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Approaches to Stylistics

Though it was originated in literary theories of formalism and adopted the theory
of structuralism as developed by Saussure in the early twentieth century, stylistics is
eclectic in its use of the type of theory. What formalism and structuralism theories
provided to stylistics was the descriptive apparatus which would enable scholars to
pinpoint the precise techniques of construction that writers were using in order to
demonstrate the linguistic basis literary effects, particularly those which were
foregrounded. In time, stylistics responded to the developing of new theories of
language, based more on contextual factors in the case of pragmatics and discourse
analysis and on cognitive factors in the case of generative grammar and cognitive
linguistics. In the aim of explaining textual meaning and effects, stylistics became able
to use the insights provided by all of these theories to support new analytical processes
and provide new insights into the style of texts and their reception by a range of
potential audiences. Therefore, there are stylisticians who work alongside
psychologists in order to establish some processes by which readers respond to
linguistic style. Other stylisticians work with theories of social exploitation and
manipulation. Similarly, stylistics is eclectic in its use of methodologies. That is, the
theories above produce possible models of what the language or text is like, and these
models tend to dictate the methods to be used in analyzing them. However, there is a
major distinction is to be made between a quantitative methods and qualitative ones.
Quantitative methods involve a statistical analysis of a text, whereas qualitative
methods involve the significance of stylistic choices in texts. (Jeffries and Mclintyre,
2010:10)

1. Critical stylistics

Critical approach to stylistics investigates the ways in which social meanings and
ideologies are manifested through language. It takes its resources from other
disciplines. That is, this aim of critical-stylistic analysis of a text requires a theory of
language which is socially, functionally or pragmatically oriented. In other words, only
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a socio-functional model of language can lead to an understanding of the ideological

processes at work, and prevents self-indulgent, meaningless, mechanical or formalist
analysis. However, the aim is not to discover the ideology or ideologies hidden in the
text by means of linguistic tools. That is, the reading is inferential process of meaning
through drawing inferences derived from the combination of the new information
taken from the text with the old information already stored in the memory. In this way,
the reader relies on his or her background knowledge of the world in which his or her
processing of the text. That is, meaning is arrived at through the reader's own
ideological assumptions. Therefore, there is a divergence in the interpretations of one
text; since the background knowledge varies from one reader to another. (Weber,
1992: 13)

In addition, new Critical stylistics is concerned not only with the identification of
linguistic features that make poetry, for instance, different from other discourses, but
with poetry as a form of signification which mysteriously transforms the familiar
relationship between language and meaning. I. A. Richards, cited in Bradford (1997:
35-36), insists that the effects produced by poetry are not easily reducible to
predictable, scientific models of language. He qualifies his distinction between vehicle
(device) and tenor (meaning): "the vehicle is not normally a mere embellishment of a
tenor which is otherwise unchanged by it but…vehicle and tenor in cooperaton give a
meaning of more varied powers than can be ascribed to either." In short when vehicle
and tenor are combined the relation between the meanings of the words used becomes
more significant than the relation between each word and its specific meaning.

2. Pragmatic stylistics

2.1 SPEECH-ACT THEORY

One characterizing aspect of pragmatics is speech act theory. The stylistic

investigation of speech acts is fundamentally practiced in the dialogues of characters in
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both novel and drama. However, particularly associated with the work of Austin
(1962) and Searle (1969), it is a theory which focuses on what speakers do when they
use language. Apart from this general focus on the ‘action’ of language, speech act
theorists state that certain verbs actually ‘perform’ an act when they are uttered. Verbs
such as those to do with warning, prohibiting or promising and so on perform the very
function encoded in the word. These are the so-called 'performative' verbs. For
example, when one says:

