Stylistics Book 2024-2025 PDF

Stylistics The Aesthetic Function of Language Prepared By Dr. Amel Omar Abd Elhameed Associate professor of Linguistics Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts Benha University ISBN: 1568/ 2017...

Stylistics The Aesthetic Function of Language Prepared By Dr. Amel Omar Abd Elhameed Associate professor of Linguistics Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Arts Benha University ISBN: 1568/ 2017 2024- 2025 1  Contents Chapter one: Introduction Chapter two: Types of Stylistics Chapter Three: Procedures of Stylistics Chapter Four: Levels of Linguistic Analysis Chapter five: The Lexico-semantic level Chapter six: The Syntactic Level Chapter seven: Cohesion and Coherence Chapter Eight: Foregrounding Chapter Nine: Basic Genres of Literature and their Elements Chapter Ten: Elements of Prose Chapter Eleven: Elements of Poetry Chapter twelve: Elements of Drama Chapter Thirteen: The Language of literature Chapter Fourteen: The language of Poetry Chapter Fifteen: The language of Drama Chapter sixteen: Elements of Registers Chapter Seventeen: A Stylistic Analysis Sample 2  CHAPTER (1) INTRODUCTION - Meaning of 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. In many respects, stylistics is close to literary criticism and practical criticism. The most common kind of material studied is literary; and attention is largely text centered. Moreover, the texts popularly studied tend to be those regarded as important in English studies, an inheritance of the Leavies Literary Canon of 1930s. The goal of most stylistic studies is not simply to describe the formal features of texts for their own sake, but in order to show their functional significance for the interpretation of the text; or in order to relate literary effects to linguistic causes where these are felt to be relevant. Stylistics draws on the models and terminology provided by whatever aspects of linguistics are felt to be relevant. In the late 1960s Generative Grammar was influential, in the 1970s and 1980s discourse analysis and pragmatics were influential. 3 Stylistics also draws eclectically on trends in literary theory, or parallels developments in this field. So the 1970s saw a shift away from the text itself to the reader and his or her responses to the text. Stylistics is sometimes called confusingly literary stylistics or Linguistic stylistics. Literary because it tends to focus on literary texts; linguistic because its models are drawn from linguistics. However linguistic stylistics can refer to a kind of stylistics whose focus of interest is not primarily literary texts, but the refinement of a linguistic model which has potential for further linguistic or stylistic analysis: Burton's (1980) discourse model for dramatic texts, for instance. Stylistics or general stylistics can be used as a cover term to cover the analyses of non-literary varieties of language, or Registers: e.g. Crystal & Davyc (1969). Because of this broad scope, stylistics comes close to work done in sociolinguistics. Because of its eclecticism, stylistics has come to be used as a teaching tool in language and literature studies for both native and foreign speakers of English : What can be termed as pedagogical stylistics. 4 Plett (1977) uses the term expressive stylistics as a general category of stylistic approaches which are speaker or writer centered, and which imply an old – fashioned view of style itself as revealing the personality or soul of the writer. It is associated with the work of Croce (1922), Vossler (1932) and Spitzer (1984). Expressive stylistics may be seen to survive in notions of style as idiolect: in the idea that Dickens has a style that is different from Trollopes. Radical Stylistics introduced by Burton (1982) to describe a kind of stylistics that is not simply concerned with stylistic effects, but with analyzing the different ways in which reality and ideology are constructed by language. It resembles Fowler's critical linguistics. In her own work on Sylvia Plath using the transitivity model of Halliday (1985), she illustrates how different choices of transitivity patterns crate different world-view. Stylistics is a branch of linguistics which studies the features of situationally distinctive uses (varieties) of language, and tries to establish principles capable of accounting for the particular choices made by individual and social groups in their use of language. Crystal (2003) clarifies General Stylistics dealing with the whole range (or Repertoire) of non-Dialectal varieties encountered within a language. He also clarifies Literary 5 Stylistics as dealing with the variations characteristic of literature as a genre and of the style of individual authors. Applied stylistics is often used for the study of contextually distinctive varieties of language, especially with reference to the style of literary and non literary texts. Crystal shows that the quantification of stylistic patterns is the province of stylostatics (or stylometry) a field which usually studies the statistical structure of literary texts, often using computers. There is also phono-stylistics which studies the expressive or aesthetic function of sound. The term stylistics is occasionally used in a very broad sense, to include all situationally distinctive language, that is including the variations of regional, social and historical dialects. It is more common, however to see style used in a highly restricted sense though the extremely broad and ambiguous reference of the term in everyday use has not made its status as a technical linguistic term very appealing. For example, in the Hallidayan classification of language varieties, style (more fully, style of discourse) refers to the relations among the participants in a language activity, especially the level of formality they adopt (colloquial, formal, etc.). Alternative terms used by some linguists, presumably to avoid the ambiguity of an additional 6 sense of the term style, include Manner and tenor. Crystal (2003) adds : A similar conception of style in terms of vertical formality level is found in many sociolinguistic studies. In some contexts (such as Generative Grammar) stylistics rules refer to optional processes which high light an element in a sentence. Style – shifting refers to the way speakers within a language may alternate between styles in order to achieve a particular effect. Stylistics is a discipline which has been approached from many perspectives. Its meaning varies depending on the theory that is adopted. When we carry out the different activities that are connected to our area of business, either in spoken or written forms, we often use devices of thought and the rules of language, but there are variations so as to change meanings or say the same thing in different ways. This is what the concept of style is based upon : the use of language in different ways, all for the purpose of achieving a common goal – to negotiate meanings. Stylistics and its approaches: Stylistics can be approached from different perspectives. The basic objective of stylistics is to reveal how language is used to express what is meant in a given text. 7 The concepts of style and stylistic variation in language are based on the notion that within the language system, the content can be encoded in more than one linguistic form. Thus, it is possible for stylistics to operate at all linguistic levels, such as phonological, lexical, syntactic, semantics etc. The main aim of stylistics is to enable us to understand the intention of the author. Therefore it is concerned with the significance of the function that the chosen style fulfils. Style as choice: Style as choice is very important in stylistic analysis. Choice is very vital instrument of stylistics since it deals with the variations and the options that are available to an author. There are different choices available to the writer in a given text. This depends on the situation and the genre which the writer chooses to express his thoughts and opinions. Pratt (1980) clarifies that with the writer's choice, there is a reflection of his ego and the social conditions of his environment. There are two types of choice for a writer to use. The first is the paradigmatic (vertical axis) which gives a variety of choice between one item and other items; the writer chooses the most appropriate word. It is a basic term in linguistics to describe the set of substitutional relationships a linguistic unit has with other units in a specific 8 context. Classes of paradigmatically related elements are often referred to as system, e.g, the pronoun system, case system etc. It accounts for the given fillers that occupy a particular state while still maintaining the structure of the sentence, for example, a writer or speaker can choose between "start" and "commence", "go" and "proceed". The second choice is the Syntagmatic (the horizontal axis). It refers to the sequential characteristics of speech, seen as string of constituents in linear order. The relationships between constituents (syntagms or syntagmas) in a construction are generally called syntagmatic relations. Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic relations constitute the statement of a linguistic unit's identity within the language system. Style as the man: Every individual has his or her own unique way of doing things and no two persons are of exactly the same character. There are always distinctive features that distinguish one person from the other. Thus, in literary style, one is able to differentiate between the writings of Shakespeare and Dickens. A person's style may also be shaped by his social and political background, religious 9 inclination, culture, education, geographical location etc. So, style as the man sees style as an index of personality. Style as deviation: The concept of style as deviation is based on the notion that there are rules, conventions and regulations that guide the different activities that must be executed. In stylistics, deviation is concerned with the use of different styles from the expected norm of language use in a given genre of writing. Stylistics helps to identify how and why a text has deviated. Deviation may occur at any level of language description e.g. phonological, graphological, syntactic, lexico-semantic, etc. At the graphological level, for example, we may see capital letters where they are not supposed to be. At the syntactic level, subject and verb may not be observed e.g. Adjunct may come before. At the lexico-semantic level, words that should not go together may be deliberately brought together. e.g. "dangerous safety" "open secret". Style as conformity: It is on the notion of style as conformity that the idea of style as choice operates and then results in or brings out the possibility of style as deviation, that is a writer needs, first of all, to decide whether to conform to the established style or to deviate. It is 10 not in all situations that a writer enjoys flexibility to deviate. Style as conformity is, often "strictly enforced" in certain fields or circumstances. This is often in academic / educational field as regard students research projects. It is also found so in some professional writings, where a considerable conformity to the established format or diction is expected for a text to earn acceptability. Style as period of time: Style relates to time / period because