Stylistically coloured vocabulary of the English language. Professional words in the novel Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird

Stylistically  coloured vocabulary  of the English language. Professional words in the novel Harper Lee
"To Kill a Mockingbird"

No living language is simply one set of words which can be used the same way in all situations. The nature of language is such that there are in infinite variety of different ways to arrange its elements. What this means is that there are many ways to say the same thing, depending on where you are, who you are talking to, and how you feel.

One of the main factors which determine which words and structures are appropriate is the degree of formality of the situation in which you are using the language.

Theme is  actually. It is no news that any prepositional content – any «idea» – can be verbalized in several different ways. So, «May I offer you are chair?», Take a seat, please, «Sit down» – have the same proposition but differ in the manner of expression, which, in its turn, depends upon the situational conditions of the communication act.

70 percent of our lifetime is spent in various forms of communication activities – oral or written, so it is self evident how important it is for a philologist to know the mechanics of relations between the non verbal, extralinguistic denotional essence of the communicative act and its verbal, linguistic presentation. That’s why I think to study the classification of the vocabulary is very important thing for the English students. The aims and purposes of the work. The work set a task to learn. The peculiarities of stylistic differentiation of English vocabulary. The practical value. Materials of the work will help students and interpreters who work on the translation of the originals. The word-stock of any given language can be roughly divided into three uneven groups, differing from each other by the sphere of its possible use.In accordance with the already mentioned division of language into literary and colloquial, we may represent the whole of the word-stock of the English language as being divided into three main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer and the colloquial layer. The literary and the colloquial layers contain number of subgroups each of which has a property it shares with all the subgroups within the layer. This common property, which unites the different groups of words within the layer, may be called its aspect. The aspect of the literary layer is its markedly bookish character. It is this that makes the layer more or less stable. The aspect of the colloquial layer of words is its lively spoken character. It is this that makes it unstable, fleeting.

There is a general tendency in England and to some extent in the US to over-estimate the significance of slang by attaching to it more significance than it deserves. Slang is regarded as the quintessence of colloquial speech and therefore stands above all the laws of grammar. Though it is regarded by some purists as a language that stands below standard English, it is highly praised nowadays as «vivid», «more flexible», «more picturesque», «richer in vocabulary» and so on.

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. According to this statement one may get the idea that language, style and slang all have the same nature, the same determining causes. Personality and surroundings determine:1. the nature of the slang used by a definite person,2. the nature of the language he uses,3. the kind of style he writes.

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.

According this slang’s divided into the next group: Jargons, Dialectal words, Vulgar words, Argo, Back slang, Professional words.

Today we speak about Professional words. What are  the  means of  these words?

Professionalisms, as the term itself signifies, are the words used in a definite trade, profession or calling by people connected by common interests both at work and at home. They commonly designate some working process or implement of labor. Professionalisms are correlated to terms. Terms, as has already been indicated, are coined to nominate new concepts that appear in the process of, and as a result of, technical progress and the development of science.

Professional words name anew already-existing concepts, tools or instruments, and have the typical properties of a special code. The main feature of a professionalism is its technicality. Professionalisms are special words in the non-literary layer of the English vocabulary, whereas terms are a specialized group belonging to the literary layer of words. Terms, if they are connected with a field or branch of science or technique well-known to ordinary people, are easily decoded and enter the neutral stratum of the vocabulary. Professionalisms generally remain in circulation within a definite community, as they are linked to a common occupation and common social interests. The semantic structure of the term is usually transparent and is therefore easily understood. The se-mantic structure of professionalism is often dimmed by the image on which the meaning of the professionalism is based, particularly when the features of the object in question reflect the process of the work, metaphorically or metonymically. Like terms, professionalisms do not allow any polisemy, they are monosemantic.

Professionalisms are used in emotive prose to depict the natural speech of a character. The skilful use of a professional word will show not only the vocation of a character, but also his education, breeding, environment and sometimes even his psychology. That is why, perhaps, a literary device known as speech-characterization is so abundantly used in emotive prose. The use of professionalisms forms the most conspicuous element of this literary device.

An interesting article was published in the Canadian Globe and Mail * in which the author shows how a journalist who mocks at the professionalisms in the language of municipal planners, which render their speech almost incomprehensible, himself uses words and expressions unintelligible.

·         The modern linguistics divide  Professional words into the groups: • political (democracy, integration, government faction);

·        • legal (law, an appeal, the government prosecutor, sanction);

·        • financial (credit, bank deposit, money);

·        • Military (springboard, revolution, weapons, Col.);

·        • philosophy (dialectics, basis, paradox, eclectic, identity);

·        • biological (cell buds, genetics, receptor cloning);

·        • geology (mineral. The bark, Paleozoic, cable, minerals);

·        • Linguistic (phoneme, suffix, verb, preposition, grammar, syntax);

·        • literary (story, character, alliteration poem, the culmination,, epilogue)

·        • Electrical (lyuministsensiya, short circuit, capacitor, fuse);

·        • Radio Engineering (relay, diode, iconoscope, decoder, oscilloscope);

