Functional Styles of the English Language

The Belles-Lettres Style
According to I.R. Galperin, this is a generic term for three substyles: the language of poetry; emotive prose (the language of fiction); the language of the drama. Each of these substyles has certain common features, and each of them enjoys some individuality. The common features of the substyles are the following:
1. The aesthetico-cognitive function (a function which aims at the cognitive process, which secures the gradual unfolding of the idea to the reader and at the same time calls forth a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction which a reader experiences because he is able to penetrate into the author's idea and to form his own conclusions).
2. Definite linguistic features:
· Genuine, not trite, imagery, achieved by purely linguistic devices.
· The use of words in different meanings, greatly influenced by the lexical environment.
· A vocabulary which will reflect to a certain degree the author's personal evaluation of things or phenomena.
· A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax.
· The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (drama), to a lesser degree (in prose), to a slight degree (poetry).
The belles-lettres style is individual in essence. This is one of its most distinctive properties.
The language of poetry is characterized by its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactic and semantic peculiarities.
Emotive prose shares the same common features, but these features are correlated differently than in poetry. The imagery is not so rich as in poetry; the percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high. Emotive prose features the combination of the literary variant of the language, both in words and in syntax, with the colloquial variant.
Language of the drama is entirely dialogue. The author's speech is almost entirely excluded except for the playwright's remarks and stage directions. But the language of the characters is not the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language. Any variety of the belles-lettres style will use the norms of the literary language of the given period. The language of plays is always stylized, it strives to retain the modus of literary English.