LINGUISTIC STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF SHORT STORIES

BY ALICE MUNRO

An Undergraduate Thesis

Presented to The Faculty of English Department

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Mindanao State University

General Santos City

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Arts in English

By

DAVE SAPALO AGNO

May 2016
 Republic of the Philippines
MINDANAO STATE UNIVERSITY
Fatima, General Santos City
-oooo0oooo-

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

APPROVAL SHEET

The undergraduate thesis entitled “LINGUISTIC STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF

SHORT STORIES BY ALICE MUNRO” prepared and submitted by DAVE
SAPALO AGNO in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH has been examined ad recommended for
oral examination.

ROSSEL M. AUDENCIAL, M.I.E

Adviser

PANEL OF EXAMINERS
Approved by the Committee on Oral Examination

MELY M. SUBIERE, M.A. Ed - TESL

Chairman

ROSSEL M. AUDENCIAL, M. I. E. SALVACION M. SANTANDER, M. I. E.

Member Member

Accepted ad approved in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH.

Recommended by: Approved by:

LORENZO L. LAROCO, M.A.T. MAULAWI L. CALIMBA, M.A.

Chairperson Dean

__________________ __________________
Date Date
Dave Sapalo Agno. “Linguistic Stylistic Analysis of Short Stories by Alice Munro”.
Unpublished undergraduate thesis. Mindanao State University-General Santos
City. College of Social Sciences and Humanities. English Department. May 2016.

Abstract

Stylistics is the application of language study to the choices that are made in
texts (Stockwell, 2012). Operationally, it is a text linguistic discipline, which
explains the style of a text and sets it in relation to other features of the text. The
concept of one kind of stylistics which is the linguistic stylistics emphasizes
heavily on the rules of language. Moreover, the concern of linguistic stylistics is
mainly showing the mechanisms which underlie the work's meaning or style
(Carter, 1982). Two of the leading authorities in the field of stylistics named
Geoffrey N. Leech and Mick H. Short (2007) formulated the direction of linguistic
stylistic analysis presented through the specific models. One model is composed
of a checklist they formulated specifically for prose texts which placed in four
linguistic and stylistic categories - lexical categories, grammatical categories,
figures of speech and cohesion and context. This study aimed to analyze
narrative prose texts using linguistic stylistics that helped the researcher to
identify the style markers in the short stories of Alice Munro and to show their
implications to the narrative. The study showed that Munro employs ordinary use
of language which builds readable and comprehensible short stories.
Furthermore, Munro in employing memory has achieved different things for the
success of her narrative. First, the employment of memory is able to build the
setting of the story which is reinforced by her choice of language. Moreover, she
does not challenge the readers during the course of reading since narrative
informations are laid down slowly until they create connected ideas. The effect of
these connected ideas is that they help the development of the plot accompanied
by the use of memory. Finally, the employment of memory has enabled the
readers to get understanding about the characters in the story.

Keywords: Alice Munro, linguistic stylistics, Munro’s narrative, style, style

markers
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

“It’s hard.” “You can do it” they said. “I guess it’s really hard.” I whispered.

But looked, I survived without exaggeration on the present subject. Life is

simple. Don’t overthink that it is hard. Amen!

At some point during the course of the conduct of the study, I was

disturbed by the idea of giving up because I cannot contain the laziness and

procrastination that tempted me and the difficulty level of my study and fairly

available resources. But I made it happened! To all the girls and boys in the

world, I only wanted to gratify 15 people, two things, the rest of over 7 billion

human beings on earth who believe at one thing and the One God. They are:

First of the 15 people is my Mother Mary who never asked about what

was that thing called thesis entitled “Linguistic Stylistic Analysis of the Short

Stories by Alice Munro” by Dave Sapalo Agno. But when she called, I have this

effort be reciprocated by announcing the jobs she looked for me in Manila while I

conducted the study. In other way around, mother assumes already that I can do

it and I will graduate. Mothers are really the best.

My brother Jed who was not interested even a single piece of information

about that thing called thesis entitled “Linguistic Stylistic analysis of the Short

Stories by Alice Munro” by Dave Sapalo Agno but only cared to what stories he

likes to share to me.

My adviser Ma’am Rossel for the encouragement, support and effort

though, nadamay lang sa kalibug ug identifying and counting of words while

eating pizza. And the members of my panel, the two darling friends Ma’am

Santander and Ma’am Subiere for the facilitative criticism and for the omission

of problem number three: Ideational function of words in the short stories which

will take me to destruction if not deleted.

Kuya Benjie and Daryll for the genuine concern they showed for my

thesis. You guys are greatly appreciated with the little things you offered to me.

Ma’am Bec of MSU-GSC library for the book. You know what we did.

Arkin, Den2x, Aldrin, Kennard and Jessie for the technical support

without pay and with pay. Tol Ivan for doing the most amazing job in the world,

the counting of how many words are there in a sentence. I got the work done

quickly because of that. Thank you ‘Van!

And last, Isa since he requested his name to be included here. I thank him

for no reason but only for fun he said. He also wanted to include that this was

able to relieve my stress because I laughed while typing this section for him. At

least, it was a stress reliever.

The two things are my mirror which reminded me how ugly I was because

of and my cell phone in telling me that it was time sleep but no I have to finish

this.

The rest of over 7 billion people who believe in one thing that the most

important lessons in life are breathing lessons.

Lastly, of course The One, Lord Jesus Christ. His smallest contribution is

the biggest part of this undertaking.

The Beloved <3

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title page………………………………………………………..……….………………i

Approval sheet…………………………………………………………………………ii

Thesis Abstract..………………………………..……………………………………..iii

Acknowledgment……..……….………………………………………………………iv

Table of Contents……..……….………………………………………………………vi

List of appendices…………..……………………………………………....………..ix

List of tables and figure……………………………………………..……..………...x

CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM

Introduction ……………………………………………………………...………1

Statement of the Problem…………………..……………………………….…3

Significance of the Study………………...………….………………...…….…4

Scope and Delimitation………………………………….…………….....….…5

Definition of Terms………………..………….………………..……….….……5

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Related Literature…………………………………….…………..……………21

Linguistics and literature: Basic relations………….……………..…………21

Stylistics……………………………………………….……………..…………23

Concepts of style…………..………………………….…………….…………26

Style as choice……………..………………………….…………………….…27

Leech and Short’s Stylistic model……………………………………………28

 Alice Munro……………………………….…………….………………………29

Short story………………………………..………….…………………………30

Narrative…………………………………….………….………………………31

Content analysis……………………………………….………………………32

Related Studies………………………………………………………......……32

Conceptual Framework…………………………………………..……...……34

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Research Design……………………………………………...………..……..37

Subjects of the Study………………………………….………...…………….37

Data-Gathering Technique………………………………...……..…………..38

Data Analysis………………………………………..…….……………...……38

CHAPTER 4: PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS, AND INTERPRETATION OF

DATA

The presentation of possible style markers in the short stories

by Alice Munro in exploring the model……………………….……………..39

The implications of these style markers to the narrative

of the short stories………………………………………………..……………81

CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY, FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary………………………………………………………..…………...…88

Findings…………………………………………………………………..…….89

Conclusions……………………………………………………………........…93

Recommendations…………………………………………...…...…………...93
REFERENCES…………………...……………………………………….…….……95

CURRICULUM VITAE…………………...……………………………………….…121
 LIST OF APPENDICES

A. The texts

1. “Train”………………………………………………………..…..…....101

2. “Face”……………………………………………………………….....103

3. “Free Radicals……………………………………………………..…104

4. “The Shining Houses”………………………………………………..105

5. “Boys and Girls”………………………………………………………107

C. Checklist of linguistic and stylistic categories……….…………………111

B. Quantitative appendix……………………………………….……………117
 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURE

Table 1 The Nouns in the texts………………………………………………....……43

Table 2The Adjectives in the texts……………………………………………...……45

Table 3 The Verbs in the texts..…………………………………….………..………47

Table 4 The Adverbs in the texts………………………………………………….…50

Table 5 The Sentences in the texts……………………………………….…………56

Table 6 The Clauses in the texts……………………………………………….……61

Table 7 The Noun Phrases in the text ………………………………….……..……65

Table 8 The Verbs in the texts………………………………………………….……67

Table 9 The Other Phrase Types in the texts………………………………….…...69

Table 10 The Minor Word Classes in the text………………………...……………73

Table 11 The Cohesion in the texts…………………………………...……….……75

Figure 1 Conceptual Framework………………………………………………….…35