Stylistics

Last updated

Stylistics, a branch of applied linguistics, is the study and interpretation of texts of all types, but particularly literary texts, and/or spoken language in regard to their linguistic and tonal style, where style is the particular variety of language used by different individuals and/or in different situations or settings. For example, the vernacular, or everyday language may be used among casual friends, whereas more formal language, with respect to grammar, pronunciation or accent, and lexicon or choice of words, is often used in a cover letter and résumé and while speaking during a job interview.

Contents

As a discipline, stylistics links literary criticism to linguistics. It does not function as an autonomous domain on its own, and it can be applied to an understanding of literature and journalism as well as linguistics. [1] [2] [3] Sources of study in stylistics may range from canonical works of writing to popular texts, and from advertising copy to news, [4] non-fiction, and popular culture, as well as to political and religious discourse. [5] Indeed, as recent work in critical stylistics, [6] multimodal stylistics [7] and mediated stylistics [8] has made clear, non-literary texts may be of just as much interest to stylisticians as literary ones. Literariness, in other words, is here conceived as 'a point on a cline rather than as an absolute'. [9] [10]

Stylistics as a conceptual discipline may attempt to establish principles capable of explaining particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language, such as in the literary production and reception of genre, the study of folk art, in the study of spoken dialects and registers, and can be applied to areas such as discourse analysis as well as literary criticism.

Plain language has different features. Common stylistic features are using dialogue, regional accents and individual idioms (or idiolects). Stylistically, also sentence length prevalence and language register use.

Early twentieth century

The analysis of literary style goes back to the study of classical rhetoric, though modern stylistics has its roots in Russian Formalism [11] and the related Prague School of the early twentieth century.

In 1909, Charles Bally proposed stylistics as a distinct academic discipline to complement Saussurean linguistics. For Bally, Saussure's linguistics by itself couldn't fully describe the language of personal expression. [12] Bally's programme fits well with the aims of the Prague School. [13]

Taking forward the ideas of the Russian Formalists, the Prague School built on the concept of foregrounding , where it is assumed that poetic language is considered to stand apart from non-literary background language, by means of deviation (from the norms of everyday language) or parallelism . [14] According to the Prague School, however, this background language isn't constant, and the relationship between poetic and everyday language is therefore always shifting. [15]

Late twentieth century

Roman Jakobson had been an active member of the Russian Formalists and the Prague School, before emigrating to America in the 1940s. He brought together Russian Formalism and American New Criticism in his Closing Statement at a conference on stylistics at Indiana University in 1958. [16] Published as Linguistics and Poetics in 1960, Jakobson's lecture is often credited with being the first coherent formulation of stylistics, and his argument was that the study of poetic language should be a sub-branch of linguistics. [17] The poetic function was one of six general functions of language he described in the lecture.

Michael Halliday is an important figure in the development of British stylistics. [18] His 1971 study Linguistic Function and Literary Style: An Inquiry into the Language of William Golding's The Inheritors is a key essay. [19] One of Halliday's contributions has been the use of the term register to explain the connections between language and its context. [20] For Halliday register is distinct from dialect. Dialect refers to the habitual language of a particular user in a specific geographical or social context. Register describes the choices made by the user, [21] choices which depend on three variables: field ("what the participants... are actually engaged in doing", for instance, discussing a specific subject or topic), [22] tenor (who is taking part in the exchange) and mode (the use to which the language is being put).

Fowler comments that different fields produce different language, most obviously at the level of vocabulary (Fowler. 1996, 192) The linguist David Crystal points out that Halliday's 'tenor' stands as a roughly equivalent term for 'style', which is a more specific alternative used by linguists to avoid ambiguity (Crystal. 1985, 292). Halliday's third category, mode, is what he refers to as the symbolic organisation of the situation. Downes recognises two distinct aspects within the category of mode and suggests that not only does it describe the relation to the medium: written, spoken, and so on, but also describes the genre of the text (Downes. 1998, 316). Halliday refers to genre as pre-coded language, language that has not simply been used before, but that predetermines the selection of textual meanings. The linguist William Downes makes the point that the principal characteristic of register, no matter how peculiar or diverse, is that it is obvious and immediately recognisable (Downes. 1998, 309).

Literary stylistics

In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Crystal observes that, in practice, most stylistic analysis has attempted to deal with the complex and 'valued' language within literature, i.e. 'literary stylistics'. He goes on to say that in such examination the scope is sometimes narrowed to concentrate on the more striking features of literary language, for instance, its 'deviant' and abnormal features, rather than the broader structures that are found in whole texts or discourses. For example, the compact language of poetry is more likely to reveal the secrets of its construction to the stylistician than is the language of plays and novels (Crystal. 1987, 71).

