STYLISTICS

A DICHOTOMY

Linguistics Literature

A science Talks about values, feelings and

emotions
Linguists Literary Critics
Consider language a code which follows a Talk about meanings
system
GRAPHOLOGICAL DEVIATION
Me up at does
out of the floor
quietly Stare
a poisoned mouse

still who alive

is asking What
have i done that
You wouldnt have
(E.E Cummings)
 DEFINITION

Style is the man himself

Buffon, A French writer
A mans style is his minds voice
Emerson
In the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Crystal observes:

In practice, most stylistic analysis has attempted to deal

with the complex and valued language within literature,
i.e. Literary Stylistics
PROS AND CONS OF STYLISTICS

Pros:
Using Stylistics makes it easier for the reader to
interpret the piece of work. They also provide a more
clear meaning for the work.
Cons
Sometimes, a piece of Literature can be over-analyzed
and the original meaning of the work can be lost
A BRIEF HISTORICAL ACCOUNT
Stylistics is a modern version of the ancient
discipline known as Rhetoric which means how
to manage a speech or a piece of writing to make
impression.
Throughout 19th century Rhetoric was gradually
absorbed in linguistics.
At this stage linguistics was usually known as
Philology which involved studying evolution of
languages, their connections and speculating
about origin of language itself.
 In 20th century, the stress was upon how
language is structured, and how meanings are
established.
Discourse Analysis was next phase. It enabled
linguists to comment and analyze the complete
pieces of writing.
The next phase was called Neo Stylistics, which
concentrated upon understanding the structures
of literary texts and drawing multiple meanings,
here it is linked to Literary Criticism.
QUESTIONS STYLISTICS ASKS
1: What is authors overall attitude of the piece?
2: What kind of diction does the author use?

3: What is the sentence structure?

4: How does the author treat the subject matter?

5: What kind of figurative language and imagery

does the author use?
6: What is the point of view?

7: What is the attitude of the author?

8: What kind of tone is used?

THE AMBITIONS OF STYLISTICS
Stylisticians try to provide hard data to support
existing intuition about a literary work.
Example: Hemmingway has a plain style which is
distinctive.
Stylisticians might ask__ What do we mean exactly by plain?
Hemmingway avoids descriptive words like adverbs and
adjectives.
Another writer says,
Smith ran purposefully through the heavy rain.
Hemmingway omits the adverb purposefully and adjective
heavy. His sentence will be- Smith ran through the rain
This is called Hard Data to support existing intuitions.
CONTINUES
Stylisticians suggest new interpretation of literary
works based on linguistic evidence from which the
reader remains usually unaware.
Example:
My womb, my womb, my womb, undoes me.
Falstaff (Shakespeare)
Critics say that Falstaff has sexual ambiguity.
Maccabe says that the word womb was in semantic
tradition and in older sense was used for stomach
of both men and women.
But in transition it implies the meanings related to
gender differences and these meanings remained
hidden from the reader.
CONTINUES
Stylisticians attempt to establish general points
about how literary meanings are made.
It addresses the general question- how literature
works as a whole.
Literary affect is created simultaneously in terms
of both form and content.
Example:
Tess of the D Urbervilles
Here a sentence goes like this:
He(Subject) touched her(Object).
Form and Content simultaneously show how a literary work
works and meanings are made.
ANY
QUESTIONS