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Intro To Stylistics
Intro To Stylistics
Area: ENGLISH
LET Competencies:
A. Definition of Stylistics
1. Some of the more common definitions of stylistics follow.
1.1. Stylistics is the application of concepts from linguistics and allied disciplines in the
analysis and interpretation of samples of communication through language (Otanes, ms.).
1.2. The linguistic study of different styles is called stylistics (Chapman, 1973:11).
1.3. Stylistics is a linguistic approach to the study of literary text (Brumfit and Carter,
1997:93).
1.4. Stylistics is 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, 1975).
1.5. Practical stylistics is the process of literary text analysis which starts from a basic
assumption that the previous interpretative procedures used in the reading of a literary
text are linguistic procedures (Carter, 1991:4).
2. Three basic principles of a linguistic approach to literary study and criticism (Carter):
2.1. That the greater our detailed knowledge of the working of the language system, the
greater our capacity for insightful awareness of the effects produced by the literary texts
2.2. That a principled analysis of language can be used to make our commentary on the
effects produced in a literary work less impressionistic and subjective
2.3. That because it will be rooted in a systematic awareness of language, bits of language
will not merely be spotted and evidence gathered casually and haphazardly. Analysis of
one linguistic pattern requires checking against related patterns across the text.
Evidence for the text will be provided in an overt or principled way. The conclusions can
be attested and retrieved by another analyst working on the same data with the same
method. There is also less danger that we may overlook textual features crucial to the
significance of the work.
3. Importance of practical stylistics:
3.1. It can provide the means whereby the student of literature can relate a piece of literary
writings to his own experience of language and so can extend that experience.
3.2. It can assist in the transfer of interpretative skills, on essential purpose of literary
education.
3.3. It can provide a procedure for demystifying literary texts.
3.4. The focus of a literary text in itself provides a context in which the learning of aspects of
language can be positively enjoyed.
Stylistics
Speech Act – The theory that “many utterances are significant not so much in terms of what
they say, but rather in terms of what they do” (Sullivan, et al., 1994, p. 293).
In dealing with clause types, Halliday distinguishes three types: those of (a) action,
(b) mental process, and (c) relation. The mental process verbs are further divided into
verbs of perception, reaction, cognition, and verbalization, all having a processor
and phenomenon, rather than having actor and goal as participant roles.
Relational clauses are those in which the process describes or states a relation
between two roles.
Ex.: 1. Arnel Pineda acts as the lead singer. (attributive type)
2. The Journey band is as popular as the Jonas. (equative type)
Halliday also classifies action clauses and mental process clauses in terms of the
ergative function in which an affected participant has an inherent role associated with
action clauses and which is the goal in a transitive clause and the action in an intransitive
clause.
Ex..: 1. Raskolnikov fell ill. (the affected participant)
2. The theory consumes him. (‘causer’ of the process)
Hesse’s Siddhartha
e. Deictic words – ‘pointers’ like the, this, that – either governing a noun or referring
back to the whole sentence.
Ex. “Is that the way they do things where you’ve been,” he asked. “– for
the ladies to escort the gentleman home?”
That was a nasty hit for Eleseus; he turned red…”
Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil
f. Repetition of opening structure
Ex. We work when the sun rises,
We rest when the sun sets.
We dig wells for drink,
We plow the land for food.
What has the power of the Emperor
to do with us?
3. Pedagogical Stylistics
Carter (in Weber, 1996) bats for a more extensive and integrated study of
language and literature which are better given as pre-literary, linguistic activities.
3.1 Predicting how the narrative will develop after omitting the title, or after
reading the first paragraph. This can be done by paired group.
Lyric poems or texts which evoke descriptive states do not benefit from
this activity.
Texts with a strong plot component do
Even the best narrative could make students read back and project
forward.
3.2 Use of cloze procedure
Focus on individual words/sequence of words, rather than on stretches of
texts.
Do some lexical prediction during the act of reading/ after a story is read.
Show careful/close reading.
Do reasonable and supportable predictions to be alerted to the over-all
pattern of the story.
3.3 Summarizing strategies
Limit the summary, from 25-40 words to: (a) re-structure, delete, re-
shape their word to meet the word limit, (b) focus on structure and shape
of the narrative.
Compare and criticize alternative summaries.
3.4 Forum: Debating opposing viewpoints
Mobilize discussion and debate.
Do small-group activity.
Provide counter-examples from other groups to listen.
Use their prior knowledge and the text in question.
3.5 Guided re-writing
Recognize the broader discourse patterns of texts and styles appropriate
to them.
Re-write stretches of discourse to change its communicative value.
Rewrite a set of instructions, as a description, or turning a lecture
transcript into academic discourse.
Specify clearly information about audiences/purpose.
Rewrite one style into another to explore connections between styles and
meaning, particularly juxtaposing literary and non-literary texts.
Focus on varied ways in instructing information for readers in different
texts.
Infer more on semantic overlaps, degrees of information supplied to a
reader, even the omission of certain expected propositions assigned
thematic significance.
E. Pragmatic Stylistics
Below is a grid showing six major speech act functions and sub-functions, (cited in
Hatch, 1992):
Kind of Exchange Examples Speech Act Equivalent
1. Factual Information a)The IIRC report inflicts many. Representative (judged for
identify, ask, report, say, b)The plane departs at 7:10. truth value, may either be
think c)Is Sunshine Corazon a threat hedged or aggravated)
to Lea Michelle?
Objectivist Affective
Formalist Functionalist
1. As viewed by Taylor and Toolan (in Weber, 1996), structural stylistics is split into Objectivist and
Affective theories. While the Objectivist stylisticians hold that style is an inherent property of
the text itself, if not an utterance, Affective stylisticians consider “unarbitrary cultural myths and
tastes, if not renewed awareness of the provisionality of interpretations” (Toolan), both ‘limiting
and enabling’ (Armstrong, 1983).
2. Within the objectivist camp, the two factions of formalists and the functional exist. The
functionalists, “take the stylistic system of a language to be bi-planar linking formal stylistic
features with specific stylistic functions (or ‘effects’ or ‘values)” as in comparing the synonyms
of an expression, for their stylistic potential. By contrast, the formalists prefer purely formal
criteria in identifying stylistic patterns and features.
3. The “Achilles heel” of functional stylistics, to Toolan, is the problem of criterial perspective,
other than an eclecticism of methods, ideas and techniques derived from: (a) Griceian
pragmatics, (b) generative syntax, (c) Prague school of functionalism, (d) quantitative
stylistics, (e) speech-act theory, (f) structuralist poetics, (g) discourse analysis, and (h) French
semiotics.
4. Applying Halliday’s two notions on function used in describing language – (a) in the sense of
‘grammatical’ (or “syntactic’) function to refer to elements of linguistic structures such as actor
and goal or subject and object or theme and rheme, as roles occupied by classes of words
phrases, and the like in the higher structural units; (b) to the generalized notion of ‘functions of
language’ – ideational, interpersonal, and textual.
5.