The typology of the publicistic style

In the system of functional styles, the publicistic style occupies an intermediate position between subject-specific styles and the belles-lettres style. Presently, it is possible to speak about a separate publicistic style, since its varieties have been fully formed. It has been observed that the issue of analysing publicistic-style varieties is very topical and results from the growing popularity of this style. The typology of the publicistic style has not been widely investigated in works on Lithuanian language stylistics. This style is not divided into clear-cut varieties: more emphasis is placed on its genre differentiation. On the basis of linguistic and non-linguistic factors, the following varieties of the publicistic style (sub-styles) may be distinguished: informational, analytical and the sub-style of expressive information (artistic publicistics). So far, the place of artistic publicistics between the publicistic and other functional styles has not been defined; therefore, description of texts of this sub-style poses problems. The publicistic style is defined by the linguistic characteristics of different levels of language: the length of the sentence, the frequency of different parts of speech in a sentence, etc. The syntactical and morphological structure of this style is also influenced by non-linguistic attributes: the addressant, the addressee, the content of texts, functions of the act of speech, etc. The average length of sentences in publicistic-style texts is xֿ= 15,7 words. It has been observed that the average length of a sentence has increased by two words since 1997. Thus, sentence length is influenced by the time factor. Investigative texts are dominated by short sentences (9–17 words), whereas the highest differentiation capacity belongs to very short sentences (1–8 words). They confirm the differentiation of publicistic-style texts. In monological texts, simple sentences are more frequent and account for more than one-half of the total sample. The average length of simple sentences is the integrating feature of all texts. Simple-sentence length groups, especially very short and short sentences, have a very high differentiation capacity. The distribution of complex-sentence length groups is more even than that of simple sentences. The nucleus is made up of short sentences and sentences of average length. The comparative analysis of monological and dialogical texts of the publicistic style shows that the number of differentiating parameters is greater than the number of integrating parameters in these texts. Among differentiating parameters, the average sentence length, very short sentence groups and sentence groups of average length as well as the frequency of co-ordinate and subordinate sentences deserve mention. Differentiation of publicistic-style texts is manifest in the frequency of parts of speech. Texts of different sub-styles are especially distinguished by the use of nouns, verbs and their forms. The frequency of pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions and numerals has a lower differentiation capacity. The distribution of other parts of speech may be considered an integrating feature of different sub-styles. Qualitative analysis of statistical data shows that the length, types and the morphological structure of sentences is influenced by different factors, primarily by sub-styles. Texts of artistic publicistics are distinguished by their specific linguistic organisation, whereas the syntactical structure of texts belonging to the analytical sub-style is more standardised. The influence of the topics of texts on individual sentence length parameters is rather low. The factor of the sub-style has more impact on the syntactical and morphological sentence structure. Statistical research has confirmed a hypothesis that the length of the sentence, its syntactical and morphological structure in the Lithuanian language validates differentiation of publicistic-style texts. These sentence parameters distinguish sub-styles, the matic text groups and text types.Švietimo akademijaVytauto Didžiojo universiteta