TYPES OF STYLISTICS as the phonological, grammatical,

lexical and semantic patterns

Diri I. TEILANYO &
without
Priscilla O. EFE-OBUKE
attempting to relate these patterns
to the message in the text. This
approach
1. General Stylistics or Stylistics:
was popular at the early stages of
This is stylistics viewed from the
the evolution of stylistics as a
broad notion of the linguistic study
discipline
of
where linguists viewed literary texts
all types of linguistic events from
merely as linguistic events and felt
different domains of life. It is used as
literary interpretation, involving
a
thematic concerns or artistic
cover term for the analysis of non-
significance,
literary varieties of language, or
were not of concern to them as
registers
linguists, especially as they involved
(Wales 458). Hence, one can
an
undertake a stylistic study of a
understanding of the artist’s
religious
intention which was hardly subject to
sermon, a sport commentary, a legal
the
document, a political speech, a
objective verifiability emphasized by
business conversation, etc.
the scientific claim of modern
linguistics.
2. Literary Stylistics:
4. Interpretative Stylistics:
This is the type of analysis that
This is the practice engaged in by
focuses on literary texts. In the
most stylisticians nowadays. It
broad
involves the analysis of the linguistic
sense, such a study may be linguistic
data in a (literary) text, the
or non-linguistic, but in the more
unravelling
specialized sense, it is essentially
of the content or artistic value of the
linguistic. To make this linguistic
text and the marrying of these two.
orientation clearer, the terms
As
linguistic stylistics or linguostylistics
depicted in Leo Spitzer’s philological
are
circle, the interpretative stylistician
sometimes employed to denote the
relates linguistic description to
linguistic analysis or interpretation of
literary appreciation by seeking
literary events. Other types of
artistic
stylistics below are largely subtypes
function and relating it to the
of this
linguistic evidence or first seeking
linguistic literary stylistics.
the
linguistic features in the text and
3. Textualist Stylistics
relating it to the artistic motivation.
(Textlinguistics):
The
This is the type of stylistics which
belief is that the linguistic patterns
engaged in an “empty technology”
are chosen deliberately to express
of
certain artistic or literary goals and
a text. It merely identifies the raw
that the two can hardly be divorced.
linguistic patterns of a (literary) text
such
Interpretative stylisticians see
themselves as both linguists and
literary
critics and integrate the roles of the
two scholars. This may be seen as
the
more wholistic approach to literary
stylistics or the analysis of literary
texts
in general.
5. Formalist and Functional
Stylistics:
These terms may be viewed as
alternatives for textualist stylistics
and
interpretative stylistics respectively
as discussed above. Formalist
stylistics
concentrates on the linguistic forms
in the texts, paying little attention to
the function of these forms in
relation to the overall content of the
text.
Conversely, functional stylistics
emphasizes the contextual function
that the
linguistic elements are used to
perform. (See Taylor and Toolan)
6. Evaluative Stylistics:
This is a term used by Richard
Bradford to designate the type of
analysis which uses linguistic tools to
assess or measure the worth or
merits
and demerits of a text. It assumes
that the quality of a text is revealed
in the
quality of language patterns it
employs. Such analyses may involve
the
juxtaposition of two or more texts for
comparative evaluation.
7. Discourse Stylistics:
This is the stylistic approach which
employs the procedures and
terminology of discourse analysis in
the explication of literary language
use.
Ronald Carter explains it this way:
[discourse stylistics] operates under
the direct
influence of work in pragmatics,
discourse
analysis and text linguistics, and this
work
continues to provide the field of
stylistics with
increasingly sophisticated means of
discussing both longer stretches of
text and,
indeed, longer texts…. In the basic
elementary definition, it is the
application of
discourse analysis to literature. (5)
Thus, an advantage of the discourse
analysis approach is that it enables
us
to study longer stretches of
language beyond sentences, which
traditional
linguistics may not reach. Such
terms as “cohesion,” “coherence,”
“location,”
“perlocution,” “maxim,”
“implicature,” “speech acts,” etc
which are regular in
pure discourse analysis are
employed in literary explication.
8. Contextualist Stylistics:
This has various factions that are
united in their emphasis on the
ways in which literary style is formed
and influenced by its contexts. These
involve (1) the competence and
disposition of the reader; (2) the
prevailing
sociocultural forces that dominate all
linguistic discourse, including
literature; and (3) the systems of
signification through which we
process and
interpret all phenomena, linguistic
and non-linguistic, literary and
nonliterary”
(Bradford 73).
What happens with contextual
stylistics is that it takes into
cognizance the various contexts in
which a stylistic analysis is done. It is
actually reader-centred.
9. Phonostylistics:
This has been described by Hartman
and Stork as “the study of the
expressive function of sounds”
(223). In practice, phonostylistics
may not be
considered as a distinct type of
stylistics but rather as one of the
phonological levels at which a
stylistician could analyse a text,
(other levels
of linguistic analysis being the
grammatical, the syntactic and the
morphological, the lexical
(vocabulary), the semantic and the
contextual).
Such a phonological analysis would
involve the identification (and
functional
interpretation) of both the segmental
patterns (vowels and consonants)
and
suprasegmental features (syllable,
stress, rhythm, tone, intonation, etc).
