2 Ehlies Stylistic Analysis

Republic of the Philippines
Bulacan State University

Sarmiento Campus
City of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF LUIS JOAQUIN M.

KATIGBAK'S KARA'S PLACE
An Analysis Submitted
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirement in the
subject Introduction to Stylistics for the Degree of
Bachelor of Secondary Education Major in English
Submitted by:
Ehlie Rose G. Baguinaon
BSEd-English 3B
Submitted to:
Rizelyn M. Marantan, M.A Language Studies
March 2016
Acknowledgement
The researcher would like to acknowledge this analysis to her parents who
support her all throughout the work, financially and emotionally. Also, to her friends, for
giving her the moral boost and assistance in doing this. Lastly, thanks to God Almighty
who gives the wisdom she needs in fulfilling this analysis, and a strong body to endure all
the stress in this world.
Abstract
Language and Literature always come together. As what everyone knows, it is
both an ingredient of what is now termed as Stylistics. This Stylistic Analysis examines
Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak "Kara's Place", using a combination of analysis of the story in
terms of lexis, syntax, semantics, morphemes, and graphical analysis. These stylistic
devices are used to prove the analysis comprehensively. Also, these devices have
important aspects in the text, for it carries the meaning the writer wants to convey to the
readers. As we go through the analysis, we will encounter different words, and their
explanation on why they are used. The theories to be used are the most common
Foregrounding, the Schema Theory, and Discourse Theory. This study will discuss how
the author of Kara's Place comes up with this text meaning.
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Key words: Stylistics, lexis, syntax, semantics, morphemes, graphical, foregrounding,
discourse, schema, parallelism
I. Introduction
Stylistics is a branch of Linguistics which deals with expressive resources and
functional styles of a language. It explores how readers interact with the language of
(mainly literary) text in order to explain how we understand, and are affected by text
when we read them. Its root can be traced to the formalist tradition that developed in
Russian Literary Circle at the turn of the twentieth century, particularly in the work of the
Moscow Linguistic Circle.
G.N. Leech defines Stylistic as a linguistic approach to literature, explaining the
relation between language and artistic function, with motivating questions such as "why"
and "how" more than "what". H.G. Widdowson added that Stylistics involves both
literary criticism and linguistics, as its morphological making suggests: the "style
component to the latter". Stylistics is a mean of relating disciplines (Linguistics and
Literary Criticism) and subjects (Language and Literature). On the other hand, K.T.
Khader defines Stylistics as an intensive study of literary text on an advanced level, by
making out the particular effect of the particular choice of language in literary
communication.
The term Stylistics has been for a long time associated with literary criticism, and
stylistics has been considered as a branch of literary criticism. The author's style was the
major theme of this field of study. Later on, the focus moved from the study of the
author's style to how meanings and effects are produced by literary texts. Thus, there was
a critical need to change the field from a branch of literary criticism into a field on its
own. Although stylistics has focused on literary works as its raw material of scrutiny, this
does not underestimate the importance of stylistics in non-literary texts. Moreover, it is
difficult sometimes to draw a clear line between literary stylistics and linguistic stylistics
(Jeffries and McIntyre, 2010).
Stylistics has connection with the other branches of Linguistics. It concentrates on
expressive sound combinations; intonational and rhythmic patterns (Phonetics). It deals
with words, but only those which are expressive in language or in speech (Lexicology). It
also restricts itself to those grammar regularities, which make language units expressive
(Grammar). These connections gave birth to such interdisciplinary sciences as stylistic
semasiology (the science of expressive layers if vocabulary), stylistic phonetics (the
science of expressive sound organization patterns), and grammatical stylistic (the science
of expressive morphological and syntactic language units).
The field of contemporary stylistics includes two interrelated movements in
Linguistics, Russian Formalism and Prague School Structuralism. Roman Jakobson's
work links both movements. Two of his major theoretical contributions are the concept of
foregrounding and the notion of the poetic function in language.
Foregrounding is a form of textual patterning which is motivated specifically for
literary-aesthetic purposes. It is a Stylistic distortion of some sort and a technique for
making a strange in language. In Shklovsky's Russian term ostranenie, it is a method of
defamiliarisation in textual composition. Defamiliarization or ostranenie is the artistic
technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way.
It is the basic principle of aesthetic communication, it is a creative method of
highlighting a linguistic feature, which the artist wants to make noticeable. Jakobson is
primary concerned with the study if the artistic emphasis on foregrounding procedures -
the language of literature is foregrounding against the background of conventional
linguistic forms of expression and observers poetry is organized violence on ordinary
speech.
Halliday defines foregrounding as a part of the functional theory of language on
what cannot be expressed statistically is foregrounding, which was introduced by The
Prague School (1926) as the feature of Stylistics, that is "The branch of knowledge that
deals with literary or linguistic style". It is achieved in language by introducing extra
regularity meant the regularity which is over and above the demands of correctness --
rhyme, rhythm, meter, alliteration, assonance are the examples of phonological over -
regularity, thus, the two Prague School scholars defined foregrounding in their book
"literary structures and style" as follows: "by foregrounding, we mean that use of devices
of language in such a way that this use itself attracts attention". Hence, foregrounding is
achieved by parallelism construction. In which one structure seems equivalent or parallel
to another. Both the scholars believe "In poetic language, foregrounding achieves
maximum intensely to the extent of pushing communication into the background as the
adjective of expression and of being used for its own sake.
The theory of foregrounding is probably the most important theory within
stylistics analysis, and foregrounding analysis is arguably the most important part of the
stylistic analysis af any text Czech theorist Jan Mukarovsky pointed out, foregrounding
may occur in normal, everyday language, such as poem discourse or journalistic prose,
but it occurs at random with no systematic design. In literary texts, on the other hand,
foregrounding is structured: it tends to be both systematic and hierarchical, that is, similar
feature may recur, such as a pattern of assonance or a related group of metaphors, and
one set of features will dominate the others (Mukarovsky, 1964, p. 20), a phenomenon
that Jakobson termed "the dominant"(1987, pp. 41-46).
On the other hand, Linguists, cognitive psychologists, and psycholinguists have
used the concept of schema (plural: schemata) to understand the interaction of key factors
affecting the comprehension process.
Simply put, schema theory states that all knowledge is organized into units.
Within these units of knowledge, or schemata, is stored information.
A schema, then, is a generalized description or a conceptual system for
understanding knowledge-how knowledge is represented and how it is used.
According to this theory, schemata represent knowledge about concepts: objects
and the relationships they have with other objects, situations, events, sequences of events,
actions, and sequences of actions.
With the rapid development of language analysis in the 20th century, stylistics has
come to the view as a powerful discipline which has its own theories such as
Foregrounding Theory, Text World Theory, and Schema Theory. The general aim of this
discipline is to look at the formal features of a text and find their significance for the
interpretation of the text.
Therefore, this paper aims to present a lexical, syntactical, semantical,
morphological, and graphical analysis of "Kara's Place" by Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak.
The significance of using this data reflects the time in which the literary work was written.
Research Limitation
This research shall only focus on stylistics, and analysis will be conducted
through the use of the following levels of analysis: lexical, semantic, morphological,
graphical, and syntactical pattern. Also, stylistic elements in each of the above mentioned
level of analysis will be used in "Kara's Place". The researcher will also focus on three
theories: Foregrounding, Schema, and Discourse Analysis.
Literature Review
Stylistics is a branch of linguistics which investigates the entire system of
expressive resources available in a particular language. It is a relatively new linguistic
discipline. The word ―stylistics‖ was firstly attested in the Oxford English Dictionary
only in 1882, meaning the science of literary style, the study of stylistic features.
However, the first reflections on style can be dated back to the ancient times. Ancient
rhetoric and poetics, which are considered to be the predecessors of stylistics, treated
style as a specific mode of expression, the proper adornment of thought. The orator or
poet was expected to follow the norms of artful arrangement of words, to use model
sentences and prescribed kinds of ―figures in order to achieve particular expressiveness.
After the ancient period the normative approach dominated in style investigations.
The definition of the subject-matter of stylistics causes certain difficulties which
are primarily connected with the complex nature of its object (i.e. language). Language is
a hierarchy of levels. Each level is studied correspondingly by phonetics, morphology,
lexicology, syntax and text linguistics. Each of these disciplines investigates language
from a particular aspect. Phonetics deals with speech sounds and intonation; lexicology
treats separate words with their meanings and the structure of vocabulary as a whole;
grammar analyses forms of words (morphology) and forms of their combinations
(syntax). In a word, these area level-oriented areas of linguistic study, which deal with
sets of language units and relations between them. But it is not the case with stylistics, as
it pertains to all language levels and investigates language units from a functional point of
view. Thus stylistics is subdivided into separate, quite independent branches, each
treating one level and having its own subject of investigation. Hence we have stylistic
phonetics, stylistic morphology, stylistic lexicology and stylistic syntax, which are
mainly interested in the expressive potential of language units of a corresponding level.
Stylistic phonetics studies the style-forming phonetic features of sounds,
peculiarities of their organization in speech. It also investigates variants of pronunciation
occurring in different types of speech, prosodic features of prose and poetry.
Stylistic morphology is interested in stylistic potential of grammatical forms and
grammatical meanings peculiar to particular types of speech.
Stylistic lexicology considers stylistic functions of lexicon, expressive, evaluative
and emotive potential of words belonging to different layers of vocabulary.
Stylistic syntax investigates the style-forming potential of particular syntactic
constructions and peculiarities of their usage in different types of speech. The stylistic
value of the text is manifested not merely through a sum of stylistic meanings of its
individual units but also through the interrelation and interaction of these elements as
well as through the structure and composition of the whole text.
Thus stylistics deals with all expressive possibilities and expressive means of a
language, their stylistic meanings and colorings (the so-called connotations). It also
considers regularities of language units functioning in different communicative spheres.
Now, there are theories that accompany Stylistic Analysis.
Foreground is a term usually used in art, having opposite meaning to background.
It's a very general principle of artistic communication that a work of art in some
way deviates from norms which we, as members of society, have learnt to expect in the
medium used and that anyone who wishes to investigate the significance and value of a
work of art must concentrate on the element of interest and surprise, rather than on the
automatic pattern. Such deviations from linguistic or other socially accepted norms are
labeled foregrounding, which invokes the analogy of a figure seen against a background
(Leech, 1968: 57).
In stylistics, the notion of foregrounding, a term borrowed from the Prague School
of Linguistics, is used by Leech and Short (1981: 48) to refer to `artistically motivated
deviation'.
The term foregrounding has its origin with the Czech theorist Jan Mukarovský: it
is how Mukarovský's original term, aktualisace, was rendered in English by his first
translator (Mukarovský, 1932/1964). It refers to the range of stylistic effects that occur in
literature, whether at the phonetic level (e.g., alliteration, rhyme), the grammatical level
(e.g., inversion, ellipsis), or the semantic level (e.g., metaphor, irony).
As Mukarovský pointed out, foregrounding may occur in normal, everyday
language, such as spoken discourse or journalistic prose, but it occurs at random with no
systematic design. In literary texts, on the other hand, foregrounding is structured: it tends
to be both systematic and hierarchical. That is, similar features may recur, such as a
pattern of assonance or a related group of metaphors, and one set of features will
dominate the others (Mukarovský, 1964, p. 20), a phenomenon that Jakobson termed "the
dominant" (1987, pp. 41-46).
Foregrounding is the opposite of automatization, that is, the deautomatization of
an act; the more an act is automatized, the less it is consciously executed; the more it is
foregrounded, the more completely conscious does it become. Objectively speaking:
automatization schematizes an event; foregrounding means the violation of the scheme.
(1964, p. 19)
The technique of art, including literature, is to make objects "unfamiliar," to make
forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of
perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. (1917/1965, p. 12)
Miall and Kuiken refer foregrounding to stylistic variation that evokes feelings
and prolong reading time.
The immediate effect of foregrounding is to make strange (ostranenie), to achieve
defamiliarization. Shklovsky saw defamiliarization as accompanied by feeling: he noted,
more precisely, that stylistic devices in literary texts "emphasize the emotional effect of
an expression" (Shklovsky, 1917/1965, p. 9). And, Mukarovský concurs, "When used
poetically, words and groups of words evoke a greater richness of images and feelings
than if they were to occur in a communicative utterance" (1977, p. 73).
Verdonk states that foregrounding is the psychological effect a literary reader has
as s/he is reading a work of literature.
There is some evidence that foregrounding in literary texts strikes readers as
interesting and captures their attention. Hunt and Vipond (1985) investigated the effects
of textual features that they, following Labov (1972), refer to as "discourse evaluations."
