The analysis of Past tense expression in the texts of different functional styles

       Better to use simple tenses, when an action occurs in the past or present or will occur in the future. Perfect tenses best suited, when an action occurs in one time-zone but is seen in relation to another time-zone. When things happen at the same time, the tenses of the verbs have to be the same too.

        In belles-lettres styles are used different times. Past tense in the belles-lettres style with the character dialogue in present tense has been the most popular method. This is also the most comfortable and familiar to readers.

        Present tense has a faster pace than past tense. Combined with a first person narrative, a story written in present tense puts the reader directly into the action with the sense of immediacy and urgency that was created.

         But we study the use of past time in belles-lettres style. We have chosen the text “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty³⁷, which is written in past time, for analyse of the past tenses in the belles-lettres style.

       Probably most of stories, which are written in the belles-lettres style, are told in the simple past tense, the so-called narrative past as in these examples:

   “The long June twilight faded into night. Dublin lay enveloped in darkness but for the dim light of the moon that shone through fleecy clouds, casting a pale light as of approaching dawn over the streets and the dark waters of the Liffey. Around the beleaguered Four Courts the heavy guns roared. Here and there through the city, machine guns and rifles broke the silence of the night, spasmodically, like dogs barking on lone farms”.

       The past simple tense refers an action to the past without telling anything about the connection with the present moment. It is primarily the tense of narration. 

       When we tell a story, we usually use the simple past tense. We may use the past continuous tense to "set the scene" in stories, we use it to describe the background situation at the moment when the action begins. Often, the story starts with the past continuous tense and then moves into the simple past tense, we almost always use the simple past tense for the action. Look at this example of the beginning of a story:

   "The wind was howling around the hotel and the rain was pouring down. It was cold. The door opened and James Bond entered. He took off his coat, which was very wet, and ordered a drink at the bar. He sat down in the corner of the lounge and quietly drank his drink.

       When narrating past events, it would be better not to mix past and present tenses (avoid using the present perfect and present simple), as these will confuse the reader/listener about when things really happened. For instance,

   “Mrs. Mallory sees her returning son and, in her excitement, twisted her ankle rather badly. Her sister calls the doctor immediately”.

In this example, the verb "twisted" is the only verb that appears in the past tense. It should appear in the present tense, "twists," or the other verbs should be changed to the past tense as well. Switching verb tenses upsets the time sequence of narration.

        The past simple is used to express a completed action at a definite time in the past. The separate events which occur in sequence in a narrative are expressed using this tense.

   “He finished the sandwich, and, taking a flask of whiskey from his pocket, he took a short drought. Then he returned the flask to his pocket”, here, the order of the verbs reflects chronological order. In the example:

   “She began to talk to the man in the turret of the car. She was pointing to the roof where the sniper lay”, the events are not presented in order; and one event was simultaneous with another indicated by the past progressive.

       There are some verbs in the narrative which can occur in both the simple past and past progressive. The choice of inflection relates to point of view. If the event is viewed as a whole or single point, simple past is used. If the event is viewed as filling an interval or period of time, the past progressive is used. For example: 

   “Then she looked at me. I thought that she was looking at me for the first time”.

       Tense also contributes to the structure of narratives. The simple past tense carries the main story line, or foreground. Foreground events occur in chronological order. In contrast, other tense forms populate the background. The background provides information which elaborates or evaluates events in the foreground. The background is not in chronological order and can be used to set the scene or to make comments about events in the foreground, or to predict future events. These diverse functions result in the use of diverse tense forms. Simple past also occurs in the background. The important point is that the other forms generally do not occur in the foreground.

In this narrative we see only simple past in the foreground, but in the background we find simple past (He dropped immediately, He wanted to fire), past progressive (He was eating a sandwich hungrily, He was now standing before a row of chimney pots), and past perfect tense (He had eaten nothing since morning, He had seen the flash).

       Authors tend to use active voice rather than passive voice in belles-lettres style.

Overuse of the passive voice throughout a story can make author’s prose seem flat and uninteresting. Sentences in active voice are also more concise than those in passive voice. In sentences written in passive voice, the subject receives the action expressed in the verb; the subject is acted upon. In sentences written in active voice, the subject performs the action expressed in the verb; the subject acts. So, many stories in belles-lettres style are written in active voice.

