STYLISTICS

• Style variations


  • Vernacular used among casual friends, formal language in a cover letter and résumé, during a job interview
• Categories of stylistics

  • Linguistic stylistics (general stylistics)
  • Non-linguistic stylistics (literary stylistics)
• Verdonk: '“The analysis of distinctive expression in language and the description of its purpose and effect.” [Verdonk 2002. 4]'
• Stylistics began in 1966 with Roger Fowler's book "Essays on Style and Language"
• In the late 1970's and early 1980's, there was a desire to establish stylistic techniques for novels
• Majority of stylistic analysis concentrates on literary works, but recently also on non-fictional works and non-printed works
• Stylistics was influenced by Russian Formalism and Czech Structuralism
• Linguistic stylistics


  • Investigates the ways in which meaning is made through literary language and other kinds of texts
• Bradford: '“is an elusive and slippery topic” [Bradford 1997. xi]'
• Non-linguistic stylistics (literary stylistics)


  • Concerned with the evaluation of the esthetic aspect and the prescriptive harmony of writing or speaking language
• Stylistics was mostly dedicated to poetry in the past, focusing on phonetic and grammatical structures
• Stylistics is considered a linguistic method that deals with literature
• Novel and drama stylistic analyses are now well-established
• Stylistics was formalistically orientated and still depends on the linguistic work
• Desire to establish stylistic techniques to be applied to novels

  late 1970's and early 1980's
• Interest in drama was due to the evolution in stylistics through the last years
• Stylistics links literary criticism to linguistics
• Main fields of interest in stylistics

  • Discourse analysis
  • Pragmatics
• Stylistics uses linguistic techniques to examine and analyze literary works for making connections between linguistic analysis and literary criticism
• Common features of style include the use of dialogue, distribution of sentence lengths, language registers, etc.
• Studying a text closely helps to unearth layers of meaning beyond the basic plot
• Stylistics may attempt to establish principles capable of explaining particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language
• The results of the works made by the stylisticians at that time were applied to poetry easily
• Linguistic techniques conquered the analysis of conversational interaction
• The purpose of stylistics is to connect linguistic analysis with literary criticism
• The desire to establish stylistic techniques for novels was synchronized with the growing interest in textuality in contrast to sentential structures
• Katie Wales in "A Dictionary of Stylistics": 'The goal of stylistics 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 to linguistic 'causes' where relevant'
• How an author uses elements of style creates their distinct writing voice
• Purpose of Stylistics: 'Stylistics examines the creativity in the use of language. It enhances the way we think about language and its uses. Thus the stylistic process, examining the creativity of language use, develops our understanding of literature'
• Stylistics can be applied to an understanding of literature, journalism, and linguistics
• The efforts of stylisticians help develop our understanding of literature and the underlying significance of texts
• Stylistics looks at what is 'going on' within the language and reveals the linguistic associations that the style of language reveals
• Elements of style

  • Characteristics of the language used in the written work