These are described as "words, phrases, or events" that are "unpredictable against the
norm of the text" and that convey the narrator's evaluations of story characters or events.
Since discourse evaluations resemble foregrounding as discussed in the present report,
Hunt and Vipond's findings are noteworthy. In a study with readers of a short story, they
found that readers were more likely to report that story phrases "struck them" or "caught
their eye" when presented with the original discourse evaluations than when those
phrases had been adapted so that the same story events were described in relatively
"neutral" terms.
In a study in which foregrounding was defined precisely as in the present report,
Van Peer (1986) has also found that foregrounding strikes readers' interest. Using six
short poems, Van Peer asked readers to note which lines of a poem seemed more
"striking." Regardless of their prior level of literary training, readers showed remarkable
agreement on this task, and, most significantly, their rankings of how striking they found
the lines of poetry correlated significantly with Van Peer's prior rankings of the extent to
which those lines included foregrounding. One objective of the present study was to
replicate and extend Van Peer's findings by examining whether readers of short stories
would rate highly foregrounded passages as more striking than passages with less
foregrounding.
Although the Hunt and Vipond (1985) and Van Peer (1986) studies indicate that
readers experience foregrounded text as striking, neither study attempted to examine
whether readers also experience foregrounded text as evocative of feeling. Although
available evidence is indirect, it does suggest a close relationship between the
defamiliarizing effects of foregrounding and the emergence of feeling. If response to
foregrounding is conceptualized as the reaction to an unexpected or anomalous textual
feature, evidence from studies of event-related potentials indicates that reading
foregrounded text accentuates activity in cortical areas specialized for affect. In a study
by Kutas and Hillyard (1982), sentences with semantically inappropriate final words were
presented while event-related potentials were recorded. They confirmed earlier findings
of a negative potential (N400) in response to the semantically anomalous words. More
importantly, they found that these negative potentials were larger and more prolonged
over the right hemisphere than over the left. More recent evidence indicates that the
amplitude of the N400 potential increases to the extent the final word is incongruent with
semantic constraints (Van Petten and Kutas, 1990) and with grammatical constraints
(Osterhout and Holcomb, 1992). Perhaps such shifts to right hemispheric activation may
enable semantic and grammatical anomalies, such as foregrounding, to be related to the
prosodic aspects of affective comprehension in which this hemisphere specializes
(Davidson, 1984; Heilman and Bowers, 1990). This interpretation is congruent with
evidence that patients with right-hemisphere damage have difficulty understanding the
meaning of metaphors (Winner and Gardner, 1977) and of prosodic speech elements
(Joanette, Goulet, and Hannequin, 1991, pp. 132-159). Such patients may not experience
the feelings that normally emerge when foregrounded text induces defamiliarization.
Somewhat more direct evidence that defamiliarization evokes feeling is available
from a study by Miall (1992). He compared the affect ratings of experiences associated
with noun phrases before and after those noun phrases were encountered in the lines of a
poem. For example, an experience associated with the word "duplication" was rated
before and then after encountering the following metaphoric phrase in the Roethke poem
entitled Dolour: "endless duplication of lives and objects." Readers reported that affect
was accentuated in associations to noun phrases after those phrases were encountered in
lines containing numerous foregrounded elements. For example, one reader commented:
"After reading [this line] I felt the sinister effect of many things being the same." Since
this study was conducted in a classroom setting, the effects due to reading may have been
confounded with effects due to class discussion, etc. However, together with the
psychobiological studies reviewed earlier, these observations suggest that foregrounding
not only prompts defamiliarization but also accentuates feeling. The second objective of
the present study was to systematically substantiate that claim by examining whether
readers of short stories rate highly foregrounded passages as more evocative of affect
than passages with less foreground.
If highly foregrounded passages of literary texts are striking and affectively
evocative, such passages may, in Shklovsky's phrase, "increase the difficulty and length
of perception." For several reasons, readers may be expected to dwell on foregrounded
passages. First, at the phonetic level, such features as alliteration or rhyme may produce a
slight "drag" on reading, particularly if a reader engages in sub-vocal articulation. Such
prolonged reflection on phonetic features may allow realization of their feeling
connotations (cf. Fónagy, 1989). Second, at the grammatical level, such features as
inversion or ellipsis may produce comprehension difficulties. As research on "garden-
path" sentences has shown (eg., Frazier and Rayner, 1987), deviations in normal syntax
impede processing and increase reading time. Extended reflection on those complexities
may enable recognition of implicit emphases or evaluations. Third, at the semantic level,
such features as metaphor or irony may refer to less salient attributes of textual referents.
Lengthy reflection may be necessary to identify those less salient -- and often affective --
attributes. In general, foregrounding may motivate an attentional pause that allows
emergence of related feelings. Fourth, the hierarchical arrangement of foregrounding
around a dominant (Jakobson, 1987) may require the integration of reactions to
complexes of phonetic, grammatical and semantic features of a text. In general,
foregrounding may motivate an attentional pause that allows emergence of related
feelings.
In addition, during an encounter with foregrounded text, the reader may engage in
what we have called "refamiliarization": the reader may review the textual context in
order to discern, delimit, or develop the novel meanings suggested by the foregrounded
passage (a process that Harker [1996] has described as the reader's "reattentional"
activity). At the phonetic level, the reader may reconsider the context that enables
identification of the feeling connotations of alliterative or assonant passages (Brown,
1958, pp. 110-139). At the grammatical level, the reader may reconsider the context that
helps to identify the "absent" referent of an ellipsis. At the semantic level, the reader may
recall other passages that extend or embellish a metaphor. We propose that, in general,
such reconsideration of the text surrounding foregrounded features will be guided by the
feelings that have been evoked in response to those features. As de Sousa (1987, p. 196)
has argued, accentuated feelings set the "patterns of salience among objects of attention."
Thus, the feelings accentuated while reading foregrounded passages sensitize the reader
to other passages having similar affective connotations. Furthermore, such accentuated
feelings sensitize the reader to other "texts" (e.g., personal memories, world knowledge)
having similar affective connotations (see Kuiken, 1991, for a review). With such
affectively congruent intra- and extra-textual resources, the reader "refamiliarizes" or
"thematizes" the textual subject matter.
Since foregrounding often occurs in clusters of closely related phonetic,
grammatical, and semantic features, the sheer density of the processes by which
refamiliarization occurs suggests that it takes time to unfold. In fact, as the preceding
discussion suggests, the complexity of those processes exceeds that proposed by the now
widely discredited model according to which non-literal expressions are more complex
and require longer to comprehend than literal expressions (cf. Glucksberg, 1991). We are
referring to the extended reading time than may occur in response to texts that require an
integrated response to structured complexes of foregrounding features, such as occurs
most evidently in poetry. While we know of no direct evidence that foregrounding in this
sense increases reading time, there is some evidence that the "refamiliarizing" activities
just reviewed occur in response to foregrounded text. In a study with readers of a Woolf
short story, Miall (1989) found that, while phrases describing the relationships in the
opening section of the story were at first judged more important, defamiliarizing phrases
describing the setting were judged as more important at a second reading -- after readers
had begun to doubt their initial, conventional interpretation. In another study, based on
think-aloud data from readers of another Woolf story (Miall, 1990), defamiliarizing
phrases provided the main focus for readers' constructive activities: such phrases elicited
more interpretive reflection, they participated more often in perceived relationships
between passages in the story, and they resulted in more explicit anticipations of overall
story direction and meaning than other phrases. Although foregrounding was not
systematically assessed in these studies, the findings lend plausibility to the notion that
readers take longer to interpret foregrounded passages, to savour their affective
implications, and to evaluate the contributions of those passages to understanding the
story as a whole.
A fourth objective of the present investigation was to examine the generality of
the relationships between foregrounding, strikingness, affect, and reading time. It might
be thought that these relationships would be evident only among individuals who are
predisposed by instructions or training to attend to literary style. For example, when
Zwaan (1991) prepared materials that could be read either as newspaper texts or as
literary texts, readers who were encouraged to adopt the literary perspective read the texts
more slowly and retained a more complete representation of surface structure as shown
by a recall task. Similarly, when Hoffstaedter (1987) presented 24 different texts either as
newspaper texts or as poetic texts, 10 of them were judged more "poetic" when
introduced as poetic texts than when introduced as newspaper texts. On the other hand,
the perspective effects observed in these studies may be specific to texts in which
foregrounding is not prevalent. Zwaan's texts were deliberately chosen because they
contained few "literary qualities," and Hoffstaedter obtained perspective effects only with
poems that were relatively devoid of "properties which potentially contribute to a poetic
processing". Thus, since Van Peer (1986) found that both experienced and inexperienced
readers responded to foregrounding in unambiguously poetic texts, any conclusions
regarding the generality of the effects of foregrounding on readers' response seem
premature. We attempted to explore this issue further by assessing the relationships
between foregrounding, strikingness, affect, and reading time among groups of readers
who differed considerably in experience with literary texts.
The theory of foregrounding is probably the most important theory within
Stylistic Analysis, and foregrounding analysis is arguably the most important part of the
stylistic analysis of any text.
The words 'foreground' and 'foregrounding' are themselves foregrounded in the
previous paragraph. They stand out perceptually as a consequence of the fact that they
DEVIATE graphologically from the text which surrounds them in a number of ways. The
other words are in lower case, but they are capitalized. The other words are black but they
are multicolored. The other words are visually stable but they are irregular.
One way to produce foregrounding in a text, then, is through linguistic deviation.
Another way is to introduce extra linguistic patterning into a text. The most common
way of introducing this extra patterning is by repeating linguistic structures more often
than we would normally expect to make parts of texts PARALLEL with one another. So,
for example, if you look at the last three sentences of the previous paragraph you should
feel that they are parallel to one another. They have the same overall grammatical
structure (grammatical parallelism) and some of the words are repeated in identical
syntactic locations.
Parallelism as a trope of literary discourse has a long history of critical
examination in different texts.
The Bible and texts of different cultures and literatures have benefitted from its
critical investigation.
See, for a few examples, (Isaacs 1919; Kornodle 1930; Jakobson 1966; Finnegan
1980; and Gasparov 1996). What may be made new is how writers engage the concept in
the aesthetic pleasure they can create and the thematic purpose they can convey.
Parallelism is a linguistic phenomenon, which explains the relationship that may be
understood between units of linguistic structures, which are constructed parallel to each
other or related in some other ways. Literature exploits this relationship to create ideas in
the units of language that are composed as parallels. Our understanding of the concept as
a linguistic phenomenon enables us to interpret its heuristic uses in literature in which
meanings are suggested in order to argue a point of view and convey a message. In this,
Short (1996), opines, "Stylistics is [...] concerned with relating linguistic facts (linguistic
description) to meaning (interpretation) [...]". In parallelism, there is always a
relationship in the structures and ideas so juxtaposed generally in the form of synonymy,
repetition, antithesis, apposition and other forms. All level language categories- a word,
phrase, sentence, units of sound and meaning etc- may be engaged to function as
parallelism. When these parallels achieve perceptual obtrusiveness, the deployment may
be described as foregrounding- a means by which a particular idea or meaning or
structure is made overt and most recognizable in the world of the text under
consideration. Again in this, we follow Short (1996) that [...] parallelism has the power
not just to foreground parts of a text for us, but also to make us look for parallel or
contrastive meaning links between those parallel parts. This may well involve us in
construing new aspects of meaning for the words concerned, or in searching among the
possible connotations that a word might have for the one that is most appropriate in
particular structure.
On the other hand, a simple example is to think of your schema for dog. Within
that schema you most likely have knowledge about dogs in general (bark, four legs, teeth,
hair, tails) and probably information about specific dogs, such as collies (long hair, large,
Lassie) or springer spaniels (English, docked tails, liver and white or black and white,
Millie). You may also think of dogs within the greater context of animals and other living
things; that is, dogs breathe, need food, and reproduce. Your knowledge of dogs might
also include the fact that they are mammals and thus are warm-blooded and bear their
young as opposed to laying eggs. Depending upon your personal experience, the
knowledge of a dog as a pet (domesticated and loyal) or as an animal to fear (likely to
bite or attack) may be a part of your schema. And so it goes with the development of a
schema. Each new experience incorporates more information into one's schema.
Research Question
This research analysis seeks to answer these questions:
1. What are the lexical, syntactical, semantical, morphological, graphological, and
discourse element found in the story Kara's Place?
2. What are the theories that can be found in the story?
Significance of the study

