STYLISTICS AND LITERARY CRITICISM CLASS NOTES

What is Style?
The word style is derived from a Latin word ‘stylus’ meaning ‘reed’ which
is a stick for writing. Later the
word evolved into the style as is currently used.

The word style can be given different meanings and as such it is

difficult to give a clear-cut monolithic definition of style but what we
should know is that stylistics as a discipline originates from two
separate and inter-related discipline and these disciplines are
linguistics and literary criticism.

At its simplest, style refers to the manner of expression in writing and

speaking, just as there is a manner of doing things, like playing or
painting. We might talk of someone writing in an ornate style, or
speaking in a comic style. For some people style has evaluative
connotations: style can be good or bad. This definition implies that
there are different styles in different situations (e.g. comic vs. turgid);
also that the same activity can produce stylistic variation (no two
people will have the same style in playing or writing an essay).

In this case, style can be seen as variation in language use, whether

literary or non-literary. The term register is commonly used for those
systemic variations in linguistic features common to particular non-
literary situations, e.g. advertising, legal language, sports commentary.
Register is a way of expressing oneself depending on the context
determined by a number of factors like status, age, gender among
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others.

Style may vary not only from situation to situation but according to
medium and degree of formality: what is sometimes termed style-
shifting. On a larger scale it may vary, in literary language, from one
genre to another, or from one period to another (e.g. we may talk of the
style of Shakespearean plays etc.) Style is thus seen against a
background of larger or smaller domains or contexts.

In each case, style is seen as distinctive: in essence, the set or sum of

linguistic features that seem to be characteristic: whether of register,
genre or period, etc. Style is very commonly defined in this way,
especially at the level of text: e.g. the style of Achebe’s Things Fall
Apart.

Stylistic features are basically features of language, so style is in one

sense synonymous with language (i.e. we can speak equally of the
language Achebe and many other authors. What is implied, however, is
that the language is in some way distinctive, significant for the design
of a theme. When applied to the

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domain of an author, style is the set of features peculiar to, or
characteristic of an author: his or her language habits or idiolect.

Clearly each author draws upon the general stock of the language in
any given period; what makes style distinctive is the choice of items,
and their distribution and patterning. A definition of style in terms of
choice is very popular, the selection of features partly determined by
the demands of genre, form, theme, etc. All utterances have a style,
even when they might seem relatively plain or unmarked: a plain style
is itself a style.

Another differential approach to style is to compare one set of features

with another in terms of a deviation from a norm, a common
approach in the 1960’s. It would be wrong to imply that style itself is
deviant in the sense of abnormal, even though there are marked poetic
idiolects. Rather, we match any text or piece of language against the
linguistic norms of its genre, or its period, and the common core of the
language as a whole. Different texts will reveal different patterns of
dominant or foregrounded features.

Chatman defines style as the manner in which form is executed or the

means in which the context is expressed. Style can be used in either a
technical or non-technical sense. There is style in everything human
beings do. Style in linguistics is applied to both written and spoken
language.
There are psycho-linguists who believe that our speech helps to
identify our social background, sex and nationalities within the society.
The inadequacy of this approach lies in the fact that some people use
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of language may not reveal their cultural identity.

Buffoon believes that style is the man. This is because man is a

product of the society and whatever he writes must reflect his socio-
political experience. In this case, man himself is referred to as style.
This is because it is difficult to divorce matter from manner, that is, no
distinction can be made between what a writer writes and the way he
writes it. A man’s writing will definitely reveal his background. This
definition is defective in a way because some writer’s identities may not
reflect in their writings.

Osgood defines style as norm and deviation. A norm is a common

practice or acceptable usage of language. It is what is permissible
within the rules governing the usage of language. For instance, all
human normal human beings have to be either male or female. This is
the norm and anything contrary to this is a deviation. Deviation is
therefore a deviation from the general order and is the deliberate
violation of the norms. For instance, every use of figure of speech could
be seen as a deviation from the norm. Consider the following:
colourless green idea sleeps. In this case the sentence is
ungrammatical

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and violates the rules of choice. The problem with this definition is that
it is difficult to decide what constitutes the norm.

The term style also signifies a literary genre. Thus, we speak of

classical style or the style of classicism; realistic style; the style of
romanticism and so on. On the other hand, the term is widely used in
literature, being applied to the various kinds of literary work, the fable,
novel, ballad, story etc. Thus, we speak of a story being written in the
style of a fable or we speak of the characteristic features of the
epistolary style or the essay and so on.

Style as a Notational Term

The definition of style seen as a notational term can be based on a
number of principles. The first one is the complexity of the relationships
between the speaker/writer and the text (the personality and
environment of the people who have generated the text).

The second one is represented by the relationship between the text

and the listener/reader (recipient’s responses), and the third one is the
attempt to objectify the approach and to eliminate references to the
communicants at either end of the communication process (i.e.
description of the text, not appeals to personalities).

