Style-Related Problems in Essays of Lithuanian Language and Literature State Maturity Examination

Abstract

The article discusses the main problems encountered when assessing the style of the works written for the state maturity examination of Lithuanian language and literature. On the basis of the analysis of maturity examination works written in the period of 2013–2015, attempts are made to find the answers to the most important questions: whether the written maturity examination essays comply with the requirements for styles (sub-styles) they are assigned to and what functional style they have to be ascribed to, what relation of stylistics with rhetoric is like and how an essay is (or has to be) composed, as well as whether assessment of style in essays is always justified. The article consistently presents how the main requirements for a stylistic language are introduced in the Lithuanian language textbooks for 11th-12th forms, as well as discusses the cases of unmotivated and inaccurate marking of style errors in essays, identified during the research on empiric data. The conclusions are drawn that, regrettably, the conception of the essay written in the state maturity examination of Lithuanian language and literature has not been properly considered and has remained unclear till now. The existing agreement that an argumentative essay of state maturity examination is of publicist style and a literary essay has to be of science popularisation sub-style reveal the theoretical incompleteness and the absence of systematic approach to the problem. Teachers and researchers have to come to a unanimous agreement on the style, sub-style and genre of the examination essay. The examination evaluators have to approach each essay as an original work rather than to assess it following the established text writing rules. It is necessary to determine the deviations from style and to reduce the gap between the teaching process and assessment. Keywords: essay, rhetoric, culture of style, stylistics, state maturity examination. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/zz.2016.2