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As a matter of fact the heroes of historical novels speak the language of the period the writer and the reader live in, and the skill of the writer is required to color the language with such obsolete or obsolescent elements as most naturally interweave with the teature of the modern literary language. These elements must not be archaic in the narrow sense.
They must be recognizable to the native reader and not hinder his understanding of the communication.
The difficulty in handling archaic words and phrases and the subtlety required was acutely felt by A.S. Pushikin. In his article «Juri Miloslavki, or the Russian of 1612,» Pushkin writes:
«Walter Scott carried along with him a crowd of imitators. But how far hey are from the Scottish charmer! Like Agrippa’s pupil, they summoned the demon of the past but they could not handle him and fell victims of their own imprudence».
Walter Scott was indeed an inimitable master in the creation of an historical atmosphere. He used the stylistic means that cerate this atmosphere with the stylistic means that create this atmosphere with such skill and discrimination, that the reader is scarcely aware that the heroes of the novels speak his language and not that of their own epoch. Walter Scott himself states the principles which he considers basic for the purpose; the writer’s language must not be out of date and therefore incomprehensible, but words and phrases of modern coinage should be used.
«It is one thing to use the language to express feelings common both to us and to our forefathers,» says Scott, «but it is another thing to impose upon them the emotions and speech characteristics of their descendants».
In accordance with these principle Walter Scott never phonographs the language of earlier periods; he sparingly introduces into the texture of his language of few words and expressions more or less obsolescent in character and this is enough to convey the desired effect without unduly interlarding present day English with outdated elements of speech. Therefore we can find such words as methinks, haply, nay, travail, repast and the like in great number and, of course, a multiplicity of historical terms. But you will hardly find a true archaism of the nature indicated in our classification as archaisms proper.
Besides the function just mentioned, archaic words and phrases have other functions found in other styles. They are, first of all, frequently to be found in the style of official documents. In business letters, in legal language, in all kinds of statutes, in diplomatic documents and in all kind of legal documents one can find obsolescent words which would long ago have become obsolete if it were not for the preserving power of the special use within the above mentioned spheres of communication. It is the same with archaic and obsolete words in poetry. As has already been pointed out, they are employed in the poetic style as special terms and hence prevented from dropping completely our of the language.
Among the obsolescent elements of the English vocabulary preserved within the style of official documents, the following may be mentioned; aforesaid, hereby, there-within, herein after named.
The function of archaic words and constructions in official documents is terminological in character. They are used here because they help to maintain that exactness of expression so necessary in this style.
Archaic words and particularly archaic forms of words are some times used for satirical purposes. This is achieved through what is called Anticlimax. The situation in which the archaism is used is not appropriate to the context there appears a sort of discrepancy between the words actually used and the ordinary situation which includes the possibility of such a usage. The low predictability of an archaism when it appears in ordinary speech produces the necessary satirical effect.
Here is an example of such a use of an archaic form. In Shaw’s play «How He Lied to Her Husband» a youth of eighteen; speaking of his feeling towards a «female of thirty seven» expresses himself in a language which is not in conformity with the situation. His words are:
«Perfect love casteth off fear».
Archaic words, words-forms and word-combinations are also used to create an elevated effect. Language is specially mounded to suit a solemn occasion; all kinds of stylistic devices are used, and among them is the use of archaisms.
Some archaic words due to their inner qualities (sound – texture, nuances of meaning, morphological peculiarities combination power) may be revived in a given.
2.5 Special colloquial vocabulary
2.5.1 Slang
There is hardly any other term that is as ambiguous and obscure as the term slang. Slang seems to mean everything that is below the standard of usage of present-day English.
Much has been said and written about it. This is probably due to the uncertainty of the concept itself. No one has yet given a more or less satisfactory definition of the term. Nor has it been specified by any linguist who deals with the problem of the English vocabulary.
The first thing that strikes the scholar is the fact that no other European language has singled out a special layer of vocabulary and named it slang, though all of them distinguish such groups of words as jargon, cant, and the like. Why was it necessary to invent a special term for something that has not been clearly defined as jargon or can’t have? Is this phenomenon specifically English? Has slang any special features which no other group within the non-literary vocabulary can lay claim to? The distinctions between slang and other groups of unconventional English, though perhaps subtle and sometimes difficult to grasp, should nevertheless be subjected to a more detailed linguistic specification.
Webster's «Third Mew International Dictionary» gives the following meanings of the term:
Slang [origin unknown] 1: language peculiar to a particular group: as a: the special and often secret vocabulary used by a class (as thieves, beggars) and usu. felt to be vulgar or inferior-argot; b: the jargon used by or associated with a particular trade,» profession, or field of activity; 2: a non-standard vocabulary composed of words and senses characterized primarily by connotations of extreme informality and usu. a currency not limited to a particular region and composed typically of» coinages or arbitrarily changed words, clipped or shortened forms, extravagant, forced or facetious figures of speech, or verbal novelties usu. experiencing quick popularity and relatively rapid decline into disuse.
The «New Oxford English Dictionary» defines slang as follows:
«a) the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type. (Now merged in c, \cant\) b) the cant or jargon of a certain class or period; c) language of a highly colloquial type considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense.»