Another dimension will offer three fundamentally different views. In this

way, we can define style as a departure from a set of patterns which
have been labelled as a norm. In this case stylistic analysis becomes a
comparison between features in the text whose style we analyze and
the text that we consider as a norm. Secondly, the style can be seen as
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an addition of certain stylistic traits to a neutral, styleless expression,
here the stylistic analysis becomes a stripping process.

The third view sees style as connotation, whereby each linguistic

feature acquires its stylistic value from the textual and situational
environment. Stylistic analysis then becomes a study of the relationship
between specific linguistic units and their environment. As we will
experience later, when working with texts, all these approaches should
be seen as complementary rather than as contradictory or mutually
exclusive.

Style as a Linguistic Variation

N. E. Enkvist (pp. 16-17) describes linguistics as a branch of learning
which builds models of texts and languages on the basis of theories of
language. Consequently, he says, linguistic stylistics tries to set up
inventories and descriptions of stylistic stimuli with the aid of linguistic
concepts. By this definition linguists should be interested in all kinds of
linguistic variation and style is only one of many types.

What is stylistics?
Stylistics is the study of style. Just as style can be viewed in several
ways, so there are several different stylistic approaches. This variety in
stylistics is due to the main influences of Linguistics and Literary
Criticism.

The goal of most stylistic studies is not simply to describe the formal
features of texts for their own sake, but to show their functional
significance for the interpretation of the text; or to relate literary effects
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to linguistic causes where these are felt to be relevant.

Intuitions and interpretative skills are just as important in stylistics and

literary criticism; however, stylisticians want to avoid vague and
impressionistic judgements about the way formal features are
manipulated. As a result, stylistics draws on the models and
terminology provided by whichever aspects of linguistics are felt to be
relevant.

Stylistics also draws eclectically on trends in literary theory, or parallel

developments in this field. So the 1970s saw a shift away from the
reader and his or her responses to the text (e.g. affective stylistics,
reception theory).

Stylistics or general stylistics can be used as a cover term for the

analysis of non-literary varieties of language, or registers (D. Crystal &
D. Davy in Investigating English Style, 1969; M. M. Bakhtin in The
Dialogic Imagination, 1981 and The Problem of the Text, 1986).
Because of this broad scope stylistics comes close to work done in
sociolinguistics.
Stylistic analysis in linguistics refers to the identification of patterns
of usage in speech and writing. Stylistic analysis in literary studies is
usually made for the purpose of commenting on quality and meaning in
a text.

Stylistics, in other words, is the study of style used in literary and verbal
language and the effect a writer or speaker wishes to communicate to
the reader or hearer. Stylistics attempts to establish principles capable

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of explaining the particular choices made by individual and social
groups in their use of language, such as socialization, the production or
reception of meaning, literary criticism and critical discourse analysis.

A literary genre can be seen as a set of style characteristics that is

commonly recognized and agreed upon. For example, prose and
poetry, the latter often involve rhyme while the former does not. Other
aspects include the use of dialogue, the description of scenes, the use
of active passive voice and the distribution of the sentence length etc.

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Stylistic analysis is a normal part of literary studies. It is practiced as a
part of understanding the possible meanings in a text. It is also
generally assumed that the process of analysis will reveal the good
qualities of the writing.

Stylistics in the words of Widdowson (1975) ‘is the study of literary

discourse from a linguistic orientation’ stylistics consequently involves
with literary criticism and linguistics. Depending on which angle it is
viewed from, the choice of words varies; some say relationship
between message and medium, content and form, matter and manner.

Fowler (1981) defines stylistics as “the application of theoretical ideas

and analytic techniques drawn from linguistics to the study of literary
texts” (p. 11).

STYLISTICS, LINGUISTICS AND LITERARY CRITICISM

In our analysis of literature, we need to have an understanding of the
phenomenon of language, its nature and functions. Ngara (1982; 10
observes that language is exclusively a human property consisting of a
system of sounds, words, structures and meanings. It is a symbolic
system that does not necessarily show a one-to-one correspondence
between itself and the physical world it refers to. Language is creative
in the sense that the individual is capable of using it in a completely
novel manner. It is a social convention which changes over time and is
adaptable to new conditions. Hence, the main function of language is to
communicate.

Stylistics is the study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation. It

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involves both literary criticism and linguistics; the ‘style’ component
relating to the former and the ‘istics’ to the latter. Widdowson (1975: 5)
differentiates between stylistics, linguistics and literary criticism. He
points out that the ultimate purpose of literary criticism is to interpret
and evaluate literary writings as works of art and that the primary
concern of the critic is to explicate the individual message of the writer
in terms which make its significance clear to others. The literary critic is
primarily concerned with messages. His interest in codes lies in the
meanings they convey in particular instances of use.

The linguist on the other hand, is primarily concerned with the codes
themselves. Particular messages are interest in so far as they
exemplify how the codes are constructed. This however, is not to argue
that the linguist ignores meanings.