        To sum it up, we found out that in the belles-lettres styles are widely used the simple past tense for the actions and past continuous to describe the background situations.

        But, increasingly, writers have been experimenting with tense now, especially in shorter works and literary fiction.

        The publicistic style is used in public speeches and printed public works which are addressed to a broad audience and devoted to important social or political events, public problems of cultural or moral character.

        The general aim of the publicist style is to exert influence on public opinion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech, essay or article not merely by logical argumentation, but by emotional appeal as well.

        Therefore, one of the main features of the speech and essay is a grammar peculiarity of the language.  The use of tenses in the publicistic style depends on what type it is. Whatever tense makes sense. If events happened in the past, then it should be written in the past tense. If all events are in the present, or about things that are constant, then there should be used the present tense.

       Both present and past tense is fine for a descriptive or narrative essay, but the present tense would serve better if it's a persuasive, critical analysis, or research essay. Usually for most composition and formal essays, it should be used present tense. Usually the past tense should be used in primarily personal narrative essays.

      As we said, the aim of the publicistic style is to influence on public opinion and to convince the reader or the listener, so it should be written in simple grammar structure, as simple present or simple past tense.

   In order to understand better, ways of expression past time in the publicistic style, we have analysed the part of the autobiographical essay of Abraham Lincoln³⁸, under the title “Not much of me”.

       The desire of the speaker to convince and to rouse his audience results in the use of the simple past tense in the texts of the publicistic style. Also, in this article, we have seen the frequent use of the simple past tense. As in the examples:

          I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams and others in Macon counties, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. An effort to identify them with the New-England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.

       My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he grew up, litterally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached a new home about the time the State came in the Union. There I grew up. If a straggler supposed to understand latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizzard.

Of course when I came of age I did not know much.

       I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Illinois— Macon county. Then I got to New-Salem, (at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard county), where I remained a year as a sort of Clerk in a store. Then came the Black-Hawk war; and I was elected a Captain of Volunteers—a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went the campaign, was elated, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832) and was beaten—the only time I have been beaten by the people. The next, and three succeeding biennial² elections, I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterwards. During this Legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.

      Here, the past simple is used to express a completed action at a definite time in the past, also to express the separate events which occur in sequence. In the publicistic style is sometimes used the present perfect tense, in our article we have found only several sentences using this tense. For example:

   “The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity”.

   It is used here to describe a continuing trend. He began to pick up his education, many years ago and had continued to pick up the rest of his life.

“I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Too many misrepresentations have been made, too many misunderstandings have come up between the white men about the Indians. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian, that he shall stay in one place while he sees white men going where they please. Then came the Black-Hawk war; and I was elected a Captain of Volunteers—a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. What I have done since then is pretty well known”.

It is used here to describe a completed activity which has an impact on the present.

      As it was mentioned above, publicistic style serves to exert constant and deep influence on public opinion. The speech of the author should be in complete sentences and easily understood. Therefore, active voice is preferable to passive for the majority of sentences. Overuse of passive voice or use of passive voice in long and complicated sentences can cause readers to lose interest or to become confused. Sentences in active voice are generally clearer and more direct than those in passive voice. Sentences in active voice are also more concise than those in passive voice because fewer words are required to express action in active voice than in passive.

      To sum it up, we have found out from our research, that in the publicistic style are widely used the simple present and the simple past tense, in order to present arguments transparently and to make clear and comprehensive  the speech of the author.

        The next text, which is going to be analysed, is the text of the newspaper style. Newspaper language is recognized as a particular variety of style, characterized by a specific communicative purpose and its own system of language means.

       It includes a system of interrelated lexical, phraseological and grammatical means serving the purpose of informing, instructing and, in addition, of entertaining the reader. As a result of this diversity of purposes, newspapers contain not only strictly informational, but also evaluative material – comments and views of the news-writers, especially characteristic of editorials and feature articles.

       According to our investigation we have found out that, in the newspaper styles are widely used the past simple and the present perfect tense.

       The past simple tense is usually used in the newspapers to give detailed, specific information about what, where and when something happened. The present perfect tense is used to report events which have just happened, that is, to report “Hot news”. We have given two exampels of the newspaper style, in which we demonstrate the use of the past simple and present perfect tenses in the newspaper articles.