language is dynamics, it is always changing. The style of any given period has recognizably predominant features that make such a period distinct. A period usually dictates the style employed by the writers. For example, Shakespeare and his contemporaries used a particular style of writing i.e., writing in verses. The Victorian, Elizabethan, Renaissance and even the modern periods all have peculiar styles different from one another. In a nutshell, the noticeable conventions and pattern of language use that inform the urge of a particular period, make the style of that period. This becomes obvious when we look at the stages in the development of the English language e.g., old English, Middle English and Modern English. When we look at a script in old English now, it will seem as if it were written in a different language because of the 11 differences in syntax, vocabulary, spelling, etc. The type of English we use today is different from Shakespearean English in many ways. So, since language changes along time axis, style is also expected to vary along the same axis. The study of language along time axis is termed diachronic linguistics. There is also synchronic linguistics which deals with the study of language at a particular time / period. Style as situation: Situation is the context that determines language choice in speaking or writing. Certain words are appropriate for certain occasions, while some are considered taboo, vulgar or abominable. For example, a professor, in a scholarly conference, cannot indulge in vulgarism like: "This theory is fucking up". Consequently, a given situation has a great influence on the choice made at every level of language description. The concept of register further buttresses this point. For example, registers as aspect of style tend to be associated with particular groups of people or sometimes specific situations of use (Journalese, legalese, Liturgese, Babytalk, the language of sports commentaries) the language of criminals – argot, the languages of the courtroom, the classroom etc.). 12  Thus, it becomes clear that the study of style is the preoccupation of stylistics. Stylistic itself can be approached from different perspectives. The basic objective of stylistics is to reveal how language is used to express what it expresses in a given text. As a student of stylistics, you should pay close attention to how language is used in any text. The Goals of Stylistics: The practice of stylistics is targeted at achieving certain goals: To establish discourse peculiarities stylistics studies the peculiarities that characterize the discourse of a writer, speaker, period, people or genre. - To induce appreciation of discourses stylistics involves the appreciation of a discourse in order to increase our enjoyment of the discourse. It opens the reader's mind to the form and function of a particular discourse. It unfolds the beauty in authorial and characters' linguistic choices and opens the reader or listener's mind to the aesthetic appeals of such choices. - To ascertain linguistic habit: an author's style is the product of a particular linguistic habit, conditioned by some social, cultural and ideological environments. The objective of stylistics is to help determine the linguistic 13 background and orientation of a given writer or speaker. Thus, according to Chatman (1971), every analysis of style can be seen as an attempt to discover the artistic principles that underpin the choice a writer has made. 14  CHAPTER (2) TYPES OF STYLISTICS We shall discuss linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics as two broad types of stylistics. In discussing linguistic stylistics, we shall use some poems and demonstrate how stylistics can be done at some levels of language description. We shall therefore look at graphological phonological, syntactic, and lexico-semantic features. In addition, we shall also discuss the literary perception of style. Linguistic Stylistics Linguistic stylistics explores the linguistic features of a text. Remember that there is reference to style as the selection of certain linguistic forms or features over other possible ones. Linguistic stylistics, therefore points out those linguistic choices which a writer or speaker has made as well as the effects of the choices. Linguistic stylistics is primarily concerned with the use of language and its effects in a text. Given a piece of literature, a poem for example, a linguistic stylistic analyst will be interested in describing the form and function of language in the poem, paying attention to certain curiosities that may be accounted for in linguistic terms. 15  This does not imply that linguistic stylistics ignores the meanings which a poem conveys. In fact, the meaning is the focal point. But what the system of language is used to do is of paramount importance to the stylistician who works within the system of linguistic stylistics. Widdowson (1975: 5) posits that “… it may well be the case that the linguist’s analysis of the language of a poem is dependent on some prior intuitive interpretation of what the poem is about.”Linguistic stylistics, then, directs its attention primarily to how a piece of discourse expresses the language system. By language system, we mean linguistic features that can be examined based on the levels of language.Linguistic stylistics studies the devices in languages (such as rhetorical figures and syntactical patterns) that are considered to produce expressive or literary style. It is different from literary criticism in that while literary criticism rests solely on the subjective interpretation of texts, linguistic stylistics concentrates on the “linguistic frameworks operative in the text” (Ayeomoni 2003: 177). This gives the critic a pattern to follow; what to look out for in a text; and consequently his standpoint can be verified statistically. Some Features of Linguistic Stylistics: In this section, we shall limit ourselves to some linguistic 16 features that would serve as a platform for an in-depth stylistic analysis of any text, though in this unit, we restrict ourselves to poetry. As a form of lexical repetition, words may be repeated; synonyms or near-synonyms may be used. At times, poets repeat some lexical items, near-synonymy may be used, for instance, to foreground the intended message. For instance, look at these lines: Jilt her Rape her Milk her Suck her In the above extract from Okpanachi’s The Eaters of the Living (p. 80), we find a sense of lexical relation. “Milk” and “Suck” in the context of the poem function as synonyms. The synonymous selection is, however, determined by the emotion of the poet. The overall intention of the poet is to emphasize his disdain for the political situation of his country. If we look closely at the poem, the words correspond with the social situation of the country which the poet depicts Lexico-Semantic Level Semantics deals with meaning. At the lexico-semantic level, we 17 look at the lexical choices made by a writer or speaker. Here, words can be chosen for their denotative, connotative and other dimensions of meanings. Look at this line: “But tomorrow cannot be consoled.” The above line is taken from Yeibo’s Maiden Lines. Syntactically, i.e., in terms of grammar, the line is normal. The sentence begins with ‘but’, giving the assumption that it contrasts with the idea that precedes it. But if we look at the sentence semantically, “tomorrow” is not an animate thing that can be consoled; it is only humans that can be “consoled” or not consoled. Making “tomorrow” to go with “consoled” creates some effect at this level. Syntactic Level: This has to do with the arrangement of units larger than the word. These units include groups/phrases, clauses and sentences. Look at this sentence: “He went home”. The pattern of the sentence is SPA (S – Subject, P = Predicator, A – Adjunct). A poet can violate the order of the above sentence in the form below: “Home he went” (This has ASP pattern). 18  The item “home” occurs in the initial position of the sentence to foreground it. This is deviation for a specific effect. Phonological Level (Sounds): Phonology refers to how sound is organized to mean. Sound patterning functions linguistically in poetry to project a poet’s purpose or concern in a work” (Aboh. 2008: 67-8). Poetry has fashions and different forms of sound patterning. Let us look at this example taken from Dasylva’s Songs of Odamolugbe: Their stanzas of stifling scandals Cause the masses to curse This is an example of alliteration. The sound stanzas and scandals are the poet’s deliberate selections. The sound effect created by such selection gives the reader a deeper sense of understanding the enormity of corruption and insincerity in the Nigerian society. It is the insincerity of the rulers that ‘cause’ the masses to ‘curse’. Graphological Level: Another way in which poets can make us contemplate the otherwise unmarked morphological structure of words is by playing around with word boundaries. Graphology means the 19 arrangement of words based on their meanings. If a poet breaks the word “Kingdom” into “king - dom” the poet has tampered with the morphology of the word, thereby affecting the meaning. Literary Stylistics: Literary stylistics is synonymous to literary criticism, in a way. The ultimate purpose of literary stylistics is to explain the individual message of the writer in terms which makes its importance clear to others. The task of literary stylistics is to decipher a message encoded in an unfamiliar way, to express its meaning in familiar and communal terms and thereby to provide the private message with a public relevance. This activity is not essentially different from the criticism of other art forms. The literary stylistician is obviously sensitive to language, but his/her concern is not principally with the way the signals of the artist are constructed but with the underlying message which an interpretation of the signals reveals. Furthermore, literary stylistics is less interested in devising a metalanguage into which the original message can be transferred. The literary stylistician is rather concerned with figurative and evocative uses of language which characterize the message being interpreted. Literary stylistics, then, is primarily concerned with 20 messages and the interest in codes (language) lies in the meaning they convey in particular instances of use. The beauty of language and how it is used to capture reality is also the focal concern of literary stylistics. Literary stylistics takes interpretation as its aim. It is interested in finding out what aesthetic experience or perception of reality a poem, for example, is attempting to convey. Its observation of how language system is used will serve only as a means to this end. Literary stylistics, therefore, searches for underlying significance, for the essential artistic vision which language is used to express. It treats literary works as messages. It undertakes the interpretation of a text as the ultimate objective of analysis. It is based on the consideration of the stylistically significant features of the text (including clause and sentence structure, paragraphing and cohesion) and of lexis. It is however the stylistic effects and functions produced by these features rather than the objective description of them that is more important here (i.e. in literary stylistics). The above examples are just small parts of stylistic analysis, especially a linguistic stylistic analysis. The ability of an analyst to unearth stylistic features depends, by and large, on his linguistic and literary awareness. Linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics are not limited to the analysis of the language 21 of literature. Any form of language use such as news reporting, advertising, football commentary, etc can be analyzed stylistically from the two perspectives. We have established a distinction between two main types of stylistics: literary stylistics and linguistic stylistics. Under linguistic stylistics, we examined some linguistic features that have stylistic effects. We argued that linguistic stylistics is primarily concerned with the description of language used in a text, while literary stylistics is principally interested in interpreting the message of a work of art; making a personal message of an artist gain communal significance. However, in practice, there is no justification for bifurcating stylistics into linguistic stylistics and literary stylistic. Therefore, these two forms of stylistics are merged in this course, in practice. TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT: 1. Mention and explain two types of stylistics. 