This Stylistic Analysis would be an advantage to the following;
- The researcher herself, for she will learn more about this story. And also she will
learn more about the author's way of expressing his ideas in writing.
- The learners, for this analysis will help them in analyzing the story, knowing
every bit of details, and appreciating the author's way of writing.
- Other researchers, for it will serve as a paradigm of what an analysis is all about.
II. Research Methodology

In this study the researcher will use the Linguistic features (Lexical, semantic,
syntactical, graphical, and morphological) that can be found in this study. The researcher
will also use theories that will fit for the study.
Here are the methods that the researcher will use.
• The levels of Stylistic Analysis

a. Lexical - the researcher is bound to classify all the words according to its part
in the speech. The words will be classified according to their use.
b. Semantic - the meaning of each words will be used to know what is the
meaning of the text as a whole.
c. Syntactic - the grammatical pattern of this test will be tested.
d. Morphology - this text's words with affixes will be classified, too, according to
their type.
e. Graphical - the researcher will take a scrutinizing look to the punctuations
being used in the text.
• Elements of Stylistic Analysis
The elements under each of the level of analysis which can be found in the story.
a. Lexical level includes parts of speech, a category to which a word is assigned in
accordance with its syntactic functions.
b. Semantic level includes the repetition, a literary device that repeats the same
words or phrases a few times to make an idea clearer. There are several types of
repetitions commonly uses in both poetry and prose.
c. Graphical level includes the punctuation and paragraphing. Punctuation is a set
of marks used to regulate and clarify their meanings, principally by separating or linking
words, phrases, and clauses. And paragraphing that involves a section of a piece of
several sentences dealing with a single subject. The first sentence of a paragraph starts in
a new line.
d. Morphological device includes affixes. An affix is a morpheme added to a
word to change its function or meaning. It may be derivational, or inflectional.
Affixation, thus, is the linguistic process speakers use to form different words by adding
morphemes (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation), or at the end
(suffixation) of words.
e. Syntactic level includes the kind and structure of a sentence formed inside the
given text. Reference may be used as anaphora and cataphora.
Moreover, there are three theories to be used; Foregrounding, Schema, and
Discourse.
III. Result
The story's analysis is composed of lexical, semantical, graphical, morphological,
and discourse analysis.
3.1 Lexical and Semantic Features