1. I promise not to tell anyone.

the act of promising is performed. One important point to add here is that such
performance is not guaranteed. The verb must be accompanied by the relevant
conditions which make such a performance 'felicitous'. The speaker cannot, therefore,
pronounce a couple husband and wife if he or she not empowered to do so. Similarly,
if a speaker ‘promises’ to pay another person ten million pounds tomorrow, the act
cannot be performed truthfully if there is no possibility of him or her paying such a
sum. Notice that the performative verb is invariably accompanied by the first person
‘I’ and the present tense form of that verb (‘I promise’ – if it were ‘I promised’ there
would be no performance). (Green and LeBihan, 1996: 28)
Austin and Searle both proposed that speech act verbs form a limited sub-class of
sentences. That is, there is a sentence that does not contain a speech act verb, is said to
be 'constative', which describes a state of affairs, whereas a 'performative' utterance
has a speech act verb and enacts a function. However, later, it became apparent that all
utterances do have an implicit performative. Thus if one says:
2. This table is brown.
he or she is asserting that it is so. A performative ‘realisation’ of this utterance might
be
3. I assert to you that this table is brown.
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The original sentence is embedded in a performative utterance which typically has a

present tense verb and first person subject. The implications in language study are
profound, for language does not simply happen, nor are sentences uttered without
purpose. Language comes to be viewed as a dynamic activity, as each utterance is
associated with an 'illocutionary force'. This is essentially its pragmatic function.
(Green and LeBihan, 1996: 28)
A basic aspect of speech act theory is the distinction between 'locution' and
'illocution'. The locution of an utterance is simply the syntactic form with its ‘base’
meaning. Therefore, in the example,

4.Were you born in a barn?

the locution seems to be a question about the addressee’s origins. However, the
illocution, or pragmatic meaning, is actually a request or command to shut the door.
The distinction between locution and illocution is, therefore, one between form and
function. (Ibid.: 29)

2.2 THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

The philosopher H. P. Grice developed a co-operative principle (1967/1987)

which, he considers to underlie successful verbal communications. That is, speakers
assume, in normal circumstances, that these are the ground rules observed when
speaking and interpreting utterances. The co-operative principle states: 'Make your
conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged'. To this
Grice attaches four maxims, which clarify how the co-operative principle works:

1. Maxim of quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required, do

not make your contribution more informative than is required.
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2. Maxim of quality: Try to make your contribution one that is true, do not say
what you believe to be false and do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.

3.Maxim of relation: Be relevant.

4. Maxim of manner: Be perspicuous, avoid obscurity of expression; avoid

ambiguity; be brief; and be orderly. (Black, 2006: 23)

However, and since people are by nature co-operative, there is what is referred to
as 'conversational implicature'. Conversational implicatures arise from a combination
of language and situation: the same utterance on different occasions might not generate
an implicature, or might suggest a different one. They are rooted in the situation in
which they occur, and must be interpreted taking the context into account. If it is
assumed that the interlocutor is obeying the co-operative principle when one of the
maxims appears not to be fulfilled, the hearer will attempt to infer the meaning
intended. This kind of implicature is commonplace in everyday language, and plentiful
in literary texts.(Ibid.: 25)

Leech (1983), cited in Black (2006:26), points out that the maxims and the
implicatures which they generate explain, in a principled way, why speakers may
exploit the maxims rather than obeying the co-operative principle: interpreting an
implicature is partly the responsibility of the hearer, as well as being encouraged by
the encoder of the message. It may be the most economical way of saying something,
or it may simply add to the interest of an utterance.

2.3 POLITENESS

Brown and Levinson (1987) develop a widely accepted theory of politeness,

which they consider is cross-culturally valid. Briefly, it holds that people are motivated
by their need to maintain their ‘face’ (in the sociological sense, developed by Goffman
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1967): the need to be approved of by others, and to maintain a sense of self-worth.

Brown and Levinson consider that ‘face’ has two aspects:

1. Negative face: the right to freedom of action and freedom from imposition.

2. Positive face: the need to be appreciated by others, and to maintain a positive

self-image. (Black, 2006: 72 )

Another method of approaching politeness was developed by Leech (1983), cited

in Black (2006:73), : ‘minimize the expression of impolite beliefs’ and ‘maximize the
expression of polite beliefs.’ To this politeness principle Leech attaches a number of
maxims, such as modesty, tact, approbation, sympathy, generosity and agreement.
"Politeness in this model is essentially a scalar phenomenon: the degree of imposition
on the hearer will normally condition the degree of indirectness, mitigation or other
politeness marker from the speaker."