As is seen from these quotations slang is represented both as a special vocabulary and as a special language. This is the first thing that causes confusion. If this is a certain lexical layer, then why should it be given the rank of language? If, on the other hand, slang is a certain language or a dialect or even a patois, then it should be characterized not only by its peculiar use of words but also by phonetic, morphological and syntactical peculiarities.
J.B. Greenough and C.L. Kitteridge define slang in these words:
«Slang… is a peculiar kind of vagabond language, always hanging on the outskirts of legitimate speech but continually straying or forcing its way into the most respectable company.» 7
Another definition of slang which is worth quoting is one made by Eric Partridge, the eminent student of the non-literary language.
«Slang is much rather a spoken than a literary language. It originates, nearly always, in speech. To coin a term on a written page is almost inevitably to brand it as a neologism which will either be accepted or become a nonce-word (or phrase), but, except in the rarest instances, that term will not be slang. «3
In most of the dictionaries sl. (slang) is used as convenient stylistic notation for a word or a phrase that cannot be specified more exactly. The obscure etymology of the term itself affects its use as a stylistic notation. Whenever the notation appears in a dictionary it may serve as an indication that the unit presented is non-literary, but not pinpointed. That is the reason why the various dictionaries disagree in the use of this term when applied as a stylistic notation.8
Any new coinage that has not gained recognition and therefore has not yet been received into standard English is easily branded as slang.
The Times of the 12th of March, 3957 gives the following illustrations of slang: leggo (let go), sarge (sergeant), 'I've got a date with that Miss Morris to-night'. But it is obvious that leggo is a phonetic impropriety caused by careless rapid speaking; sarge is a vulgar equivalent of the full form of the word; date is, a widely recognized colloquial equivalent (synonym) of the literary and even bookish rendezvous (a meeting).
These different and heterogeneous phenomena united under the vague term slang cause natural confusion and do not encourage scholars to seek more objective criteria in order to distinguish the various stylistic layers of the English colloquial vocabulary. The confusion is made still deeper by the fact that any word or expression apparently legitimate, if used in an arbitrary, fanciful or metaphorical sense, may easily be labelled as slang. Many words formerly labelled as slang have now become legitimate units of Standard English. Thus the word kid (child), which was considered low slang in the nineteenth century, is now a legitimate colloquial unit of the English literary language.
Some linguists, when characterizing the most conspicuous features of slang, point out that it requires continuous innovation. It never grows stale. If a slang word or phrase does become stale, it is replaced by a new slangism. It is claimed that this satisfies the natural desire for fresh, newly created words and expressions, which give to an utterance emotional coloring and a subjective evaluation. Indeed, it seems to be in correspondence with the traditional view of English conservatism, that a special derogative term should have been coined to help preserve the «purity of standard English» by hindering the penetration into it of undesirable elements. The point is that the heterogeneous nature of the term serves as a kind of barrier which checks the natural influx of word coinages into the literary language. True, such barriers are not without their advantage in polishing up the literary language. This can be proved by the progressive role played by any conscious effort to sift innovations, some of which are indeed felt to be unnecessary, even contaminating elements in the body of the language. In this respect the American newspaper may serve as an example of how the absence of such a sifting process results in the contamination of the literary tongue of the nation with ugly redundant coinages. Such a barrier, however, sometimes turns into an obstacle which hinders the natural development of the literary language.
The term ‘slang’, which is widely used in English linguistic science, should be clearly specified if it is to be used as a term, i. e. it should refer to some definite notion and should be definable in explicit, simple terms. It is suggested here that the term 'slang' should be used for those forms of the English vocabulary which are either mispronounced or distorted in some way phonetically, morphologically or lexically. The term 'slang' should also be used to specify some elements which may be called over-colloquial. As for the other groups of words hitherto classified as slang, they should be specified according to the universally accepted classification of the vocabulary of a language.
But this must be done by those whose mother tongue is English. They and they only, being native speakers of the English language, are its masters and lawgivers. It is for them to place slang in its proper category by specifying its characteristic features.
Slang is nothing but a deviation from the established norm at the level of the vocabulary of the language. V.V. Vinogradov writes that one of the tasks set before the branch of linguistic science that is now called stylistics, is a thorough study of all changes in vocabulary, set phrases,» grammatical constructions, their functions, an evaluation of any breaking away from the established norm, and classification of mistakes and failures in word coinage.9
H. Wentworth and S. Flexner in their «Dictionary of American Slang» write:
«Sometimes slang is used to escape the dull familiarity of standard words, to suggest an escape from the established routine of everyday life. When slang is used, our life seems a little fresher and a little more personal. Also, as at all levels of speech, slang is sometimes used for the pure joy of making sounds, or even for a need to attract attention by making noise. The sheer newness and informality of certain slang words produce pleasure.
«But more important than this expression of a more or less hidden aesthetic motive on the part of the speaker is the slang's reflection of the personality, the outward, clearly visible characteristics of the speaker. By and large, the man who uses slang is a forceful, pleasing, acceptable personality.»
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