Lecture Stylistics as a science. Problems of stylistic research. Plan

The function of archaic words and constructions in official docu­ments is terminological in character. They are used here because they help to maintain that exactness of expression so necessary in this style.
2) in poetry.
Archaic words and particularly archaic forms of words are sometimes used for satirical purposes.
This is achieved through what is called Anticlimax (a sudden drop from the lofty or serious to the ridiculous: This war-like speech, received with many a cheer, Had filled them with desire of fame, and beer/Byron). The situation in which the archaism is used is not appropriate to the context. There appears a sort of discrepancy between the words actually used and the ordinary situation which excludes the possibility of such a usage.
Here is an example of such a use of an archaic form in Shaw’s play “How He Lied to Her Husband” a youth of eighteen, speaking of his feelings towards a “female of thirty-seven” expresses himself in a lan­guage which is not in conformity with the situation. His words are: “Perfect love casteth off fear.”
Archaic words, word-forms and word-combinations are also used to create an elevated effect.
The stylistic significance of archaic words in historical novels and in other works of fiction (emotive literature - belles-lettres) is different. In historical novels they maintain “local colour”, i.e. they perform the function of creating the atmosphere of the past.
Not so when archaic words are encountered in a depiction of events of present-day life. Here archaisms assume the function of an SD proper. They are perceived in a twofold function, the typical quality of an SD, viz. diachronically and synchronically.
On the other hand, the crowding of such obsolete units of the vocabulary may be interpreted as a ‘parody on the “domain of the few”, whose adherents considered that real poetry should avoid using “mean” words.
In American English many words and forms of words which are obsolete or obsolescent in British English have survived as admissible in literary usage (cf: “there’s a new barn a-building down the road”. The form ‘a-building’ is obsolete, the present form being building (There is a house building = A house is being built).
Stylistic functions of archaic words are based on the temporal per­ception of events described.