Standard Language

Functional Styles and Languages in the Modern Croatian Language Community

Abstract

The paper discusses Silić’s classification of functional styles
and their relationship to the standard language. It examines the terminology used in the classification and focuses on the ‘literary-artistic functional styleʼ and the ‘conversational functional styleʼ. It re-examines the stratification of functional styles in the modern Croatian language community, based on the assumption (following the question “Do Croats speak Croatian?” inspired by the introductory note title “Do Senegalese speak Senegalese?” from Škiljan’s Govor nacije [The Speech of the Nation] (2002) that, due to different communication needs, not all speakers use every functional style and that the majority of speakers are most familiar with the conversational (colloquial) and newspaper (publicist) styles used in everyday communication. A schematic redefinition of functional styles of the (standard) Croatian language is proposed, including their overlaps, correlations, and terminology, as well as their relationship to non-standard language varieties. This classification aims to contribute to resolving linguistic dilemmas in the standard language and its styles, as well as to distinguishing between the standard language and non-standard language varieties. The modernised scheme differentiates between the terms ‘functional style’, which refers to the standard language, and ‘language’, which denotes non-standard language varieties. Therefore, the terms ‘literary language’ and ‘conversational language’ are proposed for two language varieties which partly exit the domain of the standard language. The proposed classification eliminates the ‘literary-artistic functional style’, but, guided by previous criticisms of that style as an integral part of the standard language, extends it to ‘literary language’, which serves as a ‘substrate’ for all standard and non-standard language varieties. The proposed model leaves room for classification and insertion of registers, substyles, and interstyles that have already been covered in the literature.