Neutral and stylistically colored vocabulary. In each developed literary language, the vocabulary is distributed stylistically. There are neutral words, that is, those that can be used in any genre and style of speech (in oral and written speech, in an oratory and in a telephone conversation, in a newspaper article and in poetry, in artistic and scientific texts, etc.). P.). These are, first of all, words from the main vocabulary in direct meanings: forehead, eye, earth, mountain, river, house, table, dog, horse, homeland, eat, work, sleep. Compared to such neutral, not stylistically colored words, other words may be of “high style” (brow, eyes, belly, homeland, horse, eat, rest), or "low" (clothes, boots, bowler hat, belly, eat, bum, junk, shudder, the other day).

Thus, Lomonosov’s “theory of three calms” turns out to be not only historically justified in relation to the Russian literary language of the 18th century, but also contains a very important theoretical grain: speech styles are correlative, and any style is primarily correlated with neutral, zero; other styles diverge from this neutral in opposite directions: some with a “coefficient” plus as “high”, others with a “coefficient” minus as “low” (cf. neutral There is, high eat and low eat and so on.).

Within one or another style (except neutral!) there may be its own divisions: in “high” - poetic, rhetorical, pathetic, “academic”, special technical, etc.; in “low” - colloquial, familiar, vulgar, etc.

For each language there are different sources for compiling the vocabulary of “high” and “low” styles.

In the Russian literary language, the sources of the “high” style can be, first of all, Slavicisms or similar words (not forehead, A brow, Not lips, A mouth, Not died, A died, no homeland, A fatherland, Not watchman, A guard, Not gates, A gate, Not city, A hail, Not nipples, A nipples, Not I'm suffering A I'm suffering and so on.); in addition, in other genres this role can be played by Greek-Latin and other international words (not world, A space, Not invader, A occupant, Not import And export, A import And export, Not criminal, A criminal, Not abscess, A abscess, Not component, A ingredient and so on.).

The sources of the “low” style can be their original Russian words, if the place of the corresponding neutral word is replaced by Slavicism (not cloth, A clothes, Not Evdokia, A Ovdotya or Avdotya 1) if the neutral word is your own, Russian, then the words of the “low” style are taken from the vernacular, dialects and jargons (not again, A back, Not hut, A hut, Not young woman, A girl, Not young man, A boy, Not There is, A to be naughty Not eyes, A zenki, Not steal, A whistle, slam, steal, Not absent-minded person A dishevel and so on.).

Accordingly, for example, in the English literary language, the neutral style is formed primarily by words of Anglo-Saxon origin, in the “high” style are words of French and Greco-Latin origin, and in the “low” style are words from slang, professional speech and dialectism.

For the French language of the 16th century. the source of the “high” style was the Italian language, and for the German language of the 17th–18th centuries. - French. Norms of the Russian literary language of the 18th century. in relation to the distribution of words by style, they are described in detail by Lomonosov in “Discourse on the Use of Church Books in the Russian Language” 1.

All of the above allows us to draw some conclusions about the system in vocabulary.

1) It is impossible to describe a vocabulary system by the objects it names. Vocabulary can name natural phenomena, technological phenomena, culture, and the mental life of people; This is why a language has vocabulary, so that a native speaker of a given language can name everything he needs in his social and even personal practice. But the system of what is called must disperse across the areas of what is called, this is a system of subjects of different sciences: geology, botany, zoology, physics, chemistry, etc. Moreover, many objects can have several names (synonymy), but these names will not be like words represent the language system.

2) The same should be said about the system of concepts, although concepts are not just objects of reality, but “casts” in people’s minds, reflecting the system of objects of objective reality, but these are also not words. The study of the system of concepts, their relationships and their elements is a very important task of science, but is by no means the subject of linguistics.

3) Thus, “the lexical system of a language has nothing to do with the ordering of the vocabulary of a given language into subject (extra-linguistic) categories, as is done in “subject”, “thematic” and “ideological” dictionaries. It cannot be reduced to a system of “semantic fields” or “lexical-semantic groups”, since the latter are only one (albeit quite important) of the structural elements of the “lexical system” 1.

This idea is developed in a more constructive way by Yu. D. Apresyan: “... the semantic content of a word is not something self-sufficient. It is entirely determined by the relationships that develop in the network of oppositions of a given word with another word of the same field. According to the idea and terminology of F. de Saussure, it has not meaning, but significance", "... in order to return linguistics... unity, semantic fields must be obtained not on a conceptual, but on a linguistic basis, not from logic, but from the side of linguistics..." 1

4) Everything said requires clarification. First, what is meaning and what is significance? The meaning of a word is the relation of the word to the object or phenomenon it denotes, i.e. the relation of a fact of language to an extra-linguistic fact (thing, phenomenon, concept), while significance is its own, linguistic property of the word, obtained by the word because the word is a member lexical system of the language.

