“Irony is a jesting behind hidden gravity”-John Weiss 
 

     “Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom”-Anatoly France  
 

     “Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding”-Agnes Repplier   

     “Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves”-Karl Kraus  

     “Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization”-Victor Hugo 

     “Irony is a form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time”-Friedrich Schlegel.

 

      Socrates himself takes the role of the ‘eiron’ or ‘dissembler and assuming the pose of ignorance and foolishnes,asks seemingly innocuous and naive question which gradually undermine his interlocutor’s case and trap him (through the letter’s admissions) into seeing the truth. Hence What is known as Socratic irony Demosthenes regarded an ‘eiron’ as a man who ducked his responsibilities as a citizen by pretence of illnes.Theophrastus regarded an ‘eiron’ as a person who was slippery in his speech,non-committal;a man who does not come out into the open. In Greek comedy the ‘eiron’ was the underdog, a feeble but crafty and quick-witted character who got the better of Alozon the braggadocio type who was loud-mouthed and blockheaded.

     For the Roman rhetoricians ‘ironia’ denouted a rhetorical figure and a manner of discourse, in which, for the most part, the meaning was contrary to the words. This double-edged ness appears to be a diachronic feature of irony.

     It is not until 1502 that we find the first mention of irony in English ‘yronye’-‘of grammar, by the which a man sayth one and gyveth to understand the contrary’.

     One receives the general impression that in England and Europe the concept of irony developed gradually and lagged far behind the practice of it.

     Once we are alerted to the nature of this kind of irony we can find numerous instances.A.W.Schlegel pointed out the ironical nature of the equilibrium or equipoise maintained between the serious and the comic. Comic relief itself, can, by contrast, intensify the irony of a situation. Kari Solger introduced the concept that true irony begins with the coof the fate of the world: a concept which goes under the of World Irony or Cosmic Irony or Philosophical Irony.

 

      An important work in the history of irony is Thirwall’s essay On The Irony of Sophocles. He discussed verbal or rhetorical irony, and also what he calls’ Dialectical Irony’. In the same essay he points out the paradoxical nature of irony.

In The Concept of Irony

     Kierkegaard elaborated the idea that irony of seeing things, a way of viewing existence. Later, Amiel, in his Journal In time expressed the view that irony springs from a perception of the absurdity of life. Others who developed theories theories about irony were Nietzsche, Baudelaire Heine and Thomas Mann. For them, most irony is Romantic. Romantic Irony

     The two basic kinds of irony are verbal and irony of situation At its Simplest, verbal irony involves

            

     As irony is such oblique quality or mode of expression, it would be true to say that in many works by many of these authors we find not so much direct or overt irony, but,rather,an ironic temper or tone. The dry, teasing, laconic, detached sensibility which permeates their work develops into an individual vision of human beings and existence. These five authors in particular share the ability to make the smile on the face of the reader broader and broader and broader, slowly.until, finally,he finds himself layghing.Of the five, Thomas Mann is probably the most accomplished at this kind of ironical joke.

     Many writers have distanced themselves to a vantage point, a quasi god-like eminence, the better to be able to view things. The artist becomes a kind of god viewing creation with a smile. From this is a short step to the idea that God himself is the supreme ironist, watching the antics of human beings, with a detached, ironical smile. The spectator in the theatre is in a similar position.

     Thus the everlasting human condition is regarded as potentially absurd. In fact Mann, expert on the ironical, when speaking of the novel (in Die Kunst des Romans, 1939) says that the novel keeps its distance from things and by its very nature is distanced from them; it ‘hovers’ over them.

     Irony has many functions. It is often the witting or unwitting instrument of truth. It chides, purifies, refines, deflates scorns and ‘send up’. It is not surprising, therefore, that irony is the most precious and efficient weapon of the satirist.

     It can be no accident that the beginning of the great age of satire in the second half of the 17c.roughly coincides with the increasing use of irony as a means of expression throughout a work. It is as if before then many writers were fully aware of the possibilities and uses of irony but had not considered it to be a mode for conducting or bearining a whole work.

     Irony went ‘out of fashion’ later in the 18^th c. but was revived by the prose writers of the 19^th c.Ironical verse is rare in this period, but Byron’s is an honorable exception. In prose the consummate ironist of the 19^th c. is Samuel Butler whose major achievements in irony

     With the decline of satire in the 20^th c.irony ceases to be the principal mode except in Thomas Mann’s novels; though it is frequently occasional, so to speak, in verse, prose and drama.

 

Functional styles

     We have defined the object of linguo-stylistics as the study of the nature, functional styles, on the other.