In literary discourse, however, there is an inherent impoliteness in being invited

to read a book. It is an imposition, which threatens one's negative face. It makes
demands upon one's time, and it may seek to overturn one's schemata, to change his or
her mind about things they may hold dear. In ordinary interactions, speakers usually
ask permission in some way if they are to hold the floor for some time by telling a
story because it interrupts the normal turn-taking of conversation. However, the
audience is aware of the imposition, and speakers try to minimize it. The evaluative
devices considered are clearly matters of interpersonal rhetoric and, generally
speaking, attend to the reader’s positive face, in the attempt to make the text clear,
interesting, and indicating what is of particular interest. (Ibid.: 74)

However, a very serious type of face-threatening act that occurs on the authorial
or narratorial level lies in the choice of the topic. That is, many fictions cause offence
to some readers: an extreme example is Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, which led to
a 'fatwa' being pronounced against him. A less extreme example is Nabokov’s Lolita,
where the subject matter is also offensive to some readers. Joyce experienced great
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difficulties in getting Dubliners published: it was deemed so offensive that a printer

destroyed the plates. There is a relationship between reader and writer: we may be
offended by certain topics, as recurrent demands for censorship show. When the
Scottish novelists James Kelman and Irvine Welsh published their works, it was clear
that many English readers felt that writing in their dialects were inherently face-
threatening acts. The norms and knowledge required to process a text also change over
time. This can result in problems for the reader not foreseen by the author. (Black,
2006: 75)

Much the same applies to quotations (or intertextuality), or echoes of other

literary works. The reader who misses them is at a disadvantage, and, once apprised of
the error, may well feel his positive face has suffered. For example, in Lodge’s
Changing Places (1975/1978) an American professor, on an exchange to an English
university, finds a book on novel writing belonging to the lecturer he has exchanged
with. The book, called Let’s Write a Novel, belongs to a series that includes Let’s
Weave a Rug. (Ibid.: 75)

In addition, there are certain figures of speech, such as irony, that can constitute
face-threatening acts. In the context of politeness, it is worth noting that irony is
potentially face threatening in a number of ways: it requires extra processing effort,
and if readers miss it and it is subsequently drawn to their attention, embarrassment
and a sense of exclusion are the likely consequence. Metaphor, however, poses
comparable problems. Both figures can promote distancing or solidarity – as is the
case with many politeness strategies. (Ibid.: 76)

3. Cognitive stylistics

Cognitive approach to stylistics investigates style through the focus on the

aspects of reading that the readers operate when reading a text, and the mental
component of the meaning-creation process. Cognitive stylistics uses both cognitive
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linguistics and cognitive psychology as its method. This approach to stylistics uses the
schema theory, which is taken from Gestalt psychology. Schema theory postulates that
meaning is not only contained in the text, but it is the interaction between the text and
the reader's background knowledge in what is called 'stimulus-driven process'.
(Norgaard, Busse and Montoro, 2010: 7-8)

However, scholars who work in the framework of cognitive stylistics find it more
fruitful to deal with cognitive poetics so as to engage with the epistemology of
humans' intuitive interpretive practices rather than add other interpretations to a text. In
this case, their researches engage more with poetic devices than with hermeneutics
even if doing poetics usually requires reference to a specific text. However, this
approach employs insights from cognitive science in its efforts to make explicit some
of the principles behind our everyday capacity to make connections across domains.
This capacity is visible in many contexts: humour, visual art, grammatical
constructions, figurative language, literary discourse, and so on. When reading a text,
however, the readers' imagination works effortlessly to grasp many metaphors,
analogies or allegories. ( Semino and Culpeper (2002: 2-3)

Therefore, in reading poetry, meaning emerges from the accessories of its

expressions that have been embodied in the forms of the language in which it is laid.
Studies by scholars raise key questions for our understanding of the nature of literary
language. Metaphor has always been seen as a fundamentally literary property as a
result of the apparent tendency of its users to create new insights into human
experience and values; and metaphorization has conventionally been regarded as a
liberating process in which divergent and de-automatizing ways of thinking are made
possible. Therefore, poetry can depend on basic underlying metaphors which structure
our everyday experiences. (Carter, 1997: 210)