2. Identify some features that can be focused on in a linguistic stylistic analysis. 3. Carry out a literary analysis of any poem of your choice. 22  CHAPTER (3) PROCEDURES OF STYLISTICS Stylistics has become so vibrant a field of study that it has drawn insights from a number of disciplines or fields. Each of these disciplines has its own approach to the study of style in texts. A situation such as this has brought about various types of stylistics. Thus, it becomes possible for a stylistician to do a thorough stylistic examination of a text by adopting any of the various approaches at his or her disposal. Reader-Response Stylistics: This type of stylistics stemmed from the strand of modern ‘subjective criticism called reader-response criticism, otherwise known, in the German school of criticism as reception aesthetics. Very notable figures among the proponents of modern criticism, I.A. Richards and William Sempson, steered the critics of texts towards appreciating the words, which are contained on the pages of a text, rather than considering the author of such a text. This development in literary criticism is a radical departure from the Romantic conception of the author as being totally responsible for whatever meaning that one, as a reader, may encounter on the pages of a text. Inspired by Roland 23 Barthes' view, the new critics, as the proponents of modern criticism are called, believed that the meaning of a text can, solely, be determined through the interaction between the reader and the words one the pages of the text. This is what the reader- response criticism concerns itself with. Thus, the reader-response stylistics examines the reader's response to a text as a response to a horizon of expectations. By a horizon of expectations, is meant that there is multiplicity of meanings or interpretations in a text and these can be accessed by the reader according to his or her level of what Jonathan Culler (1981: 25) describes as "literary competence". A reader's literary competence is highly informed by the social world in which a text is produced as it usually has a shaping effect on his or her interpretation of such a text. In the reader-response stylistics, there is an interaction between the structure of the text and the reader's response. Thus, the reader becomes an active part of the text. The reader-response stylistics evokes a situation where individual readers give meaning to the text. This is because each reader will interact with the text differently, as the text may have more than one vivid interpretation. The theorists of this type of stylistics share two beliefs: a. The role of the reader cannot be ignored. 24  b. Readers do not passively consume the meaning presented to them by a literary text. Instead, readers actively make the meaning they find in literature. This is to say that literature exists and signifies when it is read and its force is an affective one. Furthermore, reading is a temporal process, not a spatial one as new critics (formalists) assume when they step back and survey the literary work as if it were an object spread out before them. In The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction From Bunyan to Beckett (1974) and The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (1976) (both cited in Murfin and Ray, 1998), the German critic Wolfgang Iser comments that texts contain gaps that powerfully affect the reader, who must explain them, connect what they separate, and create in his or her mind aspects of a work that are not in the text but are implied by the text. The reader ceases to be a mere passive recipient of the ideas planted in a text by an author, but an active contributor/maker of meanings. Reader - response stylistics / criticism has evolved into a variety of new forms. Subjectivists like David Bleich, Norman Holland, and Robert Crossman have viewed the reader's 25 response not as one "guided" by the text, but rather as one motivated by deep-seated, personal, psychological needs. Affective Stylistics: Affective stylistics came around to be identified as one of the two varieties of a major branch of stylistics, namely, literary stylistics and expressive stylistics. Whereas expressive stylistics is writer/speaker - oriented, affective stylistics is reader/ hearer – oriented i.e. its focus is on the consumers. Like its close partner (the reader - response stylistics), affective stylistics ferrets out the emotional responses that a reader or hearer makes in the course of his or her interacting with, that is, reading or listening to a text. However, it goes further to examine the psychological operations that are usually involved in the reader's process of reading or the hearer's process of listening; hence, it is, otherwise, known as "process stylistics". According to Fish (1970), in affective stylistics, the stylistician relies primarily upon his or her affective responses to stylistics, elements in the text. Here, the literary text is not formally self-sufficient; it comes alive through the interpretative strategy that the reader deploys hence the need to analyse the 26 developing responses of the reader in relation to the words as they succeed one another in the text. The work and its result are one and the same thing; what a text is and what it does Affective stylistics could equally be seen as the impact of a text's structure on the reader as the work unfolds. During the process of affective stylistics, viewers continue to take in new information that must be incorporated into their current understanding of the work. With each new bit of information, the reader may form new expectations of where the work is going, perhaps, rejecting old interpretations, opinions and assumptions and making new ones. The affective domain includes the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasm, motivations and attitudes. Pragmatic Stylistics Pragmatic stylistics is part of the manifestation of linguistic stylistics. This variety of stylistics shows the meeting point between pragmatics and stylistics, that is, how pragmatic resources, such as performative and speech acts can be employed to achieve stylistic effects. 27  Scholars have demonstrated that the objective of pragmatics is to show how users of any language can use the sentences obtainable in such a language to convey messages which are not directly or explicitly shown in the propositional content of the sentences. Pragmatics came round to fill the gap created by the truth-condition semantics. The latter is a semantic theory which holds the view that the truthfulness or the falsity of a sentence or an utterance is subject to the degree to which the propositional content of such a sentence or an utterance is verifiable from the world. Stylistics, as has been shown in the previous units, is traditionally concerned with the study of style in language. Verdonk (2002:4) defines it as the analysis of a distinctive expression and description of its purpose and effect. The partnership between both pragmatics and stylistics appears quite possible given the qualities that they share. Both are, for instance, interested in such features as are beyond the sentence boundary. The application of pragmatic and stylistic theories to text analysis indicates a clear departure from how texts were analysed when modern linguistics began to develop. In this respect, Dressier et al (1993:16) inform us that the tradition at the inception of the evolution of modern linguistics was for 28 analysts to confine the analysis of a text to the domain of sentence which was, then, regarded as the largest unit with an inherent structure. The pragmatic meaning of a text can be recovered through the context that produces the text. It is the realization that context is necessary in the exploration of the pragmatic meaning that guides a language user or text producer into employing appropriate linguistic resources in the text in order to achieve the stylistic meaning through what Ayodabo (1997:136) regards as "...the degree of effectiveness of an utterance (herein referred to as text) in relation to the learners (or readers) at the perlocutionary level". But for the perlocutionary level to be achieved, we are informed by the speech act theory (the proponents of which include Austin 1962 and Searle 1969) that the illocutionary acts must have satisfied certain felicity conditions. It is therefore, obvious that the frequency of a speech act is highly significant in understanding the extent to which it has been stylistically exploited by text producers to exert some perlocutionary effect(s) on the reader(s) of such a text. In this arrangement, we have the yoking of pragmatics and stylistics. Pragmatic stylistics is, thus, viewed as a two-in-one theory of 29 text analysis, which focuses on the effects of contexts on the text. Pedagogical Stylistics: This type of stylistics shows the instructional use into which stylistics is put. Wales (1997: 438) explains that stylistics has been, unarguably, considered a teacher's ready tool of teaching language and literature to both native and foreign speakers of English. In order to achieve his goal of teaching with ease, a teacher is guided by certain strategies or objectives. Often times, a teacher cannot but be flexible in his or her course of achieving his or her teaching objectives. In this wise, a close ally to pedagogical stylistics is classroom discourse analysis. For long, pedagogical stylistics has been intrinsically linked with the teaching of the linguistic features of written texts as a means of enhancing students' understanding of literature and language. It is based on the premise that stylisticians who are involved with teaching should be aware of the pedagogical orientation and reading paradigms which inform their practice. It is also a theoretical dimension to research undertaken into practice in the stylistics classroom. 