Stylistics

Stylistics is the study of language in literature . It seeks to account for the interpretative
effects of a text through close study of its linguistic detail, such as syntactic structuring, semantic
deviation, deixis, modality, etc., often working through inferred interpretative cohesion of
foregrounded features.
Stylistics uses models and approaches from various fields in linguistics to help draw out
how a specific arrangement of linguistic motifs and structures facilitates and generates certain
aesthetic and hermeneutic effects, to analyse the functioning of textual features as triggers for and
constraints upon interpretation.
The term stylistics is also sometimes used to describe critically reflexive development
of linguistic tools through literary application (this usually being called linguistic stylistics), or the
use of linguistic tools to analyse literary or poetic features (e.g. metaphor) within naturally occurring
language and non-fictional texts (e.g. conversations, advertisements, political speeches). In this
respect, stylistics very much perceives the literariness of language as scalar rather than binary (e.g.
literary vs. non-literary language and texts).
Stylistics can be traced back to aspects of classic rhetoric in its concern with dispositio
(arrangement), and elocutio (style), and ethos and pathos (the audience’s perception of the moral
character of the speaker, and the audience’s emotions as aroused by the affective power of the
speech, respectively, the ‘speaker’ function in literary contexts being performed by narrators and
characters more than authors directly).
The lineage of contemporary Stylistics, however, is more markedly twentieth century,
descending from the evolutions in approaches to language in literature within Structuralism,
Russian Formalism, Prague School Functionalism, through Practical and New Criticism, and
on through Reader Response Theory.
Equally influential, though, are parallel advances from structuralist to poststructuralist notions
of meaning and communication within linguistics, such as the move from descriptive grammars like
Chomsky’s generative grammar (which sought to define the ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ structures of all
grammatical sentences) to Halliday’s functional grammar (which emphasised the pragmatic
dimensions of language in its communicative context).
Contemporary stylistics is most directly influenced by late twentieth century discourse
pragmatic-oriented developments in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis (the study
of the interpersonal, transactional, context-bound aspects of communication between
addresser and addressee).
Stylistics selectively adopts, adapts and appropriates a range of concepts and models
from philosophical, practical and socio- linguistics to investigate the interpretative impact of
various linguistic features employed within literature. A few of the features sometimes focussed upon
are accommodated within traditional literary study, such as literary linguistic means of deviation and
foregrounding (for example, sound pattering through assonance and alliteration, lexical deviation
such as neologisms, semantic deviation in the form of metaphors, etc.), due to the common
theoretical ancestry of many literary critical approaches in Formalism and Functionalism.
Many other features attended to by stylistics, however, can only be accounted for and
analysed using linguistic concepts and models. For example, acute analysis of the inference and
interpretation of subtexts within conversations between characters requires use of models of the
functions of features of naturally occurring conversation drawn from pragmatics.
The aim of stylistics is to provide a less subjective, more principled and retrievable
account of the interpretative effects of literary texts through a more textually sensitive,
systematic and socio-linguistically informed analysis of their linguistic features . Just as it has
many roots, contemporary stylistics has many branches, of which cognitive poetics is perhaps the
most radical. Cognitive poetics has evolved as part of the late twentieth century ‘cognitive turn’.
Research within the fields of cognitive linguistics, artificial intelligence, and psycholinguistics
has, since the 1970s, been providing empirically-based models of the perceptual categories and
mental structures employed by the embodied human mind in the act of processing language. These
models have been appropriated within cognitive poetics to explore the mental processes behind
interpretation of stylistic features.
Cognitive poetics goes beyond stylistic accounting for literary interpretation via linguistic
models to investigate the commonalities and idiosyncrasies in reading experiences based on
cognitive scientific insights into the relationships between the mind, language and the world.

Major figures and models

The following is a brief survey of a small selection of the linguistic and cognitive linguistic
concepts and models which are most prominent within stylistics and cognitive poetics.

