Stylisticsisabranchofappliedlinguisticsconcernedwiththestudyofstyleintexts,especially(but

notexclusively)inliteraryworks.Alsocalledliterarylinguistics.Apersonwhospecializesinstylistic
analysisiscalledastylistician.

AccordingtoKatieWalesinADictionaryofStylistics,2nded.(Pearson,2001),"Thegoalofmost
stylisticsisnotsimplytodescribetheformalfeaturesoftextsfortheirownsake,butinorderto
showtheirfunctionalsignificancefortheinterpretationofthetextorinordertorelateliterary
effectstolinguistic'causes'wherethesearefelttoberelevant."

Therearevariousoverlappingsubdisciplinesofstylistics,includingliterarystylistics,interpretive
stylistics,evaluativestylistics,corpusstylistics,discoursestylistics,feministstylistics,
computationalstylistics,andcognitivestylistics.