3.1.1. Lexical Features
The short story "Kara's Place" of Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak is composed of 3, 299
words. Its words are simple and easy to discern. There are 2, 176 words for major classes;
506 nouns, 806 verbs, 534 adjectives, and 330 adverbs. Minor classes have 1, 115 words;
637 pronouns, 324 prepositions, 154 conjunctions, and 8 interjections. The longest word
is uncharacteristically which has 20 letters, followed by 13 letter words; Architectural,
unfortunately, conversations, communication, determination, possibilities, and
straightening. There is also foreign word such as barkada, and a foreign statement, "Ba't
ang yabang nya?" The author is a Filipino, therefore his characters are also ones, that he
uses such words to express the character's emotion.
As you can see, nouns and verbs are the dominant parts of speech among the four.
Indicating we can find lots of noun and verb in the short story. It is so to show us that
both of it, in every way, dominate the literary texts. Nouns are mostly common. The
words rats, names, food, object, visit, lunch, visitors, course, school, streets, place, room,
window, house, owners, student, chicken, thing, towel, landlord, short, slippers, bra, t-
shirt, persons, bed, class, university, men, car, bedsheet, group, birthday, movie, mall,
lab, textbook, graphs, colors, symbol, words, bible, friend, books, clothes, animals, dogs,
cats, flower, months, story, speech, caps, ceremony, section. They refer to usual language
used in a conversation or in daily life. They are used to show the casualness of the story.
In addition, if there are common nouns, proper nouns can also be seen, Eric, Kara, God,
Rachel, Jo-ann, Rach, Dom Perignon, Math, Communication, KnL, Krus na Ligas,
Collegian, Matthew, Bible. These refer to specific person and thing in the story. They are
used during conversation of the characters, except KnL and Krus na Ligas. Example, Eric
and Kara are used to greet each other.
"Hi, Kara," he says, with a big grin and a small hand-wave, as though as I were
several meters away.
"Hey, Eric," I smile, "-- come in."
Then,
"Well, you know how, in Math, attendance doesn't mean anything?"
"Some Dom Perignon, perhaps?"
"Look, it's in the Bible!"
"I think it's in Matthew."
"Eric, I swear to God, if I pick up the Collegian next week and find out he's the
lead story, I'll never talk to you again."
Krus na Ligas is the place where the narrator or the main character lived. The
author shortened the place by using initials KnL. Krus na Ligas or KnL is the place where
Kara lives.
There are also concrete nouns; space, questions, noise, hiss, problem, air,
expression, voice, knock, deal, talk, fact, gesture, trouble, absent, present, that can be
perceived by one or more senses. They are the general ideas in the story.
The noise I can tune out, after a while; it just becomes like a background hiss, like
the white noise an off-duty TV makes when it's way past midnught and you're
nodding off on the couch.
A knock sounds on my door.
Also the words feeling, support, affection, idea, fun, kindness, mind, memory,
grievance, support, enjoyment, afterthought, moment are abstract nouns. They are ideas
that cannot be known directly by our senses. They serve as the emotion feels by the
characters. Like for example,
I don't really mind all that, though.
I've seen both so often that I can tell them apart now, and ever since I gave them
names, I've started feeling something almost like affection for them.
There are also nouns that cannot be counted such as liquid, grains, water, rain,
and downpour. These words correspond to nature that surrounds the characters' setting.
As we can also notice, verbs are the most dominant words in the story. It contains
present and some present progressive tenses. The flow of the story is in present form.
Look at the introductory paragraph of the story. It shows that the following paragraphs
will be in a present tense point of view.
I'm pretty sure there are only two rats. I've seen both so often that I can tell them
apart now, and ever since I gave them names, I've started feeling something
almost like affection for them. I mean, I don't feed them or anything -- they
manage to steal quite enough of my food, thank you -- but at least I don't freak out
any more when they pop up, and I don't reach for the nearest blunt object. I saw
Ludlum (he's the smaller, darker one) this morning, just behind the dishrack, and
Le Carré paid me a visit as I was eating lunch. I guess that's how I think of them
now: they're visitors, and God knows I don't get many of those here in Krus na
Ligas.
The words am, tell, feed, freak, are, mean, manage, reach, think, knows, can, do,
steal, guess, get, help, does, is, see, rent, sits, sound, wait, hear, answer, replies, clear,
makes, hold, open, make, give, says, find, come, feel, asks, laughs, talk, goes, let, fails,
shakes, sing, put, leap, blurts, cut, puts, stands, mutters, finishes, rain, miss, screams,
watch, follows, tug, smite, beat, put are in present tense. There is a case wherein the
words is and was, are and were, and have are joined in the preceding word, making it like
this,’s, 're, and 've respectively.
I guess that's how I think of them now: they're visitors, and God knows I don't get
many of those here in Krus na Ligas.
Well, there's Eric, of course.
It's kind of funny; we've known each other for years -- went to the same high
school and all -- and we've never really been more than buddies, but nowadays, I
think, he's gotten kind of sweet on me.
Some verbs happen to be in past tense; gave, saw, needed, served, looked, decided,
disguised, rented, made, got, glanced, noticed, covered, could, would, had, returned,
spent. Some of it are used in describing what have happened in the past life or before that
time the story takes place in the characters' life. Take the example when the main
character reminisces her years with her friends during high school. The verbs used are
mostly in past tense.
How could I forget? Jo-ann was one of only a handful of people in our batch who
had a car, and she was the only one who had a new car, a brand-spanking-new
Galant, as opposed to the secondhand slabs of rust that normally sputtered
around the parking lot. And so, on her birthday, the barkada decided to slather
gunk all over her car, as a surprise. The plan was that we would bring cans of
shaving cream, spray their contents all over the car's surface, put some cherries
on the hood, and then hide. When Jo-ann returned to the parking lot, we would
savor our view of her stunned expression, and then suddenly leap out of the
hedges, scream 'surprise!' and then cheerfully wipe off all the gunk. The problem
was, we didn't know that the shaving cream would eat right through the car's
paint job. We spent the next few months pooling our allowances to pay for the
repair work.
There are three types of verbs according to usage: transitive, intransitive, and
linking verbs. Words such as saw, guess, have, rented, spend, made, push, give, starts,
beginning, shakes, spent, follows, make, senses, failed, knows, copied, close, see, hear are
used as transitive verbs in the following sentences.
I saw Ludlum (he's the smaller, darker one) this morning, just behind the
dishrack, and Le Carré paid me a visit as I was eating lunch.
I guess the owners needed some extra money, looked at the square meter or so of
extra space in front of their house, and decided to cobble together a "room" for
some gullible student, i.e. me, to rent.
I've rented worse places.
I spend most of my time asleep anyway, so I don't give a damn about the interior
design, or lack thereof.
My door is made of cheap lawanit half-heartedly reinforced by some galvanized
iron.
I push my monobloc chair aside to clear the way to my so-called closet.
The chair makes an irritating scraping sound.
"Just give me a minute or two to make myself decent."
Of course, there are also examples of verbs used as intransitive in sentences, such
as sounds, covered, brushes, shrug, frowns, and stands.
It's covered with a shabby white bedsheet decorated with little orange flowers.
He brushes off my attempt to change the topic, with the determination of someone
whose mind tends to run on a single track.
I shrug, and look away from him.
He frowns.
Eric stands up.
Added by the linking verbs which stand alone in the sentence. They connect the
subject and the predicate. Usually they are succeeded by a any king of speech but the
verb. There are lots of linking verb in Kara's Place, but some of them become helping
verbs follow by main verbs. These are the sentences with linking verbs,
I'm pretty sure there are only two rats.
think he's gotten kind of sweet on me.
This fact is just barely disguised by the heavy yellow curtains that hang down
from the roof.
And linking verbs that become helping verbs,
The right wall was made of hollow blocks, up to a point, that is.
Eric and I are laughing, as we tell each other the story again.
There are also what we call special linking verbs. These are the words such as
looks, tastes, etcetera. They are somewhat related to our senses, hence, they are called
special or verb of senses. Take a look at the example.
He actually looks more pissed off than I ever was.
Upon reading Kara's Place, you will encounter active voice of verb. Voice is that
quality of verbs which shows whether the subject is the doer or receiver of the action.
Like this,
I make a derisive sound, something that's between a laugh and a snort.
But there is no passive voice. All the verbs the author used are in active voice.
Maybe to show that the story is currently happening, and that it is in a present form story.
Adjectives count is half of all nouns, just like adverbs. In this story, the author
used the adjective in describing the characters and the setting they're in. Also, to add
colorful meaning to the words being thought and spoken by the characters. Most of the
adjectives are descriptive; funny, sweet, narrow, wooden, gullible, blunt, heavy, main,
useless, cheap, galvanized, bastard, hard, slow, shabby, lumpy, dangerous, scraping,
irritating, monobloc, familiar, rodent, oblivious, inanimate, brown, dark, unpleasant,
early, puzzled, derisive, bright. It is used to describe what kind of a thing is the noun or
pronoun it describes. The words more, nearest, smaller, darker, worse, most, small, big,
pretty, easier, best, good are comparative adjectives. They are used to compare
something in the story. Good, small, pretty, and big are in the positive comparison of
adjective. It is like its descriptive, it describes. More, darker, worse, and easier used to
compare things in between. The author used these to give emphasis on how the characters
see a certain view. Take this excerpt.
I saw Ludlum (he's the smaller, darker one)...
As you can notice, the words in underline are used to describe Ludlum, a rat, to
the other one, or other rat. It compares the color of Ludlum to the other one, emphasizing
that Ludlum is smaller and darker that the other. On the other hand, there are superlative
adjectives, too. Words such best and nearest are examples.
…and I don't reach for the nearest blunt object.
It simply tells us that superlative adjective describes a thing at its best. The word
nearest modifies the noun object. There is no point of comparing two things but it is used
to compare among all the objects there in.
Proper adjectives can also be seen. Biology, Math, narra, High, serve as one. It is
usually noun in appearances as you can see but the author uses it as an adjective in the
story. It is, perhaps, to modify what kind a noun is. Like Biology answers the question
what kind of lab is the characters have been talking about. Take a look below. It is used
to describe the lab or the laboratory.
Do you remember the time in the Biology lab…?
Another example,
…and thank my favorite narra tree…
Narra is the tree the character is talking to. So just like the first example, it
answers what kind of tree is the character's favorite.
Limiting Adjectives are also inside the text. The pretty obvious is an Ordinal
Adjective. Look at the example.
…and so I wait until I hear the knock a second, a third time, before I get up to
answer.
Second and third tell how many times the knock sounded. The author just wants
to tell us the times it does sound, to give us the impression that the character is not that
curious enough to eagerly open the door, because the character thinks the sound of the
knock is just playing in her ears.
Adverbs, just like adjectives, count half of the nouns'. It modifies the adjective
and fellow adverb. In the given story, the author has used different kind of adverbs;
Adverb of affirmation, frequency, negation, approximation, degree, time, manner, place,
and doubt. Sure, really, exactly, yeah, yes are adverbs of affirmation that indicates
positive disposition of the characters. The below example tells us that the character
narrating is pretty sure of what she knows. She affirms it straight to the point.
Sure I did.
Almost, once, somehow, actually expresses rough estimation.
…and then he almost trips over his own feet as he turns around...
The narrating character is telling us that the man almost stumbles on his own feet.
It is due to some things that happen before the main character narrates that event that
shows rough estimation. This kind of word is used to express what one person perceives
through his senses the things around him. Just like what the author does. He uses words
that will show how it, an event, happens.
Quite, so, much, too, finally, genuinely, barely are examples of adverb of degree.
Take these examples.
He sits, quite happily obedient…
I know, I know, I can be so mean.
Finally he manages to get in...
He has a genuinely puzzled expression on his face.
...much less believe what I'm saying...
These statements used by the author intensify an idea and action being presented.
Adverb of manner is mostly used. Unfortunately, okay, happily, badly,
uncharacteristically, completely, absent-mindedly, suddenly, normally, cheerfully,
vigorously, permanently, quickly, perfectly, abruptly, and utterly are examples. It is to
state how or in what manner an action will be done.
He sits, quite happily obedient...
...but it's also unfortunately a shared wall.
"They'd be okay of they didn't interfere with my sleep so much."
I'm being uncharacteristically naive.
Those words are used to show the manner of how it is being done.
Another kind of adverb with words such as n't, not, nothing, no are negation. It
shows a negative disposition of the character.
"You want something to drink?"
"No, no... I'm okay."
In that statement, the character is saying that he is okay without something to
drink. It is because he, the character who says no, wants something to know that he
declines the offer.
Maybe and perhaps are adverbs of doubt. The character upon saying those is
showing hesitation or doubt about what they are talking about.
Pronoun, which replaces noun, has its own place in this story. The author
undeniably uses lots of pronoun to replace to the name of place, thing, and a person. It is
to, maybe, shorten the repetition of a long name of, say, a thing. Personal pronouns such
as I, you, me, it, we, his, him, our, us, she, her are used. In the story, this kind of pronoun
takes a lot of place. It changes the noun it preceded. It is to refer to an individual or
individuals. Demonstrative pronouns like there, them, they, those, these are also visible. It
is used to point to a noun it follows. It is used in the story because, maybe, the writer
wants to show us that it, the story, is demonstrating a thing and a place. Indefinite
pronouns are mostly used. Words like something, anything, somebody, some, someone,
sometimes, everything, and every are examples. It is less specific and less exact in
meaning. The character narrating is somewhat unspecific of what she is telling the reader.
It is for us to think and guess. Then, I found three reflective pronouns; itself, ourselves,
and myself. It is used to refer to the subject of a sentence. It is like owning an idea by
yourself. Interrogative pronouns are also visible; why, who, how, what. They introduce
question. It is to query the opposite character a certain matter. Take these excerpts.
Why else would he squeeze his Civic into the narrow streets of KnL?
"Who is it?"
"How are your classes?"
What's this fetch-me-every-day-business?
Pronouns its, their, mine, your are all possessive case. It demands possession of
something. The author used this to show possession, of course.
Conjunctions and prepositions are used to connect words and phrases. In the
story, both these two are used always, though prepositions are much used than
conjunctions. It is to lessen any sugarcoated statements and to direct the statements
exactly as what the author wants. Then, as you read the story, only eight interjections
appear. It is just the words Hey, Ha, and Hi, It is just to show the feeling being asserted.
"Hi, Kara," he says...
In this statement, the character, by a name of Eric, greets Kara. It is to show
affection and greetings to her since he goes to her place. It is also a casual word used to
greet someone you know in a normal circumstance.
"Ha! Never fails... Just had the car washed."
The author uses that underlined word to show emotion, say, happiness.
"Hey," he says, frowning.
He, the author himself, uses the word Hey in a different manner. Usually, it is
used with a happy emotion but the author uses the opposite, obviously. It is to show the
readers that the character speaking is in a bad mood already. Look at the last word that
follows, the frowning word sets as a clue for the character's feeling.
3.1.2. Semantic Features

This short story is all about two long-term college friends, Eric and Kara who
meet one day in Kara’s place, and they talk about the latter's problem about his professor
who tried to harass her. To their surprise, they end up hugging and kissing each other in a
moment, and they part from each other, leaving a sense of confusion to both of them.
They have reminisced things and happenings during their high school days. They sort of
enjoyed talking on a very casual way. Therefore, it can be noted that there are words
being repeated. In a literary text, such as short story, words that usually being repeated
are pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and articles. As you noticed, those are in closed
class of words. Meaning, they connect the words, phrases in every paragraph, so you can
always see it.
In our short story of Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak, "Kara's Place", there are lots of
words being repeated. In nouns, Eric is repeated 25 times.
"Eric?"
"Hey, Eric", I smile.
Eric asks...
Eric laughs...
Eric starts talking...
Those are the excerpts from the story, You can see that the name Eric is always in
repetition. It is because, the story is in First Person Point of View, wherein the name of
the main character is repeated only thrice. To clarify, the name of the main character is
Kara. She always says Eric's name whenever thinking by herself or she is talking to Eric.
It is a common knowledge to us that to talk to someone, we need to speak of their names
to avoid uneasiness. However, like already stated, the name of the main character, Kara,
is only repeated thrice. It is for the reason the same with the above, and in addition, the
author has already included Kara's name in the title which is "Kara's Place". No need for
more repetition as long as we know that the story is in Kara's point of view.
The other nouns being repeated are the name of the rat, Ludlum, window, house,
chair, home, roof that symbolize Kara's place. The words classes, car, birthday, Jo-ann,
gunk, story, school, stuff, day signify the school environment of Kara. Arms and hands
are also repeated because it only means that Kara, the main character, has been doing
some actions with her body.
Verb like 's, it may be was, has, or is (according to the context), is repeated 32
times.
…(he's the smaller one…
The example above, verb 's is used as the gerund is. Other verbs being repeated
are are, 've, can, mean, do, guess, get, know, is, have, been, did, talk, could, asks, and was.
Commonly, it is being repeated because it means only the same thing in the context. The
author used a lot of those words to suit in the story.
The determiners take a lot of repetition. The 'the' determiner has been repeated
134 times, 'a' for 51 times, and 'an' for 5 times. As what they are called, determiners, they
do determine the noun and pronoun, or adjective words. So, it is common to repeat them
because it is necessary.
Adverb 'n't' has been repeated for 33 times. It is to show a negative disposition
about the thought being presented.
The pronouns, without a doubt, are the most repeated words in this text. It is
because this text is in first person point of view. 'I' for 159 times, 'there' for 16 times, 'that'
for 41 times, 'my' for 47 times, 'you' for 29 times, 'me' for 28 times, 'his' for 25 times.
3.2. Morphological Features
Morphology is the study of morphemes, in which it has two types; free, cannot be
changed, and bound morphemes that can change. Bound morpheme has two types, too;
Inflectional and Deviational. Inflectional morpheme doesn't change the meaning of the
word though it is being added, while Deviational morpheme is what we particularly
known as the affixes.
In the story, deviational and inflection are visible. There are lots of Inflection
morphemes that the former. There are 46 deviational morphemes, and 127 inflectionals.
Have a look at deviational morphemes used in the text. Probably, affection, visitors,
kindness, enjoyment, statement, containers, comparison, completely, cheerfully,
expression, handful, determination, assignment are deviationals. Let's have the verb to
noun deviations.
...I've started feeling something almost like affection for them.
The underlined word affection means a feeling of liking and caring for someone
or something (Merriam Dictionary). Its root word is a verb word which is affect. The
author wants to convey to us that he adds suffix -ion to the word affect for us to know
how the character feels towards someone she is pertaining to.
Likewise the word comparisons. Its root word is a verb compare and is added by
suffix -sons, making it a noun. As well as containers. From verb it becomes noun by
adding suffix. Assignments is a noun, but it is comes from a verb. Assign + -ment is
Assignment, and the author has added -s to make it plural. The word question is also like
that. It comes from a verb, and by adding suffix it becomes a noun.
The word visitors is a noun. Its root word, however, is visit, a verb. Suffix -ors are
added to change its part of speech. The word kind is an adjective. It is added -ness at the
end, making it a noun. As well as useless which comes from verb use and just added -less
in the end making it an adjective.
Then, from adjective to adverb deviational, the words barely, apparently,