     It is now time to outline the general principles on which functional styles rest. A functional style of language means which serves a definite aim in communication. A functional style is thus to be

     regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of a language.

     The literary standard of the English language, like that of any other developed language, is not so homogeneous as it may seem. In fact the standard English literary language in the course of its development has fallen into several subsystems each of which has acquired its own peculiarities which are typical of the given functional style. The members of the language community, especially those who are sufficiently trained and responsive to language variations, recognize these styles as independent wholes. The peculiar choice of language means is primarily predetermined by the aim of the communication with the result that a more or less closed system is built up. One set of language media stands in opposition to other sets of language media with other aims, and these other sets have other choices and arrangement of language means.

     In the English literary standard we distinguish the following major functional styles.

     1) The language of belles-lettres.

     2) The language of publicistic literature.

     3) The language of newspapers.

     4) The language of scientific prose.

     5) The language of official documents.

     As has already been mentioned, functional styles are the product the development of the written variety of language. Each FS may be characterized by a number of distinctive features, leading or subordinate, constant or changing, obligatory or optional. We clearly perceive the following substyles of the five FSs given above.

Belles-lettres style

     The style of creative literature may e called the richest register of communication: besides its own language means which are not used in any other sphere of communication, belles-lettres style makes ample use of other styles too, for in numerous works of literary art we find elements of scientific, official and other functional types of speech. Besides informative and persuasive functions, also found in other functional styles the belles-lettres style has a unique task to impress the reader aesthetically. The form becomes meaningful and carries additional information as you must have seen from previous chapters. Boundless possibilities of expressing one’s thoughts and feelings make the belles-letters style highly attractive field of investigation for a linguist.

     Speaking of belles-lettres style most scholars almost automatically refer to it prose works, regarding poetry the domain of a special poetic style

     Finishing this brief outline of functional styles observed in modern English, it is necessary to stress again, two points. The first one concerns the dichotomy-written: colloqual, the former opposition meaning the form of presentation, the latter-choice of language means.Te second point deals with the flexibility of style boundaries: the borders within which a style presumably functions are not rigit and allow various degrees of overlapping and melting into each other. It is not accidental that rather often we speak of intermediate cases such as the popular scientific style which combines the features of scientific and belles-lettres styles, or style of new journalism which is a combination of publicist, newspaper and belles-lettres styles.

Publicist style

     Publicist style a perfect example of the historical changeability of stylistic differentiation of discourses. Nowadays political, ideological, ethical, social beliefs ad statements of the addressed in the written form, which waslabelled publicist in accordance with the name of the corresponding genre and its practitioners. Publicist style is famous for its explicit pragmatic function of persuasion directed at influencing the reader and shaping his views in accordance with the argumentation of the author. Correspondingly we find in publicist style a blend of the rigorous logical reasoning, reflecting the objective state of things, and a strong subjectivity reflecting the author’s personal feelings and emotions towards the discussed subject.

Newspaper style

     Newspaper style, as it is evident from its name, is found in newspapers. You should not conclude though that everything published in a newspaper should be referred to the newspaper style. The paper contains vastly varying materials, some of them being publicist essays, some-feature articles, some-scientific reviews, some-official stock-exchange accounts, that a daily newspaper also offers a variety of styles. When we mention ‘newspaper style’, we mean informative materials, characteristic of newspaper only and not found in other publications. To attract the reader’s attention to the news, special graphical means are used. British and American papers are notorious for the change of type, specific headlines, space ordering. We find here a large proportion of dates and personal names of countries, territories, institutions, individuals. To achieve the effect of objectivity and impartiality in rendering some fact or event, most of newspaper information is published anonymously, without the name of the newsman who supplied it, with little or no subjective modality. But the position and attitude of the paper, nonetheless, become clear from the choice not only of subject matter but also of words denoting international or domestic issues.

Scientific style

     Scientific style is employed in professional communication. Its most conspicuous feature is the abundance of terms denoting objects, phenomena and processes characteristic of some particular field of science and technique. Scientific style is also known for its precision, clarity and logical cohesion which is responsible for the repeated use of such clichés as: ‘proceeding from... ‘; As it was said above’; ‘In connection with’ and other lexico-syntactical forms emphasizing the logical connection and interdepence of consecutive parts of the discourse.