Although interpretation may aid his analysis, it is not his aim. The
literary critic, however, takes interpretation as his aim. The linguist,
then, directs his attention primarily to how a piece of literature
exemplifies the language system.
Stylistics can also be said to be the study of the way an author uses
words and grammar- as well as other elements –both within the
sentence and the text as a whole. Ngara (19820 points out that in
stylistics ‘we have a study of the particular choices an author makes
from the available materials’, choices that are largely culture oriented
and situation bound.’. Similarly, Roger Fowler as quoted in Wilfred l.
Guerinec1979 observes that:
A text is structured in a certain way because it is a distinct use of
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 certain distinctive materials given in advance. We need to make
a fundamental division between the… linguistic materials
available [grammatical facts] and the use made of them [stylistic
facts].
Language, he asserts has a cultural dimension so that not merely
‘grammatical competence’ but ‘sociolinguistics competence’ is
important. Thus, performance becomes a crucial element in a stylistic
approach to a literary work. Because of emphasis on choices, and
performance (rather than on ‘availability’ of grammar”, stylistics
concerns the full text rather than the sentence. The stylisticians look at
a linguistic element in the context of the language as a whole, whereas
the critic takes the whole text as his context.

The quantification of stylistic features to determine frequencies of

occurrences is an important aspect of the stylisticians’ method. Ngara
(1982) states that the stylistic critic must be author of questions of
national languages, languages of education and so on in so far as they
are reflected in the work of art he is to analyse.

He must relate his analysis of linguistic features to considerations of

content value and aesthetic quality. Crystal and Davy (1969: 60) argue
that the primary task of stylistics is to catalogue and classify features
within a frame work of some general linguistic theory; that stylistics is
not concerned with description of everything that goes on within a text,
but only with that which can be shown to be of stylistic importance in
terms of a number of interrelated levels of description.

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Literary stylistics concerns itself with how a writer deviates from the
normal language and how he uses it to a special effect. It therefore
makes a distinction between ordinary language and literary language.
Stylistics is concerned with the appropriateness of the words selected
by a given writer. The appropriateness is tied to different contexts, for
example, social, cultural, political, religious etc. In literary stylistics, we
have to think about the syntactic constructions by a given writer-the
arrangement in far as it evokes an artistic appeal, how the language
has been effectively manipulated by the writer to contribute to the total
effect of the work. In this case, stylistics plays a major role in literature.

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Accordingly, Widdowson (1975) argues that stylistics is essentially a
means of linking literary criticism and linguistics. Hence, stylistics can
provide a way of mediating between two subjects: English language
and literature. This is well captured in the diagram below which
demonstrates that stylistics is neither a discipline nor a subject in its
own right, but a means of relating disciplines and subjects. Hence
stylistics can provide for the progression of a one from either language
or literature towards either criticism or linguistics.

Disciplines: linguistics literary criticism

↖ ↗
Stylistics
Subjects: ↙ ↘
(English) language (English) literature

In linking linguistics and literary criticism, stylistics extends the linguist’s

literary intuitions and the critic’ linguistic observations and makes their
relationship explicit.

Leech and Short argue that literary stylistics has the goal of explaining
the relation between language and artistic function. .It is said that there
is a cyclic motion whereby linguistic observation stimulates or modifies
literary insight and literary insight in turn stimulates further linguistic
observation. It is possible to distinguish between what the writer
chooses to talk about and how he chooses to talk about it. This means
that the study of the literary language can be seen as equivalent in
terms of the ‘referential reality’ it describes.

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Literary stylistics is typically concerned with explaining the relation
between style and literary or aesthetic function. Stylistic choice is
therefore limited to those aspects of linguistic choice which concern
alternative ways of rendering the same subject matter.

Leech and Short (1981) identifies three functions of stylistic choice:

ideation, interpersonal and textual. In the first case, style has to convey
a message about ‘reality’. Secondly, it must fit appropriately into a
speech situation, fulfilling the particular social designs that the speaker
has upon the hearer. Lastly, it must be well constructed as an utterance
or text, so as to serve the decoding needs of the reader.

Stylistic analysis plays a very important role in literary appreciation. It

can prepare the way for literary criticism to operate more effectively.
Widdowson (1975) says that the value of stylistics analysis is that it can
provide the means by which the learner can relate a piece of literary
writing to his experience of language and thereby extend that
experience. The establishment of such a relationship can then serve as
a base from which literary criticism, or rather a teaching approach
derived from it, can operate. Stylistics analysis shades imperceptibly
into literary appreciation and hence fulfils the pedagogic purpose.

Stylistics uses the principles of general linguistics to single out the

distinctive features of an author’s varied idiosyncrasies. It uses the
general linguistics principles to identify features of language which are
restricted to particular social contexts, and to account for the reasons
why such features are used, when and where. A study of literature
benefits from this in its appreciation of styles of different writers.
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Stylistics criticism aims at being more precise and more systematic
than conventional criticism. It focuses on works of art as carefully
selected and arranged patterns of communication.

Widdowson(19750 treats literature as both discourse and text and

argues that although it is quite common to find deviant sentences in
literary writing, deviance of the linguistic kind is not a defining feature of
literature. What literature communicates, then, is individual awareness
of a reality different from that which is given general social sanctions
but nevertheless related to it. The reader of literature has his
expectations aroused by the patterns of language which give shape to
the writer’s perception of this other reality and then experiences its
exclusiveness as these expectations are denied when the patterns
change. An understanding of what literature communicates necessarily
involves an understanding of how it communicates; what and how are
not distinct.

