A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE DISTINCTIVE LINGUISTIC

FEATURES IN BLURBS AS FOUND IN NON FICTIONS

Mezia Kemala Sari
Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Barat
e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract
This research discusses about the special language style from the comments on the book
cover of non fictions based on the using of distinctive linguistic features. The style of language is
analyzed from stylistics point of view and put the lexical cohesion, reference and another linguistic
elements as the part of distinctive linguistic features to be the analysis focus then reflect it to the
function and the effect it brings. The methods are referential and formal. Based on the analyis, it can
be found that in the comments of the book cover, generally, include all of the lexical and reference
elements. The most significant element that mostly occur is repetition and personal reference. While,
another forms such as synonym, general word, super ordinate, collocation, demonstrative and
comparative reference occur in less percentage. The purpose of using these elements is in order that
the comments of the non fictions‟ book can influence the reader through the choosing features then
bring the psychological effect for commercial purposes. Moreover, the effect that it caused for the
reader is being influenced the readers‟ thought to be more interested to the book from its dictions or
the specific distinctive linguistic features.
Keywords: distinctive linguistic features, stylistics analysis, blurb

INTRODUCTION
We live in a world of language. It plays a great part in our life. Because of its
familiarity, we rarely observe it and taking it for granted as we do breathing or walking. The
effects of language are remarkable, and they include much of what distinguish man from
animals.
As a crucial element in life, language plays the important role especially in
communication. Fromkin et al (2017) stated that in language, form and meaning is the core,
but to be understood or interpreted produced by others is also crucial especially in
communicating each other. The effect of language is remarkable. As the tool for
communication, sometime language is used by the author for particular purposes such as
promotion because language has style.
The term „style‟ is one which we use so commonly in our everyday conversation and
writing that it seems unproblematic. It occurs naturally and frequently that we are inclined to
take it for granted without enquiring just what we might mean by it. Thus, we regularly use it
with reference to the shape or design of something. In everyday notions, we might easily
found the utterances, such as:
„the elegant style of building‟
„I don‟t like her style in teaching‟
„She writes in vigorous style‟
Similarly, when describing someone‟s manner of writing, speaking or performing we
may say and many more.
These everyday notions make a good starting point for a more technical discussion of
the use of style in language. Along the same time, style in language can be defined as
distinctive linguistic expression. Stylistics is the analysis of distinctive expression in language
and the description of its purpose and effect (Verdonk, 2002). But, as with other
manifestations of style, we need to consider what make an expression distinctive, why it has