·        • physical (spectroscopy, pressure regulator, electron, atom, proton);

·        • Mathematical (degree, multiplication, triangle, square, integral, cube);

·        • chemical (ion, sewerage, reagents, alkali. Acid, litmus);

·        • medicine (surgery, injection, thermometer, tonsillitis, penicillin);

·        • music (quartet, adagio, solo, pianissimo, staccato, octave);

·        • Marine (ship, the pilot boat tonnage, Gateway, boat);

·        • Sports (time, out, boxing, knockout, queen, penalty) But now, I propose  you to consider  Professional words in the novel of  Harper Lee  ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’  In a 1964 interview, Harper Lee said about the craft of writing that "There's no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence. There's no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be." Pick out paragraphs or passages in To Kill a Mockingbird that seem especially beautiful.

To Kill a Mockingbird is written in modern American English, and the style is basically informal, since the narrator is a child. The author, however, does not try to keep within the limits of a child's vocabulary or powers of expression. A wide range of language is used in the novel, and in studying it the first step should be to identify the various levels of style used. This is easy, since the variations in language correspond to the divisions in social class. The African-American dialect differs from the white; the rich whites speak more grammatically than the poor whites; highly educated characters like Atticus and his brother Jack speak more elegantly than town officials like Heck Tate.

After listing the varieties of language to be found in the novel you should analyse the author's purpose in using them. First, differences in social class and educational status are revealed by differing use of language. Secondly, individual character is often revealed by distinctive style of speech (as in the cases of Atticus and Bob Ewell). Thirdly, attitudes to moral issues can often be detected by analysis of language, even when the characters speaking belong to the same social class and might therefore be expected to use identical words. You could, for instance, check the terms used by different rich white individuals. There are many: professionalisms,slang,jargonisms,dialectisms,neutral words,vulgarisms,colloquial nonce-words in this novel.

Professionalisms are  showed very brightly in the novel. These items are also special vocabulary used in literature to create professional coloring, play vital activity of certain professional environment in their works. So in the famous novel by American writer Harper Lee used a large number of professional vocabulary because of its classification.

    Most of professionalism (80%) belong to the group of species specific legal vocabulary. (you see  some  examples on  the screen )

15% - to medicine

2% - to the music: 2% - chemical:

1% - of the sea:

 According to the classification M.L.Fedoriva can highlight the following:

Names of guns subjects:

Manacles - handcuffs

"Still in wrist manacles, he wandered two miles out of Meridian ... [1, p.95]

Scientific and technical:

Rotogravure print - a kind of photograph;

Tribal curse - a family curse or, more aptly, an affiction shared by members of a family. Apparently, many members of the Finch family have had problems with their left eye;

Accused - prisoner at the bar;

Professional production:

Charged the jury (vb. + N.): When Judge Taylor charges the jury, he gives them instructions in low before they go off to deliberate or decide the case.

"... Judge Taylor charged the jury [1, c.211]".

Warranted - its document which permit the police to took person in prison, or search his house;

Corroborating evidence - in legal terms; corroborating evidence is evidence which helps to strengthen a position. For example: eyewitness testimony in regards to a crime would be corroborating evidence that such a crime had been commited;

"... Absence of any corroborative evidence, this man was indicted on a capital charge and is now on trial for his life ..." [1, c.204].

Contempt charges (adj. + N.) Contempt, in this case, is open disrespect of a court or judge. A person who acts in such a manner may face a contempt charge from a judge.

"... But you wont leave it until the whole boiling of you come before me on contempt charges [1, c.176].

Vernacular, slang:

Quibbling - a type of arguing where you avoid the main point by bringing up petty details;

Snuff -a preparation of powdered tobacco, usually sniffed through the nose '

Ruttin - in this instance, the term is used to indicate that, according to Mr. Ewell, Tom Robinson was having sexual intercourse with daughter. It should be noted that this term is almost exclusively reserved for use in describing the mating habits of animals, not people.

"I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin 'o Mayella [1, c.175]!"

Franklin stove - a cast iron heating stove invented by Benjamin Franklin;

"An old Franklin stove sat in a corner of the porch; above it a hat-rack mirror caught the moon and shone eerily [1, c.57].

Palliate - to lessen pain.

In this work, we reviewed and analyzed 227 pieces of specialized vocabulary. Having an interest table, we see that in the book the author had used most professionalism (80%), which refer to the legal group of species of special vocabulary.

  As a result of the work it became clear that stylistically colored leksyka- is relatively stable for a period of widespread and comprehensive social Micro language colloquially, quite heterogeneous in their genetic composition and as we approach the familiar colloquial, with a clear expression of emotional and expressive shades which often represent a mockery of the social, ethical, aesthetic, and other conventions of language and authority; were the features of professional English vocabulary studied its composition, classification, visions of various authors on the issue of the term "professionalism", the value and the difference between slang and expertise in linguistics, considered examples of vocabulary (slang, slang, jargon, byek - slang) especially jargon, based on the novel by Harper Lee "to Kill a Mockingbird."