Foregrounding, Deviation and Parallelism

The FORMALIST and FUNCTONALIST notion of foregrounding, itself informed by early
twentieth century gestalt psychology, is perceived by many stylisticians to be the dominant means of
readerly inference of interpretative significance.
Foregrounding in literature is created through the creation and exploitation of patterns and
systems within language use, and perceived deviation from those patterns. Parallels can be
constructed through patterning and repetition of structures (as in rhyme schemes and repeated
syntactic positioning), prompting the reader to seek semantic associations and interpretative links
between the paralleled features.
The patterns appealed to can be external to the text itself, e.g. conventional syntactic
structures, standard lexical constructions, use of capitalisation, or internal to the text, such as a
poem’s metrical scheme, the lexical field of an extract of fiction, or its mode of narration (e.g. third
person, retrospective, non-intrusive, omniscient).
Patterns, and deviations from patterns, can occur at all linguistic levels (the level of
*discourse, *syntax, *semantics, *graphology, *lexis, *morphology, or *phonetics). The Stylistic
approach hypothesises that readers will generally seek an interpretative connection between
foregrounded features, guided by an assumption of authorial intention.

Literary Point of View: Deixis, Modality and Transitivity

Deictic language (pronouns, demonstratives, spatial and temporal adverbs, and the like, the
meaning of which is dependent on the context of use), plays a significant part in the construction of
the locations, points of view, and interrelations between narrators, characters and narratees within
scenes and within and across diegetic levels of literature.
The role of modality, expressed through modal auxiliary verbs (expressing duty, desire, and
belief), in the communication of narratorial and character point of view has also been fruitfully
investigated by stylisticians.
Transitivity analysis explores the structures and functions of processes (expressed through
verbs) within clauses, stylistic analysis of which likewise gives insight into the strategic portrayal of
acts, agents, character behaviour, etc.

Literary Pragmatics: Conversation Analysis, Speech Acts, Politeness, Conversational

Implicature, and Speech and Thought Presentation

Pragmatics is concerned with the meaning of an utterance in relation to its context. Various
models of communication are offered under this umbrella term.
Conversation Analysis investigates turn-taking, topic-control, and non-fluency features
(interruptions, false starts and the like).
Speech Acts explores the relationships between propositional structures, intended and
perceived meaning, and effect.
Politeness can be probed through observation of covert and overt threats to negative and
positive face. Stylistic analysis of literary representations of character dialogue (e.g. within novels and
drama) using these concepts and models can account for the ways in which inferences are evoked
regarding the relationships between characters (in terms of power, intimacy, etc.,) and the
contribution of such conversations to characterisation.
Conversational implicature, the communication of meaning through the adherence to and
flouting of conversational maxims in accordance with an overarching assumption of communicative
co-operation (the cooperative principle) can be analysed to reveal inferable assumptions,
presuppositions and subtext within character interactions, as well as within author-reader
communication.
Lastly, the representation of characters’ speech and thought (e.g. direct, indirect and free
indirect speech and thought represented through variations in use of reporting clauses, speech
marks, different degrees of narratorial mediation of thought, marked by first and third person
reference, for example) can be analysed to explicate different aspects of characterisation (including
characterisation of the narrator).

Figure and Ground, Schema, and Conceptual Metaphors

Figure and Ground relations are the embodied mind’s way of perceiving foregrounding and
deviation. In exploring foregrounding, cognitive poetics identifies the set characteristics of a figure
(textual or abstract) which enable it to be perceived as such and distinguished from a ground, and
enable attention to be attracted to the former.
Schema Theory offers a model of the means by which the mind organises and efficiently
recalls, utilises, and adapts packages of knowledge (schemas) based on dynamic experience.
Cognitive poetics explores how such schemas can be linguistically evoked and reinforced or
refreshed by literary experiences.
Conceptual Metaphor Theory, on the other hand, analyses the text-driven selective mapping
of properties of source and target domains evoked by metaphorical linguistic constructions, and, on
the basis of re-occurring conceptual metaphors, investigates the underlying intercultural cognitive
models that may determine the nature of and paradigmatic relationships between certain concrete
and abstract concepts.