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been devised and what effect it has. Moreover, Geraldine (2012) presents stylistics as one of
the relatively branches of linguistics with special bias for both a description and analysis of
language (in Ofoegbu and Usar, 2016). It means, style in language contain the unique things
to be analyzed.
The distinctive linguistic feature is the part of feature of linguistic which marks
something as clearly different. As the style marker, distinctive linguistic feature determines
the text and it can be found in the form of diction, vocabulary, structure, cohesion and many
more. So, when discussing about style, there must be distinctive linguistic expressions which
consist of linguistic features and foregrounding. It must occur in almost every literary
product.
One of the literary works that can be chosen to see the style in language is „Blurb‟
especially in non fictions. In non fictions, we often find many blurbs which are the comments
or statements from some people in the cover in front or behind the cover and it is interesting
to be read before knowing the content of the book. The using of blurb as a data to be
analyzed has purposes. As a short summary or some words of praise accompanying a creative
work, blurb has unique style. The using of some exaggerating words, clause, phrase even
sentence must impact something useful for the reader. Moreover, a blurb has the same
linguistic features as advertisements and has dominant evaluative language (Atai and
Asghari, 2017). It shows that blurbs consist of many evaluative language that must have
purpose.
In addition, Bradford (2016) in his research about the cataloguing of independent or
self-published books found that the using of book blurbs is quite important in order to
understand the books‟ concept and the author‟s writing style. It shows that blurb is the first
thing to be read before we buy a book. He said that the mighty blurbs allow people to
understand what authors are selling and how to categorize it once it‟s purchase. It means
blurb can assists with readers‟ advisory, letting us know what the book is about and the
benefits.
Stylistics, as the suitable approach, analyze the language of blurb by conducting with
linguistic perspective. The analysis explains stylistic features and gives some of data to get
the purposes and effect of the blurb of some choosen non fictions. Therefore, it is appropriate
to use distinctive linguistic features like lexical cohesion, grammatical cohesion and stylistic
elements to obtain purpose and effect.
Based on the background above, the problems of this research are:
a. What are the types of linguistic features which mostly occur in blurbs of nonfiction?
b. What are the functions of distinctive linguistics features in blurbs relating to the purpose
and the effect?
RESEARCH METHOD
As the descriptive research, the data are described naturally without experimental
manipulation. Based on this method there are some techniques to conduct linguistics research
like data collection, data analysis and presenting the result of analysis. What to observe is
determined by the purposes in conducting the study in the first place and researcher must
have early impressions and feelings about what is going on to help determine subsequent
pattern (Merriam and Tisdell, 2015).
This research conduct some procedures starting from collection the data, analyzing
data and presenting the result. Data are taken from several blurbs of the same genre of non
fictions purposively published between 2000-2007 which consist of 23 blurbs of 10 non
fictions‟ books as mentioned in the refference. The research uses content analysis to collect
of data. Mackey (2005: 31) said that content analysis is technique examining information or
content in written or symbolic material. After all of the data has been collected, it is analyzed

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by using stylistic theory and the analysis up you find the main type of cohesion by Halliday
and Hasan in the text as the distinctive linguistics features. Then, finally the features are
classified then relate it with the purpose and effect as the psychological effect to the reader.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

A. Stylistics
Style in language can be defined as distinctive linguistic expression. As the study
of style, Stylistics, focus on analyzing the distinctive expression in language and the
description of its purpose and effect (Verdonk, 2002). The style does not arise out of
vacuum but the production, purpose and the effect deeply embedded in the particular
context in which both the author and the reader of the blurb ply their distinctive roles. At
this point Verdonk (2002) distinguish between two types of context: Linguistic and Non
Linguistic context. Linguistic context refers to the surrounding features of language inside
a text like the typography, sounds, words, phrases and sentences which are relevant to the
interpretation n of other such linguistic elements. The non linguistic context is a much
more complex notion since it may include any number of text-external features
influencing the language and style of a text.
Stylistics is concerned on the possible significance of linguistic features in text. A
text is dependent on its use in appropriate context. The process of activation of a text by
relating it to a context of use is „discourse‟. A text can be realized by any piece of
language as long as it is found to record a meaningful discourse when it is related to a
suitable context of use. When discussing about style, there must be distinctive linguistic
expressions which consist of foregrounding (psychological effect to influence the reader)
and also linguistic features.
In linguistic analysis of text stylistically, we focus on two fundamental concepts
that are text and context. In textual analysis, the focus is on cohesion among all linguistic
features used by the author. While contextually, we see upon the text from the extra
textual context of communication point of view. Furthermore, when discussing about
style, there must be distinctive linguistic expression which consist of foregrounding
(psychological effect to influence reader) and also linguistic features.
Halliday and Hasan (2014) mentioned two main types. Firstly, grammatical
cohesion consists of Reference (Personal, Demonstrative and Comparative), Substitution
and Ellipsis and Conjunction. Briefly, Reference is the act of reffering to a preceeding
(anaphoric) or following (cataphoric) elements, deals with a semantic relationship.
Personal reference is the category of person in speech situation and it expressed through
pronouns and determiners. They serve to identify individuals and objects that are named at
some other point in the text. Demonstrative reference, on a scale of proximity, expressed
through determiners and adverbs and can represent a single word or phrase or much longer
chunks of text.While, Comparative reference is indirect reference. It is expressed through
adjectives and adverbs and serves to compare items within a text in term of identity or
similarity. Hence, Substitution and Ellipsis are dealed separately where substitution is the
replacement of a word (group) or sentence segment by a „dummy‟ word and Ellipsis is the
omission of a word or part of a sentence and closely related to substitution.
Secondly, Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in a text are semantically
related in some way and consist of Reiteration (Repetition, Synonym or near synonym,
General word, Super ordinate) and Collocation which deals with the relationship between
words of the fact that these often occur in the same surrounding. Cohesion can be
categorized as distinctive linguistic features because they are the part of the feature of
linguistic which mark something as clearly different. Briefly, Reiteration is a form of