Official style

     Official style or the style of official documents is the most conservative one. It preserve cast-iron forms of structuring and uses syntactical constructions and words long known as archaic and not observed anywhere else. Addressing documents and official letters, signing them, expressing the reasons and considerations leading to the subject of the document-all this is strictly regulated both lexically and syntactically. All emotiveness and subjective modality are completely banned out of this style

 

      There are at least two kinds of irony. The first represents utterances the ironical sense of which is evident to any native speaker-utterances that can have only an ironical message no one would ever take them at their face value. The peculiar word-order and stereotyped words make up set phrases implying just the opposite of what they seem to manifest. This kind of irony is called by some authors antiphrasis.

     1) That’s a pretty kettle of fish!

     Жаксы жумыс!Кызык окига!

     2) A fine friend you are!

     Жаксы дос,соз жок!

     I can refer the overwhelming majority of utterances which can be understood either literally or ironically, especially when we deal with written texts. Thus we cannot say if the speaker is serious or ironical when he says:

     3) But of course we know, he’s a rich man, a millionaire.

     Бурак биздин билуимизше,ол бай адам,ол миллионер.

     Irony used with the aim of critical evaluation of the thing spoken about. The general scheme of this variety is: ‘praise stands for blame’. Very seldom do we observe the opposite type: coarse, rude, accusing words used approvingly; The corresponding term is atheism:

     4) Clever bastard! Tough son-of-a-bitch!

     Бул накурыс!Ит сиякты жылдам.

     In this sentences irony used opposite.

 

      5)The Ekaterininsky Canal is notorious with its muddy waters among the river and canals of St.Petersburg.

     Кейде аяк кимдери сондай лас адамдар Невский  проспектинен откенде  Екатеринин каналы оны  шайып отуге хали жок.

     6)Defoe’s The Shortest Way with Dissenters.

     Дефо  алауыздыкпен бул  окигадан кыска жол издеди

     Where the writer pretends to advocate what he actually dissaproves.

In this Dramatic Irony. 

Conclusion

     My work is about irony-the phenomenon which is widely studied by a number of scientific branches. All investigations in this field prove the necessity of distinguishing of two notions: irony as a technique, a stylistic device and irony as results, i.e. an ironic sense, created by a number of different linguistic means. As irony correlates with some forms of critical attitude to life, such as satire, humor, mockery, sarcasm and joke, their definitions and examples are performed in the article. The classification of means of expression of irony is either applied here. It is known that irony is concerned with an emotional sphere

     Of human life.The classification presented here is by no means arbitrary. It is the result of long and minute observations of factual material in which not only peculiarities of language usage were taken into account but also extra linguistic data, in particular the purport of the communication.However,we admit that this classification is not proof against criticism. Other schemes may possibly be elaborated and highlighted by different approaches to the problem of functional styles. The classification of FSs is not a simple matter and any discussion of it is bound to reflect more than one angle of vision. Some stylicists consider that newspaper articles should be classed under the functional style of newspaper language, not under the language of publicistic literature. Others insist on including the language of everyday-life discourse into the system of functional styles.

     It is inevitable, of course that any classification should lead to some kind of simplification of the facts classified, because items are considered in isolation. Moreover, substyles assume, as it were, the aspect of closed systems. But no classification, useful though it may be from the theoretical point of view, should be allowed to blind us as to the conventionality of classification in general. When analyzing concrete texts, we discover that the boundaries between them sometimes become less and less discernible. Thus, for instance, the signs of difference are sometimes almost imperceptible between poetry and emotive prose; between newspaper FS and publicistic FS; between a popular scientific article and a scientific tretise; between an essay and a scientific article. But the extremes are apparent from the ways language units are used both structurally and semantically. Language serves a variety of needs and these needs have given birth to the principles on which our classification is based and which in their turn presuppose the choice and combination of language means.

     We presume that the reader has noticed the insistent use of the expression ‘language style’ or ‘style of language’ in the above classification. This is done in order to emphasize the idea that in this work the word ‘style’ is applied purely to linguistic data.

     The classification given above to our mind adequately represents the facts of the standard English language.

 

Appendix

     1) Italy’s radio, TV woekers on strike.

     Италияның радиосы, теледидар жұмыскерлеріне кауіп төндірді

     2) Back to work-to kills the bill.

     Уақытты өлтіру үшін-жұмұсқа оралу

     3) Ugly noises from Los Angeles mayor’s nest.

     Лос Анжелестің мэрлері орынсыз шу көтерді.

     4) Convict sentenced to life for coffin girl kidnar.

     Қызды ұрлаған үшін өмірлік сотталу

     5) I knew vaguely that the fiest Chapter of Genesis was not quite true, but i did not know why!

     Мен Өмірлік Кітаптің бастапқы жағы шындықтан ауып бара жатқанын аздап түсіндім, бірақ қай жаққа ауғанын түсінбедім