The notion of a functional style. Classification of functional styles. Belles-lettres style, its substyles.

A FS is a social and historical category, and it is a variety of a literary language that is born out of a social need and fulfills a certain pragmatic function (i.e. communicative task). I.R.Galperin gives the following definition of a FS: “A FS is a patterned variety of literary text characterized by the greater or lesser typification of its constituents, supra-phrasal units (SPU), in which the choice and arrangement of interdependent and interwoven language media are calculated to secure the purport of the communication”.

V.L.Nayer sees seven basic FS in modern English. They are: official, scientific, professionally-technical, newspaper, publicistic, belles-lettres, religious style. Scientific, newspaper and belles-lettres styles play the most important role among them.

Оф - официально-документальный, H - научный, П-т - профессионально-техни­ческий, Г - газетный, П - публицисти­ческий, X - стиль художественной ли­тературы, Р - религиозный.

The scheme reflects the fact that the styles overlap, as there are no clear-cut borderlines between them. V.L.Nayer also states the tendency to roughening of the whole FSs system of modern English. As a result of this tendency, groups of styles integrate, thus forming three basic communicative spheres: the sphere of professional and business communication, the sphere of mass communication, the sphere of artistic communication. These spheres he calls “Mega styles”, while FSs correspond to “macro styles” and “micro styles” are represented by further subdivision of FS into substyles and genres. Quite schematically we can show it as follows:

Belles-letters style is bookish literary language. It has its own substyles: prose, drama, and poetry. The language of literature being a complex phenomenon has many literary schools of different periods, many individual styles. That is why it is difficult to make out the distinguishing features of that style. This style is quite different from other styles. In the language of literature there are many examples of other styles. Literature is a mixture of other styles, which is explained by its function - aesthetics. Creating truthful pictures of life, portraying characters, a writer makes use of all available means of national language. He uses words from all the layers of the vocabulary and elements of various styles, but in a peculiar way, aiming at a certain stylistic effect. The speech of the writer reflects the literary norm of his period. The language of the characters is not the exact reproduction of natural speech. Colloquial speech is stylized, shaped, according to the laws of the literary work. The writer always makes use of all the typical features of colloquial spoken varieties. He must keep the range of possible deviations of his literary work, genre, and purpose. He always stylizes. The degree of stylizing depends on the writer himself; on his ideas. When elements of a functional style are used in emotive prose, they are stylized, as they serve the needs of expressiveness. Lexical meanings are used in a peculiar way. A wide use of all sorts of stylistic devices makes the information imaginary. Complexity of the phenomenon of imaginative literature leads to the variety of approaches to the style. The style of a literary work is considered to be unique whole of both verbal and super-verbal components. It is essential that the analysis of style should not be separated from the content. The literary text is a complete, undivided structure, all elements of the text are equally conductive to the understanding of the whole. Linguo-stylistics meets literary stylistics in this style, and all varieties of the national language and functional styles interact with one another.