Poetry

As well as conventional styles of language there are the unconventional – the most obvious of which is poetry. In Practical Stylistics, HG Widdowson examines the traditional form of the epitaph, as found on headstones in a cemetery. For example:

His memory is dear today
As in the hour he passed away.
(Ernest C. Draper 'Ern'. Died 4.1.38)
(Widdowson. 1992, 6)

Widdowson makes the point that such sentiments are usually not very interesting and suggests that they may even be dismissed as 'crude verbal carvings' and crude verbal disturbance (Widdowson, 3). Nevertheless, Widdowson recognises that they are a very real attempt to convey feelings of human loss and preserve affectionate recollections of a beloved friend or family member. However, what may be seen as poetic in this language is not so much in the formulaic phraseology but in where it appears. The verse may be given undue reverence precisely because of the sombre situation in which it is placed. Widdowson suggests that, unlike words set in stone in a graveyard, poetry is unorthodox language that vibrates with inter-textual implications (Widdowson. 1992, 4).

Two problems with a stylistic analysis of poetry are noted by PM Wetherill in Literary Text: An Examination of Critical Methods. The first is that there may be an over-preoccupation with one particular feature that may well minimise the significance of others that are equally important (Wetherill. 1974, 133). The second is that any attempt to see a text as simply a collection of stylistic elements will tend to ignore other ways whereby meaning is produced (Wetherill. 1974, 133).

Implicature

In 'Poetic Effects' from Literary Pragmatics, the linguist Adrian Pilkington analyses the idea of 'implicature', as instigated in the previous work of Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. Implicature may be divided into two categories: 'strong' and 'weak' implicature, yet between the two extremes there are a variety of other alternatives. The strongest implicature is what is emphatically implied by the speaker or writer, while weaker implicatures are the wider possibilities of meaning that the hearer or reader may conclude.

Pilkington's 'poetic effects', as he terms the concept, are those that achieve most relevance through a wide array of weak implicatures and not those meanings that are simply 'read in' by the hearer or reader. Yet the distinguishing instant at which weak implicatures and the hearer or reader's conjecture of meaning diverge remains highly subjective. As Pilkington says: 'there is no clear cut-off point between assumptions which the speaker certainly endorses and assumptions derived purely on the hearer's responsibility.' (Pilkington. 1991, 53) In addition, the stylistic qualities of poetry can be seen as an accompaniment to Pilkington's poetic effects in understanding a poem's meaning.

Tense

Widdowson points out that in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798), the mystery of the Mariner's abrupt appearance is sustained by an idiosyncratic use of tense. (Widdowson. 1992, 40) For instance, the Mariner 'holds' the wedding-guest with his 'skinny hand' in the present tense, but releases it in the past tense ('...his hands dropt he.'); only to hold him again, this time with his 'glittering eye', in the present (Widdowson. 1992, 41).

The point of poetry

Widdowson notices that when the content of poetry is summarised, it often refers to very general and unimpressive observations, such as 'nature is beautiful; love is great; life is lonely; time passes', and so on (Widdowson. 1992, 9). But to say:

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end ...
William Shakespeare, '60'.

Or, indeed:

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days months, which are the rags of time ...
John Donne, 'The Sun Rising', Poems (1633)

This language gives the reader a new perspective on familiar themes and allows us to look at them without the personal or social conditioning that we unconsciously associate with them (Widdowson. 1992, 9). So, although the reader may still use the same exhausted words and vague terms like 'love', 'heart' and 'soul' to refer to human experience, to place these words in a new and refreshing context allows the poet the ability to represent humanity and communicate honestly. This, in part, is stylistics, and this, according to Widdowson, is the point of poetry (Widdowson. 1992, 76).

