Lecture One
Stylistics as a science. Its aims and tasks. Its connection with other sciences
Plan
General Notes on Style and Stylistics
Expressive means and stylistic devices
General notes on functional styles of language
Varieties of language
Meaning from a stylistic point of view
General Notes on Styles and Stylistics
1. Stylisitics is a branch of general linguistics, which deals with the following two interdependent tasks:
a) studies the totality of special linguistic means ( stylistic devices and expressive means ) which secure the
desirable effect of the utterance;
b) studies certain types of texts "discourse" which due to the choice and arrangement of the language are
distinguished by the pragmatic aspect of communication (functional styles).
Depending on the school of thought there are:
1. Linguo-stylistics;
2. Literary stylistics;
3. Stylistics of decoding;
1. Linguo - stylistics is the study of literary discourse from a linguistic orientation. The linguistics is
concerned with the language codes themselves and particular messages of interest and so far as to exemplify how
the codes are constructed.
2. Literary stylistics: is to explicate the message to interprete and evaluate literary writings as the works of art.
3. Stylistics of decoding can be presented in the following way:
sender - message - receiver speaker - book - reader.
L anguage is the main means of human communication. Stylistically relevant in this connection
is the fact that the same thought, idea, belief, opinion, emotion and feelings or attitude of mind can be
expressed in more than one way. For example, the same information may be expressed in different ways.
His father died.
His dear father has passed away.
His old man has kicked the bucket.
Stylistics, sometimes called linguo-stylistics, is a branch of general linguistics. It deals mainly with two
interdependent tasks:
1. the investigation of the inventory of special language media which secure the desirable effect
of the utterance. The special media of language which secure the desirable effect of the
utterance are called stylistic devices (SD) and expressive means (EM). This field touches
upon such general language problems as the aesthetic function of language, synonymous
ways of rendering one and the same idea, emotional colouring in language, the interrelation
between language and thought, the individual manner of an author in makinguse of language,
etc.
2. Certain types of text (discourse) which due to the choice and arrangement of language means
are distinguished be the pragmatic aspect of communication are called functional styles of
language (FS). They cannot avoid discussion of such most general linguistic issues as oral
and written varieties of language, the notion of theliterary (standard) language, the
constituents of texts larger than the sentence, the generative aspect of literary texts, etc.
The word style is derived from the Latin word - stylus - a stick made of material for writing.
Stylistics - from French " Stylistique " -instrument for Writing. Now the word ‘style’ is used
in many senses: style in writing, in clothes, lifestyle, style of a book, painting building, style
in language, etc.
Style in language is regarded as something that belongs to the plane of expression (form) and
not to the plane of content (matter). The term style is often associated with individual style.
It is a unique combination of language units, EMs and SDs peculiar to a given writer, which
makes that writer’s works or even utterances easily recognizable. Selection or deliberate
choice of language, and the ways the chosen elements are treated as the main distinctive
features of individual style. The treatment of the selected elements brings up the problem of
the norm. the norm should be regarded as the invariant of the phonemic, morphological,
lexical and syntactical patterns circulating in language-in-action at a given period of time.
The term style is widely used in literature to signify literary genre: the style of classicism,
realistic style, the style of romanticism, etc. the term is also used to denote the way the plot is
dealt with, the arrangement of the parts of literary composition to form the whole, the place
and the role of the author in describing and depicting events.
EMs and SDs
In linguistics there are different terms to denote particular means which make utterances
more conspicuous, more effective. They are called EMs, stylistic means, stylistic markers,
SDs, tropes, figures of speech and others. They are all opposed to ‘neutral’ means.
The expressive means of a language are those phonetic, morphological, word-building,
lexical, phraseological and syntactical forms which exist for the purpose of logical and/or
emotional intensification of utterance.
For example: This quickie tour didn’t satisfy our curiosity. (morphological)
The goddam window won’t open! (lexical)
And what is a SD? It is a conscious and mental intensification of some typical structural
and/or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized
status and thus becoming a generative model.
General notes on functional styles of language
A functional style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves a
definite aim in communication. They appear mainly in the literary standard of a language.
FSs:
1. The language of Belles-lettres
2. The language of publicistic literature
3. The language of newspapers
4. The language of scientific prose
5. The language of official documents
Each FS is subdivided into a number of substyles.
1. The language of Belles-lettres: poetry, emotive prose, drama
2. The language of publicistic literature: oratory, essays, feature articles
3. The language of newspapers: brief news items and communiques, newspaper
headings, notices and advertisements
4. The language of scientific prose: humanitarian sciences, ‘exact’ sciences, popular
scientific prose
5. The language of official documents: diplomatic documents, business documents,
legal documents, military documents.
