Style in E & SA - PowerPoint Presentation

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Style in E & SA

Style is influenced by linguistic choices on all levels: lexical, syntactic, and semantic. For example, consider the differences in meaning between the following two sentences.

(1-1) She is overweight.

(1-2) She is full-figured.

Both sentences have identical meanings on the surface, but in the first sentence the lexical choice overweight conveys the additional information that the author is direct and possibly being impersonal. In the second sentence, the lexical choice full-figured, as it is Slide2

2 Syntactic Style

Syntactic style can be characterized as the choices made in the construction of a clause or a sentence. The following examples from [Corbett 1971, 434] demonstrate some of the possible variations.

(4-1) The lady loves the girl.

(4-2) The tall nice lady sincerely loves the short, homely girl.

(4-3) The lady, tall and nice, loves sincerely the short, homely girl.

(4-4) Tall and nice, the lady loves the short, homely girl sincerely.Slide3

The first example is a simple and ordinary sentence. The second example adds modifiers to the first, but still leaves us with an ordinary sentence. The third and fourth sentences vary the positions of the modifiers to produce some stylistic variation by placing the modifiers in unusual positions. The positioning of tall and nice in the last two examples places the emphasis on the lady, and the positioning of sincerely places the emphasis on love in the third example, and the girl in the fourth.

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used here, is indirect and suggests that the author is attempting to be polite.

Differences in style can also be more subtle, as shown in the following two sentence fragments.

(1-3) the black cat

(1-4) the cat, which is black

The first fragment is a common method of expressing the fact that the cat is black. The second fragment is less common.

The postposing of the fact that the cat is black in a relative clause

places more emphasis on the cat than its blackness.Slide5

Branches of Stylistic Description

.1 Lexical Style

Lexical style can be characterized as diction, a choice between similar words. The choice could be made on the basis of appropriateness to a context. For example, John kicked the bucket would be more appropriate in a colloquial context and John passed away would be appropriate in a more formal context. More often, the choice will be made on the basis of aspects that are distinguished in one language but not the other. English distinguishes between cot and bed Slide6

3.2.2 In Arabic, the heavy element comes first. By contrast, English style puts it later. In a sentence like:

In his speech on the state of press in the Gaza strip, the information minister declared … .

The Arabic counterpart of this sentence is:

صرح وزير الإعلام في حديث له عن أحوال الصحافة في قطاع غزة بأنه.

But not

في حديث له عن أحوال الصحافة في قطاع غزة صرح وزير الإعلام بأنهSlide7

3.2.1 Arabic style tends to scatter the similar thoughts while English style tends to gather them

e.g

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In a sentence like:

- The Government and people of Palestine.

In this sentence English style used the word people directly after the word Government. While Arabic translation or counterpart of this sentence is:

حكومة فلسطين وشعبهاSlide8

when a text is written, it is written for a particular audience. The author carefully chooses the lexical items, syntactic constructions, and semantic content that is appropriate for an effective communication.

. One of the questions currently being studied in the field of generation is determining what to say. how to say it.