Stylistics is the linguistic study of style in language (week 1)

1.

2.

Stylistics is the linguistic study of style in language
and how this is affected by such variables as author,
genre, and the aims of the text.
As such, stylistics involves the detailed linguistic
description of texts as well as an assessment of the
likely effects and impact on readers of the choices
made by writers.
Although this course deals with texts in English, the
same principles of stylistics apply to other
languages, though the detailed effects can
sometimes be influenced by cultural and social
norms of the places where the language is spoken.

3.

Style arises from motivated linguistic choices and is what
allows you to characterise a text as belonging to a
particular genre or having been written by a particular
author, for instance. But what many contemporary
stylisticians are primarily interested in is text style. That’s
what we focus on in this course. This refers to the
linguistic techniques used within an individual text to
create specific stylistic effects. These effects may be to
serve the aims of the text itself - for example, to create a
particular point of view or to generate a sense of
character. Or they might be focused on getting the reader
to react in a particular way - for example, to feel a
particular emotion or to be persuaded by an argument.
The key point is that creating stylistic effects relies on
having a range of linguistic options to choose from. What
stylisticians do is describe the language of the text in as
much detail as possible before trying to connect that
linguistic description - in as replicable a way as possible to the effects that they have observed.

4.

We consider stylistics to be a sub-discipline of
linguistics on the grounds that it has developed
theories with predictive power (e.g. foregrounding
theory), models (e.g. a model of how speech is
reported) and analytical methods that are not found
in other areas of linguistics. We’ll explore some of
these theories, models and methods on the course.
What is linguistics? What other branches of
linguistics do you know?

5.

Linguistics is the science of
language. It is the subject whose
practitioners
devote
their
energy to understanding why
human language is the way it is.
They
study
the
history,
acquisition, structure, and use of
as many languages as possible.
~Professor David Crystal
David Crystal, a British
linguist who works on the
linguistics of English
language.

6.

Key questions
• The work of linguists falls into two main areas: language
structure and language use.
• Linguists interested in language structure consider the formal
properties of language, including word structure (morphology),
sentence structure (syntax), speech sounds and the rules and
patterns between them (phonetics and phonology), and
meaning in language (semantics and pragmatics).
• Linguists also study the way that language is used, and this can
cover a very broad range of subjects, since language enters
almost every area of human activity. Examples include:
psycholinguistics (the psychology of language acquisition and
use); historical linguistics and the history of languages; applied
linguistics (using linguistic knowledge to help in real-world
situations like language teaching); sociolinguistics, varieties of
English, discourse analysis and conversation analysis (language
use in social contexts) and stylistics (the use of di erent styles
in language).

7.

Further reading: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/linguistics/home/all-about-linguistics/about-website/brancheslinguistics

8.

Roman
Osipovich
Jakobson
(October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982)
was a Russian thinker who
became one of the most influential
linguists of the twentieth century
by pioneering the development of
structural analysis of language,
poetry, and art. Further reading:
https://www.newworldencyclop
edia.org/entry/Roman_Jakobson
Stylistics emerged from the Russian Formalist movement of literary
criticism prevalent in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Russian formalists were interested in trying to isolate the
linguistic properties of literary texts. They soon realised that this
was an impossible task, since any linguistic structure you can
observe in literature can also be found in non-literary language.
Consequently, modern stylistics is applied to both literary and nonliterary texts alike - though it is probably fair to say that a lot of
stylisticians are particularly interested in literature. Further reading:
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Russian_Formalis
m

9.

And if you’re wondering why literature should be
of interest to linguists, here’s what the corpus
linguist John Sinclair has to say on the matter:
Literature is a prime example of language in use; no systematic
apparatus can claim to describe a language if it does not embrace
the literature also; and not as a freakish development, but as a
natural specialization of categories which are required in other
parts of the descriptive system. (Sinclair 2004: 51)
Sinclair’s point is an important one. Literature is made of language. And
language - in all its varieties - is the object of study of linguistics.

10.

At the same time, though, we need to be aware of the
contextual issues that are important in understanding
language in use. And since much stylistics involves the
analysis of literature, this means being sensitive to
literary contexts too. So we’ll finish this first article with
perhaps the most famous quotation in stylistics - from
perhaps the most famous stylistician, Roman Jakobson:
A linguist deaf to the poetic functions of language and a literary
scholar indifferent to linguistics are equally flagrant
anachronisms.
(Jakobson 1960: 377)

11.

If you’d like to know more about the history
of stylistics, try this chapter:
• Busse, B. and McIntyre, D. (2010) Language, literature and stylistics.
• In McIntyre, D. and Busse, B. (eds) Language and Style, pp. 3-14.
Basingstoke: Palgrave.
References
Jakobson, R. (1960) Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In
Sebeok, T. A. (ed.) Style in Language, pp. 350-77. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Sinclair, J. (2004) Trust the Text. London: Routledge.

12.

Assignments for Self-Control
1. The aim of subject
10. What is individual style and norm?
2. The tasks of subject
11. What is the aim of stylistics?
3. Links with other subjects
12. What are the divisions in stylistics?
4. Expressive means and stylistic devices
13. What forms and types of speech do you know?
5. What are the main trends in style study?
14. What do you know about individual style study?
6. Give the definition of stylistics.
15. What is decoding stylistics?
7. Give the definition of style and functional style.
16. What is the main concern of practical stylistics?
8. What main functional styles are recognized in the English17. What is the ultimate goal of stylistic analysis of a
speech product?
language?
9. Name the substyles of the main functional styles.