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 lexical cohesion which involves the repetition of a lexical item. At one scale, the use of
general word is to refer back to lexical item, at the other scale, a number of things in
between the use of synonym, near synonym or super ordinate. Moreover, Collocation
deals with the relationship between words on the basic of the fact that these often occur in
the same surrounding. It is the most problematical part of lexical cohesion that is
archieved through the association of the lexical items that regularly occur.
B. The Blurbs Analysis
Based on the theory of stylistics and cohesion above, the following data was
analyzed by focusing on the significant linguistic features and then getting the purpose and
effect from blurb language. There are 22 blurbs in this research and below is result table
after doing classification of the choice of words of each blurbs. It shows that there are
some cohesion elements that occur in high percentage as the distinctive linguistic feature
indeed. By seeing the frequency of occurrence, it can be assumed that the choice of
elements is potentially bring effect to the reader of Blurb.

Table.1 the Frequency of Occurrence of Distinctive Linguistic Features (Lexical Items)

No Types of Lexical Cohesion Frequency Percentage
1 Reiteration
a. Repetition 21 58,33%
b. Synonym or near synonym (antonym) 2 5,55%
c. General Word 3 8,33%
d. Super Ordinate 2 5,55%
2 Collocation 8 22,22%

Total 100%

From the table above, it can be concluded that the Repetition is the linguistic
features that mostly occur and repetition indicates emphasizing about a thing stated in the
blurb. Then the occurence of Collocation is quite ofeten, while the others are few.
Cohesion is a semantic relation between an element in the text and some others
element that are crucial to the interpretation of them. According to Halliday and Hasan
(2013) there are two types of cohesion; Lexical cohesion and Grammatical Cohesion.
A. Lexical Cohesion
Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in a text are semantically related in
some way in other words they are related in terms of their meaning. The lexical
cohesion is typically used in context where there is identity of reference, and for this
reason the lexical item is usually accompanied by the or another anaphoric reference
item. There are two major categories of lexical cohesion:
1. Reiteration
Reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion which involves the repetition of a
lexical item. There must be relation among every sentence in the blurbs. Hence, lexical
cohesion is established through the structure of the lexis or vocabulary of the choice of
word in every sentence.
a. Repetition
Repetition means the same item is repeated. It often involves reference. It
repeats important word and phrase in introducing some elements or organization.
Repetition is the element that mostly occurs in the data. There are 21 data (58,33%)

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 that show the repetition. It consists of 18 repetition of the same noun, 2 repetition
of verb and 1 repetition of adjective. The repetition, for instance, as found in blurb
where the word „think‟ is repeated. First in the sentence beginning „If you think
that......, ...how to teach yourself to think right”. But almost all of the data of
repetition is generally Noun, such as “service, book, money, tiger, over, public,
champion, foundation, servise, billingualism” and more. It sounds emphasizing
thing when word is clearly repeated. Repetitions found in the data shows the
importance of word or phrase in introducing some elements or organization.
b. Synonym or Near Synonym
Synonym are used to make the main idea is easier to be understood.
Moreover the used of synonym or near synonym (even antonym) is interested to
attract the reader. For instance the data “...uplifting, .........inspiring” which
principally has the same purpose to praise the book. Synonym is less occur in the
data. It is only appear 5,55%. Synonym is usually used to emphasize the statements
to make it clearer and easier to be understood about what the blurb‟s author want to
deliver to the reader. As the part of reiteration, it has common reference and has
the same meaning to another in the same language.
c. General Word and Super Ordinate
In the data, general word and super ordinate are also less in occurrence. It
only appears 8,33% for general word and 5,55% for super ordinate. General words
that are found in the data such as “....people, ......student”, “Tung....., ....man” and
“personal,...Darmadi”, and “...bibble, ...book”. The use of general word is not
quite crucial because it functions as the clue of the information of the text and
sometime it is not always playing the important role in the blurb. Moreover,
general words found in the data correspond to major classes of lexical items.
While, super ordinate has also less percentage in the data. It is only 5,55%. The
data is “....world, .........China” since the world China is the subclass of the word
world. Superordinate is a relation that hold between a general class and the
subclass and another term is hyponymy. Because of its less occurence, it shows
that supeprordinate is not a crucial things to be used as a style in writing blurb
because it just show the relation of the word classes.

2. Collocation
Collocation can be found about eight times in the data. Noun is the dominant
word class that appears in collocation. For example “...reader, ...practitioner”,
“bilingualism, .....language, ....second language learning”, “manager..., employee...”,
“economics, ......price,.........theory, ........ economic research”, “amazing,
.....dramatic”, “eyes,....heart”, “remarkable, ....brilliant, ......best” and “live, ....life”.
It also has function as the marker of important highlight main idea by the reader to
make it more interesting. The use of collocation is to show that the words in blurbs are
related each other and stand together in the same theme of statement. Based on the
collocation found in the data, it showed the relationship between words on the basic of
the fact that these often occur in the same surrounding. The common word as the
collocation is mostly Noun but some of data showed the Adjective also in the data
although it appears really in the less number of occurence.

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 B. Grammatical Cohesion
1. Reference
The blurbs‟ writers seem often use the reference for many purposes. As the act
of reffering elements, reference also deal with semantic relation. Based on the data, the
occurence of reference as seen in the table below:
Table.2
The Frequency of Occurrence of Distinctive Linguistic Features (Reference Items)
No Types of Reference Frequency Percentage
1 Personal Reference 37 59,67%
2 Demonstrative Reference 21 33,87%
3 Comparative Reference 4 6,45%

Total 100%

Reference is the act of referring to a preceding (anaphoric) or following

(cataphoric) element deals with semantic relationship. The types of reference is like
Personal reference which expresses through pronoun and determiners, Demonstrative
reference which expresses through determiners and adverbs and can represent a single
word or phrase and Comparative reference which expresses through adjectives and
adverbs and serves to compare items within a text in term of identity and similarity.
In the blurb there are 62 data that show the reference. It consist of 37 data
(59,67%) of Personal Reference in the blurb. Personal Reference by means of function
in the speech situation through the category of person. For example, as found in the
data, such as the word „He‟ in the sentence „He is the best‟ is personal reference
because the using of it refers to the preceding person. The word „you‟ is the sentence
„If you are ready ...‟ is personal reference refers to the reader. Moreover, in another
blurb also has personal reference like the word „his‟ in the sentence „....by many of his
friends and fans.‟ This refers to Tung as the author. Meanwhile the word „I‟ refers to
the writer and the word their in the sentence „...in their lives.‟ „They‟ refers to the
reader. In the blurb 14, the word „it‟ in the sentence „it is full of practical...‟ which
refers to the book. The personal reference usually express through pronouns and
determiners to identify individuals and objects that are named at some other point in
the text. Personal references almost occur in all of blurbs or data. It shows that the
personal reference is commonly used in blurb.
The Demonstrative Reference occurs 21 data (33,87 %) in the blurbs.
Demonstrative reference by means of location expresses through determiners and
adverbs and can represent a single word or phrase or much longer chunks of text. For
example, as found in the data the word „this‟ in the sentence „This book will reveal...‟
or as found in the another blurb where the word „this‟ in the sentence „This is a
wonderful,.....‟ which indicate demonstrative reference. Demonstrative reference
seems commonly used by the blurbs‟ writer to create a emphasizing thing in their
statement. Another example is in the blurb 16 where the word „this‟ in „this book is
worth reading‟ exactly show that the using of demonstrative reference can function to
point out the exact object to make it more emphasize for the reader.
The other kind of reference is Comparative reference. As the indirect reference
by means of identity or similarity, it is expressed through adjectives and adverbs and
serve to compare items within a text in term of identify or similarity. In the data the
comparative reference occurs only 4 times (6,45%). For example, as found in a blurb
where the word „as ever‟ in the sentence „Price Theory and Application in classic, but

