Style is characterized by:

1) Rigour and precision;

2) Logical sequence of utterances;

3) Impersonality;

4) Quotations, references, footnotes

5) Sentence patterns:

a) postulatory

b) argumentative

C) formulative

1) Rigour and precision: Table 15

2) Impersonality:

Passive Voice constructions

This analysis is designed to enable corporations to establish a clear picture of their own particular training needs as seen by employees…

The general manner of writing is DISCOURSE.

Verbs of mental perception: assume, infer, point out and conclude:

It can be inferred, it should be noted, it must be emphasized.

3) Logical sequence of utterances is achieved through:

1. Key –words;

2. Pronoun substitutes;

3. Logical connectives: addition, causality (cause and result);

4. Opposition and contrast;

5. Logical sequence of ideas;

6. Subdivision of the thoughts into logical blocks;

7. Introducing IT-constructions: It follows that; it has often been stated that; it is taken for granted that;

8. Introductory there sentences: There can be no doubt that; there appears to be no reason for assuming that.

4) The structure of sentences and paragraphs:

1. Semi-composite sentences (non-finite verbs, gerundial, infinitive, participial constructions): I would like to discuss the current state of affairs regarding the teaching of written English.

2. Demonstrative and personal pronouns as substitutes of the notional words.

3. Postulatory pronouncements, references to the facts, compound and complex sentences.

5) The structure of a Paragraph depends on the communicative intention and the position of the discourse:

a) Postulatory Paragraphs: introducing the hypothesis, putting forward the main objectives, stating what has been investigated by other scientists: It is common knowledge that; it is fully established that.

b) The Body of Discourse is argumentative: Logical argumentation, listing of facts, comparison, enlargement on the theme, the development of the main thesis, pros and cons of the hypothesis; it abounds in clichés. Analysis A deals with target language needs, the addressee/addressor relationship and the frequency of communication.

This analysis is designed to enable corporations to establish a clear picture of their own particular training needs as seen by employees…

Topic sentences introduce the key-idea; developing sentences are logically connected with the main idea.

c) Formulative paragraphs (conclusion):

Research has indicated a perception gap between teachers and learners as to what constitute “valuable” teaching and learning activities.

TYPES OF SCIENTIFIC TEXTS according to function-content-form:

1. Texts of “Primary” character;

2. Texts of “Secondary” character.

PRIMARY: function –communicative; content – scientific; form –defined by the function and the addressees.

SECONDARY: analyzing, compressing, summarizing the primary scientific texts in a condensed form.

PRIMARY: Scientific articles:

a) theoretical,

b) polemic,

c) editorials:

d) monographs;

e) Text-books.

SECONDARY: annotations, abstracts, reviews, theses, synopses.

Compression of the text: eliminating details, generalizing the main part.

Annotation is the shortest form of a secondary scientific text, which:

1. Gives a general statement of the essential thought of the original, i.e. the main communicative intention.

2. Generalizes the information given and presents it in a condensed form;

3. Mentions the addressee sometimes.

Descriptive Annotation: clear-cut and definite structure, presents the headings of the original in the same order they are given in the text.

Table 16

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