30  Pedagogical stylistics emphasizes that the process of improving students' linguistic sensibilities must include greater emphasis upon the text as action; that is, upon the mental processing which is such as proactive part of reading and interpretation; and how all of these elements - pragmatic and cognitive as well as linguistic - function within quite specific social and cultural contexts. The knowledge gained from the study of pedagogical stylistics will help students in understanding how language, grammar and rhetoric function in texts. It will follow these steps: firstly, students will acquire the knowledge that leads them to comprehend the basic grammatical and rhetoric concepts. Secondly, it will boost their practical knowledge, whereby students are able to analyze texts with the tool they have acquired at the first stage. The third stage is when students go into a mode of synthesizing all they have learned, which, in turn, allows them to move on to the production stage. Such a process is valuable, for example, in the contemporary creative writing classroom. Forensic Stylistics: Forensic stylistics is a part of forensic linguistics. In general, forensic stylistics is the application of stylistics to crime 31 detection. Through the stylistic analysis of language use at the different levels of language description, it is possible to determine the author of a text. This may be applied to confessional statements to the police. Issues like voice recognition, identification of regional accents are often studied to arrive at useful conclusions in terms of crime detection (see Bloor, M. and Bloor, T. 2007). Stylistics has been proved to be a useful tool in the hands of an analyst who wishes to analyze a text from any stand point. Analyzing a text provides one a better way to read a text. Stylistics may be regarded as a window into the world of texts. An analyst may adopt a particular approach in opening the window into the world of texts. The different approaches that may be adopted are embedded in the different strands of stylistics as reader-response stylistics, affective stylistics, pragmatic stylistics, pedagogical stylistics and forensic stylistics. TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT: 1. Identify four other types of stylistics apart from linguistic and literary stylistics 2. Explain carefully the type of stylistics identified in (1) above 3. How does each type of stylistics identified in (1) work? 32  CHAPTER (4) LEVELS OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS The Systemic Functional Grammar developed by M.A.K. Halliday recognizes phonology and graphology as the levels of language substance. Phonology deals with the phonic substance (segmental and suprasegmental units of language) while graphology deals with the graphic substance. This unit will expose you to those things that should be considered in doing a stylistic analysis at the phono-graphological level of language description. Phono-Graphology: Phono-graphology as a term was popularized by Halliday (1961) in explicating a number of different levels at which linguistic events should be accounted for. Within this framework, Halliday (1961:243-4) observes that the primary levels are 'form', 'substance' and 'context'. According to him, the substance is the material of language: 'phonic' (audible noises) or 'graphic' (visible marks), hence phono-graphology is the organization of substance into meaningful events. The context relates the form to non-linguistic features of the situation in which language operates to yield extra-textual features. 33 Therefore, Systemic Functional Linguistics recognizes the formal and the situational dimensions of language description. Working within this tradition, Leech and Short (1981) identify four levels of language description: syntax, semantics, phonology and graphology. Syntax and phonology form the expression plane and interact to bring out meaning which is the pre-occupation of semantics. According to them, graphology is an alternative form of realization to phonology. Although phonological features can be said to be remote in a written text, they are still not irrelevant. After all, a text is written to be read or spoken. Spellings can be exploited to suggest some phonological features and these will be more prominent when the text is read aloud. Phonologically, the analysis of language at this level involves the basic sound units such as the combination of sounds, stress, tone and patterns of intonation. Furthermore, it is at this level that we consider the possible syllable structure of a particular language and the various ways in which syllables can be combined. This aspect can also be helpful in a contrastive study of languages. For example, while two or more consonants can occur in a sequence in English, it is not so in Yoruba. The Segmentals: 34 The segmental units of English consist of at least twenty vowels and twenty-four consonants. The twenty vowels are made up of twelve pure vowels and eight diphthongs. Also, the twenty-four consonants are made up of fifteen voiced and nine voiceless consonants. Refer to your phonetics and phonology course for the basic knowledge of these segmental units. Here, it is enough for you to note that writers, especially poets, can exploit the sounds and their structures to achieve special effects e.g. through the use of alliteration, assonance, and so on. The Suprasegmentals: The suprasegmentals are the units that are larger than the segmentals. Stress, for example, is a suprasegmental unit. It refers to the degree of force or loudness with which a syllable is pronounced. It can also indicate a word class as in present (noun), pre sent (verb); object (noun), object (verb). Intonation which is another suprasegmental unit indicates primarily, the falling or rising pitch of a word or sentence as in: He has come. (falling intonation) He has come? (rising intonation) The falling intonation in (a) above indicates a statement, while the rising intonation in (b) indicates a question. The 35 combination of stress and intonation gives the English language its peculiar rhythm, and writers especially poets, utilize heavily this feature of the language to achieve some effects in their writings. Graphology: At this level, such things as spelling, punctuation, space management, underlining, use of pictures, coloring, etc. are considered and analyzed. The pattern of writing can also indicate the variety of language involved. For instance, words like 'color' and 'meter' are classified as American English, based on their spellings. Conversely, their varieties ('color' and 'metre') are regarded as British English for the same reason. Graphological elements are often used to achieve foregrounding in a text. Foregrounding simply means making certain elements in a text prominent so as to attract attention. Any aspect of a text that is foregrounded is made conspicuous to attract the reader's attention. You will learn more about foregrounding later in this course. Phono-graphological analysis can be said to involve the analysis of the deployment of phonological units of segmentals and suprasegmentals at one level and those of the graphic substance 36 of language - i.e. features relating to the writing system. A phono-graphological analysis will be pertinent in the analysis of poetry, in particular. But both aspects are necessarily involved in a stylistic analysis of a text - be it spoken or written. This will be apparent when you consider a written text that is meant to be spoken. Such an analysis is no less significant in other genres if we are to account for their total significance. TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT: 1.What do you understand by phono-graphology? 37  CHAPTER (5) THE LEXICO-SEMANTIC LEVEL The lexico-semantic level is the level at which a stylistic analyst looks at the author’s deployment of words and their meanings in a text. According to Milmkiaer (2002: 339), the study of lexis is the study of the vocabulary of a language in all its aspects, and as Ajulo (1994: 1 – 8) says, many linguists have started to develop interest in lexical studies in English, perhaps as a result of the realization that “there is a need for a separate level of linguistic analysis … to cater for certain linguistic patterns and regularities which the grammatical level… alone cannot take care for” (Ajulo 1994: 5). Semantics: This is the study of the linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases and sentences. Subfields of semantics are lexical semantics and structural semantics. Lexical semantics is concerned with the meaning of words and the meaning of syntactic units larger than the word. Roman Jacobson is quoted by Fromkin et al (2003) as saying: that language without 38 meaning is meaningless. Semantics is the philosophical and scientific study of meaning. It can also be said to be a branch of linguistics which is pre-occupied with the study of meaning. The term is one of a group of English words formed from the various derivatives of the Greek verb “semano” ("to mean" or "to signify"). Semantics helps us to understand the nature of language because it accounts for the abnormalities experienced when reading English sentences such as: "The chicken ate the man" "My cat read English" and "A dress was walking to the door". The abnormality in each of the same basic syntactic rule such as: The Plate kicked the man NP V NP Subject predicator object Hence, each of the sentence is grammatical. Fromkin (et al) (2003) assert that one of the important ways of representing semantic properties is by use of semantic features. These are formal and notational devices that indicate the presence or absence of semantic properties by pluses (+) and minuses (-). Words fulfill certain roles within the situation 39 described by the sentence. These have been identified as Agents (subject), theme (object) and instrument (predicator). Lexico-Semantics: The main argument of the lexical semanticists is that if the word is an identifiable unit of language, then, it must be possible to isolate a core stable meaning that enables its consistent use by a vast number of users in different situations. Linguists have attempted to unravel meanings of lexical items based on their componential features. The task involved is what is known as componential analysis which is a by-product of lexical composition, i.e. the process of analyzing lexical features. Pioneered by Katz and Fodor (1963), lexical semantics believes that words are decomposable into primitive meanings which can be represented by markers such as plus (+) and minus (-) matrices. For instance, 'spinster' may have the following componential features: +HUMAN, +FEMALE, +MATURITY, +SINGLE (- married). Thus, words can be broken down into their distinctive semantic features in order to describe what they mean. Somebody doing a stylistic analysis at the lexico- semantic level can use the lexical features of a text to describe how words are used to mean in the text. 40 Lexical Relations: Germane to the study of lexis is the semantic field theory which holds that the meanings represented in the lexicon are interrelated because they cluster together to form fields of meaning which in turn metamorphose to a larger field of entailment. This cycle continues until the total language is encompassed. The issue of lexical relations is closely related to the notion of semantic field. Lyons (1977) and Leech (1981) view basic or primitive semantic relations as synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy. Synonym refers to similarity of meanings. This is the relationship between "go" and "proceed." Antonymy