ENGLISH PUNCTUATION MARKS IN THE TEXTS BELONGING TO DIFFERENT FUNCTIONAL STYLES

The article deals with the problems connected with segmentation of the flow of speech. English speech is divided into segments with the help of the complex and specific semiological system - the system of punctuation. Thus, the research conducted contributes into the solution of a more general problem - the dialectal unity of the oral and written forms of English. The peculiar feature of English punctuation marks is that, in contrast with Russian, this system is based on the declamatory-psychological principle. It reflects the semantic and stylistic content of the utterance, rather than its grammatical structure. The way an author uses punctuation marks depends mainly on his/her intention. In other words, English punctuation marks are put semantically-stylistically. The input of the researchers of Speechology linguistic school (Moscow State University) into the theory and practice of English punctuation system can hardly be overestimated. It is stated, in particular, that each punctuation mark corresponds to a certain complex of prosodic features. According to their function and prosody, they are divided into the marks for vertical segmentation of speech and the marks for horizontal stratification of speech. English punctuation marks should evidently be studied through the prism of functional stylistics. In this respect, the italics functions have been defined in the texts belonging to two main functional styles. The italics have been proved to function differently in scientific texts and those of fiction. In the former the punctuation mark is used in accordance with the semantic level of realization of language units which demands the use of syntactic or logical suprasyntactic prosody features. In belle-letter style the italics help, mainly, to create the character speech portrait; to achieve that the italicized units are brought out in speech by means of timbre suprasyntactics.