Widdowson (19750 argues that if literature is to be taught as a form of

discourse, then on the one hand, its textual features must be such as to
relate to what the learner knows of English grammar and the
vocabulary and on the other, he must be introduced to other forms of
discourse of a conventional type, with which the literary discourse can
be compared. This will not only develop in students an awareness of
the communicative potential of the language they are learning but it will
also serve as a basis for further studies where learning takes place in
the context of formal education.

A stylistic approach to literature must of its very nature relate linguistic

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and literary perspectives so that it can serve as preparation both for
people whose later studies will move towards the discipline of
linguistics and for those who will pursue literary criticism. Therefore, we
can argue that literary studies deriving from stylistic analysis allow for
the systematic teaching of literature.

Widdowson (1975) further points out that the stylistic approach

demonstrates the usefulness of literature by showing how it can
develop a sharper awareness of the communicative resources of the
language being learned. The study of literature is primarily a study of
language use and as such it is not a separate activity. It also follows
that the study of literature is overtly comparative; otherwise, it cannot
be practiced as an aspect of language learning in a more general
sense. The student must develop the ability to recognize the manner
in which the signification of linguistic elements is modified by context
and thereby acquire a strategy for ascertaining their value in actual
use. Literature as a subject is best defined as the study of the
communicative potential of the language concerned and the manner in
which this is realized in literary and conventional discourse.

STYLISTICS AND OTHER FIELDS OF STUDY

Stylistics and Other Linguistic Disciplines

Stylistics often intersects with other areas of linguistics, namely
historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics,
and many others. All of them are different branches of language study
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and should be regarded as different tools from the same set and not as
rivals. To illustrate the situation: The expression thou lovest taken from
the language of W. Shakespeare illustrates how different fields of study
use different classifications of the same language phenomenon. In our
case, the expression thou lovest will be classified by historians as an
older form of you love and by the students of contemporary styles as a
feature of a Biblical or archaic style.

Another example also points at different point of view in classification.

The expression you ain’t can be regarded as a characteristic of a
social class and thus qualified as a class marker. It also correlates
with a certain range of situations and so it can be a style marker. In a
complex study of linguistic variation, both observations may be
relevant.

Stylistics and Literary Study

As we have already pointed out, the study of Stylistics is (more or less)
related to the field of study of Linguistics and/or Literary Study.
According to this, stylistics can be seen as a subdepartment of
linguistics when dealing with the peculiarities of literary texts. Secondly,
it can be a subdepartment of literary study when it draws only
occasionally on linguistic methods, and thirdly, it can be regarded as an
autonomous discipline when it draws freely, and eclectically, on
methods from both linguistics and literary study (ibid., p. 27). Each of
these three approaches has its own virtues. We always need to
consider the task we are to complete, and consequently decide about
the relevant approach. In a particular situation one approach may be
better than another. However, we should keep in mind that to study
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styles as types of linguistic variations and to describe the style of one
particular text for a literary purpose are two different activities.

Linguistic versus Literary Context

In his Linguistic Stylistics N. E. Enkvist (1973) refers to certain
theoretical discussions which voiced some dogmatic attitudes about the
relationship between linguistics, stylistics and literary study. Many of
them have even acquired political overtones. In practice, such
problems tend to solve themselves pragmatically, as long as each
investigator allows himself the freedom of choosing and shaping his
methods to achieve his own particular goals (ibid., p. 33). In some
studies, stylistics may be an auxiliary brought in to narrative structure,
in others; categories of narrative structure provide contexts for stylistic
analysis.
Principles of Stylistics
There are three major principles of stylistics they are: foregrounding,
Norm and Deviation. We shall begin to explain them one after the
other.
FOREGROUNDING
This term refers to the factors of deviating from linguistic and literary
norms. Deviation itself is a de- automatisation of familiar linguistic and
literary pattern. It means there are certain words we use every day as if
automatic. Foregrounding will then do reversals i.e. de-automatise such
automatic words, e.g. University students are unbeautiful.

Again foregrounding is used to thematise certain words or linguistic

item. In this case, a structure or words foregrounded acquire
prominence or significance in a text as a result of making use of certain
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aspect of the language. Thus, if a writer or a speaker frequently uses
adjectives that indicate or suggest vibrancy, and analyst would see this
as an attempt to mimic or ape a particular situation being described or
presented. In similar manner, the predominance of lexical item may be
deployed to paint an atmosphere of serenity or calmness. In the same
vein, sounds can be repeatedly use for the same purpose.

It should be noted that there are two forms of foregrounding. They are:
1. Deviational foregrounding

2. Non-deviational foregrounding

The non-deviational type of foregrounding is a structure that acquires a

prominent significance in a text as a result of making use of certain
aspect of language. Example is such a systematic repeated/or
prepondent manner that attracts the attention of a reader; John is a
lion-hearted man, John is fighter who never discourages until victory is
attempted, John is a man who has it all……, whereas, the deviational
type draws its own attraction if the reader’s attention is drawn by a way
of violating the rules and norms of the pattern.

