Stylistics

Stylistics: an Introduction

Ø Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own. The preferred object of stylistic studies is literature, but not exclusively "high literature" but also other forms of written texts such as text from the domains of advertising, pop culture, politics or religion. Stylistics also attempts to establish principles capable of explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in their use of language, such as socialization, the production and reception of meaning, critical discourse analysis and literary criticism.

Ø Other features of stylistics include the use of dialogue, including regional accents and people’s dialects, descriptive language, the use of grammar, such as the active voice or passive voice, the distribution of sentence lengths, the use of particular language registers, etc. In addition, stylistics is a distinctive term that may be used to determine the connections between the form and effects within a particular variety of language. Therefore, stylistics looks at what is ‘going on’ within the language; what the linguistic associations are that the style of language reveals.

Ø In its broadest sense stylistics is the study of style: of how language use varies according to varying circumstances. For e.g. circumstances of period, discourse situation or authorship.

Ø Two types of Stylistics:

1. Literary Stylistics – Study of style in literary texts.

2. General Stylistics – Study of style in texts of all kinds.

Ø Variation: Variation can be descriptive, where the purpose is just to describe the style, or explanatory, where the purpose is to explain something.

Ø General principles – 

Ø  The study of style is essentially the study of variation in the use of language.

Ø Language use has certain parameters for classifying domains. For e.g. parameter of formality (slang, informal, formal literary use etc), parameter of medium spoken or written, parameter of communicative function (advertising, scientific, legal, conversational), in the most general sense varieties of a language so defined constitute styles.

Ø Deviation: The concept of deviation is used in literary stylistics. To be stylistically distinctive, a feature of language must deviate from some norm of comparison.

Ø Two types of Deviation:

 1) Statistical deviation

            2) Determinate deviation

Ø Statistical deviation: Stastical deviation is a quantitative measure of linguistic differences between the domain and the norm.

Ø Determinate Deviation: Determinate deviation is non quantitative. It is observed as discrepancy between what is allowed by the language system and what occurs in the text.

Ø It is especially seen in poetry.

Ø Stylisticians claim that a close examination of the language of the poem leads to a greater understanding of its meaning and value.

Ø Stylistics can be helpful in accounting for artistic notions such as unity, suspense and climax.