Deictic Shifting and Text Worlds

Deictic Shift Theory and Text World Theory explore higher linguistic levels to map out the ways
in which the reading mind processes deixis, and the ways in which it maps out, conceptually
navigates, and keeps track of the various discourse levels within literature.
Deictic Shift Theory asserts that in order to comprehend deictic cues the reader has to
conceptually project to the deictic centre of the speaker (e.g., a narrator or character), and argues
that the processing of deictic language plays a significant part in the sense of immersion and
transportation so often anecdotally reported of the experience of reading literature.
Text World Theory traces the ways in which a literary text distinguishes different levels of the
story (i.e., the discourse world, the text world and various potential types of subworlds), their
properties (e.g., participants, location), and the processes that take place within them (e.g., events,
thoughts).

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A Brief Introduction to Stylistics

By:[Link]

Stylistics is the science which explores how readers interact with the language of (mainly
literary) texts in order to explain how we understand, and are affected by texts when we read them.
 Stylistics is the scientific study of style, which can be viewed in several ways.
 More technically, stylistics is the study of the linguistic features of a literary text _
phonological, lexical, syntactical _which directly affects the meaning of an utterance
 The variety in stylistics is due to the main influences of linguistics & literary

Stylistics, then, is a sub-discipline which grew up in the second half of the twentieth century:
It’s beginnings in Anglo-American criticism are usually traced back to the publication of the books
listed below:
Fowler, Roger, Essays on Style in Language.
Freeman, Donald, Linguistics and Literary Style.
Leech, Geoffrey, A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry.
Sebeok, Thomas , Style in Language.
 Therefore, stylistics is concerned with the examination of grammar, lexis, semantics, as well
as phonological properties and discursive devices .It might seem that the same issues are
investigated by sociolinguistics, and indeed that is the case, however sociolinguistics analyses the
above mentioned issues seen as dependant on the social class, gender ,age ,etc , while stylistics is
more interested in the significance of function that the style fulfils.

Stylistics examines oral and written texts in order to determine crucial characteristic linguistic
properties, structures and patterns influencing perception of the texts. Thus, it can be said that this
branch of linguistics is related to discourse analysis, in particular critical discourse analysis, and
pragmatics. Owing to the fact that at the beginning of the development of this study the major part of
the stylistic investigation was concerned with the analysis of literary texts it is sometimes called
literary linguistics, or literary stylistics .
Nowadays, however, linguists study various kinds of texts, such as manuals, recipes, as well
as novels and advertisements. It is vital to add here that none of the text types is discriminated and
thought to be more important than others .In addition to that , in the recent year so called ' media-
discourses' such as films, news reports, song lyrics and political speeches have all been within the
scope of interest of stylistics.
The Development of Stylistics combines the use of linguistic analysis with the psychological
processes involved in reading.
In the twentieth century Stylistics can be seen as a logical extension of moves within literary
criticism to concentrate on studying texts rather than authors. While in Nineteenth century literary
criticism concentrated on the author, and the text-based criticism of the two British critics Richards
and William Empson who rejected that approach and replaced it with the other approach called
Practical criticism.
In many respects, however, stylistics is close to literary criticism and practical criticism. By far
the most common kind of material studied is literary , and attention is largely text–centered .
Practical criticism concentrates on the literary texts themselves, and how readers were
affected by those texts. In addition Practical criticism is matched by a similar critical movement in the
USA called New criticism. New Criticism is based on the description of literary works as independent
aesthetic objects.