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 one that refreshes itself with every edition. Now, as ever, it has two particular
strength‟ is a comparative reference. The comparative reference function as the
conjuntion to connect the idea in the blurb.
Based on the analysis of the references‟ used, it can be conclude that reference
plays the important role in making statement clearer and more effective. The main role
of reference is crucial because, for example, the use of „it‟ in the text can refer to
specific things that author want to mention. It can be understood by identifying it by
the surrounding text.
2. Substitution and Ellipsis
Substitution is the replacement of a word (group) or sentence segment by a
„dummy‟ word. It can be a noun, verb or a clause. Ellipsis is the omission of a word or
part of a sentence and closely related to substitution. It can be nominal, verbal and
clausal ellipsis. Both of substitution and ellipsis can not be found in the data and it
shows that the substitution and ellipsis are not kind of specific distinctive linguistic
features that blurbs‟ authors used as the way to express idea.
3. Conjunction
Conjunction is a relationship which indicates how the subsequent sentence or
clause should be linked to the preceding or the following part of the sentence.
Conjunctive elements presuppose the presence of other components in the discourse
which is consisting of adversity, temporality, causality and addition. In the data,
conjunction is less presence because of the short sentence and seem do not need to
make it longer and need conjunction to connect the ideas and it appears in the basic
conjunction form and it also just function to connect the sentence to sentence not
influencing the purposive data. For instance “and, but, or, so...”. It shows that the
using of conjunction is not too crucial because the typical blurbs is not a long
statement and usually straight to the comments.
C. Cohesion as found in the Blurbs
Based on the analysis above, it can be stated that cohesion as one of the main
distinctive linguistic feature that is used in analyzing blurb has crucial number and role in
appearance. The occurrence indicates style. The occurrence of cohesive items (lexical
items and reference) shows that repetition of noun as part of reiteration is prominent which
blurb writer has used the language element especially in repetition form. The fewer
occurrences of super ordinate, synonym and general word also indicate the purpose of the
blurb writer. It must be useful although the less in number. Other feature of reference such
as demonstrative and comparative are also applied. The words of lexical items which
relate to promote the book are often exaggerating as the occurrence of subjective element.
Different with other text, blurb is subjective because the purpose is begun by the
promotion. So, it can be easily found the blurb type of language by the occurrence of each
element of the distinctive linguistic features.
CONCLUSION
The styles are applied through the analysis based on the occurrence of distinctive
linguistic features as the style marker. The occurrence of cohesive item, especially lexical
cohesion and reference shows that Repetition of Noun as part of reiteration is prominent
which blurb writer has done exploitation of language element in the form of repetition to
emphasize and to remind the message and information of blurb. Other features like Super
ordinate, Synonym and General word are applied to make the sentence clearer and
distinctive, whereas the personal reference is prominent. The use of distinctive linguistic

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features (lexical cohesion item and reference) in blurbs of non fictions has several functions
based on purposes such as creating foregrounding or psychological effect of the reader,
marking the typical characteristic of the blurb writer and also stimulating the commercial
aspect as the result of effect. Moreover, based on the functions above, it can be assumed that
the readers are stimulated to read or buy the book as the use of exaggeration word created and
the use of some typical distinctive linguistic features.
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