Overview of Stylistics PDF

Overview of Stylistics Prepared by: JANICE M. EDULAN  What is Stylistics? “Stylistics is a linguistic Stylistics is the science approach to literature, which explores how explaining th...

Overview of Stylistics Prepared by: JANICE M. EDULAN  What is Stylistics? “Stylistics is a linguistic Stylistics is the science approach to literature, which explores how explaining the readers interact with the relationship between language of (mainly language and artistic literary) texts to explain function, with motivating how we understand and questions such as ‘why’ are affected by texts and ‘How’ more than when we read them. ‘What’ ”. (Leech) Stylistics is a systematic way of exploring a literary text The study of stylistics is especially the language considered as one of the of a text and tries to significant tools to analyze a literary piece from the explain how language point of view of language. creates meaning, style and certain effect. As a discipline, STYLISTICS links literary criticism to linguistics. It does not function independently, but it utilizes the principles of inquiry from both linguistics and literary criticism. The further development of stylistics was based on the three sources: 1. Poetics led to the development of Literary Criticism (Creating Speeches) 2. Rhetoric (Artistic Work) and 3. Dialectics (creating dialogue) developed into Stylistics.  Rhetoric and the History of Stylistics The evolution of stylistics as a discipline bridges language and literature. It highlights three main areas of language use: Rhetoric, Poetics, and Dialectics. 1. Rhetoric: Originating from ancient Greece, rhetoric focused on the art of effective and persuasive speaking. It was a key subject in education, aimed at training speakers to craft compelling speeches. 2. Poetics: This area concentrated on the creation of artistic works, studying how ideas are expressed before they are articulated. Aristotle's "Poetics" is a foundational text in this field, categorizing different forms of artistic expression such as epics, drama, and lyrics. 3. Dialectics: This field involved the study of dialogue and methods of persuasion, emphasizing the exchange of ideas and experiences. The Socratic method, which promotes dialogue as a learning tool, is a notable example. The development of stylistics in ancient Rome distinguished between two styles of speech: the straightforward, fact- based approach of Caesar (Analogists) and the ornate, complex style of Cicero (Anomalists). This historical context illustrates how stylistics emerged from these earlier disciplines, focusing on the analysis of language use in both literary and non- literary texts, and incorporating insights from various fields such as literature, sociology, and psychology.  Stylistics, as sub-discipline which grew up in the second half of the twentieth century: its beginnings in Anglo-American criticism are usually traced back to the publication of the books listed below: The following books represent its beginnings: Fowler, Roger (ed.) (1966) Essays on Style in Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Freeman, Donald C. (ed.) (1971) Linguistics and Literary Style. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Leech, Geoffrey N, (1969) A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London: Longman. Sebeok, Thomas A. (1960) Style in Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Perhaps the most influential article is: (Closing statement: Linguistics and Poetics) by Roman Jacobson who is an important figure who contributed to the development of Stylistics. https://monoskop.org/images/8/84/Jakobson_Roman_1960_Closing_statement_Linguistics_and _Poetics.pdf  Brief History of Stylistics Literary Criticism in Britain: Practical Criticism: moving from studying authors (19th Century) to studying texts (20th Century) and how readers were affected by those texts; in the USA New Criticism. They shared two important features: (i) an emphasis on the language of the text rather than its author; (ii) Paying very close attention to the language of the texts when reading them, describing how readers understood them, were affected by them and then quoted  In the early years of the 20th century, the members of the Formalist Linguistic Circle in Moscow (usually called the Russian Formalists), like I. A. Richards, also favored the analysis of the language of the text in relation to psychological effects of that linguistic structure. Roman Jakobson left Moscow at the time of the Russian Revolution and moved to Prague, where he became a member of the Prague Structuralist circle. when Czechoslovakia also became communist, he moved to the USA where he carried his approach with him, which is now called STYLISTICS. Both circles contributed to develop the so-called foregrounding theory. This view suggested that some parts of texts had more effect on readers than others in terms of interpretation, because the textual parts were linguistically deviant or specially patterned in some way, thus making them psychologically salient (or Development of Stylistics  Stylistics is a bridge between Language & Literature and Linguistics & Literary Criticism  The Goals of Stylistics Stylistics is a linguistic approach that analyzes various forms of human discourse—such as medical, political, and social communications. Its goals include: 1.Establishing Discourse Peculiarities: Stylistics identifies the unique characteristics of a writer's or genre's discourse, allowing for distinctions between different authors, styles, and dialects. 2.Inducing Appreciation of Discourses: By exploring linguistic choices, stylistics enhances the reader's enjoyment and understanding of a text, revealing its aesthetic qualities. 3.Ascertaining Linguistic Habits: It examines how an author's style reflects their social, cultural, and ideological backgrounds, helping to uncover the artistic principles behind their choices. Overall, stylistics aims to provide a systematic way to interpret  Stylistics – 3 major claims Stylistics is 1. Use of linguistics (the study of language) to approach literary texts 2. The discussion of texts according to objective criteria 3. To emphasize the aesthetic properties of the text "The goal of stylistics 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…“Katie Wales A Dictionary of Stylistics, 2nd ed. (Pearson, 2001)  Foregrounding Literariness Poetic language vs everyday language. The language of literature is distinguishable form the language of everyday use due to its ‘literariness’. Formalists position themselves in an Aristotelian tradition in which “poetic language must appear strange and wonderful”. (Shklovsky “Art as technique” 22) Defamiliarization Making Strange. Art defamiliarizes things that have become habitual or automatic. “the technique of art is to make objects unfamiliar to make forms difficult”  Automatization: Inevitable process by which an artistic object becomes habitual, banal and loses its power as artistic object. Foregrounding Giving prominence to something in literary works through the artful use of language. It brings certain element of text to the forefront and readers focus their attention on the foregrounded features. eg. Donne’s conceit of a compass in A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”  Stylistics is finding the foregrounded elements in the text Qualitative foregrounding Study of deviations Quantitative foregrounding Study of parallelism Linguistic Deviations External deviation occurs when a poet strays from established norms of a genre, while internal deviation happens within a specific work, where the poet breaks their own established patterns. Internal deviations particularly draw the reader's attention and encourage them to think about their significance. Poets often use internal deviations to engage readers and enhance the emotional depth of their poetry. mOOn Over tOwns mOOn whisper less creature huge grO pingness whO perfectly whO float newly alOneis dreamest oNLY THE MooN o VER ToWNS SLoWLYSPRoUTING SPIR IT (‘No Thanks’, Cummings, 1935)  A visible external deviation is observed in the use of ‘O’. Every occurrence of the letter in the initial part of the poem (first two stanzas) is capitalized.  The focus of the poem is the moon, and the focus on the moon is also reflected visibly using the full rounded capitalized letter ‘O’.  The poet also plays with the word boundary and splits the words such as ‘grO-pingness’, ‘o-VER’ and ‘SPIR-IT’.  The capitalization of the letter ‘O’ in the first two stanzas serves as a source of external deviation by breaking the rules of capitalization. The last stanza reverses the pattern of the first two stanzas.  The deviation from capitalization norms is retained yet the poet uses the device of internal deviation by capitalizing all letters in the stanza except ‘o’. This is an example of internal deviation  As opposed to ‘unexpected irregularity’, parallelism is ‘unexpected regularity’ (Jeffries and McIntyre, 2010, p. 32). Linguisti c It can be likened to regularity in a pattern which is more than that is required. Paralleli sm Despite the limitless available options, the writer intentionally limits him/herself to a recurrent or repeated use of a particular feature. This is another significant way in which specific intended outcomes for aesthetic purposes are created.  Geography Lesson When the jet sprang into the sky, it was clear why the city had developed the way it had, seeing it scaled six inches to the mile. There seemed an inevitability about what on ground had looked haphazard, unplanned and without style When the jet sprang into the sky. When the jet reached ten thousand feet, it was clear why the country had cities where the rivers ran and why the valleys were populated. The logic of geography — that land and water attracted man — was clearly delineated When the jet reached ten thousand feet. When the jet rose six miles high, it was clear the earth was round and that it had more sea than land.  The parallelism is created by ending the stanza with the same line with which it began. The second stanza also begins and end with the same line: ‘When the jet reached ten thousand feet’ thus creating linguistic parallelism. In the second stanza, semantic parallelism is observed with the first stanza as they both share the similarity of meaning.  Another way of creating linguistic parallelism is at the phonological level through rhyming of words such as ‘mile’, ‘style’ and ‘ran’, ‘man’. The third stanza again is parallel in structure with the first one as it begins with the emphasis and focuses on the more height gained through his travel in a jet: ‘When the jet rose six miles high’. The poet sums up his observations of describing physical characteristics of the earth: that it is round, with a greater part of it covered with the sea than land.  Stylistics looks at Style from the following Perspectives: 1. Style as Choice-writer/poet makes certain choices of words and expressions to describe situations or characters 2.Style as Deviation-writer/poet avoids the standard form of writing and makes use of deviations to sound stylistically significant. 3.Style as Situation-the situation is the context in which the text comes to life( social, cultural, political or pragmatic) 4.Style as the Temporal Phenomenon-When the writer wants to write a text, he/she must consider the time factor(plays an important role) 5.Style as Individual- eEvery individual is unique.  Phonological level Graphological level Levels Grammatical level of Morphological level Syntactical level Stylistic Semantic level Analysis Lexical level Discourse level