        The following report aired less than two weeks after the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building during the search for the second suspect. This text provides examples of the hot news present perfect (the use of the present perfect to report events which have just happened).

   Robert Siegel: And does the fact there's a new drawing mean that there are more and more people whom they're talking to who--who saw Timothy McVeigh with this man? Is that what's happening?

 Wade Goodwyn: It's hard to say where they have gotten this new drawing from. FBI agent Kennedy said they have gotten over 13,000 phone calls regarding John Doe number two and they have got seven million pieces of information they have working on. He talked about this - some high-tech gadgetry they have called the 'rapid start automated case support system,' which is a database of over 30-million bits of information that they are using to correlate all of the evidence they've been gathering, but it doesn't seem to be a whole lot to go on. There are two new pieces of information that we've heard today. One is that FBI agents have cordoned off portions of a state park in Kansas, outside of Junction City. They have sent divers into a lake and are combing through the woods. They believe that the bomb may have been assembled in this state park. They have found a large fuel spill on the ground....

All Things Considered, May 1, 1995

       This text illustrates the use of a series of present perfect verbs to report recent, but unordered events. Thus, the events reported in getting 13,000 phone calls, naming the 'rapid start automated case support system,' and gathering information are all unordered with respect to each other. Similarly, cordoning off the park, sending divers into the lake, and finding a fuel spill are all recent, but unordered with respect to each other. If these events were reported in simple past, the reader would have no choice but to interpret them as sequential.

       The simple past is used in the newspaper style to describe an action, an event, or condition in detail that occurred in the past. Let’s look at the next article, which is written in the newspaper style using the simple past tense. The text which is going to be analysed here is taken from The Guardian, By Dominic Times dated 07/10/2004. It is an informative text given under the topic of “Two reporters killed in Iraq”³⁹. 

   The death toll among journalists working in Iraq reached another grim landmark yesterday after gunmen opened fire on reporters, killing two and injuring a third; bringing the number of media fatalities in the Gulf conflict to 30.

   The two journalists, who worked for Polish state television, were killed after a car they were driving in ran over a mine and was fired upon by unidentified gunmen, according to Lt Col Robert Strzelecki, a spokesman for Polish forces in Iraq.

   The third journalist, cameraman Jerzy Ernst, was wounded in the arm and airlifted to an American hospital. All three worked for the Polish TVP station.

   The two men were killed near the town of Mahmoudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, local police said.

   Two CNN journalists were killed in the area in January. Translator and producer Duraid Isa Mohammed and driver Yasser Khatab died of multiple gunshot wounds after the convoy they were travelling in came under attack.

   The latest killings came just hours after US president George Bush appeared on Iraqi TV in a damage limitation exercise, after pictures of US soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners were broadcast around the Arab world. The PR exercise was widely scorned across the region after Mr. Bush stopped short of making a public apology. When the President of the United States of America comes to Arab TV and tries to talk about this issue, people are expecting an apology. If he did the apology yesterday, that would be something very, very helpful, said Ilukman Ahmed, a journalist for al-Arabiya TV, who interviewed the president.

   Yesterday’s deaths bring the number of journalists killed around the world in the last year to 44, the highest level in nearly a decade, according to figures published by press freedom campaigners Reporters Sans Frontieres.

   The president of RSF, Pierre Veilletet, described the last 12 months as a black year.

Dominic Times, The Guardian. 
Friday, May 7, 2004

       Each of the highlighted verbs in the previous sentences is in the simple past tense and each sentence describes an action taking place at some point in past.

       In the newspaper style, the more immediate story, that is, hot news is likely to use the present perfect, while the older story will be written primarily in simple past. As an example, consider the English-language television news reports the day that the verdict in the O.J. Simpson case was handed down. The verdict in the O.J. Simpson case has been reached and the jury has found O.J. Simpson not guilty. In contrast, Newsweek, which by virtue of its weekly publishing schedule can almost never report hot news, wrote:

  For 10 minutes last week, America stood still. One hundred and fifty million people watched on TV; phones went silent. After a year in court, the verdict was abrupt: O.J. Simpson was free. (Newsweek, Oct 16, 1995, Mark Whitaker)

       In newspaper style is used passive voice rather than active voice; passive structures are more common in formal situations such as reports. The passive voice is effective in some circumstances because it highlights the action and what is acted upon rather than the agent performing the action. As in the following examples: