Linguistic parameters of stylistic variation in biographical texts (based on an analysis of English biographies of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill)

Abstract
Biographies are used in teaching a wide range of subjects, thus representing a universal type of material that can be valuable in a TESL classroom. The benefits of this study bear relevance to assessing writing strategies that may be used by experts in a variety of fields of inquiry. The article focuses on assessing stylistic variation in biographical texts in English, using the material of a number of highly acclaimed biographies of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill written by the authors for whom English is their first language. The article contains an analysis of the conceptual and linguistic parameters of stylistic variation in these biographical texts. It considers a number of linguistic levels: morphology and vocabulary, in connection with the kinds of inherent and adherent connotations conveyed. Minor and major kinds of syntax are studied in relation to the stylistic neutrality and non-neutrality of the units under study. The functioning of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs is analyzed in order to establish the type of general conceptual characteristics the texts demonstrate. A specialized and non-emotional type of content is based on the predominance of formal specialized connotations; an emotional and nonspecialized type of content is, on the contrary, constituted by emotional, expressive and evaluative connotations. The analytic technique developed shows that there is correlation between the conceptual characteristics of a biographical text and the kind of argumentation it contains. The specialized and non-emotional type of content correlates with arguments supported by factual data; the emotional and non-specialized type corresponds to arguments eluding references to other sources. The results of the analysis undertaken can be applied to designing courses on stylistics of the English and other languages. Also, they can be used to outline a writing strategy for professional journalists, historians, writers, politicians, economists, etc. Purpose: to consider different linguistic levels, analyzing the functioning of nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and syntactic constructions – in relation to the type of content they serve to convey (emotional / non-emotional, specialized / non-specialized). Results: the analysis shows that the emotional and expressive qualities of biographical texts are inversely proportional to the amount of explicit facts they contain, i.e. the more informative
and logically structured a biographical text is the less the author tends to be emotionally involved in the account of events, and vice versa. This analytic technique can be further developed with
the methods of applied (computational) linguistics. Conclusion: a connotation-centered approach to studying the quantitative and qualitative properties of biographical texts can be successfully applied to teaching and studying authentic biographies, and may be extended to analyzing texts of other genres and styles.

Keywords: stylistics, biography, assessing biographical writing, evaluative connotation, part
of speech, syntactic construction, writing strategies and tactics, professional communicative
competence.