Practical Criticism and New Criticism share two important features:

1. An emphasis on the language of the text rather than it’s author.
2. An assumption that what criticism needed was accounts of important work of literature
based on the intuitional reading outcomes of trained and aesthetically sensitive critics.
Although both practical and new criticism pay too much attention to the effect of the text on the
readers, yet from the stylisticians point of view, it is not enough to criticize a text because intuition is
not enough and we must analyze the text in detail.
Roman Jacobson who is a member of the Russian Formalists is one of the most influential
linguists on stylistics for two reasons:
1. For his academic brilliance.
2. Because he linked various schools of linguistics together.
 Roman Jacobson moved from Moscow to Prague and joined the Prague Structuralists Circle
who were interested and affected by his views. Later he moved to the USA where he carried his
approach with him, which is now called STYLISTICS.

Types of Stylistics:
Stylistics is sometime called confusingly literary stylistics or linguistic stylistics.
Linguistic stylistics
the purest form of stylistics in that its practitioners attempt to derive from the study of style and
language variation
The most recent studies in linguistic stylistics have tended to focus on applications of studies in
discourse analysis and narrative organization to literary text study.
Burton (1980,1982)employs models for spoken discourse analysis based on Sinclair and
Coulthard (1975)for the analysis of drama dialogue
Short (1981) use analysis based on Gricean and speech act theory.
Carter and Simpson (1982) use narrative models based on Labov (1972).
Fowler (1981; 1982) exploits Hallidayan models from within systematic linguistics
Literary stylistics
established methods of close reading or practical criticism of texts, the procedures of literary
stylistics remain traditional in character in spite of development in literary theory (e.g. post -
structuralism) which challenge assumptions about the role of language in depicting literary
realities.

Introduction to Stylistics
by Dr. Margherita Dore ([Link]@[Link])

This Introduction to Stylistics Course focuses on the linguistic analysis of texts, dealing
particularly with the relationship between linguistic choice and the reader’s interpretations. The
analysis will concentrate primarily on literary texts but other text types (e.g. newspaper articles,
advertisements and political speeches) will be also considered. The course aims to provide Ss with a
set of analytical TOOLS that they can use to examine texts (for example, their words, sounds,
structures, or interactive aspects) and reflect on them in relation to the context within which they are
created.

 Style and Stylistics What is this all about?

 Brief History of Stylistics and Literary Style

 Mainly POETRY
 Linguistic choice, style and meaning
 Creativity: words and phrases
 Foregrounding, patterns, deviations
  Stylistics Devices: Rhetorical Devices, Figures of Speech
 The grammar of simple sentences

 Mainly PROSE
 Style and style variation
 Complex sentences and grammar
 Discourse structure and point of view
 Speech presentation
 Mind Style and Prose analysis

 Mainly DRAMA
 Conversational structure and character
 Meaning between the lines: meaning
 Shared knowledge
 Other Text Types
 Advertisements, newspapers and political speeches

Here we will be considering the STYLE OF TEXTS with a systematic attention to what words
or structures are chosen in preference to others. Style is here thought as ‘the linguistic characteristics
of a particular text’ (Leech & Short 2007: 11)

Stylistics (or the study of style) investigates how readers interact with the language of (mainly
literary) texts in order to explain how we understand and are affected by texts when we read them.

Stylistics draws from Linguistics and Psychology and developed in the second half of the
twentieth century.
 Literary Criticism in Britain: Practical Criticism: moving from studying authors (19th
Century) to studying texts (20th Century) and how readers were effected by those texts;
 in the USA New Criticism. They shared two important features:
o (i) an emphasis on the language of the text rather than its author;
o (ii) Paying very close attention to the language of the texts when reading them,
describing how readers understood them, were affected by them and then
quoted them (Claim and Quote)