Raymond Gibbs, in his The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and
Understanding ( 1994), cited in Carter, Roland (1997: 208-209), argues that figurative
schemes of thought structure many fundamental aspects of our ordinary, conceptual
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understanding of experience. Gibbs also shows that there is a link by metaphoric

extension between physical action and mental representation. The figurative often has
an origin in physical, bodily experience and the figurative framework of everyday
thought motivates a number of meanings , as in this examples:

1. To take a stand on something’,

means ‘to uphold’ (principles/ the law), to remain an ‘upright’ person is derived from
the same underlying, conceptually coherent domain. Traditional studies in lexical
semantics attempt to uncover the componential set of features underlying each separate
word stand and begin from an assumption of literalness. Cognitive linguists put ‘the
body back into the mind’, arguing that ‘metaphor, and to a lesser extent metonymy, is
the main mechanism through which we comprehend abstract concepts and perform
abstract reasoning, and that metaphorical understanding is grounded in non-
metaphorical pre-conceptual structures that arise from everyday bodily experience.

4. LINGUISTIC STYLISTICS

Linguistic stylistics refers to the stylistic work which has first been introduced by
Russian formalists, and which was later adopted by stylisticians. This type of stylistics
stresses the formal features in a text that make it literary. Stylistic features are
measured through the investigating of parallelism and deviation from the linguistic
norms. (Norgaard, N., Beatrix Busse and Rocio Montoro, 2010: 24)

In other words, linguistic stylistic is, on one hand, concerned with a particular
choice of words, recurrent sentence structures or different kinds of sentence
connections. On the other hand, it is concerned with studies of particular aspects of
texts which are shown to be stylistically relevant, such as the description and
comparison of the stylistic conventions of text types. (Dijk, 1997: 144)

The area of study, which centers upon the formal and linguistic properties of a
text, includes, consideration of the ways in which writers (or speakers): make
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selections from the linguistic potentials of a given language so as to create an artefact

manifesting certain formal properties (e.g., foregrounding); construct cohesion and
coherence within a text so as to give it a dynamic (e.g., narrative structure); position
themselves (and their characters) vis-à-vis their potential readers (e.g., modality,
transitivity, point of view). Stylistics has developed a survey of checklists covering
the linguistic features of texts and tools used by an author which can give a fingerprint
to any text – clues as to how it means rather than simply what it means. Therefore,
linguistic stylistics goes beyond meaning and content to examine how effects are
created and achieved. What is common to linguistic stylisticians is an intention to
investigate the processes in writing and reading, empowering the reader to develop
language awareness, text awareness, and cultural awareness in the reading of all texts,
whether literary or not. (Davies and Elder 2004: 333, 335)

5. Functionalist stylistics

Functionalist stylistics is based on functionalist view of language, especially

Halliday's (1996) Systemic Functional Linguistics. At the center of Hallidayan
linguistics is an interest in language use and a recognition of the fact that all language
uses take place in context, situational or cultural. It follows that every linguistic choice
is seen as functional and meaningful, and that grammatical labelling employed for
linguistic analysis is intended to reflect semantic functions. In addition, with the
functionalist approach to language comes an interest in longer stretches of language
rather than mere isolated sentences. As the functionalist approach to language focuses
on meaning-making in context, various contextually and ideologically oriented
branches of stylistics, such as feminist and critical stylistics, adopt the functionalist
approach to stylistics. (Norgaard, Busse and Montoro, 2010: 26)

Nonetheless, Halliday distinguishes between ideational,

interpersonal and textual functions of language. Each of these
functions is expressed in a particular level of language. That is, the
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ideational function is expressed in the semantic level of language;

the interpersonal function is expressed in the syntactic; and the
textual function is expressed in the context. (Leech and Short, 2007: 108)
Now, there is no one-to-one correspondence between levels and functions. The two
things are really quite separate. The levels belong to language as a cognitive coding
system. The functions are concerned with how this system is used for communicative
purpose. The term ‘function’, as applied to language, relates the system to the ends
which the system serves, or (to put it less teleologically) to the way it is adaptable to
the needs of its users. This distinction between the system and its use.

