Stylistics Approaches: Jakobson vs. Halliday

Approaches to Stylistics

• Roman Jakobson's Formalist Stylistics emphasizes the formal aspects of language and their effects on meaning.
• It focuses on the analysis of linguistic devices such as:
  • Phonetic features
  • Grammatical structures
  • Rhetorical figures

Halliday's Functional Stylistics

• This approach, proposed by Michael Halliday, emphasizes the functional aspects of language and how they are used to achieve specific communicative purposes.
• It focuses on the analysis of language in context, considering:
  • Social factors
  • Cultural factors
  • Situational factors that influence linguistic choices
• Halliday develops three principal language functions:
  • Ideational function: expression of content
  • Interpersonal function: expression of interaction
  • Textual function: expression of situation through coherent texts

Fish's Affective Stylistics

• This approach, developed by Stanley Fish, focuses on the reader's emotional and affective response to a text.
• Fish argues that the meaning of a text is not fixed or objective, but rather emerges from the reader's interpretation and engagement with the text.

Criticism of Stylistics

• Mackay (1996) critiques the 'objectivity' and 'scientificness' of stylistics proposed by Carter, Simpson, Van Peer, and Freeman (1998).
• Mackay argues that these terms are not useful in stylistic analysis.