Functioning of the conversions in the English tests of the literary, scientific, and journalistic styles: comparative analysis

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FUNCTIONING OF THE CONVERSIONS IN THE ENGLISH TESTS OF THE LITERARY, SCIENTIFIC, AND JOURNALISTIC STYLES: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

linguistic phenomena language conversion

Radetska S. V., Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Chair of Theory and Practice of Translation

of Kherson National Technical University

Summary. The current stage of development of linguistics is characterized by a significant interest in the study of the functional aspect of linguistic phenomena. This interest is due to the general reorientation of linguistics from the study of the internal laws of the structure of language to the knowledge of language as “the most important means of human communication”. The development of a language depends on its ability to create new words. The development of new words occurs because people have a need to express new concepts. This is the result of the development of science, technology, culture, public relations and much more. The emergence of new words in the language occurs in different ways: by borrowing from other languages, as a result of the emergence of new meanings of words already existing in the language and by adding different suffixes, prefixes, etc. One of the extremely convenient ways to replenish the vocabulary of the English language is conversion. You can watch the conversion in colloquial speech as well as in written, formal and informal. Conversion is characteristic of the English language due to its analytical structure. Thanks to this method of word-formation, language acquires morphological freedom, since the same word can be used as different parts of speech, and, therefore, can have a different syntactic function (that is, be different members of a sentence). The selection of the main types of conversions and the determination of the specifics of their functioning in tests of different styles, in our opinion, is of considerable interest for the perverted understanding of the phenomenon of conversion in modern English. In addition, knowledge of the conversion mechanism can significantly expand vocabulary when learning English and improve the quality of translation.

Key words: conversion mechanism, word-formation, literary, scientific, journalistic styles, substantivization and verbalization.

Problem statement. The phenomenon of conversion is of interest to scientists for many centuries. For the first time this term was used at the end of the XIX century. And despite its prevalence and activity in modern English, the presence of a large number of research and ideas, for example: V. Zabotkina [4], R. Kverk [5], Y. Visokhynsky [2], O. Meshkov [7], the conversion issue remains one of the most debated.

The problem of identifying the conditions for the conversion is the subject of controversy among many researchers. Some linguists believe that conversion occurred at the beginning of the XIII century. Others believe that it existed in the Old English language. In the language of Shakespeare and Milton, conversion and prefix-conversion word-formation occurs already for all those samples that are still productive: "easy" - an adjective; "easy" - an adverb.

V. Zabotkina notes that the conversion significantly reduced its productivity, and among neologisms convertible units make up only 3 % [4, p. 33], but according to I. Baron, 33 % of new words are neologisms formed as a result of conversion [1, p. 76], which confirms the conversion activity at the current stage.

The article aim. The problem of our study is determined by the necessity of expanding knowledge about the semantic ties that stimulate the emergence of conversion entities and their relative importance in texts of different styles. Thus, the basis of our study is the detailed consideration of the main functional styles in the modern English language and a comprehensive review of the conditions, causes and consequences of the operation of conversions in texts of different styles.

The basic material. The semantics of the derivative word plays an important role in the conversion word formation. For example,

G. Troitska distinguishes the following types of semantic connection in the formation of the verb from the noun:

1) ensure that the source noun is - "to water";

2) get rid of what is indicated by the original noun - "to skin";

3) behave like a person, called noun - "to ape";

4) act with the help of what is indicated by the original noun - "to hammer";

5) to be in a place, or to move to a place marked by the original noun - "to school";

6) act as an animal, called the original noun - "to dog";

7) take the form of what is denoted by the noun - "to round";

8) reproduce the animals, called the original noun - "to calf";

9) spend the time period, called the noun - "to week-end" [9, p. 161].

However, it should be noted that this classification cannot be applied to all conversion entities. First, converters are formed not only in the noun-verb model. Secondly, in the conversion there is an even greater number and variety of semantic connections than when affixing, because the semantics of the derivative verb or noun is not limited to the meaning of the word-formation affix, but is formed under the influence of the connectivity, which gives the newly created word large semantic possibilities. In most cases, conversions are polysemic.

The word formed by conversion has a typical meaning, for example: "to hammer" - to use as an instrument or object for purpose, that is to hammer with a hammer. But there may still be a number of special or single values: “Her heart was hammering so hard”.

Conversion as a means of enriching the language with neologisms is widespread in texts of different genres. In each case, the newly created word has its own function.