In foregrounding there is also what is called prominence. Michael

Halliday observes that foregrounding is prominence, which is
motivated. So we can have motivated and unmotivated prominence. It
is the motivated prominence that goes with foregrounding. If a linguistic
item is motivated we say it is significant for meaning and if not, it is not
significant for meaning. Therefore, before a particular item/unit can be

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considered as foregrounding, it needs to be firstly analysed so as to
find out the norms in order to discover a prominence or foregrounded
structure. Lexical items can only be foregrounded.
Norms
Norm is an established pattern within a text. The norm of language as a
whole is solely concerned with linguistic levels of language, such as the
grammar, phonology, lexical structure and graphology.
There are different types of norms. They are: General norm, authorian
norm and lexical norm.
1) General norm: means in effect when writing we must observe

the norms that relate to that type of text. If you are writing a
poem, certain norms must be observed e.g. using verses,
starting each line with capital letter, rhyming pattern especially in
conventional writing. The Sonnets has a norm that it has to be
fourteen lines divided into octave and sestet. In drama, we have
characters engaging in dialogue, the dialogue may be spoken or
unspoken.
2) Authorian norm: is the norm the author has created by himself.
Example is Francis Imbuga who uses a mad character or Achebe
who uses proverbs.
3) Lexical norm: is a situation where a writer creates a norm for
himself in a particular work. It is almost the same as authorial
norm. This has to do with/way the writer uses words.
Deviation
Deviation is the breaking of rules which others obey. Poetry as a genre
is a deviation from the ordinary language, though, despite the poetic
deviation, poetry skill has its own rules and norms which separate it
from ordinary language and therefore creates its own pattern. In literary
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circle, deviation is taken as poetic license or writer’s license and it
should be noted that deviation could occur at various linguistic level.
We can have grammatical lexical, phonological, semantic and textual
deviation.
At the graphological deviational level, we focus on the breaking of rules
relating to punctuation marks or starting a proper name with a small
letter e.g.:

“spoke joe to jack leave her alone she is not your gal”

At the level of phonology, deviation can also occur when you use the
sound patterns of language which deviate from the ordinary language
sound patterns. It may be to attract attention e.g. instead of girl, you
say gal.
Lexical deviation – At the lexical level, deviation occur when a word is
over-used in a line or when there is collocation clash or when a strange
lexical item is brought in. for example, the item or lexical item such as
“allow” “pirate” are peculiar to a particular setting and are used in
deviation to the normal use of the word. Deviation can be in form of
introduction of new words into the language.

What is happening here is called macaronism which means using more

than one language.

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Semantic deviation operates at the level of meaning e.g. “Three hearty
cheers to our eighty year Abiku”.
The deviation here is semantic because an Abiku is not supposed to live
that long (80 years).

We also have dialectal deviation e.g. if you put the dialect of a Luo into
the mouth of a kikuyu, then there is a dialectal deviation. This is
because some people cannot articulate well such speech sounds as /S/
/tS/. In language, this is called provincial.

Levels of Linguistic Analysis/ Description

1. The level of phonology / graphology-Sound effects

2. The level of lexis - Vocabulary

3. The level of syntax / grammar

4. The level of semantics

• The Sounds/Letters Level: Phonology (speech) and

Graphology (writing)
Spoken language physically consists of distinctive speech
sounds (phonemes) strung together to make up words. Phonemes are
sounds which distinguish one word from another (e.g. /bet/ vs. /pet/ or
/bit/) and linguists indicate phonemic transcriptions of speech by
enclosing the transcription in slash brackets (/). This level of language
is often called the phonemic or phonological level. Written English
does not have sounds (although we can to some degree 'hear' the
sounds behind the writing in our imagination). Instead it has a set of
alphabetical symbols which we conventionally associate with the
(phonemes) of English, sometimes in a one-to-one fashion, or
sometimes in spelling combinations (for example, the two-letter
combination 'sh-' is used to represent one phoneme /S/, as at the
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beginning of the word 'shin' (/Sin/). The written equivalent to the
phonemic or phonological level in speech is usually called graphology.

Let us look at a simple sentence to illustrate phonology and graphology:

1) Girls like kisses.
In graphological terms, substituting the letter 'm' for the 'k' at the
beginning of the written word 'kisses' above changes the spelling from;
'kisses' to 'misses', and its spoken equivalent would change also. In
both cases, not only would the sound or letter change, but also the
whole word and so the meaning of the sentence as a consequence.
• The level of lexis: Lexicology studies the choice of specific
lexical items in a text, their distribution in relation to one another,
and their meanings.

2) The level of syntax / grammar:

A second linguistic level we can distinguish is that of grammar (by
which we mean, the form, positioning and grouping of the elements that
go to make up sentences). Most of English grammar is controlled by

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the order in which words and phrases come in the sentence. This
aspect of grammar is usually called syntax, and English is pretty
extreme in its extensive use of syntax, compared with most of the
world's languages. And if you change the grammar you also change
the meaning. So note that sentence (1) below uses exactly the same
words as sentence (2) but the different syntax results in radically
different meanings:
1) Girls like cats.
2) Cats like girls.