Varieties of language
There are two varieties of language: the spoken and the written. The spoken language has a
considerable advantage over the written, in that, the human voice comes to play. This is a
powerful means of modulating the utterance, as are all kinds of gestures, intonation, etc.
which give additional information (ain’t-am, is, are not, don’t-doesn’t)
In its turn, the written language has to seek means to compensate for what it lacks. It has to
be more diffuse and explanatory.
Meaning from a stylistic point of view
Stylistics is a domain where meaning assumes paramount importance. This is so because the
term ‘meaning’ is applied not only to words, word-combinations, sentences but also to the
manner of expression into which the matter is cast.
In Stylistics meaning is viewed as a category which is able to acquire meanings imposed on
the words by the context. That’s why such meanings are called contextual meanings. This
category also takes into observation meanings which have fallen out of use.
References:
1. Арнольд И.В. Стилистика английского языка, М.: Наука-2002-201
2. Galperin I.R. Stylistics.М.: Высшая школа, 1981-295
3. Кухаренко В.А. Практикум по стилистике английского языка, М.,1986 – 144
1. Main Trends in Style Study.
2. Functional Stylistics and Functional Styles.
3. Forms and Types of the Language.
4. Stylistics of Artistic Speech.
5. Individual Style Study.
6. Decoding Stylistics.
7. Practical Stylistics.
8. Levels of Linguistic Analysis.
9. Foregrounding.
10. Aims of Stylistic Analysis.
The term stylistics originated from the Greek �stylos�, which means �a
pen�. In the course of time it developed several meanings. Each of them is
applied to a specific study of language elements and to their use in speech.
Any �idea� can be verbalized in several different ways:
�May I offer you a chair?�
�Take a seat, please.�
�Sit down.�
They differ in meaning of expression. The manner of expression, in its turn,
depends upon the situational conditions of the communication act. Seventy %
of our lifetime is spent in various forms of communication activity. They are
oral (speaking and listening) and written (reading and writing).
It is important for a philologist to know the mechanics of relations between
the non-verbal, extra linguistic denotational essence of the communicative act
and its verbal, linguistic presentation. The French linguist Charles Bally
claims that stylistics is primarily the study of synonymic language resources.
Many linguists follow him. V.Mathesius, T.Vachek, J.Havranek and some
other scientists are representatives of the well-known Prague school. They
focused their attention on the priority of the situational appropriateness. They
say that the choice of language varieties depends on the situation in which it
functions adequately.
Thus, functional stylistics is an international and very important trend in style
study. It deals with sets, �paradigms� of language units of all levels of
language hierarchy. Paradigms serve to accommodate the needs of certain
typified communicative situations. Those paradigms are known as functional
styles of the language.
Academicians V.V.Vinogradov and I.R.Gulperin formulated the definition of
the style of a language. I.R.Gulperinsays, that it is �a system of coordinated,
interrelated and interconditioned language means intended to fulfill a
specific function of communication and aiming at a definite effect �.
All scholars agree that a well-developed language, such as English,
Ukrainian, Russian, is streamed into several functional styles. Though their
classifications coincide only partially. Most style theoreticians consider the
number of functional styles to be five. But they disagree about their
nomenclature.
One of the widely accepted classifications singles out the following
functional styles:
official - it is represented in all kinds of official documents and papers;
scientific - it is found in articles, brochures, monographs and other scientific
academic publications;
publicist - it covers such genres as essays, feature articles public speeches
etc.;
newspaper - it is observed in the majority of materials printed in
newspapers;
belles-lettres - it embraces numerous and different genres of creative writing.
Only the first three are recognized in all stylistic treaties. The newspaper style
is often regarded as part of the publicist style. The biggest controversy is
flaming around the belles-lettres style.
Creative writing has unlimited possibilities, so some scholars consider that
the belles-lettres style can hardly be qualified as a functional style. They say
that creative writing makes use of all language resources. Others claim that
the belles-lettres style fulfils the aesthetic function in each of its concrete
representation. And so this fact singles this style out of others and it charges
the belles-lettres style with the status of an autonomous functional style.
Each of the styles is exercised in two forms - written and oral. The two
forms of the scientific style are an article and a lecture. News broadcast on
the radio and TV and newspaper informational material are the examples of
the newspaper style. An essay and a public speech - of the publicist style, etc.
The number of functional styles and the principles of their differentiation
change with time. They reflect the state of the functioning language at a given
period. Only recently most style classifications had included the socalled poetic style. It dealt with verbal forms specific for poetry. But now we
do not distinguish an isolated linguistic position of poetry. Now it makes use
of all the vocabulary and grammar at large. So there is hardly sense in
singling out a special poetic style for the contemporary linguistic situation.