suggests oppositeness. It also denotes converseness for the reversible relationships between "husband" and "wife", "male" and "female." This is what Leech (1981: 102) calls relative opposition. Hyponymy is the relation of inclusion. For instance, the word "flower" will have the following co- hyponyms: rose, hibiscus, pride of Barbados. Similarly, the word "vehicle" has the following relations: van, bus, car, lorry and its co-hyponyms. Writers or language users generally exploit their knowledge of lexical relations to enrich their communication. Special effects can be created through the use of synonyms or 41 near-synonyms, antonyms, etc. With their presence, a text can achieve lexical cohesion as well as elegant variations. Types of Words: In order to appreciate how words are used in a text, you can also look at the nature of the vocabulary contained in the text. At the level of vocabulary, language offers its users many choice possibilities. For example, a writer or speaker can choose simple or difficult words, concrete or abstract words, archaic or modern words, specific or general words. In addition, when you encounter a text, you will do well to watch out for the instances of compound words, blends, acronyms, coinages, and so on. Wherever they occur, these types of words will have some stylistic motivations, and it is your duty as a stylistic analyst to unearth such stylistic motivations. Do you know what acronyms are? Such factors as topic/ subject- matter, purpose(s), participants (audience), situation/ context, genres among others, will determine the types of words a particular language user chooses. Denotative and Connotative Meanings: Denotative meaning refers to the conceptual meaning of a word. It is the plain or central meaning of a word. It is this type of meaning that is easily expressed in terms of componential 42 features. For example, the denotative meaning of "man" can be expressed in terms of + HUMAN, + ADULT – FEMALE. The denotative meaning of a word is said to be its literal, objective meaning. In addition to the denotative meaning, a word may also have a connotative meaning. Connotative meaning is a kind of additional, suggestive, personal or cultural meaning. If we regard denotation as an objective meaning of a word, connotation can be regarded as a subjective meaning. Connotatively, a woman can be regarded as a man, to suggest that she has the attributes of a man. Connotation points to the associative or figurative dimension of word meanings. This feature is of particular significance in poetry, where poets use words not only for their literal meaning but also for what they suggest. In addition to appealing to the connotative dimension of word meaning, we should also note the use of such figures of speech as metaphor, personification, simile, hyperbole, etc. You will learn more about some figures of speech in unit 13. Idiomatic Meaning: In describing language at the lexico-semantic level, your knowledge of the idiomatic meanings will be of relevance. 43 Idioms are special collocations the meaning of which cannot be determined from the meanings of the elements that make them up. The meaning of an idiom has to be learnt as that of an individual lexical item. Examples of idioms are: to rain cats and dogs to hold the bull by the horn to let a sleeping dog lie. Do you know what these idioms mean? Note that apart from their literal contexts, words can also have idiomatic contexts, and language users often exploit these when they communicate. As you have leant, words have a way of combining with one another in a text. The patterns of combination may be fixed or free. When it is fixed, we have an idiomatic expression. The issue of meaning is a serious problem in linguistics; it has various dimensions. But as elusive as it is, we still have to consider it in any linguistic analysis because meaning is the core of any form of communication that relies on language. One level at which meaning is considered is the word level. This is significant because words make up a text; they constitute the basic unit of a text. 44  A lexico-semantic analysis calls for the explication of word meanings in any text. Specifically, issues relating to lexical relations, dimensions of meaning (denotative, connotative, literal, figurative, idiomatic, etc) should be focused on. Again, at this level, you should note how a writer or speaker uses different types of words like abstract, concrete, simple, difficult, specific, general, and so on, to create meanings in a text. If we understand the nature of words and their patterns of combination in a text, we will be able to do a meaningful lexico- semantic analysis of the text. TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT: 1. What does language description at the lexico-semantic level entail? 2. Distinguish between denotation and connotation. 3. What are lexical relations? Mention and explain some of them. 45  CHAPTER (6) THE SYNTACTIC LEVEL One important level of linguistic analysis is the syntactic level. At this level, just like any other level of language description, significant statements of meaning can be made based on the observation of the choices that a writer/speaker has made, and, of course the genre of literature or the peculiarities of the text involved. Units of Grammar: Language is a structural entity as its elements exist and function in a hierarchical order. Such units or elements include morpheme, word, group (phrase), clause and sentence. The morpheme is the smallest unit while the sentence is the highest or the largest. In order to do a stylistic analysis at the syntactic level, you should be familiar with the group (or phrase), the clause and the sentence, among other relevant syntactic elements. The Group: A group or phrase is a stretch of grammatically coherent words without a subject and a finite verb, unless it is a verbal group (i.e. a verb phrase). This means that only the verbal group 46 or verb phrase can contain a finite verb. The sentence below contains three groups: "He/is walking/along the road." "He" is the subject, "is walking" is a verbal group (or verb phrase), "along the road" is an adverbial group (you may also call it a prepositional phrase). As you must have seen above, a group can contain one or more words and it functions like a single lexical item. In English, the nominal group (i.e. noun phrase) has (M)H(Q) structure. This means Modifier, Head, Qualifier. The most important word in the group is the "head"; the element that comes before the "head" is a modifier while the element that comes after the "head" is a qualifier. Out of the three i.e. modifier, head and qualifier, only the head is obligatory; hence (M) and (Q) are put in brackets in the notation. Again, there can be more than one modifier before the "head" just as there can be more than one qualifier after the "head". Can you identify the head, the modifier(s) and the qualifier(s) in each of the following? The beautiful girl 47  A woman to watch An influential man to watch in our political circle. The verbal group (i.e. the verb phrase) is also important. It may be a lexical verb alone or an auxiliary plus a lexical verb. The underlined expressions are examples of the verbal group: Bola will go to school. We should have been there. We danced merrily. In doing a stylistic analysis at the syntactic level, you will do well to pay a close attention to the choices which a writer/speaker has made at the level of group/phrase. With the nominal group, for example, you may note the use of modifiers and qualifiers with the head-words and bring out the stylistic effects of such. The Clause: A clause is higher in rank than a group. It may be defined as a group of grammatically coherent words with a subject and a finite verb. The underlined expressions in the following are examples: They left/when we did not expect. Unless you guide him/he won't know what to do. 48  A clause that can stand as a sentence is called main or independent clause e.g. the first clause of our example (a) and the second clause of our example (b). On the other hand, a clause that cannot stand on its own is regarded as a dependent or subordinate clause e.g. the second clause of example (a) and the first clause of example (b). In addition, we can have noun clause, adjectival clause and adverbial clause. Look at these examples: (a) I don't know what he means. (noun clause) (b) Those who like us are many. (adjectival clause). (c) When he came we saw him. (adverbial clause). You should note that although we have said that a clause should contain a finite verb, the verb may be omitted in some instances to give us what we call verbless clauses. Consider this: "If possible, let the man leave now." A form of the verb "be" together with "it" is omitted here. The full form is "If it is possible, let the man leave now." This omission is a case of grammatical ellipsis. Furthermore, note the following elements of the clause: Subject (S), Predicator (P), Object (O), Complement (C) and Adjunct (A). Look at this example: S P O C A 49 Many people/ are painting/ their houses/ white / these days./ You also need to note these: The predicator is the only element, which is a verb phrase. The subject normally precedes the predicator (in a normal sentence in the indicative mood). The object is closely tied to the predicator in terms of meaning and it denotes the person or thing most intimately affected by the action or state, etc denoted by the predicator. The complement can look superficially like an object (both can be NPs). But in terms of meaning, it provides a definition or characterization of the subject or object. Objects and complements normally follow the predicator. If there is both an object and a complement in the clause, normally the complement follows the object, e.g. S P O C / John /called /Mary / a fool./ Adjunct fills out the clause by adding extra circumstantial information of various kinds, which may relate to time, location, speaker's attitude e. t. c. 50  There is no fixed number of adjuncts that can occur in a clause. In this wise, they are like modifiers in the nominal group. (Adjuncts are the most mobile element of the clause). There are two kinds of objects: direct object (Od) and indirect object (Oί). There are also two kinds of complement: subject complement (Cs) and object complement (Co). Consider these. S P Cs (1) He / was / a great statesman./ S P O Co (2) They / regarded / him / a great statesman A careful study of the arrangement of the elements of the clause can illuminate your stylistic analysis. A writer or speaker can deviate from the normal order to create foregrounding e.g. A S P S P A "Here / he / comes" instead of "He / comes / here." Can you explain the stylistic importance of that foregrounding? 