The meaning of words such as 1) There is, 2)face, 3) scream is determined by their relations:

1) for eat: taste, eat, devour, gobble, crack, smack;

2) for face: face, physiognomy, muzzle, mug, mug, snout, mug, image, rump;

3) for shout: shout, scream, yell, roar.

The significance of a word is determined in the same way as the significance of other language units (phonemes, morphemes...) - by correlation in one row.

The series for determining the significance of a word is called lexical field 1 . The lexical field is not an area of ​​homogeneous objects of reality and not an area of ​​homogeneous concepts, but a sector of vocabulary united by the relations of parallelism (synonyms), contrast (antonyms) and concomitance (metonymic and synecdochic connections of words), and most importantly, various kinds of oppositions. Only within the lexical field can a word receive its significance, just as a phoneme can gain its meaning. In no case should the concept of context (see above, § 20) and field be confused. Context is the area of ​​use of a word, speech, and field is the sphere of its existence in the language system.

Neutral vocabulary- the most stable part of the vocabulary of a language, constituting its basis; can be used in any communicative situation, since it is devoid of any expressive-emotional coloring and in fact is a kind of standard in relation to which all others are determined

functional layers of vocabulary. So, for example, the verb die is neutral in comparison with such options as die (book style), die (colloquial style) and bend (jargon); the noun face is neutral in comparison with the words face (high style), physiognomy (colloquial version) and mug (a simple river word).

Neutral vocabulary includes the names of many objects and phenomena (house, book, wind, snow, etc.), actions and states (read, lie down, walk, etc.), signs (tall, sad, green, etc.). Almost all pronouns, numerals and function words are stylistically neutral.

In some linguistic works, neutral vocabulary is called interstyle.

Book vocabulary— vocabulary presented in scientific and fiction literature, journalism, official business documents. This category of words is usually used in written speech and is inappropriate in spoken language.

In this group, words that do not express any emotional assessment numerically predominate; quite often they denote those concepts that are not found in everyday communication, but at the same time they may not relate to scientific terminology (hypothesis, prevail, pompous). The degree of bookishness of such words can be different - both not very distinct, moderate (argumentation, heavy, immemorial, very), and pronounced (hypertrophied, for, lapidary, prerogative).

Within the book vocabulary there are also emotionally charged words. Some of them give a positive assessment of certain processes, actions, properties and phenomena (persona, pre-draw, panacea), others give a negative or disapproving assessment (vandalism, insinuation, obscurantism).

Inside a bookstore, lofty and poetic vocabulary can stand out. High vocabulary is characterized by special solemnity and elation. It is often used in oratory, especially in cases where some significant events in the history of the country, the life of the people, etc. are touched upon. (accomplishment, sovereign, erect, from now on). Poetic vocabulary is also adjacent to the solemn one, but it is more characteristic of fiction, sometimes journalism (azure, boundless, more beautiful, dreams, muse, blush).

Conversational vocabulary- vocabulary presented primarily in colloquial (oral) speech, focused on informal, relaxed communication. Compared to neutral vocabulary, colloquial vocabulary is more expressive, sometimes familiar, and somewhat less stylistic.

Colloquial vocabulary is not homogeneous; several different layers can be distinguished in its composition: Material from the site

  • literary and colloquial words (intellectual, slowly, on the sly, hack),
  • conversational and professional (back room, steering wheel, planning meeting),
  • colloquial terminological (troikatka, ascorbic acid, diabetic),
  • everyday life (joker, joker, chatter, canteen).

Within the colloquial vocabulary there are both words devoid of any expressive connotations (four, dad, celebrate [birthday], rush, get sick) and expressively colored ones (mug, devilry, deceive).

Colloquial vocabulary is part of the literary language; it is joined by colloquial vocabulary, which is outside the literary norm - even more expressive and stylistically reduced (surely, bro, mug, tudy, sleep). The boundary between colloquial and vernacular words is quite vague and fluid, as evidenced by the marks in various dictionaries.

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  • neutral, book and colloquial vocabulary.”

Stylistically neutral vocabulary is a bridge across the gap between people of different professions and walks of life. It is the universal language of mutual understanding, enshrined in dictionaries, so it is important to pay attention to its study.

