Handouts RZM, p.

Definitions of Stylistics:

ƒ “The study of style. … Style has to do with making CHOICES. (Turner)

ƒ “The study of the way an author uses words and grammar as well as other
elements both within the sentence and within the text as a whole.” (Guerin, et
al.)
ƒ “That part of linguistics which concentrates on variation in the use of
language, often, but not exclusively with attention to the most conscious and
complex uses of language in literature.” (Turner)
ƒ “The study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation. (Widdowson)

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Disciplines: Linguistics Literary Criticism

Stylistics

Subjects: Language Literature

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Some useful concepts in Stylistics:

FOREGROUNDING – emphasis on a textual feature; may be achieved through

unusual or strange collocations, meaningful repetitions, contrast, deliberate
deviation from the norms/rules/conventions

COLLOCATION – the co-occurrence of certain words

REFERENCE vs. REPRESENTATION – Reference is the indexical function of

language, pointing to different aspects of reality. Representation is manipulating
language to stand for an experience/situation.

DIEGESIS & MIMESIS – Diegesis is telling/narrating; mimesis is showing

COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE - According to Grice, people can engage in meaningful

extended conversation because, under normal conditions, the interlocutors observe
certain principles, which he calls the four conversational maxims. The maxim of
Quantity exhorts speakers to “make [their] contribution as informative as is required for
the current purpose of the exchange”; the maxim of Quality upholds the value of
truth/sincerity; the maxim of Relation insists on the relevance of contributions to the
conversation; and the maxim of Manner refers to the avoidance of obscurity of
expression and ambiguity, and to be orderly (Pratt, 1977, pp. 129-130).

SPEECH ACT – The theory that “many utterances are significant not so much in terms of
what they say, but rather in terms of what they do” (Sullivan, et al., 1994, p. 293).
 Handouts RZM, p. 2

Diegesis & Mimesis in Speech & Thought Representation (From Rimmon-

Keenan, 2002):

1) Diegetic Summary – bare report that a speech act has occurred

When Charley got a little gin inside him he started telling war yarns for the first
time in his life.

2) Summary, less ‘purely diegetic – summary w/c to some degree represents,

not merely mentions, a speech event in that it names the topics of
conversation.

He stayed till late in the evening telling them about miraculous conversions of
unbelievers, extreme unction on the firing line, a vision of the young Christ
he’d seen walking among the wounded in a dressing station during a gas
attack.

3) Indirect content paraphrase/Indirect Discourse (ID) – paraphrase of content of

speech event, ignoring style or form of original utterance

The waiter told him that Carranza’s troops had lost Torreon and that Villa and
Zapata were closing in on the Federal Dist.

4) ID, mimetic to some degree – ID w/c creates the illusion of ‘preserving’ or

reproducing aspects of style of an utterance, beyond mere report of its
content

When they came out Charley said by heck he though he wanted to go up to

Canada & enlist & go over & see the Great War.

5) Free Indirect Discourse (FID) – grammatically & mimetically bet. ID & Direct
Discourse. FID resembles ID in person & tense, while it resembles DD in not
being strictly subordinate to a ‘higher’ verb of saying/thinking, and in deictic
elements, the word-order of questions, and the admissibility of various DD
features.

Why the hell shouldn’t they know, weren’t they off’n her and out to see the
goddam town and he’d better come along.

6) Direct Discourse (DD) – A quotation, creates the illusion of ‘pure’ mimesis,

although it is stylized in one way or another

Fainy’s head suddenly got very light. Bright boy, that’s me, ambition and
literary taste …. Gee, I must finish Looking Backward … and jez, I like reading
fine, an’ I could run a linotype or set up print if anybody’d let me. Fifteen
bucks a week … pretty soft, ten dollars’ raise.
 Handouts RZM, p. 3

Break, Break, Break

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

1 Break, break, break

2 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
3 And I would that my tongue could utter
4 The thoughts that arise in me.

5 O well for the fisherman’s boy,

6 That he shouts with his sister at play!
7 O well for the sailor lad,
8 That he sings in his boat on the bay!

9 And the stately ships go on

10 To their haven under the hill;
11 But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
12 And the sound of a voice that is still!