51 The Sentence: The sentence is the highest or the largest of the grammatical units mentioned at the beginning of this unit. But the difference between the clause and the sentence is a matter of degree rather than kind. Simply put, a sentence is a group of grammatically related words that expresses a complete thought. Both structural and functional criteria are taken into consideration in classifying sentences. Structurally, we can have simple, compound, complex and compound – complex sentences. In functional terms, we have such sentence types as declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory, requests. Find out examples of these functional sentence categories and examine closely their stylistic values. When a sentence makes one statement and contains one finite verb, it is said to be a simple sentence e.g.: (1) The consultants at the University College Hospital are resourceful. (2) The University College Hospital is a pacesetter in tertiary health. When a sentence makes at least two statements, (i.e. contains at least two finite verbs) and the two ideas/statements made are of equal status, the sentence is said to be compound e.g. 52 (3) The consultants at the University College Hospital are resourceful and they enjoy regular refresher courses. But if the two ideas/ statements are linked in such a way that one is subordinate to the other, then we have a complex sentence. See this example: (4) The consultants at the University College Hospital are resourceful because they enjoy regular refresher courses. A compound-complex sentence combines the features of both compound and complex sentences. This is an illustration: (5) The consultants at the University College Hospital are resourceful because they enjoy regular refresher courses and they use modern equipment. The sentence types that we have discussed have their stylistic significance. Simple sentences are used to create emphasis, compound sentences are deployed for balancing of ideas, while complex sentences express dependency relationships e.g. cause and effect. A writer/speaker who intends to blend balanced ideas with dependency relation at a stretch will use a compound-complex sentence. 53 Some other Syntactic Features What we have implied in our discussion in this unit is that your stylistic analysis of the syntactic features of a text should include the description of the group, the clause and the sentence. But in addition to this, there are other syntactic tactics that a writer or speaker can engage in. Such syntactic tactics include ellipsis, parallelism (i.e. repetition of a grammatical structure), references and other grammatical ties such as co-ordination and subordination. You will learn more about this in unit 8 which deals with cohesion and coherence. The Notion of Rank shifting: The units of grammar mentioned in 3.1 exhibit a hierarchical order. The order is also called the English rank scale. It could be viewed from the ascending order perspective or the descending order perspective. "A unit of a higher rank", as Tomori (1977: 47) puts it "may rank shift, that is, go one or more places down the scale to function in the next lower unit". In the tradition of American linguistics, Tomori notes that the rank shifting phenomenon is referred to as "down-grading". The two units of grammar that could rank shift are the group and the clause. The National Group for instance, can rank shift in the Adverbial Group. Farinde and Ojo (2000: 49 – 50) itemize five 54 manifestations of rankshift: Clause can rank shift to operate at ‘q’ (qualifier) in the nominal group structure e.g. The man (who drove the car) has run away. Clause can rank shift to operate as a whole nominal group (either at the subject position or the complement position) e.g. (who stole the meat) is still unknown. He liked (what she gave him). Adverbial group can rank shift to operate at 'q' (qualifier) in the nominal group structure e.g. The tree (by the roadside) will soon fall. Nominal group can rank shift to operate as completive in a prepositional headed adverbial group e.g. The boy in (the class)) is sleeping. Nominal group can rank shift as deictic in the nominal group structure. e.g.(The Vice-Chancellor's) office has been renovated. The Grammatical Category of Voice: Voice as a grammatical category in relation to the Verbal Group relates to whether the subject acts or is acted upon. Voice 55 in this sense can be active or passive. When it is active, the subject of the verb acts. Examples are: Mary killed a goat. John saw the boy. In (1) above, Mary (the subject) performed the action, while in (2) John (the subject) performed the action. Can you identify the entities on which the actions were performed? What do we call the entity on which an action is performed? In the passive voice, the action is performed on the subject. We can turn the examples (1) and (2) above into passive as follows: A goat was killed by Mary. The boy was seen by John. There are two types of passive: agented passive and agent- less passive. In the agented passive, the agent of the action is indicated- it is introduced by the preposition "by". Our examples (3) and (4) show agented passive. With the agent- less passive, the agent is not indicated. Look at the following: A goat was killed. The boy was seen. 56  In a text, a writer or speaker can choose between active and passive voice and when this is the case, you should be able to explain the stylistic effect. The choice may relate to the desire to express thematic meaning- that is, a way of organizing a message to indicate focus and/ or emphasis. This explains the difference in the information structure between: John saw the boy (active) and The boy was seen by John (passive). The difference is illustrated below: Theme Rheme John Saw the boy The boy Was seen by John The theme indicates the "GIVEN" (i.e. what is already known) while the rheme states the "NEW" (i.e. the new information). The active form of the sentence above can be taken as an answer to the question: "Whom did John see?" Remember that in Chomsky's (1965) Aspects model of Transformation (Generative Grammar both the active and the passive forms of a sentence are said to have the same deep structure (i.e. meaning) despite their different surface structures, because transformation is said to be meaning- preserving. 57 However, in the Extended Standard Theory (EST) of the grammar, a review of the Aspects model, there is the realization that the surface structure has some input into semantic determination; hence, transformation may not altogether be meaning preserving. Stylistic analysis at the syntactic level calls for a good understanding of the grammatical units of group, clause and sentence and how they function in a text. In other words, the ability to identify the units of grammar is not enough; one should be able to describe the stylistic significance of the units. What we have demonstrated, so far, are the general syntactic features that can be looked at in a text. However, the deployment of the features may not be exactly the same across the different genres of literature and non-literary texts. For example, while sentence description may be productive in the analysis of prose fiction, it may not be in poetry. Therefore, it is important for you to be familiar with the form and the register of each text you study. You will learn more about register later in this course. TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. What are the grammatical units relevant to a stylistic analysis at the syntactic level? 58 2. Mention and explain the elements of the English clause. 3. What is the structure of the English Nominal Group? 4. Undertake a stylistic analysis of the syntactic features of any text of your choice. 59  CHAPTER (7) COHESION AND COHERENCE When we speak or write, we often use certain devices to create unity and relevance in what we communicate. When we talk of cohesion and coherence in a piece of communication, we refer to the phenomenon of achieving unity and relevance. This is our focus in this unit. Both cohesion and coherence are essential features of a text which define its textuality and relevance or meaningfulness. Meaning of Cohesion and Coherence: As observed by scholars (Quirk et al, 1985; Stern, 2001; Osisanwo, 2003), coherence has to do with sense. Therefore, when a text or discourse makes sense to a reader, the text is said to have coherence. Cohesion- from the Latin word for 'sticking together' (Stern. 2001:51)- is a term in functional grammar that relates to how texts (words and sentences) are held together lexically and grammatically as a whole. A text that lacks cohesion will be fragmented and disjointed. The following examples can be used to illustrate cohesion and coherence: Mummy beat John. John had come home late, (coherent but not cohesive) 60  Mummy beat John because he had come home late, (cohesive and coherent). Notice that the conjunction, "because", and the pronoun, "he" are the cohesive devices in sentence (ii) above. Both are known as the conjunctive cohesion and referential cohesion respectively. Mummy beat John because America is a developed country, (cohesive but not coherent). Mummy beat John. America is a developed country, (not cohesive and not coherent). Methods of Achieving Cohesion in Discourse: There are five ways of giving a text cohesion. Let us first illustrate each of them before embarking on a detailed discussion. 1. Referential Cohesion: "I met with Samuel and he asked me to pay him a visit." ('He' refers to Samuel). 2. Conjunctive Cohesion: "I saw him when I arrived." ('When' is a conjunctive device). 3. Elliptical Cohesion: "She prayed and slept." ('She' is left unsaid in the second clause). 4. Substitutive Cohesion: "Would you like a cup of tea? Yes, I'd like one." ('One' replaces a cup of tea'). 61  5. Lexical Cohesion: We all drank water after eating a good meal. (Drink and water collocate just as eat and meal). Cohesion through parallelism: This obtains when a syntactic structure/ pattern is repeated. 1. Referential cohesion means using pronouns or determiners to refer to the known nouns in a text. Backward referencing is known as anaphoric reference while forward referencing is called cataphoric reference. In the following text the instances of each referential cohesion are underlined. (a) Jane had permanent booking at the Star Theatre but she decided not to go today, ('she' refers anaphorically to Jane). (b) After several years, as she approached another renewal of her vows, Melissa was called to an interview with a visiting French priest, ('she' and 'her' refer cataphorically to Melissa). 2. Conjunctive cohesion: This comprises the use of core conjunctions, basically involving the three coordinators, "AND", "BUT". "OR" and conjuncts which are of various kinds. 62 For example: a) In the Ancient society, the people gathered together in the arena and made laws that guided the land. b) There are laws guiding the conduct of people in the society, but people break them in their propensity. c) Where people lived their wills; they have the choice to obey the law or break it. d) In the examples above, the underlined linguistic items or coordinating. e) Conjunctions are used cohesively. 3. Elliptical cohesion Ellipsis denotes a kind of substitution by zero. It deals with the omission of word(s) while, simultaneously, relying on the readers' minds to deduce and fill in the missing bits from what they have read (or heard before). It is used in discourse to avoid repetition and redundancy. In the following text, the words and expressions you can omit are in the brackets. (a) Tina looked back and (she) saw her parents. They were very happy, and she was (happy) as well. They were strolling along and she was (strolling along) too. Do you think they got there on time? Yes, I do. (think they got there on time). Ellipsis can be realized at different clausal/sentential levels. Examples include: 63 (b) Mary prayed and slept. (The subject "Mary" is ellipted in the second clause). (c) The rich are getting richer; the poor, poorer, (ellipsis at the verbal level "are getting"). (d) He promised to be there yesterday and he was. (ellipsis at the adverbial level "there yesterday" is left unsaid in the second clause). 