Definition of stylistically neutral vocabulary

The degree of figurativeness of a language is determined by the abundance of its vocabulary. The more diverse the layers of vocabulary, the richer the speech possibilities.

In the Russian language, colloquial, bookish and neutral vocabulary is distinguished - a fundamental layer of words that are not attached to any style of speech.

Words of interstyle vocabulary make up, according to scientists, three-quarters of the richness of the Russian language. In dictionaries, such vocabulary, unlike, for example, book vocabulary, is not marked with special symbols like (*), which immediately indicates the possibility of using such words in all styles without restrictions.

  1. “In the autumn meadows, the golden sun was sinking below the horizon.” Fiction. Of the 8 words in the sentence, 7 are neutral and only 1 word “golden” refers to the bookish, high style.
  2. “Petya, quickly go to the store for bread.” Excerpt from the conversation. Of the 7 words, 6 are neutral. The word “cheshi” is also neutral, but in this text it has a different meaning and refers to the colloquial style.
  3. “No catalyst is required to carry out the reaction of sodium with water.” Of the 10 words - 9 neutral and 1, “catalyst”, special, scientific style.

Parts of speech of neutral vocabulary

Interstyle vocabulary is represented by almost all parts of speech of the Russian language - both independent and functional. This once again confirms the fundamental nature of this layer in the language. Words of neutral vocabulary refer to parts of speech:

  1. Noun: “field”, “table”, “house”, “wind”, “friendship”, “power”, “hour”.
  2. Verbs: “do”, “travel”, “see”, “experience”, “create”.
  3. Adjectives: “blue”, “delicate”, “extra”, “wooden”, “northern”.
  4. Adverbs: “good”, “like a dog”, “very”, “visible”.
  5. Pronouns: “our”, “that”, “you”, “who”, “she”.
  6. Numerals: “first”, “five”, “ten”.
  7. Service words:
  • conjunctions: “as if”, “that is”, “a”, “but”;
  • particles: “well”, “like”, “like”;
  • prepositions: “for”, “about”, “in”, “thanks to”.

Not included in common vocabulary

The only part of speech that cannot be a neutral word is the interjection. Examples: “great”, “wow”, “slap”, “hello”. These words initially carry an emotional connotation.

There are also concepts for which there are no words of neutral expression - these are cases of only a high or only a low style of speech. For example: “boob”, “talker”, “idiot” or “tribunal”, “oratorio”. It is impossible to imagine a scientific article with the word “fool” introduced into the context. Such words initially have a bright color, so they cannot be used in another style of speech. Neutral ones function in all styles.

Where is neutral vocabulary used?

Neutral lexemes are used in all styles of spoken and written speech without exception. In scientific and journalistic articles, in textbooks, in fiction, in ordinary conversation - this vocabulary is the basis of the Russian language, the most stable part of its vocabulary. For example, a literary author’s text includes units mostly from words of a neutral layer. For example, in the text by M. Prishvin, words that are not related to neutral vocabulary are highlighted.

The guys here don’t go with the star and they don’t let anyone into the choir to sing, and I saw in one shop on the window hooks they sell straight with fishing line and for all kinds of fish, they’re very expensive, there’s even one hook that can hold a pound of catfish.

A. Chekhov "Vanka"

The word “let go” is colloquial, “standing” is a phonetic distortion of the lexeme “standing”, but fixed in writing in this text, can also be considered colloquial.

Interstyle vocabulary has thematic associations that make up the active vocabulary of the language:

  • Temporal meaning: “tomorrow”, “yesterday”, “century”, “month”, “morning”, “day”, “past”, “present”.
  • Meaning of place: “to the right”, “behind”, “there”, “where”, “house”, “country”, “island”.
  • Negativity: “no”, “nobody”, “none”, “not”, “neither”.
  • Emphasis on the face: “he”, “she”, “you”, “I”.

Neutral vocabulary helps protect spoken and written speech from vulgarity, for example: “Girl, go to that cash register.”

The word “proceed” is high style, it fits unnaturally into the context of everyday colloquial speech.

It is necessary to remember caution and reasonableness when combining words of different semantic connotations in one text.

Background neutral vocabulary. Examples

Stylistic differences in language can only be seen against the background of words with a neutral coloring. Neutral vocabulary is a white sheet on which the smallest shades of other colors are visible. Speech can be expressive and figurative, but in comparison with the expression of bookish and conversational style, the coloring of interstyle vocabulary is not so noticeable. For example: “walk” is a neutral word, “step” is a high style, “loiter” is a conversational style.