Though its relevance for the language of the 17th, 18th, and even the
19th centuries cannot be argued.
Something similar can be said about oratoric style. In ancient Greece it was
instrumental in creation of �Rhetoric�. Aristotel, its author, elaborated the
basics of style study. The oratoric skill has lost its position in social and
political life. Nowadays speeches are mostly written first, so they contain all
the characteristic features of publicist writing.
All the above mentioned styles are specified within the literary type of the
language. Their functioning is characterized by the intentional approach of
the speaker. He chooses language means suitable for a particular
communicative situation. The nature of such a situation is official, formal,
preplanned.
The colloquial type of the language is characterized by the inofficiality,
informality of the communicative situation. Sometimes the colloquial type of
speech is called �the colloquial style�. In this case it is included into the
classification of functional styles of the language. But there is a great
difference between the literary and colloquial communication. The difference
is as situational as linguistic. A style speech manifests a conscious, mindful
effort in choosing and preferring certain means of expression. We choose
them for the given communicative circumstances. Colloquial speech is
shaped by the immediacy, it is not planned before. Alongside this
consideration there is a strong tendency to treat colloquial speech as an
individual language system. It includes its independent set of language units
and rules of their connection.
Functional stylistics deals with all the subdivisions of the language, with all
its possible usages. It is the most all-embracing �global� trend in style
study. Specified stylistics, such as the scientific prose study, newspaper style
study etc., may be considered elaborations of certain fields of functional
stylistics.
A special place is occupied by the study of creative writing of the belleslettres style. In it we deal with stylistic use of language resources. We study
the way language elements carry not only the basic, logical information, but
also additional information of various types. In this case we speak of the
stylistics of artistic speech, or belles-lettres style study.
The attention of functional stylistics is focused on the message in its
correlation with the communicative situation. The message is common
ground for communicants in an act of communication. It is an indispensable
element in the exchange of information between two participants of the
communicative act - the addresser (the speaker, the writer) and the addressee
(the listener, the reader). The center of attention of the individual style is the
addresser�s viewpoint towards the choice of the most appropriate language
means and their organization into message.
Individual style study puts emphasis on the study of an individual author�s
style. It looks for correlation between the creative concepts of the author and
the language of his work
The author�s stylistics may be named the stylistics of the encoder. The
language is viewed as the code. It shapes the information into the message.
The supplier of the information is the encoder. The addressee plays the part
of the decoder of the information contained in the massage.
The problems connected with adequate decoding are the concern of decoding
stylistics. (Adequate decoding is adequate reception of the message without
any informational losses or deformations).
Practical stylistics is the stylistics which proceeds from the norms of
language usage at a given period. It teaches these norms to language
speakers, especially the ones who deal with the language professionally
(editors, publishers, writers, journalists, and teachers).
Thus there can be observed several trends in style study. They depend on the
approach and the final aim. Common to all of them are:
the necessity to learn what the language can offer in order to serve the
innumerable communicative tasks and purposes of language users;
how various elements of the language participate in storing and transferring
information;
which of these elements carries which type of information, etc.
To answer these questions it is necessary to investigate informational values
and possibilities of language units. The best way to do it is to follow the
structural hierarchy of language levels. This was suggested by a well-known
Belgian linguist E.Benveniste in 1962. It is accepted by most scholars today
as the basis for further elaboration and development. Benveniste�s scheme
of analysis is: from the level of the phoneme - through the level of the
morpheme - and the level of the word - to the level of the sentence.
The resources of each language level become evident in action, i.e. in speech.
So the attention of the learners is drawn to the behavior of each language
element in functioning, to its aptitude to convey various kinds of information.
A verbal element is able to obtain extra significance. It says more in a
definite context. This ability was called by Prague linguists foregrounding. A
word (affix, sentence) through context developments obtain some new,
additional features. This act resembles a background phenomenon moving
into the front line - foregrounding. A contextually foregrounded element
carries more information than when taken in isolation. In context it is loaded
with basic information belonging to it. And at the same time it is loaded with
acquired, adherent, additional information. So a sentence means always more
than the sum total of the meanings of its component words. A text means
more than the sum of its sentences.
Stylistic analysis involves finding the foregrounded element. It deals with the
chemistry of contextual changes of the elements. These changes are brought
about by the intentional, planned operations of the addresser, i.e. by the
conscious stylistic use of the language.
Particular difficulties of stylistic analysis for foreign language students:
linguistic intuition of a native speaker does not work in case of foreign
learners;
inadequate language command;
the understanding of each separate component of the massage should be the
main condition of satisfactory work with the massage as a whole, of getting
down to the core and essence of its meaning.