Phonological schemes like
alliteration, assonance, consonance,
chiming,
volume, onomatopocia, etc are
discussed.
10. Sociostylistics:
This is actually a subject which
studies, for instance, the language of
writers considered as social groups
(e.g. the Elizabethan University wits,
pamphleteers, or fashions in
language) (Wales 438). The
emphasis is on how
the language identifies particular
socio-literary movements such as
the
metaphysicals, the romanticists,
African writers, imagists,
expressionists,
modernists etc.
11. Feminist Stylistics:
In the introductory pages of Sara
Mills’ Feminist Stylistics, she
describes the phrase feminist
stylistics as one which best sums up
her
concern “first and foremost with an
analysis which identifies itself as
feminist and which uses linguistic or
language analysis to examine texts”
(1). So the concern of feminist
stylistics, according to Mills, is
beyond only
describing sexism in texts but is
broadened to “analyse the way that
point of
view, agency, metaphor or
transitivity are inexpectedly related
to matters of
gender, to discover whether
women’s writing practices can be
described and
so on” (1).
Bradford sees feminist stylistics as
having a view of “discourse as
something which transmits social
and institutionalized prejudices and
ideologies, specifically the respective
roles, the mental and behavioural
characteristics of men and women”
(86).
It is apparent from the two view
points that feminist stylistics cannot
be divorced from sexism and
gender-oriented issues.
12. Computational Stylistics:
This is a subdiscipline of
computational linguistics. It evolved
in the
1960s and involves the use of
statistics and other data that are
readily
generated by the computer to treat
different problems of style. In the
area of
“stylometry,” the computer is used
to generate data on the types,
number
and length of words and sentences
which aid the stylistician in his study
of
texts, ensuring the objectivity
required. Such data from different
texts may
even be used for comparative
purposes as well as for the
authentification of
authorship. For example, stylometric
data may be used to determine
which
author a piece of disputed writing
belongs to according to whether the
stylometric data in it conform to
stylometric data already associated
with the
author. The risk here are that it
forecloses the possibility of an
author
changing his style from text to text
and the possibility of two authors
writing
alike.
13. Expressive Stylistics:
This approach is often considered
“old-fashioned” (Wales 166) in
seemingly upholding the view
“Stylus virum arguit” (“The style
proclaims the
man,” that is the author). This
approach emphasizes an
identification of how
the style, the linguistic elements,
reveal the personality or “soul” of
the
author. It pursues the belief that the
artists employ language to express
their inner selves. Thus, there is the
concept of style as idiolect, that
each
language user has some linguistic
traits that not only mark him/her out
but
also expresses his/her personality.
The obvious weakness of this
approach is the probability that
writers
change their personality and
language over time and text and
that a change
in one does not necessarily
accompany a change in the other.
14. Pedagogical Stylistics:
This refers to the employment of
stylistic analysis for teaching and
learning purposes. Literary texts
may sometimes be difficult for
learners to
appreciate. Hence, a teacher may
analyse the linguistic patterns in the
text,
breaking down complex linguistic
units to smaller ones, converting
excerpts
in verse form prosaic form,
hyperbaton (syntactic inversion) to
regular forms
in the belief that such will help the
learner to grasp the message
therein.
Wales remarks on this as follows:
Because of its eclecticism, stylistics
has
increasingly come to be used as a
teaching
tool in language and literature
studies for
both native and foreign speakers of
English;
what can be termed pedagogical
stylistics.
(438)
Carter and McRae claim that
stylistics in its pedagogical
application “has
been accused of tending towards the
simplistic” (xxxi). However, since the
aim of teaching and learning is to
make things clearer or simpler than
they
seem, pedagogical stylistics would
be considered a positive
development.
15. Radical Stylistics:
This is a term introduced by D.
Burton in 1982 to designate a
stylistic
approach which tends to go beyond
the identification of the artistic
effects of
language use to analyse how
language is used to express different
ideologies
of world views. The radical
stylistician is interested in the choice
of linguistic
patterns to reflect such ideological
slants as communism, socialism,
capitalism, welfarism, etc. Thus, the
stylistician attempts to discover in
the
text certain jargons associated with
such ideologies. This is allied to
sociological criticism. The label
suggests that such an analyst would
have a
passion for the reflection or rejection
of an ideological bias.
16. New Stylistics:
This is a rather vague term used to
denote some fresh models of
stylistic analysis. Such models cease
to be “new” as soon as “newer”
models
evolve. For example, Leo Spitzer’s
ideas about stylistics as one of its
originators in Western Europe were
considered “new.”
However, the term is often applied
more consistently to the studies in
the West from the 1970s which
employed the latest principles of
structuralism, poetics and reader-
response criticism in the analysis of
literary texts.
Conclusion
From the foregoing, it is obvious that
while there are different
approaches or types of stylistic
analysis, there are several overlaps
between
many and the dividing line between
some is rather thin.
Accordingly, it may not be
satisfactory or convenient for a
stylistician
to be rigid on a particular type to
employ. Indeed, stylistics being a
multidisciplinary discipline often
adopts an eclectic orientation. Thus,
in the
analysis of a particular text, a
stylistician may employ more than
one tool or
approach depending on the data that
is evident in the text, the analyst’s
resourcefulness in his or her range of
reference for the identification of
evidence and interpretation of such
evidence.