Stylistics and other linguistic disciplines.
phonetics, morphology, lexicology, and syntax deal with more or less clear-cut objects: This comes from the fact that the enumerated subjects are, if one may say so, level disciplines, i.e. disciplines treating one linguistic level each.
the word level now used as a synonym to the words and expressions point of view (or viewpoint), aspect of research, sphere, plane, domain and so forth. In linguistics, the word level is used in collocations like language level (уровень языка), speech level,
The smallest (shortest) unit of language is the phoneme. The sequence of phonemes making units of higher ranks represents the phonemic level. One or (in most cases) several phonemes combined (in succession) constitute a unit of a higher level, the second level: that of morphemes, or the morphemic level. One or (usually) more than one morpheme make a Word tnet phrase, sentence..
And, as we can easily conclude, each level is described by what we named above a 'level discipline': phonetics, morphology, lexicology, and syntax. To these, the modern text linguistics may be added.
Of course, stylistics does not fit in here. For, as the reader probably understands, stylistics is not a level discipline (just as history of language or comparative typology of English and Russian are not), because stylistics pertains to all the levels, to every level (the same is true, by the way, about history and typology).
Moreover, stylistics must be subdivided into separate, quite independent branches, treating one level each. Hence we have:
stylistic phonetics
stylistic morphology
stylistic lexicology
stylistic syntax
We shall now look for the difference between general phonetics, morphology, lexicology, syntax, on the one hand, and their stylistic counterparts, on the other.
General (i.e. non-stylistic) phonetics, both prescriptive and theoretical, investigates the whole articulatory-audial system of language. Stylistic phonetics pays attention only to style-forming phonetic features of I sublanguages: it describes variants of pronunciation occurring in different types of speech (cf. recitation or oration with colloquial speech). Special attention is also paid to prosodic features of prose and poetry.
Non-stylistic (general) morphology treats morphemes and grammatical meanings expressed by them in language in general, without regard j to their stylistic value. Stylistic morphology, on the contrary, is interested in grammatical forms and grammatical meanings that are peculiar to particular sublanguages, explicitly or implicitly comparing them with] the neutral ones common to all the sublanguages.
The relationship of what is taught in lecture courses on lexicology and what is called here "stylistic lexicology" is somewhat more complicated. Actually, it is the chapters in lexicologybooks that deal with stylistic classification (stylistic differentiation) of the vocabulary that form a part of stylistics (stylistic lexicology), although there is more to stylistic lexicology than just that information. word-building are not directly concerned with stylistic problems, unless they indicate where (in what sublanguages) this or that mode of word- formation is current. The etymological analysis of the vocabulary (the problem of borrowings in particular) is stylistically relevant only when! the analyst treats cases of "living etymology", i.e. words whose foreign! origin is obvious and, therefore, performs a stylistic function.
And, finally, general (non-stylistic) syntax treats word combinations and sentences, analysing their structures and stating what is permissible mid what is inadmissible in constructing correct utterances in the given Iniiguage. The field of action of stylistic syntax is the same, but its approach and its aims are, as the reader is supposed to guess by now, quite different. The stylistic study of syntax (called here stylistic syntax) shows
what particular constructions are met with (or should be employed) in vnrious types of speech, what syntactical structures are style-forming (upecific) in the sublanguage in question. Besides, stylistic syntax very often operates on longer units, from the paragraph upwards.
It should be remarked here that most handbooks on phonetics or grammar (morphology and syntax), not to speak of lexicology, abound in stylistic information. Whenever the sphere of currency of a unit (or of a phenomenon) is explicitly mentioned, it is pure stylistics that the author doals with. If a phonetician informs the reader about the emphatic intonation as compared with non-emphatic, he acts as a stylist. If a grammarian admonishes the reader not to use the Nominative Absolute (John having returned, we began to work) in colloquial speech, it is stylistic syntax the grammarian is operating with.
Semasiology, onomasiology, and stylistics. Along with their formal
characteristics, linguistic units (with the exception of phonemes) have
meanings. Morphemes, words, word combinations, and sentences .Meanings are investigated and described by a branch of linguistics called semantics, or semasiology
The difference between the two (semasiology and
onomasiology) is as follows. First:,
semasiology treats semantic structures of linguistic units. Onomasiology treats problems of
choice of linguistic units for naming extralingual objects (things, proper-
ties, relations, situations).
Paradigmatics and syntagmatics.
Certain linguists have said that paradigmatics represents language as
a system, while syntagmatics characterizes speech as a process in its
development, or text, which indeed has a linear form.
In fact, what is a paradigm? Only separate phonemes, or morphemes,
or separate words? Of course not. Word combinations, sentences (or
eentence patterns), paragraphs, and even types of texts, if arranged
together as possibilities from which one selects the necessary form (the
titylistically suitable variety) make up their own paradigms, too.
Summing up, we must say that the material presented in this section
urges us to divide the whole of stylistics into two parts:
Stylistics of Units, or Paradigmatic Stylistics
Stylistics of Sequences, or Syntagmatic Stylistics
Each is divided into: (stylistic) phonetics, morphology, lexicology,
syntax, and semasiology or onomasiology.
The material of stylistics in general, the bulk of stylistic notions and
terms, is treated further in the succession outlined here: stylistics of units
with its level-forming constituents and semasiology, then follows
stylistics of sequences, subdivided in the same manner.