I. Varieties according to language user: 1. Regional variation (dialects) 2. Social variation (stratification): Standard vs. Non-standard English 3. Variation according to age and gender II. Varieties according to language use: 1. General characteristics of language according to attitude (tenor): Formal vs. Informal; Polite vs. Impolite; Impersonal vs. Personal 2. General characteristics of language according to medium (mode): i. Linguistic characteristics of the spoken variety ii. Linguistic characteristics of the written variety
3. a. General characteristics of language according to the field of discourse (domain) b. The communicative functions of language and their relationship to the field of discourse: i. referential (descriptive) ii. poetic iii. emotive (expressive) iv. conative (appellative)v. phatic vi. metalingual/metalanguage
III. Principles of good writing: 1. Making language easy to follow: i. sentence length ii. subordination iii. ordering: end-focus and end-weight iv. structure-changing rules: - passive sentences - cleft sentences - existential sentences - extraposition
2. Clarity. Garden-path ambiguities 3. Economy (conciseness):i. Reduction: - use of pro-forms- use of ellipsis ii. Clarity vs. Economy 4. Effectiveness:i. Expressive repetition ii. Elegant variation
IV. The functional styles of the English language. The linguistic features of:1. The style of fiction2. The journalistic style / the style of newspapers 3. The style of scientific prose4. The style of official documents (legal, business documents)
