A Brief Introduction To Stylistics

A Brief Introduction toStylisticsBy:Dr.K.T.KHADER

What Is Stylistics?Stylistics is the science whichexplores how readers interact withthe language of (mainly literary)texts in order to explain how weunderstand, and are affected bytexts when we read them.

Stylisticsis the scientific study of style, whichcan be viewed in several ways. More technically, stylistics is the study of thelinguistic features of a literary textphonological, lexical, syntactical whichdirectly affects the meaning of an utterance. The variety in stylistics is due to the maininfluences of linguistics & literary

Stylistics, then, is a sub-disciplinewhich grew up in the second half ofthe twentieth century: It’s beginningsin Anglo-American criticism areusually traced back to the publicationof the books listed below:Fowler, Roger, Essays on Style inLanguage.

Freeman, Donald, Linguistics andLiterary Style.Leech, Geoffrey, A LinguisticGuide to English Poetry.Sebeok, Thomas , Style inLanguage.

These books are collections of articles,some of which were either:1 Conference papersOR2 Articles published in journals.

Perhaps the most influential article is:(Closing statement: Linguistics andpoetics)By Roman Jacobson who is animportant figure who contributed inthe development of Stylistics.

Therefore ,stylistics is concerned with theexamination of grammar, lexis, semantics, as wellas phonological properties and discursive devices.It might seem that the same issues are investigatedby sociolinguistics , and indeed that is the case,however sociolinguistics analyses the abovementioned issues seen as dependant on the socialclass, gender ,age ,etc , while stylistics is moreinterested in the significance of function that the stylefulfills

Stylisticsexamines oral and written texts inorder to determine crucial characteristiclinguistic properties, structures and patternsinfluencing perception of the texts. Thus, it canbe said that this branch of linguistics isrelated to discourse analysis , in particularcritical discourse analysis , and pragmatics.Owing to the fact that at the beginning of thedevelopment of this study the major part of thestylistic investigation was concerned with theanalysis of literary texts it is sometimes calledliterary linguistics, or literary stylistics.

Nowadays,however, linguists study variouskinds of texts, such as manuals, recipes, as well as novels and advertisements . It isvital to add here that none of the text types isdiscriminated and thought to be moreimportant than others .In addition to that , inthe recent year so called ' media-discourses'such as films, news reports, song lyrics andpolitical speeches have all been within thescope of interest of stylistics.

The Development of StylisticsThe development of Stylistics, given that itcombines the use of linguistic analysiswith the psychological processesinvolved in reading.

In the twentieth century Stylistics can be seen asa logical extension of moves within literarycriticism to concentrate on studying textsrather than authors.While in Nineteenth century literary criticismconcentrated on the author, and the text-basedcriticism of the two British critics Richardsand William Empson who rejected thatapproach and replaced it with the otherapproach calledPractical criticism.

Inmany respects , however ,stylistics is close to literary criticismand practical criticism . by far themost common kind of materialstudied is literary , and attention islargely text– centered .

Practical criticism concentrates on theliterary texts themselves, and how readerswere affected by those texts.In addition Practical criticism is matchedby a similar critical movement in theUSA called New criticism.

What is New Criticism?New Criticism is based onthe description of literaryworks as independentaesthetic objects.

Practical Criticism and New Criticismshare two important features:1 An emphasis on the language of the textrather than it’s author.2 An assumption that what criticismneeded was accounts of important workof literature based on the intuitionalreading outcomes of trained andaesthetically sensitive critics.

Although both practical and new criticismpay too much attention to the effect of thetext on the readers, yet from thestylisticians point of view, it is notenough to criticize a text becauseintuition is not enough and we mustanalyze the text in detail.

Roman Jacobson who is a member ofthe Russian Formalists is one of themost influential linguists on stylisticsfor two reasons:1 For his academic brilliance.2 Because he linked various schools oflinguistics together.

Roman Jacobson moved from Moscow toPrague and joined the PragueStructuralistsCircle who were interested and affected byhis views. Later he moved to the USAwhere he carried his approach with him,which is now called STYLISTICS.

Types of Stylistics: Stylisticsis sometime called confusinglyliterary stylistics or linguistic stylistics. Linguistic stylistics the purest form of stylistics in that itspractitioners attempt to derive from thestudy of style and language variation

Themost recent studies inlinguistic stylistics havetended to focus onapplications of studies indiscourse analysis andnarrative organization toliterary text study.

Burton(1980,1982)employs models forspoken discourse analysis based onSinclair and Coulthard (1975)for theanalysis of drama dialogue Short (1981) use analysis based onGricean and speech act theory. Carter andSimpson (1982) use narrative modelsbased on Labov (1972). Fowler (1981; 1982) exploits Hallidayanmodels from within systematic linguistics

Literary stylistics: establishedmethods of close reading orpractical criticism of texts, the proceduresof literary stylistics remain traditional incharacter in spite of development inliterary theory (e.g. post - structuralism)which challenge assumptions about therole of language in depicting literaryrealities .

A Brief Introduction to Stylistics By:Dr.K.T.KHADER. What Is Stylistics? Stylistics is the science which explores how readers interact with the language of (mainly literary) texts in order to explain how we understand, and are affected by . liter