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Widdowson, H.G. 1975. Stylistics and the teaching of literature. Longman: London. ISBN   0-582-55076-9
  2. ↑ Simpson, Paul. 2004. Stylistics : A resource book for students. Routledge p. 2: "Stylistics is a method of textual interpretation in which primacy of place is assigned to language".
  3. ↑ Attenborough, F. (2014). "Rape is rape (except when it's not): the media, recontextualisation and violence against women". Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict. 2(2): 183-203.
  4. ↑ Davies, M. (2007) The attraction of opposites: the ideological function of conventional and created oppositions in the construction of in-groups and out-groups in news texts, in L. Jeffries, D. McIntyre, D. Bousfield (eds.) Stylistics and Social Cognition. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
  5. ↑ Simpson, Paul. 2004. Stylistics: A resource book for students. Routledge p. 3: "The preferred object of study in stylistics is literature, whether that be institutionally sanctioned 'literature' as high art or more popular 'non-canonical' forms of writing.".
  6. ↑ Jeffries, L. (2010) Critical Stylistics. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
  7. ↑ Montoro, R. (2006) Analysting literature through films, in G. Watson, S. Zyngier (eds.) Literature and Stylistics for Language Learners: Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 48-59.
  8. ↑ Attenborough, F. (2014) Jokes, pranks, blondes and banter: recontextualising sexism in the British print press, Journal of Gender Studies, 23(2): 137-154.
  9. ↑ Jeffries, L., McIntyre, D. (2010) Stylistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 2.
  10. ↑ Carter, R., Nash, W. (1990) Seeing through Language: a guide to styles of English writing. Oxford: Blackwell.
  11. ↑ Lesley Jeffries, Daniel McIntyre, Stylistics, Cambridge University Press, 2010, p 1. ISBN   0-521-72869-X
  12. ↑ , Talbot J. Taylor, Mutual Misunderstanding: Scepticism and the Theorizing of Language and Interpretation, Duke University Press, 1992, p 91. ISBN   0-8223-1249-2
  13. ↑ Ulrich Ammon, Status and Function of Languages and Language Varieties, Walter de Gruyter, 1989, p 518. ISBN   0-89925-356-3
  14. ↑ Katie Wales, A Dictionary of Stylistics, Pearson Education, 2001, p 315. ISBN   0-582-31737-1
  15. ↑ Rob Pope, The English Studies Book: an Introduction to Language, Literature and Culture, Routledge, 2002, p 88. ISBN   0-415-25710-7
  16. ↑ Richard Bradford, A Linguistic History of English Poetry, Routledge, 1993, p 8. ISBN   0-415-07057-0
  17. ↑ Nikolas Coupland, Style: Language Variation and Identity, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p 10. ISBN   0-521-85303-6
  18. ↑ Raman Selden, The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: From Formalism to Poststructuralism, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p83. ISBN   0-521-30013-4
  19. ↑ Paul Simpson, Stylistics: a Resource Book for Students, Routledge, 2004, p75. ISBN   0-415-28104-0
  20. ↑ Helen Leckie-Tarry, Language and Context: a Functional Linguistic Theory of Register, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1995, p6. ISBN   1-85567-272-3
  21. ↑ Nikolas Coupland, Style: Language Variation and Identity, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p 12. ISBN   0-521-85303-6
  22. ↑ Christopher S. Butler, Structure and Function: a Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003, p 373. ISBN   1-58811-361-2

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Jakobson</span> Russian linguist

Roman Osipovich Jakobson was a Russian linguist and literary theorist.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice. CDA combines critique of discourse and explanation of how it figures within and contributes to the existing social reality, as a basis for action to change that existing reality in particular respects. Scholars working in the tradition of CDA generally argue that (non-linguistic) social practice and linguistic practice constitute one another and focus on investigating how societal power relations are established and reinforced through language use. In this sense, it differs from discourse analysis in that it highlights issues of power asymmetries, manipulation, exploitation, and structural inequities in domains such as education, media, and politics.

Norman Fairclough is an emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University. He is one of the founders of critical discourse analysis (CDA) as applied to sociolinguistics. CDA is concerned with how power is exercised through language. CDA studies discourse; in CDA this includes texts, talk, video and practices.

Jonathan Culler is an American literary critic. He was Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. His published works are in the fields of structuralism, literary theory and literary criticism.

In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow prescriptive norms for formal usage than in a casual setting, for example, by pronouncing words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal, choosing words that are considered more "formal", and refraining from using words considered nonstandard, such as ain't and y'all.

Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. The goal of any ethnopoetic text is to show how the techniques of unique oral performers enhance the aesthetic value of their performances within their specific cultural contexts. Major contributors to ethnopoetic theory include Jerome Rothenberg, Dennis Tedlock, and Dell Hymes. Ethnopoetics is considered a subfield of ethnology, anthropology, folkloristics, stylistics, linguistics, literature and translation studies.

Henry George Widdowson is a British linguist and an authority in the field of applied linguistics and language teaching, specifically English language learning and teaching.

Cognitive poetics is a school of literary criticism that applies the principles of cognitive science, particularly cognitive psychology, to the interpretation of literary texts. It has ties to reader-response criticism, and also has a grounding in modern principles of cognitive linguistics. The research and focus on cognitive poetics paves way for psychological, sociocultural and indeed linguistic dimensions to develop in relation to stylistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cognitive rhetoric</span>

Cognitive rhetoric refers to an approach to rhetoric, composition, and pedagogy as well as a method for language and literary studies drawing from, or contributing to, cognitive science.

