Publicist style became discernible as a separate style in the middle of the 18th century. It also falls into three varieties, each having its own distinctive features, which integrate them. Unlike other styles the publicistic style has spoken varieties, in particular, the oratorical substyle. The development of radio and television has brought into being a new spoken variety, namely, the radio commentary. The other two are the essay (moral, philosophical, literary) and articles (political, social, and economic) in newspapers, journals and magazines.
Book reviews in journals and magazines and also pamphlets are generally included among essays. The general aim of publicistic style, which makes it stand out as a separate style, is to exert a constant and deep 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, essays or article nor merely by logical argumentation but by emotional appeal as well. This brainwashing function is most effective in oratory, for here the most powerful instrument of persuasion is brought into play: the human voice. Due to its characteristic combination of logical argumentation and emotional appeal publicistic style has features in common with the style of scientific prose, on the one hand, and that of emotive prose, on the other. It’s coherent and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of connectives and its careful paragraphing, makes it similar to scientific prose.
Publicistic style is also characterized by brevity of expression .In some varieties of this style it becomes a leading feature, an important linguistic means. In essays brevity some times becomes epigrammatic.
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