Colloquial Literary English

          Introduction

In present work we have attempted as far as possible to give a general outline to the Colloquial layer of the Modern English language both as an independent Stylistic phenomenon and as a certain functional constituent within the limits of general language wordstock. Being extremely vague and unstable unlike the other stylistic layers, Colloquial layer as an object of linguistic research requires more accuracy and awareness of the present day realia, the main specter of its functioning and reference as well as the main source of its lexical en-richment and development. Despite its vast and heterogeneous inner structure, Colloquial layer although preserves the hierarchical arrangement of its constituents. But, unlike the case of Formal linguistic layers, it is much less codified, more flexible and liable to the cons-tant lexical interchangeability. That is the main reason of not being widely registered in dictionaries. The same underlies the problem of marking the limits between Educated Colloquial subset stylistically near to Standard vocabulary and the lower, often non-written aspects such as Vulgarisms, etc. considered ‘’unworthy’’ to be used in general conversation.

The second objective of the present work is to expose the correlation particularly between the two extremes of one substance – the Educated Colloquial employed generally by the derly generation and Slang, one of the Colloquial subsets preferred by the youth. In spite of the fact that both the subsets are the product of the same process of the language use and development, they are often presumed stylistically opposed to each other.  However, there is a number of sequences which make them related and deserve attention.

While working on the present topic, we have been forced to recur to at first sight very diffe-rent sources of information. Thus, treating of the Educated Colloquial we have found more relevant to use the belles-lettres works, in the meantime referring to oral speech patterns abundant in the Internet sites to characterize modern English Slang.

Language is a vivid structure and is liable to ceaseless changes under the influence of realia and requirements given by them. Besides the natural formal transformations inevitably emerged in the language in the course of the time, there are also a set of reasons related to the external circumstances characteristic to the community the language is used by. These are political, cul-tural and economic conditions of life as well as social and technical progress. Rapid advances in sociocultural sphere create a continual demand for the formation of new ideas, new agencies and new wants. So, there is a constant feedback from human life and activity to language, what serves as both the main objective and main means of the latter to exist, to function and to de-velop.

Progress in various branches of knowledge and changes of life conditions within language com-munities trigger the appearance of ample vocabularies specific to their own realia, and it is ob-vious that certain expressions from these vocabularies finally reach their realization in current general speech.

The structure of language is thoroughly correspondent to its essence, i.e. is also in a vivid and flexible, and a state of absolute formal fixation registered in grammar guides and vocabularies is actually alien to it. There is also some remarkable variation in grammar as well. The rate of such processes naturally varies from language to language and from time to time within the same language.  Due to the present day circumstances variation in the vocabulary, pronuncia-tion and grammar can be traced even in the course of a single generation. So, having its roots in the far ages , language variation is quite actual and not in a way unusual on being applied to our time.

Well, the said above does not mean that the language can change its fundamental grammatical structure during some 50-60 years. But, as to the linguostylistic aspect, the impact of language-society interrelation seems undoubted. The last century had accelerated the process of mutual approaching of Literary written layer and  Colloquial and Informal layers in most modern and developed languages of the world, include English, of course.

The phenomenon of such specific linguistic democratization did not avoid the Educated Collo-quial speech. Thus, since the beginning of the 2nd half of the 20th century till present day the best modern English writers have been regularly manifesting their preference for very short simple sentences. Really, a periodic or complex sentence has become a bit out-of-date from the literary viewpoint and are being replaced by more relevant colloquialized educated forms.

Among the most noticeable manifestations of the present day Educated Colloquial English we can discern as follows:

1. Segmentation
2. The frequency value of so-called ‘’sentence fragments’’, verbless sentences
3. The use of predicatives without a verb
4. Pervading and standardization of the linguistic units descendant from the ‘’syntactic phraseology’’ of Colloquial English.

One and the same syntactic trend may characterize linguistic units of different levels, as it is in the case when conciseness and segmentation become peculiar to phrases, to sentences or lar-ger syntactic units and verbless sentences.

It would not be surprising to us to know how deep the Colloquial style has penetrated and lega-lized in today’s print. By the way, we treat of quite respectable, serious, even academic writing, not just the popular journalism.

Chapter 1.

The Opposition of Stylistically Marked and Stylistically Neutral Words and its Impact on Creation of the  Colloquial Vocabulary

The extralinguistic factors influencing usage and development of language constitute one of the crucial problems of linguistics. These are concerned in sociolinguistics and linguostylistics. One of the basic themes studied by sociolinguistics is variation of language due to social, educational, sex, age, and another stratification among the language bearers, social evaluation of speech habits, correlation of linguistic facts with the life and attitudes of the speaking community. The object of linguostylistics is the correlation of speech situation and linguistic means used by speakers and therefore – different functional styles of speech.

In modern highly developed language like English or Russian this point may be differently manifested in different situations. Depending on the concrete circumstances a speaker makes use of this or that combination available in the vocabulary he\she disposes of. However, part of the words he\she recurs to will be independent of the sphere of communication. These are units of the lexis equally fit to be employed in a lecture, a literary work or when speaking to a child. They are considered to be stylistically neutral as they cover the greater part of the utterance, while the rest may consist of stylistically coloured words. Vocabulary used by speaker is adopted not only regarding to his\her common language awareness, but also of his\her knowledge of the audience and the relationships he\she stands to them. For instance, one can say: