Discourse and Stylistics: Methods of Analysis: Prepared By: Prof. Roqayah D. Salong, MAELT, LPT

Discourse and Stylistics: Methods of Analysis
Abstract
In the wake of a revolutionary change of interest from language form to language

function, the attention of many language scholars has been shifted from the structural pattern
of language to the function the language is used to perform in social discourses. The present
study is one of such endeavours, and essentially explored the fields of Discourse and Stylistics by
pointing out their differences, but related, methods of text analysis. A brief analysis of an excerpt
of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Democracy Day Speech of 29th May 2015 revealed that
Discourse investigates more and reproduces more meaning from a text than Stylistics. Stylistics
is only a tool used in Discourse.
Introduction
Before the advent of Discourse Analysis and Stylistics, the preoccupation of many linguists
was the study of the structural pattern and form of language without much regard for the context
and other features that shape meaning. Over the years, however, the attention of language
scholars has been shifted from language form to language function. Consequently, many scholars
in humanities and social sciences have become keenly interested in the study of Discourse and
Stylistics (Olateju 7).
Discourse and Stylistics are two different but closely related linguistic disciplines that are
inseparable. The relationship between them can be likened to the proverbial controversy in the
actual maternity of the hen and the egg. This is because it is very difficult to draw a line of
demarcation between Discourse and Stylistics. While on the one hand, there is hardly any
exercise on Discourse without a bit of Stylistic input, Discourse, on the other hand, “is broader in
its analysis (Aziz n.pag). While Discourse is essentially communication, Stylistics on the other
hand is concerned with the study of the pattern and style of what is communicated. In this study,
we shall attempt to discuss Discourse and Stylistics and explore the various ways each of them
approaches the analysis of a given text. To do this properly, we shall analyze paragraph five of
President Muhammadu Buhari’s Democracy Day Speech on 29th May 2016 to reveal the levels or
methods of text analysis in Discourse and Stylistics.
• What is Discourse?
The word ‘discourse’ comes from Latin ‘discursus‘ which denotes ‘conversation, speech’
(Taiwo 14). According to Johnstone, it is “actual instances of communication in the medium of
language” (2). Discourse is a discipline that has no stable definition. This is because so many
scholars have given varied definitions to it based on their views of the subject matter. The
common definition is given by Stubbs. He describes Discourse as “language above the sentence
or above the clause” (1). Discourse is meaning communicated far above what is said. The study
of Discourse is indeed the “study of many aspects of language use (Fasold 65). Discourse is
essentially the study of language in use.
Prepared by: Prof. Roqayah D. Salong, MAELT, LPT
Sources: https://www.projecttopics.org/discourse-stylistics-methods-
analysis.html#:~:text=Discourse%20and%20Stylistics%20are%20two,linguistic%20disciplines%20that%20are%20inseparable.&text=While%20Discourse%20is%20ess
entially%20communication,style%20of%20what%20is%20communicated. Published by Chrisantus Oden
The term Discourse was first used by Zellig Harris in a paper he presented in 1952. As a
structural linguist, he did not use Discourse in the sense that is commonly used now. He used it
only as a sequence of utterances. It was in the late 1960s that scholars began to use the term as
an approach to the study of social interaction. (Taiwo 16). The discourse was fully developed in
the 1970s as a critique of the cognitive process in communication. It is based on the notion that
language needs a context for it to function properly. Thus, it becomes very impossible to
understand the linguistic items used in discourse without a context (Ahmad 1).
Discourse is viewed as social performance or social action. It is a relative social

phenomenon that depends solely on a wide range of disciplines, such as Psychology,
Anthropology, Philosophy, Anthropological Linguistics, Sociology, Cognitive and Social
Psychology. This fact is corroborated by Fairclough when he opines that “Discourse constitutes
the social. Three dimensions of the society are distinguished- knowledge, social relations, and
social identity-and these correspond respectively to three major functions of language” (8).
Discourse, viewed from the linguistic perspective, is, in turn, composed of a wide range of
disciplines, such as Stylistics, Pragmatics, Conversational Analysis, and Speech Act Theory (Ahmad
2).
• Discourse, Discourse Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis
Discourse, Discourse Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis could be described as a

three-in-one discipline mostly used interchangeably especially by nonlinguists. Discourse is not
the same as Discourse Analysis. While Discourse is communication, Discourse Analysis on the
other hand is a way of analysing communication (Aziz n.pag). When the analysis of a particular
discourse aims at exposing the covert ideology embedded in such a discourse, it can then be said
to be in the domain of Critical Discourse Analysis. To put it very simple, when Discourse Analysis
becomes more critical (when the hearer or reader uses all linguistic features available in the said
to generate the meaning of the unsaid in a manner that exposes power and abuse of power,
dominance, inequality, and invested ideologies), it becomes Critical Discourse Analysis. Generally
speaking, every discourse is structured by dominance and the dominant structures are
legitimated by the ideologies of powerful groups (Wodak and Meyer 3).
Discourse Analysis basically studies and examines how an addresser structures his
linguistic messages for the addressee and how the addressee in turn uses some linguistic cues to
interpret them (the messages) (Brown and Yule qtd. in Taiwo 15).
Social context plays a vital role in generating meaning in discourse. In fact, it determines
the meaning that is to be communicated. Similarly, certain contextual features equally shape the
language people use. These are the interlocutors themselves, their discourse roles and the
physical environment of the discourse, the worldview, and cultural practices in the domain of the
discourse. Discourse Analysis considers language, used together with the aforementioned
features, to determine the meaning. Discourse Analysis thus generates data for analysis based
on the observation and the intuition of the language users. This is why Taiwo believes that a
discourse analyst can analyze virtually every conversation, like “(casual, telephone, gossip, etc),
speeches (campaigns, formal speeches delivered by political figures, etc), written discourse
(novels, plays, news, written speeches, editorials, etc)” (15).
Discourse analysis picks up from where stylistics stops. The tasking questions discourse
often asks are: What makes the speaker or writer use language the way he or she does? How
does the hearer or reader interpret what the speaker or writer says or writes? Of course, this is
where discourse shares a common boundary with Pragmatics. Indeed, the speaker or writer has
total control of the choice of words to use but he or she certainly does not have control of the
meaning the listener or speaker would derive from what is said or written (Aziz n.pag).
• Basic Concepts in Discourse Text
In Discourse, the text simply means any instance of language in use. This comprises not
only written language but also spoken language. A text could be as small as a word or sentence
and could also be as large as a paragraph (Aziz n. pag). A text could equally be a whole chapter,
a news item, or a conversation. For a piece to be qualified as a text, Halliday, and Hassan believe,
it must form a “unified whole”(1). When that happens, it can then be regarded as a semantic
unit.
A text is meant to have a texture. Texture, as used here, is the parameter that
distinguishes a text from something that is not a text. Information in a text flows within and
among sentences through the interplay of coherence and cohesion.
• Coherence and Cohesion
Coherence concerns with sense in a text. That is to say that when a text makes sense to a
reader or a hearer, it is said to be coherent (Osisanwo qtd. in Ogunsiji 48). Cohesion on the other
hand is a Latin word for “striking together” (Stern qtd. in Ogunsiji 48). It is a term in Discourse
that relates to how texts are held together lexically and grammatically as a whole. A text without
cohesion is only a disjointed speech that may not generate any meaning. The following examples
can be used to illustrate coherence and cohesion:
1. Oko slapped his wife. His wife did not cook for him. (Coherent but not cohesive).
2. Oko slapped his wife because she did not cook for him. (Coherent and cohesive).
Note: The conjunction “because” and the pronouns “she” and “him” in the second text are
cohesive ties or devices employed to enhance coherence and cohesion in the text. They are
conjunctive cohesion and referential cohesion respectively.
3. Oko slapped his wife because South Sudan is the newest African country. (Not coherent but
cohesive).
4. Oko slapped his wife. South Sudan is the newest African country. (Not coherent and not
cohesive).
• Coherence in Discourse
Coherence in a discourse manifests by the extent to which a particular instance of

language in use can match a shared belief, knowledge, and social conventions of interlocutors in
a social context. Unlike cohesion which establishes the linguistic connectivity of sentences and
utterances using cohesive ties, coherence in discourse relates basically to the establishment of
some relationships between utterances through an interpretation of illocutionary acts.
There is an obvious manifestation of coherence in the following conversation between

two interlocutors:
Speaker A: Sir, the visitors from Daura are already waiting at the reception.
Speaker B: I’m taking my lunch.
Speaker A: It’s alright Your Excellency.
The discourse above can be interpreted vis- a- vis the social conventions of interaction
which include:
Speaker A requests speaker B to perform an action.

Speaker B gives the reason why he cannot comply.
Speaker A understands and proceeds to perform a legitimate action (his duty).
It is discovered that there are no cohesive ties in the above discourse but the needed cues to
identify coherence are conventional structures of interaction, and this is a shared understanding
by the interlocutors. That is the crux of coherence in discourse.
• Context
Context is a set of facts that surrounds a particular situation. Viewed from the angle of
linguistics, context means everything that surrounds the production and reception of a piece of
communication. According to van Dijk, “context is a subjective mental model of the
communicative situation” (n. pag). Communication is better understood in context. Taiwo
corroborates this fact in his explanation of the context and its features which include:
the physical situation in which the communication takes place, the interactants or interlocutors,
the knowledge of the communicators of their cultural norms and expected behaviour, and the
expressions that precede and follow a particular expression. All these features of context help
language speakers interpret meaning appropriately. (19)
Discourse dwells so much on the context of language use in a social setting.

• What is Stylistics?
Stylistics, in a simple sense, refers to the study of style and pattern of use by a writer or a
speaker. It is the identification of patterns of usage in speech and writing (Ahmad 2). According
to Ogunsiji, “Stylistics is also defined as a study of the different styles that are present in either a
given utterance or a written text or document” (2). It is a term that is mostly associated with the
literary genre but modern linguistic exercises have clearly shown that there is much stylistic
analysis to be done on non-literary texts as is done on literary texts. A literary genre can be seen
as style characteristics that are collectively recognized and agreed upon. Some of the aspects of
literary stylistics include the use of dialogue, the description of scenes, the use of active and
passive voice, and the distribution of the sentence length (Ahmad 2).
Stylistics primarily attempts to explain the principles that informed the choices made by
communicators which manifest in their use of language. This is skillfully unraveled by the reader
or writer by studying the style of the initiator of the communication (writer or speaker). Style on
its own is aptly described by Lucas as “the effective use of language, especially in prose, whether
to make statements or to rouse emotions. It involves first of all the power to put fact with clarity
and brevity” (9). The study of style is central to stylistics. It is a selection and arrangement of
linguistic features which are open to choice- a choice of words and expression by a particular
person in a particular situation. One major concern of stylistics is the investigation into the
continuous and consistent appearance of certain structures, items, and elements in a speech
utterance or a given text. Thus, when a text is replete with some certain recurring predominant
words or expressions, stylistics becomes more interested in his investigation. Stylistics is
particularly important because it enhances and maximizes our enjoyment of a text.
The relevance of stylistics can never be over-emphasized. It is a technique used to

explicate both linguistic and non-linguistic text by objectively defining what an author does in his
use of language. A stylistic analysis of a text in most cases reveals the good and or the bad
qualities of writing or speech.
• Nature of Stylistics
Stylistics, according to Ogunsiji, is a “borderline discipline between language and

literature”(9). This is because it focuses on language use in both literary and non-literary texts.
Stylistics, like Discourse, is multidisciplinary in nature, even though it has its focus. It draws
insights from disciplines such as Literature, Psychology, Sociology, Philosophy, and so on.
As earlier explained, Stylistics, majorly, is the study of the style of a text. It looks at style in so
many dimensions. They include:
• Style as Choice: This considers style as a choice the speaker or writer makes in a text that
ultimately makes his utterance or text stand out. It becomes the responsibility of the
stylistics to identify such a style in his (stylistics) analysis.
• Style as Deviation:What does not conform to a certain standard could be a style to a writer
or speaker. This is mostly noticed in poetry where the poet has the poetic license to deviate
from an acceptable norm to use language in a way that pleases him.
• Style as Situation: A style could be adopted by a speaker or writer based on the situation in
question. A text comes to life through the context or situation. This could be physical, socio-
cultural, or pragmatic.
• Style as the Individual: There are specific features that are associated with a particular
speaker or writer due to his choice of style. That becomes his idiolects. A speaker or writer
stands recognized basically due to his style.
• Style as Time/ Era: This has to do with the time relevance of a style. It deals with whether a
particular style is in vogue or obsolete; whether it is ancient or modern. It is the task of the
stylistics to point this out.
• Text Analysis in Stylistics
The focus of Stylistics is the text. In analyzing a text, the business of stylistics is to look at
many features of the text. Stylistic features like graphology, syntax, Alexis, and semantics are
looked into. These are discussed under the following captions
• Graphological Features
This concerns the physical appearance of a text. The primary focus here is foregrounding.
That is an act of bringing to the fore, certain words to give them prominence. This can be
identified by looking at words in italics, capital letters, bold letters, words that are underlined,
and so on. The use of punctuation marks can equally create stylistic effects. It is the task of the
stylistics to explore and give a description of these graphological features in a text.
• Syntactic Features:
The focus here is on sentence types and the effect they create in a text. A text may contain
a combination of simple, complex, compound, and compound-complex sentences or just simple
sentences. Aspects of ellipsis, parataxis, hypotaxis, right, and left-branching sentences are
equally considered significant here (Ogunsiji 11). For example, a dislocation in the syntax of a text
could mean the dislocation in human thoughts. James Joyce’s novels are replete with this style.
• Lexico- Semantic Features:
In any stylistic exercise, attention is especially given to words. This is because words may
be used by the speaker or writer to produce connotative, denotative, associative, collocative,
affective, thematic, idiomatic, and even stylistic meanings. The stylistics watches out for the
various meanings conveyed by the use of such words.
• Discourse and Stylistics: Methods of Analysis
Discourse and Stylistics are two linguistic disciplines that are analyzed using different
methods and tools. The text is the object of analysis for both the discourse analyst and the
stylistics. One noticeable difference however is how they approach their analysis. A close study
of the two methods of analysis shows that Discourse begins from where Stylistics stops. In this
section, we shall attempt analyses of an excerpt from President Muhammadu Buhari’s
Democracy Day Broadcast on 29th May 2016 from both the angle of Discourse and Stylistics to
point out the slim line of demarcation between them.
• Analysis of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Democracy Day Speech

Paragraph eight:
From day one, we purposely set out to correct our condition, to change Nigeria. We
reinforced and galvanized our armed forces with new leadership and resources. We marshaled
our neighbours in a joint task force to tackle and defeat Boko Haram. By the end of December
2015, all but pockets and remnants had been routed by our gallant armed forces. Our immediate
focus is for a gradual and safe return of internally displaced persons in safety and dignity and the
resumption of normalcy in the lives of people living in these areas.
• Stylistic Analysis:
In doing a stylistic analysis of the above text, certain linguistic features such as
graphology, semantics, and lexis will be explored.
• Graphological Features
Foregrounding is one predominant feature used in this paragraph by the speaker which
is realized through a particular lexical item. For example, the first person plural pronoun “we” as
used in the paragraph is a foreground. It is repeated three times in the paragraph. This is used
to show that the achievement recorded so far in the area of security is a collective effort by both
the government and other well-meaning Nigerians.
Parallelism is one vital stylistic device that is equally used to reiterate and emphasize the
idea of collectiveness. The speaker willfully uses the word “we” to begin both sentences 1 and
2 to further emphasize this.
• Syntactic Features
The paragraph contains five sentences with about ninety-three words. All but the last
sentence are simple sentences. This is a device used to enhance audience comprehension,
considering the reality of the time. Of course, this was a time many Nigerians were becoming
impatient with the government which had earlier promised a change in the status quo in
governance. The speaker was aware of this and therefore skillfully set out to use simple sentences
for everyone to understand very quickly and feel, without difficulties, what the government has
been able to achieve in one year.
One other device used in this paragraph is parataxis, which is an act of placing together
cohesive clauses without intervening conjunction or connective words to achieve coherence. For
example:
From day one, we purposely set out to correct our condition, to change Nigeria.
We reinforced and galvanized our armed forces with new leadership and resources. We
marshaled our neighbours in a joint task force to tackle and defeat Boko Haram.
The use of linking words like “Therefore” and “Also” to begin the second and third
sentences respectively would have, possibly, been used by the speaker. His style becomes
obvious by not using such linking words to tie up the three sentences which are seen to be
cohesive but not coherent.
In the paragraph, some words are intentionally omitted by the speaker and yet the
meaning is communicated. This device, which is called ellipsis, shall be discussed in detail under
discourse analysis.
• Lexico- Semantic Features
Collocation: A close study of this paragraph shows that the speaker chooses his words to
collocate. This points out the meaning conveyed in the paragraph.
Examples:
“correct” and “condition” (Sentence 1).
“reinforced, galvanized” and “armed forces” (Sentence 2).
“tackle” and “Boko Haram” (Sentence 3).
“resumption” and “normalcy” (Sentence 5).
From the above collocative words, it can be deduced that there was a problem (represented as
“condition”) that was solved (corrected) through the deployment (reinforcement and galvanizing)
of the armed forces. The problem was “Boko Haram” that was “tackled”, thereby restoring
(resumption of) normalcy to the nation. The meaning of the paragraph becomes so glaring due
to the deployment of collocation.
Connotation: Also, the use of words like “correct”, “change”, “reinforced”, “galvanized”,
“marshaled”, “defeat”, “routed”, “gallant” is highly connotative. They are military terms that
show action. They remind the hearer of the military era. Those words connote action to put up
by the government to end the insurgency.
4.2. Discourse Analysis:

• Cohesion and Coherence
In doing a discourse analysis of the paragraph, we shall first investigate if the paragraph
passes the test of coherence and cohesion. A cursory glance at the sentences shows that they
are coherent. Though there is no explicit lexical cohesion, the paragraph is however tied up by
grammatical cohesion. Related ideas and thoughts are connected and tied up in such a manner
that the entire paragraph presents a unified whole message. Sentence 1 establishes a point and
the rest of the sentences develop and build upon it. There is a linear progression of ideas from
the beginning of the paragraph to the end, and that essentially brings out the beauty of cohesion.
This ultimately explains the government’s efforts in tackling insurgency, beginning from 29 th May
2015 to 29th May 2016 (the day the speech was delivered). This exercise is, of course, a major
preoccupation of discourse.
• Ellipsis
The omission of some words and phrases is intentional. Examples of ellipsis as used in the
paragraph are:
1. From day one, we purposely set out to correct our condition,[…..] to change
Nigeria (Sentence 1).
The phrase, “that is” is intentionally omitted, obviously to create certain effects on the hearer.
This means that “to correct our condition” as used in the sentence means “to change Nigeria.”
2. By the end of December 2015, all but pockets and remnants […..] had been routed by our
gallant armed forces (Sentence 4).
There is equally a willful omission of “of Boko Haram” in the fourth sentence. This device is used
here to avoid undue repetition.
• Reference
There is the use of anaphoric reference in the paragraph. Anaphoric reference draws the
attention of the hearer or reader to a preceding text. In this case, “all” in sentence 4 refers to
Boko Haram mentioned in the preceding sentence
• The revelation of Power and Ideology
The choice of words and tone of the speaker unearths power and ideology. Such words
as “correct”, “change”, “reinforced”, “galvanized”, “marshaled”, “defeat”, “routed”,
“gallant” connote the militarist ideology of the speaker. This portrays the power and essentially
unveils the opaque ideology hidden in the speech. There is no gainsaying the fact that President
Muhammadu Buhari has a military background, and that ultimately reflects in his choice of
words.
• Conclusion
Discourse and Stylistics are linguistic disciplines that analyze text in an attempt to
establish principles in explaining the particular choices made by individuals and social groups in
their use of language (Ahmad 2) which, by extension, produces and reproduces meaning. Though
it is a herculean task in trying to locate a demarcating line between the two disciplines, it has
been discovered that they approach the analysis of a text with different, but similar, methods.
While a discourse analyst approaches his analysis by looking for such things as the textuality,
coherence, and cohesive interplay of the text which by extension could reveal ideology and
power inherent in a discourse, the stylistics on the other hand analyzes the style and pattern of
language use in a text. Discourse is concerned with language in use, analysis of language in social,
political, religious, and cultural contexts, Conversational Analysis, Speech Acts, Co-operative
Principles, and so on. In a nutshell, Discourse relies so much on various other disciplines. Stylistics’
major concern is the idea of the style and what informs the choice of such style. One common
denominator between Discourse and Stylistics is that both have text as the object of analysis.

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Discourse and Stylistics: Methods of Analysis

In the wake of a revolutionary change of interest from language form to language

Discourse is viewed as social performance or social action. It is a relative social

• Discourse, Discourse Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis

Discourse, Discourse Analysis, and Critical Discourse Analysis could be described as a

• Basic Concepts in Discourse Text

• Coherence and Cohesion

Prepared by: Prof. Roqayah D. Salong, MAELT, LPT

Coherence in a discourse manifests by the extent to which a particular instance of

There is an obvious manifestation of coherence in the following conversation between

Speaker A requests speaker B to perform an action.

Discourse dwells so much on the context of language use in a social setting.

The relevance of stylistics can never be over-emphasized. It is a technique used to

Stylistics, according to Ogunsiji, is a “borderline discipline between language and

• Text Analysis in Stylistics

Prepared by: Prof. Roqayah D. Salong, MAELT, LPT

• Analysis of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Democracy Day Speech

Prepared by: Prof. Roqayah D. Salong, MAELT, LPT

4.2. Discourse Analysis:

Prepared by: Prof. Roqayah D. Salong, MAELT, LPT

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