The publicistic style

The publicistic style is employed in articles, essays and oratory devoted to social or political problems and meant for a great number of readers or a big audience. As it has been mentioned, it falls into 3 varieties:

1. The language of articles (political, social, economic) in newspapers, journals and magazines. The editorials also belong here.

2. The language used in essays - moral, philosophical, literary.

The essay is a literary composition usually short, on a philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subject. It is often biographical. It never goes deep into the subject, but merely touches upon the surface. Pamphlets and literary reviews in journals, magazines and newspapers are close to essays both by their contents and their linguistic form.

3. The language used in oratory, which is an oral (spoken) variety. The publicistic style is the only one among bookish functional styles having a spoken variety. Here belong speeches on political and social problems of the day; orations and addresses on solemn occasions (jubilees, weddings, funerals, debates, speeches of the judge). The radio and TV commentary is another spoken variety of this style.

The aim of the publicistic style is to influence public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or speaker is the only correct one. The reader (or listener) is to accept the point of view of the writer (speaker). To achieve this an article or a public speech must be logical, accurate and impressive, i.e. it must combine logical argumentation and emotional appeal. The publicistic style has features in common with the scientific prose, on the one hand, and belles-lettres, on the other. The main characteristic features of this style are:

1. Coherent and logical syntactical structure with careful paragraphing and connectives.

2. Careful choice of words. The vocabulary consists of neutral, common literary, common colloquial words and terms.

3. The use of expressive means and stylistic devices, but they are usually traditional, not fresh, as genuine stylistic devices might divert the attention of the listeners away from the main point of the speech.

The publicistic style is also characterized by brevity of expression. All this is true of all the varieties of the publicistic style, though each has its own peculiarities. Essays and speeches, for example, have more individuality than newspaper articles. They contain more expressive means and stylistic devices.

Oratory is a public speech and it must be comprehensible for the given audience. It must be emotional and keep the audience in suspense. It determines the expressive means and stylistic devices used by the speaker:

1. direct address to the audience;

2. rhetorical questions;

3. repetitions of all kinds, parallel constructions, antithesis, gradation, etc.;

4. epithet, simile, metaphor;

5. emphatic constructions, etc.

Besides, the speaker uses modifications of the voice to impress the listeners.

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