4. Substitution: This denotes replacing a linguistic item with another. For example: a. Would you like a cup of coffee? b. Yes, I’d like one. c. ('one' replaces 'a cup of coffee'). 5. Lexical cohesion Lexical cohesion means using words to achieve unity in a text. There are four varieties of lexical cohesion: (a) Repetition (repeating the same word or words): Play, play, play: that's all you seem to do. (b) Synonymy (using words with similar meanings): I saw this large dog. You know, really huge. 64  (c) Antonymy (using words with opposite meanings): Get educated! You can't always stay ignorant. (d) Collocation (using words that go with each other): My friend did me a great favor last week. Would you like a cup of coffee? No, I'd prefer tea. 5. Parallelism (this is repeating the same syntactic pattern/ structure). Examples are: (1) "I came, I saw, I conquered". Here, the SP (Subject, Predicator) pattern is repeated. (2) "United we stand, divided we fall." Here, CSP (Complement, Subject, Predicator) pattern is repeated. Coherence in Discourse: Coherence manifests in discourse by the extent to which a particular instance of language use matches a shared knowledge of conventions as to how illocutionary acts are related to form large units of discourse (Widdowson 1978). Unlike cohesion which is regarded as a linguistic means of establishing connectivity across sentences or utterances by what Widdowson refers to as formal syntactic and semantic signals, that is, cohesive ties, coherence establishes some relationship between utterances through an interpretation of illocutionary acts. The following constructed conversation explains the manifestations of coherence in discourse. 65  A: I have put the broom in the living room. B: I’m eating my food. A: Okay. The above-constructed discourse can be interpreted vis-à- vis the social conventions of interaction which are identified as follows: A: requests B to perform an action. B: states the reason why he cannot comply. A: undertakes to perform the action. It is very obvious that there are no cohesive features of utterance in the discourse featured above, hence, its not being analyzable form the perspective of cohesion. The cues needed to identify coherence in a discourse are conventional structure of interaction and the knowledge of the world. 66 Stylistic Values of Cohesion and Coherence: Both cohesion and coherence constitute part of the features of textuality which a text must possess to be defined as a communicative piece. Both are stylistically valuable to the text as they assist it (the text) to exhibit logical consistency and clarity such as can enable the readers have a good grasp of it. Coherence accounts for the meaningfulness or relevance of a text, while cohesion defines the textuality of a text. In conclusion, we should note that while coherence deals with sense, cohesion relates to unity. The concept of sense relates to the notion of meaningfulness or relevance. When we communicate, we create certain lexical and grammatical ties that bind our writing or speech together. Any piece of communication that is logical will be coherent. So watch for logicality in any piece of text you analyze stylistically. In order to undertake an effective stylistic analysis of any text you must pay attention to cohesion and coherence in the text. In doing this, we must have a good knowledge of the context of the text as well as its lexical and grammatical features. Creating relevance and unity in our texts makes communication more meaningful and logical. 67 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1- What do you understand by cohesion and coherence? 68  CHAPTER (8) FOREGROUNDING Foregrounding is a popular concept in stylistics, especially in the analysis of the language of poetry. It was Garvin, according to Wales (1989), who introduced the term in 1964 to translate the Prague School’s "aktualisace” which literally means “actualization” (p. 182). Foregrounding is now a popular notion in the study of stylistics generally. Meaning of Foregrounding Foregrounding refers to the concept of making certain features prominent in a text. Some linguistic features can be made prominent for special effects against the background features in a text. Scholars have examined the term as used in the literary enterprise as being for purely aesthetic exploitation of language which has the aim of making what is familiar unfamiliar in order to attract attention. The concept of deviation is closely related to that of foregrounding in that what is foregrounded is made to deviate from the familiar pattern. Also, when the content of a text has deviated from the norms of language use, then we can say that a style is being carved out. In the process of determining the area of deviation in the study of 69 stylistics, one has to identify the different highlighted aspects that have been made prominent. Thus, foregrounding is related to the notion of deviation and it provides the basis for a reader's recognition of style. As Halliday (1994) says, foregrounding is prominence that is motivated. He also defines prominence as the general name for the phenomenon of linguistic highlights whereby some linguistic features stand out in some way. Thus, to Halliday, a feature that is brought into prominence will be foregrounded only if it relates to the meaning of the whole text. He posits that foregrounding can be qualitative i.e. deviation from the language code, or quantitative, deviation from the expected frequency. The purpose of foregrounding, linguistic or non-linguistic, is to add an unusual and unique idea, to the language. Thus, foregrounding can manifest in various ways in a text. These include unusual capitalization, italicization, bold words, contractions, underlining, picture/art works and so on. We can say that the use of these foregrounding devices creates some visual imagery which adds to the memorability of a text. Two Main Types of Foregrounding: According to Wales (1989: 182), foregrounding can be achieved in a variety of ways usually grouped into two main 70 types: deviation and repetition, that is, "paradigmatic" and "syntagmatic foregrounding." Wales explains further that deviations are violations of linguistic norms, e.g. grammatical / semantic norms, strange metaphors, similes or collocations that are deployed to achieve special effects in a text, especially poetry, amount to foregrounding. Consider, for example, these lines from Okara's "New Year's Eve Midnight": "A year is born." "And my heart-bell is ringing." Here, a year is said to be born and a bell is said to be ringing in the poet's heart! Repetition is also said to be a kind of deviation as it flouts the "normal rules of usage by over-frequency" (Wales, 1989: 182). Repetition of sounds or syntactic patterns have the tendency to strike the readers as uncommon and thereby engage their attention. Such a device is seen at work in Senghor's poem: "I will pronounce your name." See the first line of the poem: "I will pronounce your name, Naett, I will declair you, Naett! Lines two, three and four of the poem also continue with this form of foregrounding: 71  o Naett, your name is mild like cinnamon, it is the fragrance in which the lemon grove sleeps, o Naett, your name is the sugared clarity of blooming coffee trees.” As Wales hints, what is or is not foregrounded may be difficult to determine in some contexts since the elements of subjectivity may not be ruled out. When this seems to be the case, Wales advises the students of style to consider the "significance or effect of the foregrounded items…" (p. 183). Thus, we have to go beyond mere identification of the foregrounded elements and proceed to the level of their effects. In conclusion, foregrounding is stylistically significant in literary texts, especially poetry, but it is not limited to literary texts. Other texts such as advertisements, postals, obituary notices, etc may also deploy foregrounding to create some effects. Any text that successfully deploys foregrounding becomes multi-semiotic or, multi-vocal, and its interpretation will call for a pluralistic approach. In this chapter, we have been able to point out that deviation and repetition are important means of achieving foregrounding. As students of stylistics, we need to go beyond mere recognition of foregrounded elements to consider their 72 stylistic significance in a text. When an item is made prominent in a text by foregrounding it, the author wants to draw our attention to its significance. TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT: 1. What is foregrounding? 2. Identify and discuss the foregrounded items in the following: a. Please note that lecture attendance is compulsory if you want to pass. b. Let us unravel the meaning of Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels together. c. On JUNE 12 I stand. d. Read your Bible and pray every day. 3. What do you think is the importance of foregrounding in any text? 73  CHAPTER (9) BASIC GENRES OF LITERATURE AND THEIR ELEMENTS When we talk about the “genres” of literature, we refer to typologies of creative writing based on form, outlook, structure and, to an extent, purpose. This invariably means that literature has different kinds, despite the fact that it has to do with inventive, imaginative writing. It is a common practice to classify literature into three main genres, namely: prose-fiction, poetry and drama. In this unit, we shall look at the three main classifications, namely prose, poetry and drama in relation to stylistics. Prose- Fiction: Among the genres of literature, prose-fiction is the one that most resembles our conventional, everyday kind of story telling activity. A writer of prose-fiction basically narrates a story in a continuous form as any teller of folktales, or any narrator of an exciting event or episode would. The main instrument for presenting prose-fiction is narration and the person who writes the prose work may be the narrator of the story, telling the readers (the audience) what happened, to 74 whom, why it happened and at what time it happened. Prose- fiction is arguably the commonest and most patronized form of literature in the modern world. But it shares a lot with the story traditions of the ancient world which comes in the form of myths, parables, romances, fables, folktales, etc, and which are all also narrative in form. Prose-fiction is made up of the novel, the novella and the short story, all of which are narrative in form. The commonest among the forms of prose fiction is the novel, which is also the lengthiest of the three. Palmer defines it as a "compact, coherent (and) unified fictitious prose narrative having a beginning, middle and an end" (Palmer, 1986:1). Palmer goes ahead to say that the novel deploys materials and information in such a way as to give the image of coherence, continuity and wholeness, and with certain tensions. Interestingly, the novel is the newest among the literary forms, coming into life after poetry and drama had become established literary genres. Though there have been arguments that the novel existed in several forms in the English, Italian, Greek and Roman literary traditions before the eighteenth century, critics have