Курсовая работа: Stylistic Classification of the English Vocabulary

Unwittingly one arrives at the idea that slang, as used by English and Americans, is a universal term for any word or phrases which, though not yet recognized as a fact of Standard English, has won general recognition as a fresh innovation quite irrespective of its nature: whether it is cant, jargon, dialect, jocular or a pure colloquialism. It is therefore important, for the sake of a scientific approach to the problem of a stylistic classification of the English vocabulary, to make a more exact discrimination between heterogeneous elements in the vocabulary, no matter how difficult it may be.

The following is an interesting example illustrating the contrast between Standard English and non-literary English including slang.

In the story «By Courier» O. Henry opposes neutral and common literary words to special colloquial words and slang for a definite stylistic purpose, viz. to distort a message by translating the literary vocabulary of one speaker into the non-literary vocabulary of another.

«Tell her I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where I shall join that Alaska moose hunting expedition. Tell her that, since she has commanded me-neither to speak nor to write to her, I take this means of making one last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake of what has been. Tell her that to condemn and discard one who has not deserved such treatment, without giving him her reason or a chance to explain is contrary to her nature as I believe it to be.»

This message was delivered in the following manner:

«He told me to tell yer he's got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scoot clean out to' Frisco. Den he's goin' to shoot snowbirds in de Klondike. He says yer told him to send' round no more pink notes nor come hangin' over de garden gate, and he takes dis mean (sending the boy to speak for him. – I.G .) of putting yer wise. He says yer referred to him like a has-been, and never give him no chance to kick at de decision. He says yer swiled him and never said why.»

The contrast between what is standard English and what is crude, broken non-literary or uneducated American English has been achieved by means of setting the common literary vocabulary and also the syntactical design of the original message against jargonisms, slang and all kinds of distortions of forms, phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical.

It is suggestive that there is a tendency in some modern dictionaries to replace the label slang by informal or colloquial .[11] Such a practice clearly manifests the dissatisfaction of some lexicographers with the term 'slang'. This is mainly due to the ambiguity of the term.

On the other hand, some lexicographers, as has already been pointed out, still make use of the term 'slang' as a substitute for 'jargon', 'cant', 'colloquialism', 'professionalism', 'vulgar', 'dialectal'. Thus, in his dictionary Prof. Barnhart gives the label st to such innovations as «grab – to cause (a person) to react; make an impression on», which, to my mind, should be classed as newspaper jargon; «grass or pot – marijuana», which are positively cant words (the quotation that follows proves it quite unambiguously); «groove–something very enjoyable,» «grunt – U.S. military slang», which in fact is a professionalism; «gyppy tummy, British slang, – a common intestinal upset experienced by travellers», which is a colloquialism; «hangup–a psychological or emotional problem», which is undoubtedly a professionalism which has undergone extension of meaning and now, according to Barnhart also means «any problem or difficulty, especially one that causes annoyance or irritation.»

The use of the label sl in this way is evidently due to the fact that Barnhart's Dictionary aims not so much at discrimination between different stylistic subtleties of neologisms but mainly at fixation of lexical units which have already won general recognition through constant repetition in newspaper language.

The term 'slang' is ambiguous because, to use a figurative expression, it has become a Jack of all trades and master of none.

2.5.2 Jargonisms

In the non-literary vocabulary of the English language there is a group of words that are called jargonisms. Jargon is a recognized term for a group of words that exists in almost every language and whose aim is to preserve secrecy within one or another social group. Jargonisms are generally old words with entirely new meanings imposed on them. The traditional meaning of the words is immaterial, only the new, improvised meaning is of importance. Most of the jargonisms of any language, and of the English language too, are absolutely incomprehensible to those outside the social group which has invented them, They may be defined as a code within a code, that is special meanings of words that are imposed on the recognized code – the dictionary meaning of the words.

Thus the word grease means 'money'; loaf means 'head'; a tiger hunter is 'a gambler'; a lexer is 'a student preparing for a law course'.

Jargonisms are social in character. They are not regional. In Britain and in the US almost any social group of people has its own jargon. The following jargons are well known in the English language: the jargon of thieves and vagabonds, generally known as cant; the jargon of jazz people; the jargon of the army, known as military slang; the jargon of sportsmen, and many others.

The various jargons (which in fact are nothing but a definite group of words) remain a foreign language to the outsiders of any particular social group. It is interesting in connection with this to quote a stanza from «Don Juan» by Byron where the poet himself finds it necessary to comment on the jargonisms he has used for definite stylistic purposes.

«He from the world had cu