6. SOCILINGUISTICS STYLISTICS

Since Labov's research (1960s), sociolinguistic studies have amply documented

the effects of social factors on the language of different speaker groups within a speech
community, and the significance of the interplay between language variation and
language change. Considering the sociolinguistic tradition as a whole, there has been a
predominance of studies which are concerned with regional variation and variation due
to social class and gender differences. (Andersen (2001: 1)

However, in sociolinguistic stylistics, style is related to social categories.

Levinson (1988), cited in Dijk (1997: 144), distinguishes between two sociolinguistic
approaches which result in quite different notions of style (register): the 'alternates
approach' and 'ethnographic approach'. The alternates approach is directly based on the
traditional notion of style, that is, each individual has his own way of expressing
certain meanings. In the light of alternates approach, sociolinguistics is the study of
different realizations of the same meaning or function, and the study of style and
register will be the study of different ways of saying the same thing within a dialect.
According to the ethnographic approach, on the other hand, sociolinguistics is the
study of the cultural distinctiveness of speech functions. In the light of this approach,
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there is no need for the comparison of different realizations of the same meaning or
function, what is observed is what is unique and incomparable.

The study of sociolinguistic variation is commonly characterized, according to

Bell (1984) and Finegan and Biber (1994), cited in Eckert and Rickford (2001: 3), as
involving three principal components: linguistic or internal constraints, social or inter-
speaker constraints, and stylistic or intra-speaker constraints. However, in their (1994)
paper on the relation between register and social dialect variation, Finegan and Biber
explain the parallel relation between stylistic and social variation, but not the internal
systematicity of each category (why consonant cluster simplification decreases as
formality increases, for instance). Their own explanation for this systematicity was a
functional one, which argues that "Social dialect variation . . . depends upon register
variation, and register variation is largely shaped by communicative constraints
inherent in particular situations." Both Finegan and Biber focus on the broader
situation, and seek to establish a link from the variables themselves to the situations in
which they are used and finally to the socioeconomic hierarchy. They begin with the
argument that socially stratified variables tend to involve some kind of reduction or
simplification, and that complexity of linguistic form correlates with socioeconomic
status. They argue that more complex linguistic forms are called for in more "literate"
situations, as a function both of the tasks being undertaken in these situations and of a
relative lack of shared context. They, then, attribute the social stratification of
language use to the stratification of access to these situation types.

According to Eckert and Rickford (2001: 4), with Coupland (1980), the circle is
full, that is, there is a focus on the speakers themselves. Introducing an emphasis on
the “identity dimensions” of style, Coupland treats stylistic variation as a dynamic
presentation of the self. For this reason, rather than focusing on the cumulative use of
variables by speakers or groups of speakers, he focuses on the strategic use of
variables in discourse. This emphasis also leads him to approach the selection of
variables differently. Because of the structural focus in the field of variation, variables
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have been customarily selected not so much on the basis of their apparent social
significance as on the basis of their interest to the study of linguistic structure and
change. Coupland’s focus on the speaker’s identity leads him to take seriously the
participants’ perceptions of style, and to argue that the tendency to focus on individual
variables abstracts away from what speakers themselves perceive as style.
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Bibliography

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Bradford, Richard (1997). Stylistics. London; Routledge.

Carter, Roland (1997). Investigating English Discourse: Language, literacy and literature.
London: Routledge.

Davies, Alan and Catherine Elder (2004). The Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Oxford:
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 Dijk, Teun A. van (1997). Discourse as Structure and Process. London: Sage
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Eckert, Penelope and John R. Rickford (2001). Style and Sociolinguistic Variation.
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Green, Keith and Jill LeBihan (1996). Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook.
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Norgaard, N., Beatrix Busse and Rocio Montoro (2010). Key Terms in Stylistics. New
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Semino, Elena and Jonathan V. Culpeper (2002). Cognitive Stylistics: Language and
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