Geoffrey Neil Leech FBA was a specialist in English language and linguistics. He was the author, co-author, or editor of more than 30 books and more than 120 published papers. His main academic interests were English grammar, corpus linguistics, stylistics, pragmatics, and semantics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet linguistics</span> Domain of linguistics

Internet linguistics is a domain of linguistics advocated by the English linguist David Crystal. It studies new language styles and forms that have arisen under the influence of the Internet and of other new media, such as Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging. Since the beginning of human–computer interaction (HCI) leading to computer-mediated communication (CMC) and Internet-mediated communication (IMC), experts, such as Gretchen McCulloch have acknowledged that linguistics has a contributing role in it, in terms of web interface and usability. Studying the emerging language on the Internet can help improve conceptual organization, translation and web usability. Such study aims to benefit both linguists and web users combined.

The Poetics and Linguistics Association is an international academic association which exists to promote the research, teaching and learning in the study of linguistic style and the language of literature. The Poetics and Linguistics Association is usually known by the acronym PALA. The main activities of PALA are the publication of the journal Language and Literature, and an annual conference.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguistics is based on a theoretical as well as a descriptive study of language and is also interlinked with the applied fields of language studies and language learning, which entails the study of specific languages. Before the 20th century, linguistics evolved in conjunction with literary study and did not employ scientific methods. Modern-day linguistics is considered a science because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language – i.e., the cognitive, the social, the cultural, the psychological, the environmental, the biological, the literary, the grammatical, the paleographical, and the structural.

Foregrounding is a concept in literary studies that concerns making a linguistic utterance stand out from the surrounding linguistic context, from given literary traditions, or from more general world knowledge. It is "the 'throwing into relief' of the linguistic sign against the background of the norms of ordinary language." There are two main types of foregrounding: parallelism and deviation. Parallelism can be described as unexpected regularity, while deviation can be seen as unexpected irregularity. As the definition of foregrounding indicates, these are relative concepts. Something can only be unexpectedly regular or irregular within a particular context. This context can be relatively narrow, such as the immediate textual surroundings, or wider such as an entire genre. Foregrounding can occur on all levels of language. It is generally used to highlight important parts of a text, aid memorability, and/or invite interpretation.

<i>Language and Literature</i> Academic journal

Language and Literature is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles in the field of stylistics. The journal's editor is Dan McIntyre. It has been published since 1992, first by Longman and then by SAGE Publications in association with the Poetics and Linguistics Association.

In literary theory, literariness is the organisation of language which through special linguistic and formal properties distinguishes literary texts from non-literary texts. The defining features of a literary work do not reside in extraliterary conditions such as history or sociocultural phenomena under which a literary text might have been created, but in the form of the language that is used. Thus, literariness is defined as being the feature that makes a given work a literary work. It distinguishes a literary work from ordinary texts by using certain artistic devices such as metre, rhyme, and other patterns of sound and repetition.

Mediated stylistics or media stylistics is a new and still emerging approach to the analysis of media texts. It aims to take seriously two ideas: first, that media texts involve 'the construction of stories by other means'; and second, that in an age marked by digital connectivity, media texts are inherently interactive phenomena. To meet this twofold aim, mediated stylistics has brought together the analytic toolkits of discursive psychology—which is finely attuned to the contextual specificities of interaction—and stylistics—which is finely attuned to the grammatical/rhetorical/narratorial specificities of texts as texts. Recent research in which mediated stylistics has been put to work, for instance, has shown how mediated representation of issues like sexism, sexualisation, alleged rape and violence against women can differ, and differ in rhetorically consequential ways, from the original un-mediated source material.

Elena Semino is an Italian-born British linguist whose research involves stylistics and metaphor theory. Focusing on figurative language in a range of poetic and prose works, most recently she has worked on topics from the domains of medical humanities and health communication. Her projects use corpus linguistic methods as well as qualitative analysis.

Michael Henry 'Mick' Short is a British linguist. He is currently an honorary professor at the Department of Linguistics and English Language of Lancaster University, United Kingdom. His research focuses on applied linguistics with a special focus on stylistics.

Alice Marie-Claude Caffarel-Cayron is a French-Australian linguist. She is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Caffarel is recognized for the development of a Systemic Functional Grammar of French which has been applied in the teaching of the French language, Discourse analysis and Stylistics at the University of Sydney. Caffarel is recognised as an expert in the field of French Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL).

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.