The literary style is distinguished by its imagery and expressiveness, and due to its special expressive and aesthetic qualities it is distinguished among other types of literary language. Fiction is a form of social consciousness, a mirror of reality, and therefore comprehensively reproduces the many-sided phenomena of social life. For this reason, artistic works often use a variety of language tools, some of which are contained not so much in the language of the author's story as in the language of characters as a means of verbal and artistic depiction [3, p. 59-60].

Thus, in the composition of language means, the literary style is significantly different from other stylistic varieties of literary language. This was also noted by L. Shcherba, who compared the language of fiction with the language of official business correspondence: “The language of artistic works has, of course, much more variations than the business language, but they are less obvious and in any case not so easily classified. But the main thing is that they have a completely different direction: they have to draw all the variety of spoken, social, and partly geographic dialects that combine this literary language. Through the language social environment which includes active persons is drawn the” [10, p. 24].

The language of fiction differs from other styles not only in the composition of linguistic means, but also in their artistic and aesthetic qualities. This is a tongue, which has a historically produced system of verbal and artistic depictions [3, p. 60].

However, it would be wrong to completely separate literary style from other styles. By absorbing the components of all other functional styles, the literary style transforms, rethinks them; it widely uses units of language that belong to different time slices, to the social and territorial modification of the national language. Regarding the openness of the stylistic system, the language of fiction is closest to the colloquial style, since it actively uses the language of folklore, non-normative, uncoded linguistic means: archaisms, historicisms, dialecticisms, neologisms (general and authorial), unconfixed colloquial expressions, if they meet the requirements of aesthetic measure, stylistic expediency.

It should also be noted that the unity of communicative and aesthetic functions is inherent not only in artistic style. Aesthetic qualities, emotionality and expressiveness are also characteristic of stylistics of journalistic works, styles of scientific works and, in general, varying degrees of all styles of literary language. For example, along with precision, clarity and accessibility, the language of public speeches by agitators and propagandists has always been characterized by such emotional and expressive qualities as purposefulness, passion, confidence, liveliness and imagery.

Convertible formations in literary text often have hidden meanings and often reflect the style of an author or character of a work, features of a dialect or worldview, a stream of thoughts: "I can candy him and sit him down the potty a hundred times a day".

Often, in artistic text, there are slang expressions created by conversion: "Poor little bobooty, nobody wuvshim".

Such way of word formation as a conversion also plays an important role in enriching the vocabulary of the texts of scientific and technical style.

Scientific style is a style of scientific works from various fields of science and technology. It is characterized by widespread use of terminology, foreign language and abstract vocabulary. Words are used only in the literal sense, using complex sentences. There are subcategories: popular science (the topics are available for the mass reader), news-information. In scientific style, figurative means of language, dialectal and vulgar words are not used.

We can distinguish the following characteristics of the scientific and technical text: static, brevity, compactness of expression; widespread use of abstract vocabulary and a peculiar way of its con- cretization; a specific expression of abstraction and generalization as a way of scientific knowledge. In the analysis of individual stylistic features of a particular author, we often note the verbal or nominal (personal) style, depending on what the author prefers to use more widely verbs, which creates dynamism, or nouns and adjectives, which creates static text. Verbs in the function of a predicate are used in scientific literature on average two times less often than nouns and adjectives in the function of definition, which gives an occasion to speak about the nominal character of the style of scientific and technical literature. This phenomenon is quite natural and understandable: certain concepts in the scientific literature are specified and determined in more detail than in the style of fiction [6, p. 64].

An urgent need for a scientific and technical text is its second characteristic feature - the desire to save language means, to brevity or laconicism. In the scientific and technical text, the bulkiness of the language is a real danger, because then its clearness is lost.

Non-affixal derivatives, as well as complex words, contribute to the compression of means of expressing information in a scientific text. However, the number of neologisms received through this method is much lower than in artistic and journalistic texts. The fact is that the above features of the scientific and technical style create various stylistic restrictions that require compliance with the linguistic norm and do not allow the frequent use of conversion units. Conversions are usually found in unofficial documents, articles of spoken language. For the scientific text, the most characteristic conversion units, built on the model of the noun-verb: "Multihulls are higher andfaster than monohulls and capsize at lower angles".