13 Break, break, break,

14 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
15 But the tender grace of a day that is dead
16 Will never come back to me.

From: When You are Old and Gray

By Tom Lehrer

An awful debility, a lessened utility,

A loss of mobility is a strong possibility.
In all probability I’ll lose my virility,
And you your fertility and desirability.
And this liability of total sterility
Will lead to hostility and sense of futility.
So let’s act with agility while we still have facility,
For we’ll soon reach senility and lose the ability.

Much Madness is Divinest Sense

by Emily Dickinson

Much madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur – you’re straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain.
 Handouts RZM, p. 4

A poem by e.e. cummings:

! bla
k
agains
t
(whi)
te sky
?t
rees whic
h fr
om droppe
d

,
le
af
a : ; go
e
s wh
irli
n
.g

From: PASILYO 8
by Antonio Maria Nieva

One day along Pasilyo 8, in an entresuelo that passed for home for Bianong and
Estela, for Ikong, Tenteng and Miniang and the baby called Biik, one day the katsa
curtains shut out the sky. Bianong touched a lapad to his lips, and the baby cried
from hunger, and Ikong was terrified of his father, and Tenteng and Miniang lay as
still as death, and Estela, and Estela, and Estela ...

Somewhere in the morning a radio came to life, and Aling Upe a door away was
berating her Sigue-Sigue-Sputnik son, and still farther on, the puto vendor was
singing, Puuuuuuuuto! Itoy Bayag, the kubrador, was collecting the early bets for Jai-
alai, working his way down from the far end of the Pasilyo, and at exactly 12 noon,
he was going to poke his head through the door to ask if Bianong had any sondo to
bet with, which was not likely, and also to see if by any chance Estela was not
wearing anything under her cotton shift. Bianong touched the lapad to his lips. A fly
buzzed and alighted on his arm, and he banged the table with his fist. The baby cried
harder, and Ikong cringed, and Tenteng and Miniang lay unmoving.
 Handouts RZM, p. 5

The morning reeled in Bianong’s mind, and reeled before his eyes, and he was
growing more irritated because it would not stand still long enough for him to think,
and how could a man think clearly in all this when there was no milk for Biik and not
even any aspirin for Tenteng and Miniang?

Poor Bianong, poor Estela, poor Ikong, and Biik, and Tenteng and Miniang. Poor
Estela who had to work all night so her family could eat, and Bianong, ay, what a
burden he was the lazy carabao. The fishwives clucked their tongues, and straddled
the edge of his vision, safely beyond reach, mocking him. Bianong touched the lapad
to his lips then shook his fist at them. He wanted to kill them, kill them, kill, kill them,
but Pareng Isko merely laughed. Look, Pare, hahaha, they are only envious of you.
He slapped his knee and winked at Mareng Estela when she emerged with a platter
of pinapaitang aso, and winked at Pareng Bianong as they touched their lapads
together, Pareng Isko saying, “tagay,” and Bianong saying, “tagay,” and when their
Marka Demonyo was empty, he called Ikong and sent him out to Aling Upe’s for
more.

From: Hills Like White Elephants

by Ernest Hemingway

(77) “I don’t feel any way,” the girl said. “I just know things.”
(78) “I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to do--”
(79) “Nor that isn’t good for me,” she said. “I know. Could we have another beer?”
(80) “All right. But you’ve got to realize--”
(81) “I realize,” the girl said. “Can’t we maybe stop talking?
They sat down at the table and the girl looked across at the hills on the dry
side of the valley and the man looked at her and the table.
(82) “You’ve got to realize,” he said, “that I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want
to. I’m perfectly willing to go through with it if it means anything to you.”
(83) “Doesn’t it mean anything to you? We could get along.”
(84) “Of course it does. But I don’t want anybody but you. I don’t want any one else.
And I know it’s perfectly simple.”
(85) “Yes, you know it’s perfectly simple.”
(86) “It’s all right for you to say that, but I do know it.”
(87) “Would you do something for me now?”
(88) “I’d do anything for you.”
(89) “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?”