LC-1. Introduction-to-Stylistics-1

MC ELEC 1 – Stylistics and Discourse Analysis
Introduction to Stylistics
I. Learning objectives
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
• define what is stylistics and trace when and how its usage began; and
• explain the principles of stylistics analysis.
II. Content Focus

What is stylistics?
• Integrated study of language and literature

• It studies literature by drawing on theories and ideas from the study of language and provides
insights into the structures and functions of language in use
• Also called as literary linguistics
• The application of concepts from linguistics and allied disciplines in the analysis and
interpretation of samples of communication through language (Otanes, ms)
• A linguistic approach to the study of literary text (Brumfit and Carter)
• The study of literary discourse from a linguistics orientation. What distinguishes it from
literary criticism . . . is that it is a means of linking the two (Widdowson)
In stylistics, style is fundamentally concerned with the relationship between linguistic form
and literary meaning and interpretation. Verdonk explains that “style” derives from the Latin
word stilus, originally meaning an ancient writing instrument made of metal, wood, or bone. The
etymological origin of “style” as a writing instrument provides insight into why readers and
critics often speak of “a writer’s style”. Indeed, the term “stylistics” originates from the
discipline’s very early interest in discussing the ‘style’ of different authors. Verdonk argues that it
is likely that the evolution of the meaning of the word “style” was extended from an instrument
for writing to a manner of writing which can mean:
• literal sense of a writer’s characteristic way of shaping letters

• the figurative and deeper sense of a writer’s characteristic mode of expression in terms of
effectiveness, clarity, beauty and the like.
Classical Heritage of Stylistics
▪ Classical Rhetoric. Classical rhetoric is one of the earliest precursors of stylistics as a discipline.
Rhetoric focuses on the ways in which language can be used to impress and to persuade.
Contemporary stylistics takes from rhetoric its interest in form, emphasis on context, and
consideration of the social and emotional effects of language.
▪ European Structuralism - Russian Formalism. A school of literary criticism that developed in
Russia around 1915 and was later based at the Prague School in the 1930s. The approach was
considered formalist because it focused on the devices of language (the form) in literature.
Central figures included Roman Jakobson, Jan Mukarˇovsky, and Victor Shklovsky. A major
contribution to stylistics from Russian Formalism is the concept of defamiliarization, which
forms the basis of the stylistic framework of foregrounding.
▪ Structural Linguistics. Developed by Leonard Bloomfield. It paved the way for analyzing the
metrical patterns in poetry.
▪ Generative Grammar. Also known as phrase structure and transformational grammar. It was
pioneered by Noam Chomsky. It facilitated systematic, descriptive analysis of phrases, clauses,
and other syntactic structures.
* Because early stylistics developed in the 1960s and 70s from interdisciplinary contact between
linguistic and literary criticism, this fusion of influences resulted in an approach to text analysis
that continued to possess the precision of descriptive linguistic methods whilst gaining insight
into the ways in which formal structures of language can create literary effects and interpretations.
MC ELEC 1 – Stylistics and Discourse Analysis
▪ Systematic Functional Linguistics. Developed by by M. A. K. Halliday. It is based on the

notion that language is a situational system of choices, and these choices have sociocultural and
ideological functions. Developments in linguistics in the 1970s and 80s, exemplified by
Halliday’s work, championed the study of language in use in everyday interactions, rather than
solely as an abstract structural system.
▪ Reader’s Response Theory. Argued that literary meaning is generated through the interaction
between texts and readers, rather than being inherent within a text. Combined, these literary and
linguistic influences had a profound effect upon stylistics, which, since the 1970s has been
concerned with the study of texts in context, viewing readers as active constructors of textual
meaning.
Stylistics has never been a discipline to stand still. It is a progressive discipline, meaning that it
continually seeks to refine and update its principles in line with new knowledge in relevant fields.
When, at the end of the twentieth century, the cognitive revolution brought into focus the
psychological dimension of language, stylistics reinvented itself as cognitive stylistics (Semino and
Culpeper 2002) or cognitive poetics (Stockwell 2002).
• Cognitive Stylistics - the discipline integrated the insights of the cognitive sciences into an
understanding of how we read the linguistic structures that form literary texts.
Principles of Stylistic Analysis
Stylistics involves the application of linguistic theories and frameworks in the analysis of
literature. Depending on the interests of the analyst and the aims of the research project, a stylistic
analysis seeks either to say something interesting about literature using theories and frameworks from
language, or say something interesting about language using evidence and examples from literature.
Often, both sides of this exchange are possible.
Stylistic analysis proceeds according to certain conventions, which Simpson (2014 [2004]: 3–4)
summarizes as “the three R’s”: rigour, retrievability, and replicability. These are indeed the bedrock of
any good stylistic analysis.
• Stylistic analyses are rigorous because, rather than being formed from a collection of ad hoc
impressions and disorganized ideas, they proceed according to an explicit framework for analysis.
A framework is a systematic collection of terms and ideas that assist you in noticing and
commenting upon the language of a text. The rigour of a stylistic analysis comes also from the
close, systematic consideration of each part of a chosen text in turn.
• Stylistic analyses are retrievable because they make use of sets of terms and criteria that are
recognizable to and agreed upon by the wider community of stylisticians. Because there is
consensus about the meanings of terms, it is possible for others to, as Simpson puts it, follow the
“pathway” of your analysis and see your workings. Although stylistics involves a lot of specialist
terminology, stylisticians do not employ these terms in order to baffle or impress with complex
rhetoric; rather, stylisticians aim to be clear and transparent in their discussion of the language of
literature.
• Stylistic analyses also seek to be replicable – in the sense that they seek to show you how
conclusions have been reached so that you could test them out yourself if you so wished.
One of the common misconceptions which we often encounter in those new to stylistics is the idea
that it is all about labelling parts of texts using the metalanguage provided by a particular framework.
Whilst labelling and categorizing aspects of a text’s language is a part of the process of a rigorous
stylistic analysis, it is most definitely not the end point. Stylistics is a form of literary criticism: that
is, it is interested in wider issues of meaning, interpretation, culture, and society. Stylistic analyses
also involve tapping into your own reactions to texts, your own intuitions about their effects and
meanings, and your own observations about their role in our wider culture. Integrating your subjective
interpretations with attention to a text’s language, and making connections between form and effect, is
where the art of stylistics lies.

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MC ELEC 1 – Stylistics and Discourse Analysis

II. Content Focus

• Integrated study of language and literature

• literal sense of a writer’s characteristic way of shaping letters

▪ Systematic Functional Linguistics. Developed by by M. A. K. Halliday. It is based on the

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