Authors of literary texts can achieve expressiveness and imagery without resorting to expressively colored vocabulary. For example: “If you become silent in these rustling leafy forests and listen to the sounds around you, you can hear mysterious quiet steps...”

In this passage, only words of a neutral style are used, but the imagery and colorfulness are not lost. True, not everyone can create a literary text using common vocabulary alone. The existence of emotionally rich layers of speech makes it possible to create texts of special imagery.

Neutral vocabulary and semantics

You also need to be careful when referring to words in a neutral style. The same lexeme can have different meanings depending on the context and relate to different stylistic layers of the language. For example:

  • “A terrible squeal of brakes was heard not far away.” - Here the word “brakes” means “mechanism for stopping” (neutral).
  • "Well, you guys are slow!" - In this text, “brakes” are used in a figurative sense - “people with slow perception of information.”

Neutral vocabulary in fairy tales

A fairy tale text can be built on the basis of neutral vocabulary - it will not be a folk tale, but an original text.

For example: “In the distant kingdom, in the thirtieth state, there lived a king and a queen, and they had a beautiful daughter, which cannot be said in a fairy tale or described with a pen. She sat in the little room all day long.” The text contains outdated words: “king”, “queen”, “svetlitsa”, there are also stable expressions of the fairy-tale epic: “in the distant kingdom, in the thirtieth state”, “to say in a fairy tale, not to describe with a pen.”

The canvas of a folk tale consists of words of increased imagery; the phenomena described in it often have no relation to the real world, being the result of a person’s flight of imagination, a reflection of the sensory perception of the world. Neutral vocabulary cannot handle such imagery.

The predominance of stylistically neutral vocabulary in the author's fairy tales is appropriate, since such texts are usually calmer, less expressive and more speculative.

Colloquial, stylistically neutral and book vocabulary complement each other. Stylistically colored words allow us to express shades of feelings and the realities of knowledge of a narrow circle of people. Neutral vocabulary is what brings precision, certainty and clarity to everyone.

Neutral vocabulary, commonly used vocabulary, interstyle vocabulary is one of the main categories of literary vocabulary, along with book vocabulary (see) and colloquial vocabulary (see); consists of words that are widespread in all functional and stylistic variants of the literary language. N. l. is intended for ascertaining, non-evaluative, non-terminological designation of objects, concepts of everyday life, natural phenomena, periods of a person’s life and states of his life, periods of time, measures of length, weight, volume, etc. It is devoid of expression, emotional and social assessments.
N. l. is the starting point in the “scale of expressiveness”, according to the cut lit. vocabulary according to the main categories: interstyle (neutral), bookish (increased expression) and colloquial (lower, or reduced, expression). N. l. is the background against which and thanks to which the expressive and emotional properties of book and colloquial writing are manifested in all their diversity. vocabulary. Among the stylistic synonyms of N.l. is the semantic (semantic) dominant of the synonymous series and a kind of axis around which the paradigm of the “scale of expressiveness” and functional-stylistic differentiation of lit. vocabulary, e.g.: parade (bookish, high) -
walk (neutral) - trudge (colloquial, reduced); head (bookish, high) - head (neutral) - head (colloquial, familiar). N.l. compared (contrasted), therefore, with book and colloquial vocabulary in terms of the absence/presence of expressive coloring, as well as along the boundaries of distribution in literature. language (N.L. is commonly used, and the other two categories are limited to the framework of predominant distribution in book and colloquial speech, respectively).
However, there is no strict framework for identifying N. l. in real speech communication of lit. speakers. there is no language. Firstly, in the semantic structure of a significant part of N.L. There are book and colloquial books. meanings (or shades), and therefore the corresponding expressive coloring, which “appears” when a given word is used in such meanings. Yes, St. 1850 neutral words (according to the “Dictionary of the Russian Language” by S. Ozhegov, 11th ed., 1975) have expressively colored colloquial words. meanings, eg: run, lean, crawl, etc.; the verb to touch has bookish and colloquial. meanings. Secondly, the composition of N.L. historically changeable, constantly replenished due to book and colloquial literature. vocabulary (for example: indisputable, indeed, TV, blemish, comb, partner, etc.), certain words acquire stylistically colored meanings, for example: birthday man - “the one who has a birthday” (colloquial), work out - “to subject someone to sharp criticism” (colloquial).
N. l. makes up the main part (approx. /a) lit. vocabulary is the basis for its quantitative growth, stylistic development, and stylistic diversity. Basic character of N.l. is defined as its quantitative predominance in the vocabulary of lit. language, and features of semantics, as well as features of compatibility (see Collocation). The meanings of such words are very capacious. N.l. characterized by a complicated semantic structure, subtle nuances of meanings and their shades (for example, the verb to go in the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D. N. Ushakov has 40 meanings); for N. l. characterized by wide compatibility possibilities. All this determines the special expressiveness of N. l. (despite the lack of expressive coloring): thanks to the semantic capacity of N.L. under the influence of context and phraseological environment, it can be used in figurative and expansive senses while maintaining the basic semantics to convey new facets of content and subjective modality. N. l. serves as the basis for the formation of phraseological units of various stylistic statuses. Neutral words act as their constructive elements, ch. arr. as a supporting component of a phraseological unit (see, for example, phraseological units with the words head, go/walk, stand, etc.: dizzy, keep up, stand above someone, etc.).