In (1) 'girls' is the subject and 'cats' the object, and in (2) 'cats' is the
subject and 'girls' the object. Grammatical relations in languages can
also be controlled by adding grammar-indicating elements onto the
words themselves. Most of the world's languages use morphology more
extensively than English to indicate grammatical relations. This is often
referred to informally as 'adding endings to words', because, although
some languages put such grammatical markers at the beginning, or
even in the middle, of words, most put them at the end. This sort of
grammatical structuring is usually called morphology. Morphology
accounts for the building blocks of meaning inside words.

Although English is a very syntactic language, it does have some

morphology. So, in the above examples, the adding of the '-s' ending
indicates plural. Hence the one-word item 'cats' is composed of two
morphemes, CAT + PLURAL, and the first of these morphemes has 3
phonemes /kat/ and the second morpheme has one, /s/.

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Syntax refers to rules for ordering and connecting words into
sentences. Syntax can also be said to be the level of Lexico-
grammatical form which mediates between the levels of sound and
meaning. Thus it includes both lexical choice- choice of words from
vocabulary of the language- and the grammatical choices involved in
combining these words into meaningful sentences.
4. The level of semantics: Semantics studies the overall meaning of a
text, the meaning is derived from the way sentences / utterances are
used and the way they are related to the context in which they are
used / uttered and some rhetoric devices.

SEMANTIC LEVEL
Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions.
Meaning in natural languages is mainly studied by linguists. In fact,
semantics is one of the main branches of contemporary linguistics.
Semantics is a wide subject within the general study of language. An
understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language
acquisition (how language users acquire a sense of meaning, as
speakers and writers, listeners and readers) and of language change
(how meanings alter over time). It is important for understanding
language in social contexts, as these are likely to affect meaning, and
for

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understanding varieties of English and effects of style. It is thus one of
the most fundamental concepts in linguistics. The study of semantics
includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted, clarified,
obscured, illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and
paraphrased.

The meaning of words cannot be derived from their physical

properties, it cannot be reduced to the real- world objects or their
perception, and it cannot be reduced to the particular image in my or
your mind. The meaning of words is to be derived from the relations
between words, concepts and things in the real world. It is also
important to note that, in lexical terms, it is also possible to change the
word without changing the referent, in which case other aspects of
meaning get changed (e.g. the connotations and associations we have
for the different words).

In addition to word meaning (lexis) and sentence meaning (semantics)

there is another important aspect of meaning called pragmatics.
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. We can use the same
sentence in different contexts to have very different pragmatic
significances.
Apart from the above types of meanings that we have, we also have
intertextual relations as one way of getting meaning from a text. In this
case, another aspect of context which affects meaning is the fact that
when we talk or write we do so remembering previous texts and
speech. Thus we can say something which we know our hearers or
readers will connect to another piece of text or talk. Imagine two people
talking about whether their new dog should be called poppy or Terror.
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After some discussion, one of them says 'What's in a name?

There are seven types of meanings as discussed below:

Conceptual meaning is also called logical or cognitive meaning. It is the
basic propositional meaning which corresponds to the primary
dictionary definition. Such a meaning is stylistically neutral and
objective as opposed to other kinds of associative meanings.
Conceptual Meanings are the essential or core meaning while other six
types are the peripheral. It is peripheral in a sense that it is non-
essential. They are stylistically marked and subjective kind of
meanings. Leech gives primacy to conceptual meaning because it has
sophisticated organization based on the principle of contrastiveness
and hierarchical structure.
Conceptual meaning is the literal meaning of the word indicating the
idea or concept to which it refers. The concept is minimal unit of
meaning which could be called ‘sememe’. As we define phoneme on
the basis of binary contrast, similarly we can define sememe ‘Woman’
as = + human + female + adult. If any of these attribute changes the
concept cease to be the same.
Conceptual meaning deals with the core meaning of expression. It is
the denotative or literal meaning. It is essential for the functioning of
language. For example, a part of the conceptual meaning of ‘Needle”
may be “thin”, “sharp” or “instrument”.

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By Dr. Violet Barasa-Otieno
The aim of conceptual meaning is to provide an appropriate semantic
representation to a sentence or statement. A sentence is made of
abstract symbols. Conceptual meaning helps us to distinguish one
meaning from the meaning of other sentences. Thus, conceptual
meaning is an essential part of language. A language essentially
depends on conceptual meaning for communication. The conceptual
meaning is the base for all the other types of meaning.
2) ConnotativeMeaning:
Connotative meaning is the communicative value of an expression over
and above its purely conceptual content. It is something that goes
beyond mere referent of a word and hints at its attributes in the real
world. It is something more than the dictionary meaning. Thus purely
conceptual content of ‘woman’ is
+human + female+ adult but the psychosocial connotations could be
‘loving’, ‘having maternal instinct’ or typical (rather than invariable)
attributes of womanhood such as ‘experienced in cookery’, ‘skirt or
dress wearing ‘etc.