cheerfully, probably, perfectly, permanently, vigorously, and genuinely. Its root words are
adjective, then suffixes are added to make it as an adverb.
There is also a case that from verb, it becomes adjective. Like completely and
cheerfully.
On the other hand, Inflectional morphemes such as rats, names, started, eating,
buddies, constructed, slapped, architectural, proven, nailed, decided, supporterd,
disguised, puzzled, brushes, failed, knows, scared, concludes, happened, shared,
announced, possibilities, decisions, classes, cancelled, raining, gasping, arguing, rented,
wearing, sounds, produced, reinforced, replies, bothering, talkig, contents, cherries,
pooling, arrayed, books, honks, fumbles, drenched, opens, makes, sounds, swings, lunges,
manages, going, pissed, pointed, staggers, waiting, matters, frowns, etcetera, etcetera.
These inflectionals are added by -ed, -s, -d,-es, -ing at the beginning. As already stated, it
doesn't change the meaning of the word, it is just being added by a group of letters. Take
these excerpts.
…and eversince I gave them names, I've started feeling…
Rats and names are both noun. It is plural form so the author added inflectional -s
at the end. The meaning, however, doesn't change at all. Started is inflectional -ed, for it
is a verb being added by -ed, making it in past tense. Another examples,
Since Kara's Place is in present tense, the verb sound is added by the inflectional -
s making it suitable for the sentence.
Compound words are also visible in this literary text. It is a word where two
words have been combined together to form a new word.
This literary text has 43 compound words. 28 of those 43 words are combined as a
whole new word. While 15 words are used with the punctuation hypen (-).
Words like something, anything, dishrack, makeshift, afterthought, anyone,

framework, anyway, background, bathroom, bathrobe, landlord, goddamned, somehow,
everything, sometimes, bedsheet, secondhand, birthday, newsprint, otherwise, downpour,
headlights, textbook, tablespoons, aftertaste, roommates are examples.
Something is a word where some + things is comebined.
Dishrack is a word where dish + rack is combined.
Background is back + ground combined together.
The use of these compound words are essential for the readers to decipher easily
what is the author's implication in the text.
Hypenated words like off-duty, half-heartedly, so-called, handwaved, trusty-
canine, army-issue, self-delusion, sando-clad, sari-sari, absent-mindedly, hand-motion,
four-cornered, and too-sweat are inside the text. These are words that have been joined as
a whole using a hypen (-).
3.3. Syntactical Features

The longest sentence in this text is composed of 63 words.
A new semester has just begun, our second here in this university, and for the first
time in a long while I don't feel the usual surge of enthusiasm for a new grading
period, that wave of self-delusion that has me telling myself, this time I'm going to
work my butt off, this time I'm getting high grades in everything.
The shortest sentence is
"So."
There are 66 paragraphs all in all in the story and the longest paragraph is consisted of
198 words.
There are times when I wish rats could talk. Hell, there are times when I wish
dogs could talk, and cats, and all sorts of animals, and inanimate objects too -- I
could have conversations with my books, and ask my clothes which of them wants
to go out today. I could go to our old school, run my hand across the pebbly
surface of the Humanities building's walls, and thank my favorite narra tree -- the
one near the Girls' Dorm -- for pleasant oblivious afternoons spent in its shade. I
gulp down the last of my instant, too-sweet tea, and smack my lips. There's an
unpleasant puckery aftertaste. I set the glass down on my table and shuffle over to
my bed. The springs creak as I lie down. I take a deep breath, close my eyes. I can
hear another argument starting next door. I can hear the scratching and
scrabbling of my two rodent roommates as they cavort inside the hollow wooden
wall to my left. And outside, there's the constant roar of the rain, as if the sky
itself is laughing at some great joke that I just don't get.
A. Sentence Structure and Kind

Kara's Place is composed of 224 sentences. Simple, Compound, Complex, and
Compound-Complex can be seen. Take a look below.
That sentence is a simple one. A simple sentence contains only one independent
clause. An independent clause, on the other hand, is a group of words (with a subject and
a verb) that expresses a complete thought. The above excerpt has a complete thought and
a single independent clause.
In the given literary text, there are lots of simple sentence. Take these excerpts.
I've rented worse places.
The chair makes an irritating scraping sound.
I start rattling off my subject.
My door is made of cheap lawanit half-heartedly reinforced by some galvanized
iron.
He has genuinely puzzled expression on his face.
He frowns.
Eric stands up.
Those statements are all in simple structure of sentence. It is just to make the
context simple.
There are also compound sentences.
I spend most of my time anyway, so I don't give a damn about the interior design,
or lack thereof.
Eric senses my unease, and steers the conversation back into safe waters.
I'm listening, and I don't know what to say in my defense.
A compound sentence contains at least two independent clauses. These clauses
are joined by a coordinating conjunction or a semicolon. On the other hand, coordinating
conjunction is a word that glues words, phrases, or clauses together.
Let's look at the first example.
I spend most of my time anyway, so I don't give a damn about the interior design,
or lack thereof.
I spend most of my time anyway is an independent clause, just like I don't give a
damn about the interior design, or lack thereof. The coordinating conjuction that joins
that two independent clause is so. That makes in a compound sentence. Just like the third
excerpt, I'm listening can stand alone. I don't know what to say in my defense can stand
alone, too. Both independent clause is joined by the conjunction and.
A complex sentence contains a subordinate clause and an independent clause. A
subordinate clause is a group of words that has a subject and a verb but does not express a
complete thought. Take these excerpts.
He puts his hand over them, as if to stop them from leaking.
I'm pretty sure that's what it says.
I begin to worry that he might crease his forehead permanently.
They'd be okay if they didn't interfere with my sleep so much.
The first excerpt has an independent and subordinate clause. He puts his hand
over them is an independent clause, and as if to stop them from leaking is the subordinate
clause. Just like the latter excerpts that have those two clauses.
Then, compound-complex sentence, however, contains at least two independent
clauses and at least one subordinate clause.
I've seen both so often that I can tell them apart now, and eversince I gave them
That I can't tell them apart now modifies the word both. Also, and eversince I gave them
names that modifies the word both pertaining to the rats that the character is thinking. It
is both subordinate clauses, the ones that can't stand alone. Then there are two
independent clauses, I've seen both so often and I've started feeling something almost like
affection for them.
The author of this literary text uses the four structures of sentence. It is, by all
means, to give the exact meaning the author wants to imply. Aside from those structures,
kinds of sentence can be seen also. The declarative, imperative, interrogative, and
exclamatory are used.
Declarative sentence is just a plain statement. It usually ends with a punctuation period.
think he's gotten kind of sweet on me.
I mean, to call my room makeshift would be an act of kindness; it doesn't seem
constructed so much as slapped together.
Notice that all that excerpts end with a period. Meaning, it just stating a statement.
Just sharing information to the reader. Now, Interrogative sentence asks questions. It
suggests to be answered. It ends with a question mark.
Why else would he squeeze his Civic into the narrow streets of KnL?
Why else would he hang out in this lousy place?
"Who is it?"
Imperative sentence is just like a declarative sentence. It both ends with a period.
The only difference is that Imperative sentence asks for a request, or it commands.
Get a job, I want to tell him; get a goddamned life.
Hold on," I say, as I open the closet door, and tug at one of the drawers.
"Sit down, feel at home."
But there are instances that an imperative question end with a question mark.
Can I talk to you about something that's been bothering me a little?"
Usually, the imperative sentence that ends with a question mark is a request. Just
like the example above.
Exclamatory sentence shows strong emotion or feelings. It ends with an exclamatory
mark.
"Yeah, and we told her she was nuts, but somehow she commandeered the
Assistant Director's official transport, and we got a free ride to the mall!"
"Heck, you probably solve calculus problems in your sleep!"
These statements show strong emotion about something.
These kinds of sentence are always in together in a text. Katigbak uses all of these
to modify what he is trying to imply in the text.
B. Reference
Reference is the indexical function of language, pointing to different aspects of
reality. It may be classified as anaphora and cataphora.
The former is a reference made based on preceding points of the utterance. Here are
examples.
Eric starts talking about this quartet of sweaty sando-clad men who don't seem to
do anything except hangout at the sari-sari store down the street. He says that
just now, when he got out of his car and glanced at them, he noticed that they
were drunk.
So instead, I stare absent-mindedly at my lumpy mattress. It's covered with a
shabby white bedsheet decorated with little orange flowers.
However, the author has used no cataphora in this literary text. Since there are only two
characters conversing in this text, and this is in a first person point of view, anaphora is
most likely used.
3.4. Graphical Features