Neutral vocabulary- these are words that are not attached to a specific style of speech, having stylistic synonyms (book, colloquial, colloquial), against the background of which they are devoid of stylistic coloring. Thus, the word wander is neutral in comparison with the book wander and the colloquial stagger, hang around; future - in comparison with the book future; look - in comparison with gaze; eyes - compared to eyes.
Neutral vocabulary can be freely used in various areas, styles and conditions of communication, without introducing a special stylistic feature into the statement, for example: house, hand, read, speak, light, beautiful, etc. They are ubiquitous, their use is not limited in any way . In this case, we usually talk about linguistic units of zero (or neutral) stylistic level.
49.Book vocabulary.
Book vocabulary is vocabulary presented in scientific, fiction, journalism, and official business documents. This category of words is usually used in written speech and is inappropriate in spoken language. In this group, words that do not express any emotional assessment numerically predominate; quite often they denote concepts that are not found in everyday communication, but at the same time they may not relate to scientific terminology (hypothesis, prevail, pompous). The degree of bookishness of such words can be different - both not very distinct, moderate (argumentation, burdensome, immemorial, very), and pronounced (hypertrophied, because, lapidary, prerogative). Within the book vocabulary there are also emotionally charged words. Some of them give a positive assessment of certain processes, actions, properties and phenomena (persona, destined, panacea), others give a negative or disapproving assessment (vandalism, insinuation, obscurantism). Inside a bookstore, lofty and poetic vocabulary can stand out. High vocabulary is characterized by a special solemnity and elation. It is often used in oratory, especially in cases where some significant events in the history of the country, the life of the people, etc. are touched upon. (accomplishment, sovereign, erect, from now on). Poetic vocabulary is also adjacent to the solemn one, but it is more characteristic of fiction, sometimes journalism (azure, boundless, more beautiful, dreams, muse, blush).
50. Colloquial and colloquial vocabulary.

According to the degree of literature, oral vocabulary is divided into two large groups:
1) Colloquial vocabulary;
2) Colloquial vocabulary.
Colloquial vocabulary includes words that give speech a touch of ease and informality. From the point of view of belonging to different parts of speech, colloquial vocabulary, like neutral vocabulary, is diverse. It includes:
1) Nouns: Big guy, witty, nonsense;
2) Adjectives: Careless, slack;
3) Adverbs: At random, in one’s own way;
4) Verbs: Take aback, boast, hack;
5) Interjections: Lie, bai, oh.
Colloquial vocabulary is “lower” in style than colloquial vocabulary, therefore it is outside the strictly standardized Russian literary speech. In colloquial vocabulary, three groups can be distinguished: 1) Roughly expressive vocabulary is grammatically represented by nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs:
Big guy, bore, idiot;
Ragged, pot-bellied;
Totally, lousy, foolishly;
To snooze, to swell, to swell.
1) Roughly expressive words are heard most often in the speech of insufficiently educated people, characterizing their cultural level. The expressiveness of these words, their emotional and semantic capacity sometimes make it possible to briefly and expressively show an attitude (most often negative) to an object, person, or phenomenon. "(Freak! You can't outdo Tulin anyway. You're one of the breed of mugs")
2) Rough vernacular
These words have a strong expression, the ability to convey the speaker’s negative attitude towards any phenomena. Excessive rudeness makes this vocabulary unacceptable in the speech of cultured people (grunt, mug, turnip, rylnik).
3) Properly colloquial vocabulary to which a relatively small number of words belong.
The unliterary nature of these words is explained not by their rudeness (they are not rude in meaning and expressive coloring), but by the fact that they are not recommended for use in the speech of cultured people:
Just now, ahead of time, probably, born, dad, etc.
Proper colloquial vocabulary is also called vernacular and differs from dialect only in that it is used both in the city and in the countryside.