In the early years of the 20th century, the members of the Formalist Linguistic Circle in
Moscow (usually called the Russian Formalists), like I. A. Richards, also favoured the analysis of the
language of the text in relation to psychological effects of that linguistic structure.
Roman Jakobson left Moscow at the time of the Russian Revolution and moved to Prague,
where he became a member of the Prague Structuralist circle.
 Both circles contributed to develop the so called foregrounding theory. This view suggested
that some parts of texts had more effect on readers than others in terms of interpretation, because
the textual parts were linguistically deviant or specially patterned in some way, thus making them
psychologically salient (or 'foregrounded') for readers.
 Style is a way in which language is used
 Therefore style consists in choices made from the repertoire of the language.
 A style is defined in terms of a domain of language use (e.g., what choices are made by
a particular author, in a particular genre, or in a particular text).
 Style is relatively transparent or opaque: transparency implies paraphrasability; opacity
implies that a text cannot be adequately paraphrased and that interpretation of the text
depends greatly on the creative imagination of the reader.
 Stylistic choice is limited to those aspects of linguistic choice which concern alternative
ways of rendering the same subject matter.
 Stylistics (or the study of style) has typically been concerned with literary language. 
 Literary stylistics is typically concerned with explaining the relation between style and
literary or aesthetic function (Leech and Short 2007: 31)

How great writing happens - Genius, or the careful choice of language?

I wander’d lonely as a Cloud

That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Daffodils . . .
(Wordsworth 1804)

I was strolling along

When all of a sudden
I saw a bunch of lovely Daffodils
(maybe you and I).

John Keats worked on various versions of this poem. One word in particular changed in the first and
the final version of the poem. Which one do you think is Keats's final choice? Try to work out why the
choice you prefer is best:
close
As though a rose should and be a bud again
shut
(John Keats, 'The Eve of St Agnes, stanza 27, line 9)
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again So Keats rejects his first choice, ‘close’ for its
synonym, ‘shut’. A first reaction might be that it doesn’t really matter which word he chose. After all,
synonyms have the same meaning.
However, for most people the verb ‘shut’ is a faster action than ‘close’ (quiet). Hence, poetry should
better fit the calmness of ‘close’…

Why, then, did Keats cross out ‘close’ and write ‘shut’?
‘Close’ rhymes with ‘rose’; ‘shut’ rhymes with ‘bud’
Sounds/Writing Shapes
 Phonology (speech)
 Graphology (writing)
 Grammar i.e. Syntax and Morphology
 Meaning
o Lexis ('word meaning')
o Semantics ('sentence meaning')
o
The sounds/letters level
Spoken language physically consists of distinctive speech sounds (phonemes) which make up words.
 Phonemes are sounds which distinguish one word from another (e.g. /bet/ vs. /pet/ or /bit/)
 The written equivalent to the phonemic or phonological level in speech is usually called
graphology.
1. Girls like cats. (/kats/)
2. Girls like hats. (/hats/)
 Grammar is the form by which we position and group the elements that go to make up
sentences:
 Syntax is the order in which words and phrases come in the sentence. Sentence (1) below
uses exactly the same words as sentence (2) but the different syntax results in radically
different meanings:
1. Girls like cats.
S V O
1. Cats like girls.
S V O
 Morphology accounts for the building blocks of meaning inside words.
Different meaning 1. cats. (/kats/) 2. hats. (/hats/)
Different meaning (connotations and associations)
1. Girls like cats
2. Girls like feline quadrupeds

 When we changed the syntax in sentence (1) to produce sentence (2) we also changed the
meaning of the sentence in dramatic fashion. This sort of sentence meaning is included in the
aspect of meaning usually called semantics
 Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context.
 [Assume that the context is an article about the similarities and differences between boys and
girls.] The favourite animal for boys is the dog. Girls like cats. Here the meaning of the second
sentence is the same as in (1), but additionally it also has to be interpreted as an example of a
difference between boys and girls.
Now, imagine a conversation between two teenage boys:
A. Cats are stupid. What use is a cat?
B. Girls like cats.
Probable additional meaning: 'you could increase your chances of getting a girl to like you by
saying that you like cats'.