The main objective of the course is to help students understand and analyze the distinctive features of English functional styles on the basis of text analysis of specimens of the administrative style (form and formal letters), legal English, public speaking, advertising, newspaper writing, scientific prose style, the language of conversation and stylized dialogue.
At the end of the course the students should be able to identify individual functional styles and their distinctive features, and to understand and analyse the differences between different situational varieties of English. Furthermore, they should be able to explain the functions of the style markers and interpret texts from a stylistics point of view. Finally, the students should be able to produce texts representative of the functional styles analysed in this course.