Punctuation is a commonly accepted set of symbols used in writing to convey
specific directions to the reader.
Katigbak's Kara's Place uses a lot of punctuation marks. There are 774
punctuations; 248 are commas, 186 are periods, 173 are apostrophes, 58 are quotation
marks, 35 are question marks, 29 are hypens, 10 are ellipsis, 9 semicolons, 5 exclamation
points, 4 colons, and 2 to parenthesis and single quotation mark.
These marks tell when to stop or pause or when to read with a questioning tone or
with excitement. Punctuation may also show relationships between ideas, by either
connecting them or setting them apart.
The three end marks are used in the literary text. The period, exclamation point,
and question mark. They usually end a sentence and, sometimes, a word or phrase.
He has a genuinely puzzled expression on his face.
Story follows familiar story.
That's not what I meant.
As already discussed, declarative and, sometimes, imperative sentences end with
a period. Look above the excerpts. Those are declarative statements. However, in
conversing to someone, period is also useful.
"I failed it."
Notice that the author ends the statement in a period. It is because there are no
succeeding words. That statement stands alone. Usually, use of comma in conversation is
common, but since the author let it stand alone, then he uses period to end the statement.
Question mark, on the contrary, is used to end a sentence with questioning tone.
"Who is it?"
How could I forget?
The given excerpts end with the question mark. It seeks an answer.
Exclamation mark also ends a statement. The only difference is that it expresses
strong emotion.
"Heck, you probably solve calculus problems in your sleep!"
"Look, it's in the Bible!"
"Ha! Never fails..."
The character saying these statements expresses what he's feeling in the situation.
The first excerpt shows an exaggerated feeling. The second one shows an indignant and
angry emotion. And the last one shows a happy feeling.
The author uses this mark because period is not enough to show the strong
emotion.
Aside from the end marks, comma is the most used punctuation in the text.
Comma represents a short pause. It tells the reader to end all before going on.
Commas also help set up relationship among parts of a sentence and make long sentences
be easily read.
Notice the given excerpt. There are two commas inserted in the sentence. It is
used to set off a single item at the beginning, middle, and end of a sentence.
"Just me," a familiar voice replies.
In that excerpt, the comma is used to separate the direct speech to the statement a
familiar voice replies. Comma is usually used in that case.
The author uses comma to let the reader digest the context of the text, with a
pause in every read. The author uses comma in this text to prolong the sentence, to give
more thought on the meaning it conveys.
Apostrophe (') is also used in this text. It means different if it is being used. Take
a look at the below excerpt.
There is an apostrophe after the pronoun I, then succeeded by the verb am.
However, the verb am is singled as just m. You just need to add the apostrophe to mark
that there is a missing letter, or rather there are two words being combined. The most
common of it is the verbs always succeed a noun or a pronoun. Meaning, look at the
excerpts.
...it's an old army-issue steel..
They'd be okay if they...
The latter statement can be They would than They'd. But the author prefers that
kind of using apostrophe.
I don't really mind all that, though.
In that excerpt, apostrophe is used to combine the verb and an adverb, do and not,
making it as one syllable don't.
There is also a case when apostrophe is used to symbolize possessiveness or
possession.
...my landlord's useless son...
The letter preceded by an apostrophe in that excerpt acts as a pronoun 's.
Therefore, we can conclude that you can use apostrophe for a shortcut of a word,
and as a possession over something.
Quotation mark is highly visible in this given story. It is used as a signal of a
conversation.
"Who is it?"
"Just me."
"Eric?"
"Yah."
Notice that those statements have a quotation mark. Obviously, there is a
conversation on going.
There's a single quotation mark that is used to emphasize a given idea.
What if those really were 'the days'?
Note that the words 'the days' are given emphasis, for the character saying this
gives it a great emphasis.
Thus, the author uses punctuation to add, like in a food, some recipe. Period is not
enough to end a sentence. Comma is not the only punctuation to symbolize a pause, but
this just means that the author tries to imply that if you use punctuations, you can give
justice to your work, and that's what Katigbak has done.
IV. Discussion
This chapter discusses the three theories found in the text.
A. Kara's Place in Schema Theory
As what already stated in the introduction of this paper, a schema is a generalized

description or a conceptual system for understanding knowledge-how knowledge is
represented and how it is used. In other words, the initial interpretation of the researcher
as she goes through the words of this text, and the repeated reading to come up with a
better interpretation is needed. This only means, reader-response criticism can be used.
Reader-response criticism raises question of where literary meaning resides, in the
text, in the reader, or in the interaction between text and the reader.
David Blech views this criticism as a kind of mirror in which reader see
themselves as what the character is portraying. Simply, recreating theirselves.
On the other hand, Wolfgang Iser focuses on the text rather than the feelings and
reactions of the reader. Text-centered Reader-response critics emphasizes the temporal
aspect of reading. They suggest that readers make sense of text over time, moving
through a text sentence by sentence.
RR critics believe that a reader's interaction eith the text gives the text its meaning.
The text cannot exist without the readers.
Now, let's have the critical analysis of this short story.
My initial emotional response of this text is that I find it like just a normal story, a
cliche one. I feel no strong emotion upon reading it the first time. It's so Filipino. And yes,
it's a Filipino story for there has a statement in Filipino words. Anyway, I have a question
I first considered after reading it. What is the significance of the rats?
While reading, I don't find myself responding differently at any point. Only, I
react when I read the part about why did the professor fail his student Kara. It's not
different, isn't it? It is the common reaction af a reader like me. When I have read that
part, I want to go confront that professor. He doesn't know what an educator should act
inside school. That's so disgusting. I want to punch him twice. First, for failing Kara with
no definite reason. And second, for doing such disgusting act to his students.
In this text, I make guesses. The first guess I made is that Eric is infatuated to
Kara. Maybe, he loves her. Like Kara's question in the text, why would he squeeze his
car in the narrow streets of Krus na Ligas? And why would Eric react like that when Kara
tells her about that professor? Then, it is maybe Eric loves Kara. Kara is just dense to
notice it. Or maybe she already knows but she opts not to go deep with that feeling. Look
at this conversation.
"And when I got my class card, there was a big fat failing grade on it."
Eric blurts out, "Why didn't you tell me?" And then, as if fearing the honest
answer to that question, he quickly asks another. "Did you confron him?"
Kara, as what the story tells us, is a college student. Perhaps in her first year
student.
A new semester has just begun, our second here in this university...
She is, as I view her, a lonely type of person. What I mean is, she seems to have
only a few friends, Eric is one of those. She lives alone in her not-so-good place in KnL.
She seems aloof, and an independent one. She makes decisions on her own. She's
admirable, I think. And an intelligent person.
"Everyone copied assignments off you. Heck, you probably solve calculus
problems in your sleep!"
Eric, on the other hand, seems to be a happy-go-lucky guy. He is rich.
Why would he squeeze his Civic in the narrow streets of KnL?
He is inlove with his friend Kara. He just doesnt't want to show it directly, but he
is concerned on Kara's safety.
...but nowadays, I think he's gotten sweet on me.
do anything except hang out at the sari-sari store down the street. He says that, just now,
when he got out of his car and glanced at them, he noticed that they were drunk. He goes
on about how they could be dangerous, about how one of these nights when I'm going
home, you know, something could happen, that I should let him fetch me from my last
class every day, it's no big deal...
The evidence that he is concerned to Kara is between the lines in those excerpt.
I have read this text all over again, not just once, nor twice, not thrice. My first
initial interpretation is that it is just a common story, cliche, let say. But, the thing that is
understandable, after reading it again and again, this story takes a common situation in
the reality. There is a rich student who'll pursue a commoner in a common place. Such
reality has been watched by many people on television, and it always clicks.
The initial interpretation doesn't change at all, only that I find it interesting to read
it again, especially the part on how frustrated Eric is when he learns that Kara has been
nearly harassed.
As we understand this story, you'll go deeper on the thoughts of the characters.
Your interpretation may differ to what the real story is. But all in all, it will just be the
same new one.
B. Kara's Place in Discourse Analysis, Theory of Cohesion and Coherence
The use of ellipsis are visible. Actually, there are lots of ellipsis in the story.
"No, no... I'm okay."
"Well..."
...and then Rachel announced that she wanted to watch a movie...?
Ellipsis is used if there is a missing part of the sentence or statement that is highly
predictable.
Do you remember that time in the Biology lab, when...?
And how about the day at the fair...

In these examples, the event following the ellipsis is already predictable in the characters'
thoughts. Since it has happened in their past, they already knew it, so it's okay to use
ellipsis.
"I guess I should..."
This excerpt, however, continues the thought of the sentence by doing an act, though it
uses ellipsis.
He makes some vague hand-motion in the general direction of the door.
Then, ellipsis is really for the continuation of the context being presented that is highly
predictable.
Lexical Cohesion is the inclusion of words with semantic relations in between. Like for
example,
A new semester has just begun, our second here in this university, and for the first
time in a long while I don't feel the usual surge of enthusiasm for a new grading
period, that wave of self-delusion that has me telling myself, this time I'm going to
work my butt off, this time I'm getting high grades in everything.
Notice the words underlined. The first word is just the same with the second word.
Meaning, the words new semester and new grading period are synonymous with each
other. The only difference between that two is the first word refers to college level, while
the latter is another word of semester in high school level. By all means, the author uses
another word to describe the first mentioned word.
In Discourse Analysis, the simple and the most prototypical tie is that between a pronoun
and its antecedent.
The right wall was made of hollow blocks, up to a point, that is. From around
waist height, it's just chicken wire.
The pronoun in the excerpt is the word it. It refers to the noun right wall.
I sit down on my bed; it's an old army-issue steel number whose aged springs
creak whenever I shift my weight.
Eric and I are laughing, as we tell each other the story again.
Eric is pissed off. He actually looks more pissed off than I ever was.
Eric laughs, and then his face turns serious ...

Person, animal, or thing is introduced in one sentence, and is referred to by a pronoun in
ensuing sentence.
Substitution is the use of pronouns and other forms to replace full phrases.
"My classes? They'd be okay if they didn't interfere with my sleep so much."
The Noun phrase My classes is substituted by the pronoun they in the ensuing sentence.
Conjunctions, as what already mentioned in Lexical Feature, join sentences to have a

complete meaning.
There are two kinds of conjunctions use in the sentence. Coordinating and
Subordinating Conjunctions. Coordinating conjunctions conmect words, phrases, or
clauses. Some examples are for, and, but, or, yet, and so (FANBOYS).
names ...
I spend of my time asleep anyway, so I don't give a damn about the interior design,
or lack thereof.
-- they manage to steal quite enough of my foid, thank you -- but I don't freak out
anymore when they pop up...
Subordinating conjunctions like where, when, how, if, therefore, eversince,

besides, unfortunately, so (A WHITE BUS), are used in the sentences inside the text.
What if those really were 'the days'?
When Jo-ann returned to the parking lot ...
All in all, the paragraphs in the text are interrelated to each other. The text contains both
the descriptive and narrative part, and the dialogue one.
C. Kara's Place in Foregrounding Theory
Kara's Place has been foregrounded because of some parallelism, lots of

punctuation used, especially the dash.
Then the use of different term like the below example.