The peculiarity of texts of a journalistic style is due to several circumstances: a wide range of issues that are considered in it; the fact that journalism is addressed to a very large circle of the audience; it not only informs the audience, but also strives, first of all, to somehow influence the minds and feelings of the readers, to form a certain idea of the facts and events. Therefore, certain conditions are put forward in the language of journalism - a journalistic test must be clear, logical, convincing and expressive [5, p. 204].

The journalistic style occupies a special place in the system of styles of literary language, since in many cases it has to process texts created under other styles. Scientific and business languages are oriented on the intellectual reflection of reality, and artistic language - on its emotional imprint. Journalistic style plays a special role - it seeks to satisfy both intellectual and aesthetic needs. Among the main linguistic peculiarities of a journalistic style is the fundamental heterogeneity of stylistic means, the use of special terminology and emotionally colored vocabulary, the use of abstract and specific vocabulary. Publicism is the main area of origin and the most active channel of the propagation of language neologisms: lexical, word-formation, phraseological. Therefore, this style has a significant impact on the development of linguistic norm. A feature of the journalistic style is the wide coverage of the vocabulary of the literary language: from scientific and technical terms to the words of everyday spoken language.

Conversion is one of the most common means of generating new words in a journalistic text, especially its kinds, such as substantivization and verbalization. Often, we encounter these kinds of conversion in the headlines of magazines and articles. Conversions allow us to use fewer words and phrases to convey a greater or desired amount of information, while sometimes performing an expressive function. Substantivization is subjected to words belonging to different parts of the language, for example the verb: "Put the Freeze on Interest"; adverbs: "The Ups: Food, Rent Rates, Fare, etc". It should be noted that not all types of word transitions into another part of the language lead to the formation of a new word, often it is simply the use of words in the function of another part of the language, such as adverbs “yes” and “no” in the function of nouns: “The Leaders Expect a Mighty “Yes"; “Sign the National NO". In the newspaper headlines there are examples of verbalization of adverbs: “Action to Up Pensions".

Conclusions. Concluding, we should note that conversion is productive in texts of any subject, both in oral and in written form. We have found that this type of word-formation is the most widespread in literary texts, since it often reflects a specific author's style and promotes the formation of new concepts that can only be understood in the presence of context. The less used conversion is in the journalistic text. The most commonly used are the substantivization and verbalization that are often used to generate headers. The least-used, but no less productive is the conversion into scientific text. Since one of the main features of this text is conciseness and clarity, conversion is most often used to denote action, especially in the noun-verb model.

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Радецька С. В. Функціонування конверсивів в англійських тестах художнього, наукового та публіцистичного стилів: порівняльний аналіз

Анотація. Сучасний етап розвитку лінгвістики характеризується значним інтересом до вивчення функціонального аспекту мовних явищ. Цей інтерес пояснюється загальною переорієнтацією мовознавства з вивчення внутрішніх законів структури мови на знання мови як «найважливішого засобу людського спілкування». Розвиток мови залежить від її здатності створювати нові слова. Поява нових слів відбувається тому, що люди повинні давати назви новим поняттям. Це результат розвитку науки, техніки, культури, зав'язків із громадськістю та багато іншого. Поява нових слів у мові відбувається по-різному: запозиченням з інших мов; унаслідок надання нових значень словам, що вже існують у мові; шляхом додавання різних суфіксів, префіксів тощо. Одним із способів поповнення словникового складу англійської мови є конверсія. Ми можемо спостерігати за появою конверсивних новоутворень у розмовній мові, а також у письмовій, формальній та неформальній формі. Конверсія характерна для англійської мови завдяки її аналітичній структурі. Завдяки такому способу словотворення мова отримує морфологічну свободу, оскільки одне і те саме слово може бути використане у різних частинах мови, а отже, може мати різну синтаксичну функцію (тобто бути різними членами речення). Вибір основних типів конверсивів і визначення специфіки їх функціонування в тестах різних стилів, на нашу думку, становлять значний інтерес для всебічного розгляду феномена конверсії в сучасній англійській мові. Крім того, знання механізму творення конверсивів може значно розширити словниковий запас під час вивчення англійської мови і поліпшити якість перекладу.

Ключові слова: конверсія, словотворення, літературний, науковий, публіцистичний стилі, субстантивація, вер- балізація.

Радецкая С. В. Функционирование конверсивов в английских тестах художественного, научного и публицистического стилей: сравнительный анализ