cited Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1919) as the world's first novel. The novel has grown from those humble 75 beginnings characterized by uncertainty to become the world's most popular literary form today. The essential distinguishing factor between the novel, the novella and the short story has to do with length/volume. The novel is basically longer than the novella, while the short story is the shortest of the three. The novella, a subgenre of prose-fiction, is a very difficult form to describe, shorter than the novel and longer than the short story. From the above view, it is clear that the novella is closer to the novel than the short story. Like the novel, the novella tries to capture life and experiences in some detail, even if this chronicle ends up being shorter than the novel. It is more difficult to distinguish between the novel and the novella than between the short story and the novella. That is why the novella is a much restricted form of literature, being represented by a small body of output. Famous examples of the novella form include Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Henry James' The Turn of the Screw and Alex La Guma's A Walk in the Night. The short story has been described as the form of prose-fiction which narrates fundamentally, just one event, or an aspect of one event, making an immediate impact on its reader in the process. Millet sees the short story as an imaginative "account of a happening" (1950: 8). For Millet, "the short story tends to 76 focus attention on not more than a single central character" (1950: 8). The short story became a much patronized literary form in the apartheid South Africa because the South African chaotic and volatile environment of the fascist regime provided writers like Lewis Nkosi, Bloke Modiasane, Ezekiel Mphalele, etc, with neither the rest of mind nor the peaceful atmosphere to indulge in anything longer. Poetry: We often say that literature provides its writer with a medium to pour out his emotions and feelings. No other genre of literature can help the writer achieve this more effectively and more convincingly than the poetic form. Good poetry has always been said to come from the soul and not the head, because it talks about very strong feelings coming from the inspired mind which may not find proper and appropriate expressions under ordinary, less inspired situations. In his often-quoted description of poetry which appears in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth sees good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" and strong "emotion recollected in tranquility" (Abrams, 1981; 1 15). Consider a situation where a woman sings a song of lament on the occasion of her dead husband's funeral. Wole Soyinka writes the poems that gave 77 birth to the collection A Shuttle in the Crypt with a tortured mind filled with the anger, pain and bitterness of incarceration during the Nigerian-Biafran war. Language is the most distinctive facto r in the poetic form, it is dense and concentrated, supercharged with meanings (Chace and Collier, 1985: 393). For Chace and Collier, the main characteristics of poetry are verse, sound, and compression of statements. Moreover, for Chace and Collier, the careful and ingenious manipulation of the lines of a poetic rendition, taking into consideration the effects of the combination of and systematic variation in the flow of sound, and the restriction of the amount of words to the fewest possible, guarantees good poetry. We have different forms of poetry. The epic is one of the oldest poetic forms which date back to the earliest periods of the pre- literate story telling world. An epic is a poem that tells a long story about the great deeds of a great individual or group of individuals at one point or the other in the process of their development as a people. Abrams defines the epic as a heroic poem that is long and narrative in nature, which deals with a "great and serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centred on a heroic or quasi-divine figure whose actions 78 depends on the fate of a tribe, a nation, or the human race" (1981: 50). Examples of the epic are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Latin poem, The Aeneid, John Milton's Paradise Lost, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, etc. In Africa, we also know about the existence of certain well-received epics. Daniel Biebuyck and K, Mateene have translated and transcribed The Mwindo Epic of the old Zairean people; D.T. Niane has done the same in Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali, while J.P Clark has done likewise for the Ijaws of Nigeria with The Ozidi Saga. The elegy is a poem that is used to lament the death of a person. Abrams defines it as "a formal and sustained lament (and usually consolation) for the death of a particular person". The dirge, like the elegy, is also a poem of lament that "expresses grief on the occasion of someone's death, but differs from the elegy in that it is short or less formal, and is usually represented as a text to be sung" (1981: 47). There is also the lyrical poem, a type of poem that is sung and/or accompanied by the playing of musical instrument, at least in its original Greek form. The lyric has grown and developed to embrace other descriptions in more modern periods. Examples of lyrical poetry include John Keats Ode to Autumn, Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, Kofi Awoonor's Songs of Sorrow, J.P. Clark's Agbor Dancer, etc. 79 Other kinds of poetry include panegyric poetry (a kind of poem that sings the praise of a person or thing), occasional poetry (a poem that is written to mark a special occasion), and a sonnet (a fourteen-line poem divided into the octave (the first eight lines and the sestet (the last six lines) The knowledge of the different forms and traditions of poetry is necessary to carry out a stylistic analysis of poetry. Drama: Drama is the most presentational of the three genres of literature. This is because while other forms of literature are essentially designed to convey their messages in words, drama is designed to present its statements in a combination of action and words. In drama, characters assume life and act out the story of the play. This is why drama has been variously described as the genre of literature that is closest to life and that has the most immediate impact on the audience. The closeness one feels when one sees a story unfolds in one's very presence, or performed by human beings like oneself is definitely greater than what one feels when one reads the same story in black and white. Even when plays are written in black and white, they are written with the intention of being eventually presented on stage. A play is therefore a work for an audience which gives its 80 spectators a close feeling that they are part of what is happening on stage. The dramatic form of literature basically has three broad subgenres, namely: tragedy, comedy and tragi-comedy. There is a vast array of other forms associated with the fundamental ones listed above. Ordinarily speaking, a tragic story should be one that ends so sadly that the audience cannot help but feel pity for the characters, for the misfortune they have suffered. Tragedy, then, is a representation of an action that is worthy of serious attention, complete in itself, and of some amplitude; in language enriched by variety of artistic devices appropriate to the several parts of the play; presented in the form of action, not narration; by means of pity and fear, bringing about the purgation of such emotion (see Dasylva 2004: 26). For Aristotle, tragedy does not begin and end at being a story that concludes on a sad note. In addition to the above, it must be the story of how an elevated member of the society falls from grace to grass, ends up in shame, humiliation or even death because of a combination of his behavioral shortcomings (tragic flaws) and the influence of supernatural forces. For Aristotle, a person who is not distinguished in the society cannot be a tragic 81 hero, because his tragedy cannot be of any significance to the human society. The tragicomic subgenre of drama was popularized by the prolific and extravagantly talented English dramatist and playwright, William Shakespeare, who is also widely reputed as one of the world's greatest literary figures of all time. A comic play is a dramatic presentation that not only ends on a lighthearted note with no serious misfortune such as hurt and death to the major characters, but is also designed to create and involve humour. In spite of the fact that comedy has been thought to have no social function, it has been proved that the comic play can teach moral lessons and make concrete sociopolitical and economic statements. Just as the knowledge of the forms and traditions of poetry is essential in order to analyze a poem meaningfully, the knowledge of the forms and traditions of drama is equally important to do a good stylistic analysis of a dramatic piece. Again, you need to note that pragmatic stylistics is very relevant to a stylistic analysis of drama because drama relies on actions. In this unit, we have examined the three basic forms of literature: prose, poetry and drama. While each type has its own 82 peculiarities, you need to note that the features of one may be borrowed into another. For example, there may be a poetic prose or a dramatic poetry. The presence of some of the features of one genre of literature (i.e. form) in another signals what is called intertextuality. Apart from the message it contains, literature, in its three basic forms, is significant for its methods of expression – hence, the emphasis on the language of literature. The two i.e. message and language should form the focus of a stylistic analysis of any piece of literature, be it prose, poetry or drama. TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT 1. What are the three basic forms of literature? Give an example of each. 2. Describe the basic features of each form of literature. 3. Mention and explain some types of drama. 4. Explain at least two types/forms of poetry, giving appropriate examples. 83  CHAPTER (10) ELEMENTS OF PROSE Prose fiction is one of the three divisions of literature and it is regarded as the most accessible of all the three genres. The term prose is more often equated with the novel. This may not be wrong, but it is not entirely correct. Prose may refer to all works of imagination not patterned in the verse form. Generally, prose fiction is literature in the narrative form. Elements of Prose Fiction: The following are the important elements of prose fiction as a genre of literature: (a) characters and characterization (b) plot (c) setting (d) theme (e) point of view (e) conflict (g) language. 84 (a) Characters and Characterization Characters are the agents of actions while characterization refers to the method of projecting the characters. There are two broad types of characters in a narrative fiction: (i) flat character and (ii) round character. A flat character is created around a single idea or quality. He is very easy to describe as he is simple in thoughts and actions. He/she does not change in the course of the story. Unlike the flat character, a round character is complex in thoughts and actions and so cannot be described as easily as the flat character. Like human beings in real life, he