...and decided to cobble together a "room" for some gullible students, i.e. me, to
rent
Instead of using a proper word to point out Kara's self, the author opts to use i.e
which means in Merriam Dictionary as that is. It deviates the norm to use a common
word, instead, it uses a different style in writing i.e.
The use of double dash (--) in between the sentences.
I mean, I don't feed them or anything -- they manage to steal quite of my food,
thank you -- but at least I don't freak out anymore when they pop up, and I don't
reach for the nearest blunt object.
It (--) indicates the common idea the sentence is implying. But in common literary
text, the use of this double dash is not cliche. This literary text, however, has a lot of this
punctuation.
"Hey, Eric," I smile, " -- come in."
Instead of completing the sentence without the use of (--), the author uses it. It
just means that the words on the second quotation mark is the continuation of the first
quotation mark. On the contrary, look at this excerpt.
"Well," Eric concludes, "those were the days."
That excerpt is just like the former one shown above. Notice that the author
doesn't use the double dash in the second excerpt, it's just like the former excerpt, there's
a continuation, but the author doesn't use the same punctuation, he uses none. It is, say,
because of he just does use it that way.
Maybe the author uses that kind of punctuation to diminish the use of many words
just to express the thought.
The following excerpts do use the double dash.
I feel like telling him that I'm pretty sure they're all right, that they seem nice
enough, that all they ever do when they're drunk is sing -- badly -- but I know he'll just
say I'm being uncharacteristically naive.
Hell, there are times when I wish dogs could talk, and cats, and all sorts of
animals, and inanimate objects too -- I could have conversations with my books, and ask
my clothes which of them wants to go out today. I could go to our old school, run my
hand across the pebbly surface of the Humanities building's walls, and thank my favorite
narra tree -- the one near the Girls' Dorm -- for pleasant oblivious afternoons spent in its
shade.
"Okay," he says, as I rummage for a bra -- my white T-shirt is pretty flimsy, and
there are limits to my bohemianism.
He finishes the story for me -- "Yeah, and we told her she was nuts...
Parallelism is also visible.
And another. And another.
"And then," I say, gasping, "and then there was that time when we were
sophomores, and it was raining like a bastard, raining so hard they cancelled classes,
and then Rachel announced that she wanted to watch a movie...?"
And how about that day at the fair...
And let me tell you, I aced those exams.
"And then, just after the finals, my teacher asks me to see him in his office."
"And then, after all else has failed, you have to go ahead and smite him."
"And just where in the Bible did you read that?"
The repetition of the conjunction and in the beginning of each sentence makes the
text foregrounded. The author uses this to, say, give emphasis to what he's trying to
convey to the readers. The repetition of those words only mean to intensify the thought
being presented.
The use of capital letter in the second letter of the introductory paragraph of the
text.
I'M pretty sure there are only two rats.
The pronoun I is followed by the linking verb am shortened as 'M. It shall be that
the succeeding letter of the pronoun I is in small letter, unless it is a proper noun, but
since, it isn't, it shall have followed the rule of capitalization. However, the author seems
to let the readers know, whey they read the first ever word, they will immediately know
that the story's flow will be in the first person point of view.
V. Conclusion and Recommendation

This short story of Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak, Kara's Place, is a story suitable for
everyone. This text contains all the parts of speech, verbs and pronouns are the dominant
ones. It contains different kind and structure of sentences, has a lot of words with affixes,
has a foreign statement inserted, and has different scenes being shown though the
characters are just sitting.
This text is suitable especially for all Filipinos who can read. It uses no strange or
bizarre words, instead common words such being spoken in reality are used.
This study will benefit the researcher herself as she learned all by her own in
doing this analysis. Also, the teacher who will wish to discuss this story in their class can
have this analysis to help them deciphering the meaning of the text. Other stylistic
researchers can use this as a paradigm of their own stylistic analysis.
The researcher recommends that the other stylistic researcher seek this for help. It
will be a great help if they decided to do some analysis in a short story, for it can be a
paradigm.
REFERENCES
Adjei, S.B. (2013). Discourse Analysis: Examining Language use in context. The
Qualitative Report Volume 18, Article 50, 1-10
Agcaoli Jr., R. & Marantan, R. (2013). Study and Thinking skills: A worldtext in
Communication Arts I. Philippines: Malabon/Jimcyville Publications
Brown, G & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Carter, R. (n.d). Methodologies for Srylostic Analysis: Practice and Pedagogies.
Gee, J.P (1999). An Untriduction To Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge
Iwamoto, N. (n.d). Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis of a Literary Text Using
Functional Grammar
Miall, D. & Kuiken (1994). Foregrounding, Defamiliarization, and Affect
Response to Literary Stories. Alberta: Elsrvier Science B.V.
Norgaard, N. Montoro, R. & Busse, B. (2010). Key Terms.in.Stylistics. London:
Continuum Imternational Publishing Group
Shen, Y. (n.d). Forefrounding in Poetic Discourse Between Deviation and
Cognitive Constraints. Israel: Tel Aviv University
Stockwell P. (2006). Schema Theory: Stylistics Application. In: Keith Brown,
(Editor-in-chief) Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second edition, Volume 11,
pp. 8-13. Oxford: Elsevier
Trappes-Lomax, H. (n. d). Discourse Analysis.
Van Dijk, T.A. (2001). Critical Discourse Analysis. 353-355.
Zhukovska, V.V. (2010). English Stylistics: Fundamentals of Theory and
Practice.
APPENDICES
Biography of the author
Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak is born on July 26, 1974 in Quezon City, Philippines.
He graduated from the University of the Philippines with a degree in Creative Writing.
He wrote to books: Happy Endings, and The King of Nothing To Do: Essays on Nothing
and Everything.
He didn't think he would become a writer until during his middle stay in college.
He though he was going to be a mathematician but since he has been writing since
childhood and getting published in magazines since his early teens, he realized that
writing was what he did best so he shifted out of BS Mathematics and into BA English
(Creative Writing).
He was a fellow of the 1993 UP National Writer's Workshop. His stories have
been printed in the Philippine Graphic, The Philippines Free Press, The Likhaan Book of
Poetry and Fiction 1995/1997 and East Magazine among other publications. He has won
a Philippine Graphic and a Palanca award for his short fiction. His collection of short
stories, "Happy Endings," was nominated for a Manila Critics Circle National Book
Award. He currently writes a column for the Manila Bulletin's i section called "The King
of Nothing to Do".
He currently works for Pulse.ph as a Senior Editor and as Reviews Editor for
BURN Magazine. He previously worked as a staff writer for PULP/MTV Ink, Lecturer of
Creative Writing at UP Diliman and Director II for the Office of Justice Carpio.
Kara’s Place
Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak

I'M pretty sure there are only two rats. I've seen both so often that I can tell them
apart now, and ever since I gave them names, I've started feeling something almost like
affection for them. I mean, I don't feed them or anything -- they manage to steal quite
enough of my food, thank you -- but at least I don't freak out any more when they pop up,
and I don't reach for the nearest blunt object. I saw Ludlum (he's the smaller, darker one)
this morning, just behind the dishrack, and Le Carré paid me a visit as I was eating lunch.
I guess that's how I think of them now: they're visitors, and God knows I don't get many
of those here in Krus na Ligas.
Well, there's Eric, of course. It's kind of funny; we've known each other for years
-- went to the same high school and all -- and we've never really been more than buddies,
but nowadays, I think he's gotten kind of sweet on me. Why else would he squeeze his
Civic into the narrow streets of KnL? Why else would he hang out in this lousy place? I
mean, to call my room makeshift would be an act of kindness; it doesn't seem constructed
so much as slapped together. That it's an architectural afterthought is proven by a window
set in its back wall: a grimy screen covers said window, and its wooden jalousies have
now been nailed shut, but anyone can see that it once served as the house's front window.
I guess the owners needed some extra money, looked at the square meter or so of extra
space in front of their house, and decided to cobble together a "room" for some gullible
student, i.e. me, to rent.
The right wall was made out of hollow blocks, up to a point, that is. From around
waist height upwards, it's just chicken wire, supported by a wooden framework. This fact
is just barely disguised by the heavy yellow curtains that hang down from the roof. The
left wall is made of wood; but it's also unfortunately a shared wall. Half of it belongs to
the people next door, I can hear them arguing from here.
I don't really mind all that, though. I've rented worse places. I spend most of my
time asleep anyway, so I don't give a damn about the interior design, or lack thereof. The
noise I can tune out, after a while; it just becomes like a background hiss, like the white
noise an off-duty TV makes when it's way past midnight and you're nodding off on the
couch. The thing that bugs me, though, is when I have to go into the main house to use
the bathroom. Of course I know enough never to step out of the bathroom wearing just a
towel or even a bathrobe; but for my landlord's useless son it's apparently a turn-on just to
see me in shorts and slippers. I have to pass through the kitchen to get to the CR, and if
he happens to be there, I'll feel his gaze on me, travelling the length of my body up and
down. I don't even have to glance at him to know this; he's not exactly subtle about it. Get
a job, I want to tell him; get a goddamned life.
A knock sounds on my door. My door is made of cheap lawanit half-heartedly
reinforced by some galvanized iron. Somehow any sounds produced by striking it don't
sound quite real, and so I wait until I hear the knock a second, a third time, before I get
up to answer.
"Who is it?" I call.
"Just me," a familiar voice replies.
"Eric?"
"Yah."
I push my monobloc chair aside to clear the way to my so-called closet. The chair
makes an irritating scraping sound. "Hold on," I say, as I open the closet door, and tug at
one of the drawers. "Just give me a minute or two to make myself decent."
"Okay," he says, as I rummage for a bra -- my white T-shirt is pretty flimsy, and
there are limits to my bohemianism. I find one, snap it on, then get up and open the door.
"Hi, Kara," he says, with a big grin and a small hand-wave, as though I were
several meters away. The goof.
"Hey, Eric," I smile, " -- come in." I point at the chair. "Sit down, feel at home."
He sits, quite happily obedient, and I can't help trusty-canine comparisons from springing
to my mind. I know, I know, I can be so mean. And to think Eric's one of those rare
persons I actually like.
"So. How are your classes?" Eric asks, plunging straight away into the small talk.
A new semester has just begun, our second here in this university, and for the first time in
a long while I don't feel the usual surge of enthusiasm for a new grading period, that
wave of self-delusion that has me telling myself, this time I'm going to work my butt off,
this time I'm getting high grades in everything. I just feel kind of blah about it all.
"My classes? They'd be okay if they didn't interfere with my sleep so much."
Eric laughs, and then his face turns serious and he says, "Kara? Can I talk to you
about something that's been bothering me a little?" I say sure, go ahead.
do anything except hang out at the sari-sari store down the street. He says that, just now,
when he got out of his car and glanced at them, he noticed that they were drunk. He goes
on about how they could be dangerous, about how one of these nights when I'm going
home, you know, something could happen, that I should let him fetch me from my last
class every day, it's no big deal...
I feel like telling him that I'm pretty sure they're all right, that they seem nice
enough, that all they ever do when they're drunk is sing -- badly -- but I know he'll just
say I'm being uncharacteristically naive. I also feel like asking, hey, wait, what are we
anyway? What's this fetch-me-every-day business? Did I miss something? Aren't we
getting a little bit ahead of ourselves? But sometimes it's just easier to let awkward
questions simmer, in the false hope that they'll evaporate completely. So instead, I stare
absent-mindedly at my lumpy mattress. It's covered with a shabby white bedsheet
decorated with little orange flowers.
Then, just as Eric finishes up his speech, there's a tap on the roof. And then
another. And another. We look up. It's beginning to rain.
We sit there for a while, listening to the taps coming faster and stronger, listening
to the rain gathering strength. Soon it sounds like the entire Filipiniana Dance Group, on
steroids, is performing on the roof.
"Ha! Never fails... Just had the car washed." Eric shakes his head, and then a slow
grin spreads across his face. "You remember Jo-ann's birthday, in senior year?"
How could I forget? Jo-ann was one of only a handful of people in our batch who
had a car, and she was the only one who had a new car, a brand-spanking-new Galant, as
opposed to the secondhand slabs of rust that normally sputtered around the parking lot.
And so, on her birthday, the barkada decided to slather gunk all over her car, as a
surprise. The plan was that we would bring cans of shaving cream, spray their contents
all over the car's surface, put some cherries on the hood, and then hide. When Jo-ann
returned to the parking lot, we would savor our view of her stunned expression, and then
suddenly leap out of the hedges, scream 'surprise!' and then cheerfully wipe off all the
gunk. The problem was, we didn't know that the shaving cream would eat right through
the car's paint job. We spent the next few months pooling our allowances to pay for the
repair work.
Eric and I are laughing, as we tell each other the story again. "And then," I say,
gasping, "and then there was that time when we were sophomores, and it was raining like
a bastard, raining so hard they cancelled classes, and then Rachel announced that she
wanted to watch a movie...?" Eric is nodding his head vigorously. He finishes the story
for me -- "Yeah, and we told her she was nuts, but somehow she commandeered the
Assistant Director's official transport, and we got a free ride to the mall!"
Story follows familiar story. Do you remember that time in the biology lab,
when...? And how about that day at the fair... We've forgotten the room, the ratty yellow
curtains, the question of us. For the moment, we're somewhere else, safe from decisions
and possibilities and consequences. We're in a shared area of memory, a kind of
amusement park of the heart, where nothing goes awry unless it's for our enjoyment,
where days past can be repainted in colors bright as happiness.
Sometimes I think that that's what I really like about Eric -- that we can talk about
all that, all the stuff that happened to us in high school.
"Well," Eric concludes, "those were the days."
I make a derisive sound, something that's between a laugh and a snort. I don't
know why. Is it because of the cliché? The fact that those words sound kind of stupid
coming from someone who's not even twenty? Or maybe it's because his careless, tossed-
off statement has scared me a little. What if those really were 'the days'?
Eric senses my unease, and steers the conversation back into safe waters. "So
what are you taking this sem?" he asks.
I start rattling off my subjects. Communication II, Social Science, etcetera,
etcetera, and Math 17.
"Hey," he says, frowning. "Didn't you take that last sem?"
"Yes," I say.
"So what's the deal?" He has a genuinely puzzled expression on his face.
I wonder how I'm going to answer him. Eric knows me well enough to realize that
there's no way in hell I could have failed Math 17.
"I failed it."
"No way."
"It's true." I point at the containers arrayed by the kitchen sink. "Hey. You want
something to drink? Iced tea? Coffee...? Some Dom Perignon, perhaps?"
"No, no… I'm okay." He brushes off my attempt to change the topic, with the
determination of someone whose mind tends to run on a single track. "How could you
fail Math? I mean, you were the best in high school. Everyone copied assignments off
you. Heck, you probably solve calculus problems in your sleep!"
I shrug, and look away from him. I suddenly realize that I'm going to give him an
explanation, and I don't want to be looking at him when I do. I pick up my newsprint
edition of the Math 17 textbook, and flip it open to a random page: a mass of graphs,
symbols and equations unfurls. I recognize this chapter, and some of the problems listed.
"Well..." I start, "Well, you know how, in Math, attendance doesn't mean
anything?" He frowns. "I mean, that's what all the other Math majors told me. All the
teachers care about is if you're good. Some of them don't even bother to check who's
absent or present. All that matters is that you pass the exams."
Eric's still frowning. I begin to worry that he might crease his forehead
permanently.
"So, my Math 17 class was at seven in the morning. Too early for me. I cut class,
a lot. By the end of the sem, I was just showing up for the exams. And let me tell you, I
aced those exams." I'm still looking at the open page. With my index finger, I trace an arc
of plotted points on one of the graphs. "And then, just after the finals, my teacher asks me
to see him in his office." I pause. I take a slow, deep breath.
"I go there, he's all smiles, come in, come in, he says. He sits down, points to a
chair just opposite him, tells me to sit down. I do. He starts by saying that I didn't show
up for classes enough, that I'm in trouble because I went over the maximum number of
absences. I'm listening, and I don't know what to say in my defense. Suddenly his hand's
resting on my thigh, and he's telling me that actually, the attendance really won't be a
problem, as long as I'm not averse to the idea of having a little 'fun'."
Eric is staring at me, like he can't understand, much less believe what I'm saying,
like all he's doing is watching my lips move.
"I left, of course. And when I got my class card, there was a big fat failing grade
on it."
Eric blurts out, "Why didn't you tell me?" And then, as if fearing the honest
answer to that question, he quickly asks another. "Did you confront him?"
"Sure I did. I asked Rach to come with me, we went to his room, and I told him
that I thought the whole thing was stupid. I told him that our last encounter in his office
constituted harassment. I also pointed out that there were other people in the section who
cut class just as much as I did, and he didn't fail them. He denied that he ever came on to
me, and, regarding the grade, he said that he was just executing University attendance
policy. He also implied that I would be in big trouble if I spread my story around."
Eric is pissed off. He actually looks more pissed off than I ever was.
"Eric, calm down," I say, but looking at him, I know I'm wasting my words.
"Ba't ang yabang niya? Does he have a frat? Is he the brother of a senator or
something?"
"What does it matter?"
"You're right, it doesn't matter. I mean, he's not gonna know who or what hit him
anyway."
"That's not what I meant."
"Look, it's in the Bible! If you have a grievance against somebody, the first thing
you do is talk to him. Then, if he doesn't listen, you bring a friend and you try to talk to
him again. And then, after all else has failed, you have to go ahead and smite him. You
know, beat the shit out of him."
"I know what smite means, thank you. And just where in the Bible did you read
that?"
"I think it's in Matthew. I'm pretty sure that's what it says."
"I find that really hard to believe, Eric."
"Look," he says, and for the first time he frightens me. I'm looking into his eyes,
and I realize that Eric, sort-of-goofy Eric, my old high school friend, is perfectly capable
of premeditated violence. "Look, we have to do something. He can't get away with this."
"Eric, I swear to God, if I pick up the Collegian next week and find out he's the
lead story, I'll never talk to you again."
He has nothing to say in response. He just sits there, his fists clenched, in silence.
Finally, he mutters, "He just shouldn't get away with it."
I suddenly feel very tired.
Eric stands up. "I guess I should..." He makes some vague hand-motion in the
general direction of the door, but otherwise he doesn't move. I look at his eyes; they're
glistening. He puts his hand over them, as if to stop them from leaking.
I get up, walk over to him, and put my arms around him in a reassuring hug. The
last time I hugged Eric was our graduation day, right after the last ceremony, when
everyone was laughing and cheering, and throwing their programs in the air because we
didn't have those silly four-cornered caps. That was a good day. Here, now, his arms
wrap around me, and they start to squeeze just a little too tightly. He opens his wet eyes,
looks at me, and his head ducks down and his mouth meets mine and I can feel his tongue
work its way between my lips.
I push him away, with all the strength that suddenly surges into me. He staggers,
and for a second he looks like he's going to fall, but he manages to plant his hand on the
table for support.
"I'm sorry," he says, straightening up abruptly. He just stands there, looking
utterly lost, frozen for a moment, and then he almost trips over his own feet as he turns
around, and lunges for the door. He swings it open, and just like that, before I can say
anything, before I can yell at him or offer him an umbrella to borrow, he's outside,
running towards his car, getting drenched. I watch as he fumbles with his keys. Finally he
manages to get in, and start the engine. His headlights blink on and he honks the car horn
a couple of times. I make a small waving gesture, but I'm not sure if he can see me
through this downpour.
I close the door, and sit down at my kitchen table. I pick up a screw-top plastic
container, it's full of this iced tea powdered mix. I shovel a couple of tablespoons of the
stuff into a glass, pour water into it and stir the whole thing vigorously, until I can no
longer see the individual grains swirling around, until all that's left is a homogenous dark
brown liquid. I take a swig. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ludlum as he zips across
the kitchen sink's edge.
There are times when I wish rats could talk. Hell, there are times when I wish
dogs could talk, and cats, and all sorts of animals, and inanimate objects too -- I could
have conversations with my books, and ask my clothes which of them wants to go out
today. I could go to our old school, run my hand across the pebbly surface of the
Humanities building's walls, and thank my favorite narra tree -- the one near the Girls'
Dorm -- for pleasant oblivious afternoons spent in its shade. I gulp down the last of my
instant, too-sweet tea, and smack my lips. There's an unpleasant puckery aftertaste. I set
the glass down on my table and shuffle over to my bed. The springs creak as I lie down. I
take a deep breath, close my eyes. I can hear another argument starting next door. I can
hear the scratching and scrabbling of my two rodent roommates as they cavort inside the
hollow wooden wall to my left. And outside, there's the constant roar of the rain, as if the
sky itself is laughing at some great joke that I just don't get.

2 Ehlies Stylistic Analysis

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2 Ehlies Stylistic Analysis

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Republic of the Philippines

Bulacan State University

A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF LUIS JOAQUIN M.

Significance of the study

II. Research Methodology

• The levels of Stylistic Analysis

• Elements of Stylistic Analysis

3.1 Lexical and Semantic Features

3.1.2. Semantic Features

3.2. Morphological Features

...I've started feeling something almost like affection for them.

Then, from adjective to adverb deviational, the words barely, apparently,

I'm pretty sure there are only two rats.

…and eversince I gave them names, I've started feeling…

A knock sounds on my door.

Words like something, anything, dishrack, makeshift, afterthought, anyone,

3.3. Syntactical Features

A. Sentence Structure and Kind

3.4. Graphical Features

This chapter discusses the three theories found in the text.

A. Kara's Place in Schema Theory

As what already stated in the introduction of this paper, a schema is a generalized

B. Kara's Place in Discourse Analysis, Theory of Cohesion and Coherence

"Ha! Never fails... Just had the car washed."

"No, no... I'm okay."

...and then Rachel announced that she wanted to watch a movie...?

Do you remember that time in the Biology lab, when...?

And how about the day at the fair...

"I guess I should..."

He makes some vague hand-motion in the general direction of the door.

Eric laughs, and then his face turns serious ...

Conjunctions, as what already mentioned in Lexical Feature, join sentences to have a

Subordinating conjunctions like where, when, how, if, therefore, eversince,

What if those really were 'the days'?

When Jo-ann returned to the parking lot ...

C. Kara's Place in Foregrounding Theory

Kara's Place has been foregrounded because of some parallelism, lots of

Then the use of different term like the below example.

The use of double dash (--) in between the sentences.

"Hey, Eric," I smile, " -- come in."

"Well," Eric concludes, "those were the days."

The following excerpts do use the double dash.

V. Conclusion and Recommendation

Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak

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