Still connotative meaning can embrace presumed properties of a

referent due to viewpoint adopted by individual, group, and society as a
whole. So in the past woman was supposed to have attributes like frail,
prone to tears, emotional, irrational, cowardly etc. as well as more
positive qualities such gentle, sensitive, compassionate, hardworking
etc. Connotations vary age to age and society to society.
Sometimes connotation varies from person to person also.

The boundary between conceptual and connotative seems to be

related. Connotative meaning is regarded as incidental, comparatively
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unstable, in determinant, open ended, variable according to age,
culture and individual, whereas conceptual meaning is not like that . It
can be codified in terms of limited symbols.
3) Social
Meaning:
The meaning conveyed by the piece of language about the social
context of its use is called the social meaning. The decoding of a text is
dependent on our knowledge of stylistics and other variations of
language. We recognize some words or pronunciation as being
dialectical i.e. as telling us something about the regional or social origin
of the speaker. Social meaning is related to the situation in which an
utterance is used.

It is concerned with the social circumstances of the use of a linguistic

expression. For example, some dialectic words inform us about the
regional and social background of the speaker. In the same way, some
stylistic usages let us know something of the social relationship
between the speaker and the hearer
E.g. “I ain’t done nothing”
The line tells us about the speaker and that is the speaker is probably a
black American, underprivileged and uneducated. Another example
can be

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Stylistic variation represents the social variation. This is because styles
show the geographical region social class of the speaker. Style helps
us to know about the period, field and status of the discourse. Some
words are similar to others as far as their conceptual meaning is
concerned. But they have different stylistic meaning. For example,
‘steed ’, ‘horse and ‘nag’ are synonymous. They all mean a kind of
animal
i.e. Horse. But they differ in style and so have various social meaning.
‘Steed’ is used in poetry; ‘horse’ is used in general, while ‘nag’ is slang.
The word ‘Home’ can have many uses also like domicile ( official),
residence (formal) abode (poetic) , home (ordinary use).
Stylistic variation is also found in sentence. For example, two criminals
will express the following sentence “They chucked the stones at the
cops and then did a bunk with the look” (Criminals after the event)
But the same ideas will be revealed by the chief inspector to his
officials by the following sentence.
“After casting the stones at the police, they abandoned with
money.”
(Chief Inspector in an official report)
Thus through utterances we come to know about the social facts,
social situation, class, region, and speaker-listener relations by its
style and dialect used in sentences.
The illocutionary force of an utterance also can have social meaning.
According to the social situation, a sentence may be uttered as request,
an apology, a warning or a threat, for example, the sentence,
“I haven’t got a knife” has the common meaning in isolation. But the
sentence uttered to waiter mean a
request for a knife’
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By Dr. Violet Barasa-Otieno
Thus we can understand that the connotative meaning plays a very
vital role in the field of semantics and in understanding the utterances
and sentences in different context.
4) Affectiveor Emotive Meaning:
For some linguists it refers to emotive association or effects of words
evoked in the reader, listener. It is what is conveyed about the personal
feelings or attitude towards the listener.
E.g. ‘home’ for a sailor/soldier or expatriate and ‘mother’ for a
motherless child, a married woman will have special effective,
emotive quality.
In affective meaning, language is used to express personal feelings or
attitude to the listener or to the subject matter of his discourse.
For Leech affective meaning refers to what is conveyed about the
feeling and attitude of the speaker through use of language (attitude to
listener as well as attitude to what he is saying). Affective meaning is
often conveyed through conceptual, connotative content of the words
used
E.g. “I hate you, you idiot”.
We are left with a little doubt about the speaker’s feelings towards the
listener. Here the speaker seems
to have a very negative attitude towards his listener. This is
called affective meaning. But very often we are more
discreet (cautious) and convey our attitude indirectly.
E.g. “I am terribly sorry but if you would be so kind as to lower
your voice a little”

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The above sentence conveys our irritation in a scaled down manner for
the sake of politeness. Intonation and voice quality are also important
here. Thus the sentence above can be uttered in biting sarcasm and
the impression of politeness maybe reversed while –
Words like darling, sweetheart or hooligan, vandal have inherent
emotive quality and they can be used neutrally.
I.A. Richards argued that emotive meaning distinguishes literature or
poetic language from factual meaning of science. Finally it must be
noted that affective meaning is largely a parasitic category. It overlaps
heavily with style, connotation and conceptual content.
5) Reflected Meaning:

Reflected meaning and Collocative meaning involve interconnection

At the lexical level of language, Reflected meaning arises when a word
has more than one conceptual meaning or multiple conceptual
meaning. In such cases while responding to one sense of the word we
partly respond to another sense of the word too. Leech says that in
church service ‘the comforter and the Holy Ghost ’refer to the third in
Trinity. They are religious words. But unconsciously there is a response
to their non-religious meanings too. Thus the ‘comforter’ sounds warm
and comforting while the ‘Ghost’ sounds ‘awesome’ or even ‘dreadful’.
One sense of the word seems to rub off on another especially through
relative frequency and familiarity (e.g. a ghost is more frequent and
familiar in no religious sense.).
E.g. “The could not
but be gay In such
jocund company”
The word ‘gay’ was frequently used in the time of William Wordsworth
but the word now is used for
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‘homosexuality’.
In such type cases of multiple meaning, one meaning of the word
pushes the other meaning to the background. Then the dominant
suggestive power of that word prevails. This may happen because of
the relative frequency or familiarity of the dominant meaning. This
dominant meaning which pushes the other meaning at the background
is called the reflected meaning.
Reflected meaning is also found in taboo words. Taboo words include
terms like erection, intercourse, ejaculation. The word ‘intercourse’
immediately reminds us of its association with sex (sexual intercourse).
The sexual association of the word drives away its innocent sense, i.e.
‘communication’. The taboo sense of the word is so dominant that its
non-taboo sense almost dies out. In some cases, the speaker avoids
the taboo words and uses their alternative word in order to avoid the
unwanted reflected meaning. For example, as Bloomfield has pointed
out, the word ‘Cock’ is replaced by speakers, they use the word
‘rooster’ to indicate the general meaning of the word and avoid its
taboo sense. These words have non-sexual meanings too. (E.g.
erection of a building, ejaculate-throw out somebody) but because of
their frequency in the light of the physiology of sex it becomes difficult
to use them in their innocent/nonsexual sense.
Thus we can see that reflected meaning has great importance in the
study of semantics.

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6) Collocative
Meaning:
Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the
company of certain words. Words collocate or co-occur with certain
words only e.g. Big business not large or great. Collocative meaning
refers to associations of a word because of its usual or habitual co-
occurrence with certain types of words. ‘Pretty’ and ‘handsome’
indicate ‘good looking’.
However, they slightly differ from each other because of collocation or
co-occurrence. The word ‘pretty’
collocates with – girls, woman, village, gardens, flowers, etc.
On the other hand, the word ‘handsome’ collocates with – ‘boys’ men,
etc. so ‘pretty woman’ and ‘handsome man’. While different kinds of
attractiveness, hence ‘handsome woman’ may mean attractive but in a
mannish way. The verbs ‘wander’ and ‘stroll’ are quasi-synonymous-
they may have almost the same meaning but while ‘cows may wander
into another farm’, they don’t stroll into that farm because ‘stroll’
collocates with human subject only. Similarly one ‘trembles with fear’
but ‘quivers with excitement’. Collocative meanings need to be invoked
only when other categories of meaning don’t apply. Generalizations can
be made in case of other meanings while Collocative meaning is simply
on idiosyncratic property of individual words. Collocative meaning has
its importance and it is a marginal kind of category.
7) Thematic Meaning:
It refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a
writer organizes the message in terms of ordering focus and
emphasis .Thus active is different from passive though its conceptual
meaning is the same. Various parts of the sentence also can be used
as subject, object or complement to show prominence. It is done
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through focus, theme (topic) or emotive emphasis. Thematic meaning
helps us to understand the message and its implications properly. For
example, the following statements in active and passive voice have
same conceptual meaning but different communicative values.
E. g.
1. Mrs. Ngugi donated the first prize
2. The first prize was donated by Mrs. Ngugi.

In the first sentence “who gave away the prize “is more important, but
in the second sentence “what
Mrs. Ngugi gave is important”. Thus, the change of focus change the
meaning also.
The first suggests that we already know Mrs. Ngugi (perhaps through
earlier mention) its known/given
information while it’s new information.
Alternative grammatical construction also gives thematic meaning. For
example,
[Link] likes Kenyan fish most.
[Link] fish he likes most
[Link] is the Kenyan fish he likes most.
Like the grammatical structures, stress and intonation also make the
message prominent. For example, the contrastive stress on the word
‘cotton’ in the following sentence give prominence to the information

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  John wears a cotton shirt
 The kind of shirt that john wears is cotton one.

Thus sentences or pairs of sentences with similar conceptual meaning

may differ in their communicative value. This is due to different
grammatical constructions or lexical items or stress and intonations.
Sometimes thematic contrast i.e. contrasts between given and new
information can be conveyed by lexical means.
e.g.
1. John owns the biggest shop in Lang’ata

2. The biggest shop in Lang’ata belongs to John.

The ways we order our message also convey what is important and
what is not. This is basically thematic meaning.
Summary of Seven Types of Meaning.
1. Conceptual Meaning = Logical, cognitive or connotative content.

2. Connotative Meaning = What is communicated by virtue of what

language refers
3. Social Meaning = What is communicated of the social circumstances
of Language
4. Affective Meaning = What is communicated of the feelings and

attitudes of the Speaker through language.

5. Reflected Meaning = What is communicated through associations
with another Sense of the same world.
6. Collocative Meaning = What is communicated through associations
with words which co-occur with another word.
7. Thematic Meaning = What is communicated by the way in which the
message is organized in terms of order and emphasis.

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By Dr. Violet Barasa-Otieno